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UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 22, 2015

Tracy Claeys

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Q. Tracy, Coach Kill mentioned that the linebacker play has been as good as he's seen. How about you when you just look at that unit, specifically the last game?
TRACY CLAEYS: Yeah, it's been very consistent. I think a lot of that has to do with, again, we've got kids who have been around a couple years and played in what we're doing. Got a group there -- there's a whole on defense, got a group that like to play football. They've been very solid on their assignments and what they're supposed to do. That's part of the reason we've done a pretty good job with the run game here this last week.

Q. Tracy, what's Ohio like in terms of their offense and what they like to do, what they're very good at doing?
TRACY CLAEYS: They're very similar to Kent State in the running game. But they have the receivers and that to keep you honest, more honest in the passing game.

The running game stuff for the most part will be similar to what we've seen last week with a little bit more option to it, but the biggest difference is the passing game. If you put too many in the box, they do have some skilled receivers that can catch the ball and make some big plays.

Q. Are they running stuff that's quite a bit different than what Solich did years ago when he was at Nebraska?
TRACY CLAEYS: It's still some option foundation and some things like that, but formationally-wise and things like that it's a lot more of a one-back type of running game and more open formations than tight ends and power football. They're spreading you out more like everybody else is.

Q. Cody looked explosive running to the ball. Is he all the way back?
TRACY CLAEYS: Athletically, yeah, he is. He ran around pretty good. Pretty good, yeah.

Q. Have you ever seen a game that's played almost entirely on one side of the 50 like that?
TRACY CLAEYS: I don't know. I'm going to be honest, I have a terrible memory; you know what I'm saying? I move on to the next game. You know, so to go back, I'm not for sure. But it's been one of our better ones obviously just by get being on and off the field. A lot of the field position has a hell of a lot more to do with the punter and the special teams than the other part. I'm not for sure, getting into that.

Q. Does it help your defense when Mortell is constantly back --
TRACY CLAEYS: I think you look at the stats, and the longer people have to drive the ball, the less they score, so field position is huge. I can't remember, one time, I used to preach what it was when they started inside the 25-yard line, it was just ridiculously low how often an offense would score, so I can't remember what that stat is. I can't remember now.

With Pete, put him down there, obviously it helped a bunch.

Q. You've seen what Cody can do athletically like you were just mentioning, but what now can he do to get even better?
TRACY CLAEYS: Well, all of those guys, you see so many different things each week, but it's a consistency basis thing. So I still think that the D-line will tell you we can get the strength column made a little bit sooner to help them get lined up, little things like that that he needs to do.

But the whole thing, playing hard covers up a lot of things, and him and the group that's in there, our back end half, have played extremely hard, and it's part of the reason why we are where we are.

Q. What did you feel your standouts were on Saturday?
TRACY CLAEYS: It's hard to pick one. You know, just as a group we really -- we played well. You know, and on defense, you never know who's going to make the plays. It all depends on how they block the damned thing. You know, is it according to scheme, guys get in a position to make plays, and Colorado State, the way they chose to do things, Steve Richardson had a lot of one-on-one blocks that he was able to win, and this last week, the way they chose to do things, you know, Cody had some freedom to run around and didn't get blocked.

According to how people block you in schemes, those people got to take advantage of making the plays.

Q. Alex Keith (inaudible)?
TRACY CLAEYS: Yeah, and again, Alex Keith, they chose to attack him on a few things when he was in there, and he made the plays that he needed to play. Very pleased with Alex on this last game. But the same -- it's the same thing; I think that -- I always tell him all the time, as coaches it's your job, or it's our job to put them in position to make plays, and it's their job to make those plays, because it still comes down to players. And the way that they ran a few plays when Alex was in there, he happened to be at the point of attack, and he did a hell of a job of finishing the play.

You know, usually when you don't play on defense, you miss some of those plays, and fortunately we didn't miss a lot of plays on Saturday. We made most of them.

Q. I remember talking in the off-season, you said you thought this defense was at the point now where you could win a game just like that 10-7, and I think we said 12-10 or whatever. Just how good does that make you feel that granted, it was that game specific, but you might have to do it again and they've shown they're capable?
TRACY CLAEYS: Right. To kids, their job is to hold them to one less point than our offense scores. That's the bottom line no matter how you look at things. But when you have as veteran a group -- and the reason I said that is because of those kids, just going through spring ball and being around them, they're a great group. They like football, and they give you confidence as a coach, also, to be around them.

You know, but the key is you have to get better each week because each week it gets a little bit tougher, so it's making that choice to go through the same routine every week and prepare to where you get the same results because the problem you have is sometimes somebody is going to -- a game is going to come along where they think that that stuff just happens, and it doesn't just happen. There's a lot of work that goes into that to be able to play that well. It's our job as coaches to stay on them and keep reminding them that it's a choice to get prepared to play each week and play the best you can and have fun while you're playing. I don't think you can play hard if you're not having fun. I'm a big believer in that. They've done that so far.

Q. You had them blitz Murray; have you done that with other quarterbacks in your career?
TRACY CLAEYS: Well, I think that's one thing that's changed in blocking schemes and the way offenses have done things. You know, there's been a lot more emphasis on blocking the safeties, and like corner is there to cover people, and that's it.

I think that that's just not us. If you watch college football in general, a lot more people are blitzing corners because people aren't blocking them. They'd rather go block the safeties.

It's a good change-up to make people every now and then figure they have to account for them in a blocking scheme.

Q. As the season goes on, I'm sure it's offense versus the scout team, defense versus the scout team, but when the offense is struggling are there times you might do more team stuff to get them going, or how can a good defense help out a struggling offense?
TRACY CLAEYS: Don't let the other team score, period. It has nothing to do with practice. We go against each other in practice 30 plays a day on Tuesday and Wednesday. Some people just do 2s versus 1s and -- no, we go good on good Tuesday and Wednesday and no-huddle offense. We get between 24 and 30 plays twice a day, so we go good on good. But it's our job, like I said, to keep the other team to one point less than what we score. That's the best thing we can do to help things out.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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