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OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCESeptember 28, 2015Tim HintonColumbus, Ohio An interview with: COACH HINTON Q. Can you just assess the play of your two main tight ends so far? COACH HINTON: To be honest with you right now, we've got to get Nick going a little bit more. He's been okay in the pass game, and run-wise when he's at the point of attack has done a nice job, but mentally he's still not where we want him to be. There are things that he can certainly do better. We're challenging him every day to do that. He came in this year with such high expectations, and I think he's pushing himself and probably putting some undo pressure on himself to perform at a level that we know he can play at. And every year is a new year. He came in, he was a really good ace reliever a year ago, now he's a starter, to use a baseball analogy. And now he's got to go do a different gig. So we've got to get him to continually improve his play. And he'll do a lot of plays really well, and then he'll have one of those "oh, why did you do that?" kind of plays. So he's getting better. A guy I've been really pleased with, too, is Marcus Baugh, who has really played very, very well throughout the year. He's continuing to earn more playing time, which I think is kind of cool on his part. And you look at the Virginia Tech game when we went to two tight end personnel grouping, we kind of changed the tempo of that game. Obviously against Hawaii we did the same thing. We went in with two tight ends in the personnel grouping, and really moved the ball, running the ball with those guys in there. So they're great guys to coach. They're a lot of fun to be around. We're continuing to push that envelope. But still early in the year, we've got a lot of improvement yet. Q. If disaster happened and Nick Vannett and Marcus Baugh went down with an injury, who would you put in there at tight end? COACH HINTON: That would be an interesting question, only because the young guys aren't ready yet to be as frank and honest with you as I can. I'm sure it would be more of a personnel issue at that point. It would be are we in different personnel packages, are we in two backs and three wide receiver groupings, are we in more one tight end only and use him and four wide receiver groupings and -- or I mean take no tight end out, four wide receiver grouping. So it would be an interesting thing to go through. I hope we don't have to, knock on wood. And we're not where we want to be with the young guys yet. Obviously the one thing about Ohio State is it has an expectation level every time you go out and play a game, and if you're not there, you're certainly not going to get, just because you're the next guy in, a chance to play. You've got to be ready to go do your job extremely well. So we're not there yet. We're working every day to get there. Q. Alexander and Rashod Berry will probably red-shirt? COACH HINTON: We really don't talk about that part to be very honest with you. The fact is they go out and run a lot of scout team reps right now because that's their role. I don't foresee them playing this year, but we don't talk about that. We really never sit in a room and talk about that part of the game. Question is, if we need you to win, we're going to play you. Q. Before you got to Columbus, you did a lot of work with the running backs and it's well-documented that they had very little fumbling problems. This year Zeke and (indiscernible) kind of put the ball on the ground a couple times. Did you come in and work with them on ball security at all? COACH HINTON: Well, it's an interesting thing. We have put the ball on the ground. We've had too many turnovers and really you look at the last five or six ballgames, and it's been addressed a lot. We certainly all have expectations about how to go about that, and we did have a group discussion about maybe some things that drill-wise that compliment that. It's an interesting thing, when you look at ball security, most fumbles happen when you see a player start to bend down and take on a tackle. What happens is you have to have the ability to relift your wrist above your elbow and lock that elbow tight. What a lot of people do when they start to bend is they drop their wrist. It's something that people do. It's something that's addressed. When you look at a lot of the fumbles and you look at Corey Smith's in the National Championship Game a year ago, you look at how that happened. You look at Curtis earlier in the year. Same kind of thing happened. You looked down and the arm was parallel instead of wrist up and those fumbles happen. So, yeah, there are things that we do and address. I know Coach Meyer is on us emphatically to make sure we get that changed. Because eventually it will come back and haunt you. You can't put the ball on the ground and have turnovers. We're certainly addressing that very hard. Q. I think we all knew that Jeff Heuerman was a good player. But Coach Meyer said some things the last couple weeks and Ed Warinner about how important he was to this offense last year. Just what was it exactly? COACH HINTON: Well, the one thing about it is this game, and God bless this game because it's a game that the toughest guys are normally some of your better players. Sometimes whatever they do, and Jeff certainly had a lot of athletic ability, but he was a mentally and physically tough kid. He really brought something to the game that way, and sometimes he would just outphysical you. And you always talk about with a group you want to break the will of the opponent with your toughness, and have the ability to assert yourself and to those sort of things, and he was a guy that could do that. When you talk about where Nick is today, that's the one thing we're trying to really, really do a great job of bringing him to that physical level. He possesses all those talents. He's a little different deal. Jeff came in as a tight end, Nick came in as a wide receiver. He was going to be recruited as a tight end but played all wide receiver in high school. Sometimes it's just that mentality there of how to play. We spend a lot of time and Coach Meyer talks about it, hand control and power, and you know the guys that have really strong, powerful hands are really good blockers, and those who don't really play with physical hands and dominant hands are normally pretty average blockers. That's the one thing that we're really emphasizing right now, and Jeff -- when Jeff really got his hands in good football position on you, he controlled the block really well. And we're getting better at it. We really are. That is the great thing about every year, you get a chance to grow with the players. Q. With any offense, with how you guys were playing at the end of last year, what is the normal expectation of how much carryover there would be to the next year? How much just pick up and say we've got a lot of important guys back, we have the same scheme, here we go. Or how much really is it every year is completely different and a time to start over? COACH HINTON: It's interesting, and I'd love to sit down and have this conversation -- because I see Coach Cooper in the back -- with Coach Coop. It's really interesting, the one thing I think people don't really understand is every team is a new team. And you look back, and I used this analogy the other day, you look back at NBA basketball. Would the Lakers have really won without Kurt Rambis? Would they really have won without him? Because all of a sudden what happened and has to happen on every team is you have to develop who are your role players. Who are the guys to be your playmakers? How does this guy execute on this play and this play? There is only one way to find out, and that is game reps. Evan Spencer last year, Coach says all the time, was the Most Valuable Player. How many catches did he have? How many touchdowns did he have? But he had a role that made Ohio State really, really good. That's one of the things that you go out and start that new team this year. That new offensive team is you're always trying to put those pieces together. How do we put people in the roles that make us really, really successful? How do people develop into those roles of being really, really successful? So I think that's one part that's kind of left out. You can bring all that talent back. And there is certainly a lot of talent on the football team. The question is putting in all those pieces and getting it going the right way, because it's a new team. Regardless of who comes back, it's a new year, a new team, and a new group of guys, new leadership has to form, new role players have got to form, new stars or old stars have to reemerge. It all starts over, and it's all really important stuff in my eyes and kind of the way we look at it. Everybody has a role. I keep using Evan Spencer, because think about how much Coach emphasized what he did for this team last year, but he didn't have 40 catches, right? But he had a significant role on this team, but he developed his role. That's what you're always trying to find out what your role is in our 2015 team, who are those guys, what do they do? Q. What does it mean to you to have a large part of your extended family coaching football in Ohio? How have you helped them out? COACH HINTON: You think there are a lot of them? Q. Yes, I do. COACH HINTON: Well, I tell you what's really cool for me is just on a personal note, when you go on a team walk, the coaches that all walk with me are laughing because they say you know everyone here, you know what I mean? Because there are people from all the places that I've lived and people that know my family and those sort of things. That's been really cool. I've got to say, I've lived a dream. And I really have said it many, many times. Who comes home to do what I get to do for a living? Really? I mean, very few guys in this profession ever get to come home, literally home. 30 miles south of here is where I grew up. Family has had season tickets here since 1950. Listen, I came home. So every day I kind of pinch myself, even though it's maybe some saggy and droopy eyes of being tired. But bottom line, it's an unbelievable experience, and to be able to share it with so many. Listen, the hardest thing I have during the week is trying to figure out how to get enough tickets for everyone to show up. The heck with the opponent, that is the hardest thing I do. Q. I wanted to ask though about Nick. Do you think he's going through a little transition of wanting to beat Jeff as opposed to like doing what Nick can do? Is there a little bit of pressure on him? COACH HINTON: Yeah, there's a lot of pressure on him. Again, it's an interesting thing when you go through the life with these kids throughout the summers and all that. No offense, I mean, you can say all you want, but our kids know what's the projection of them for the next level may be. They know. They go on these watch lists. And they obviously -- we try to keep them very grounded and don't follow it, don't worry about it, just keep doing what you do. Then guys really set expectations levels for themselves. I mean, he has really high expectation levels for himself. He's had some spectacular plays where he's done very, very well. The consistency has not been where I want it, and I'm not trying to call Nick out. I wouldn't say it publicly if we don't have these honest conversations all the time. Our biggest thing is getting him to play all the time as consistent as he can. He's very capable. We're going to see that. Again, I say it all the time, that relief pitcher part, but very first play a year ago in the Alabama game, Jeff Heuerman goes down in the first play and plays like eight plays the entire Alabama game. Nick Vannett came in and played 70 of them. And then there were obviously some good results. Like I said, that new year, we talked about it earlier, it's a new year for him, and it's a different role and he's got to go match that role. Q. Marcus Baugh, where have you seen the last couple weeks? What tells you he's making strides? What just jumps out at you? COACH HINTON: Well, the thing is his practice habits more than anything. He's doing what we're seeing in game day in practice. Where early some guys develop at different rates, he really didn't practice like that on a continuous basis. He's been doing that really consistently. He goes out every day, he's doing a good job of finishing blocks. He's putting a hat on the right guy, he's running the right route. That all sounds simple, but if you're not executing mentally correctly either, you're not going to get on the field here. So he's been doing all that. And the beautiful thing is now he's -- what you see in practice is what you see in games, and some kids aren't always like that. But what I've been seeing in practice and Coach Meyer has been seeing in practice is what we've been getting in games. That's been really exciting to watch. You always like to see a young guy continue to develop and get better. You really do. And that's what I see right now. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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