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PURDUE UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 29, 2015

Darrell Hazell

West Lafayette, Indiana

DARRELL HAZELL: Well, obviously you look back at last week's game and didn't end the way you like it to end. But just looking at our guys on Sunday after the game, I am so inspired by our football team and how close we are. A lot of times you work at something and you keep working and you fail, you work and you fail, and all of a sudden you don't realize how close you are to where you want to be and that's what you're seeing in our guys' eyes in the locker room after the game. The understanding that they are getting there, they just have to take that next step. A lot of things in that next step is obviously our tackling's got to get better, our penalty situations have to get better, and we have to be able to finish halves and finish games. Like I said earlier, I am very inspired by our football team right now.

Q. Darrell, you addressed this a little bit but the leadership that's necessary to turn this around, are you seeing it in the locker room from the guys you need to see it from?
DARRELL HAZELL: Yeah, that's one of the things, Pete, we addressed in the team meeting on Sunday night is how much leadership we need to have in these types of situations, and it's there. I mean, you've watched it. We went out and conditioned Sunday night and you just watched guys step up and understand the importance of being a great leader in times of adversity and we have them in our locker room. I'm not concerned whatsoever about that.

Q. When you look at Michigan State, they're always strong defensively, but offensively I think they scored like 30 points in 12 straight games. They've got a good quarterback, they've got a lot of weapons. What concerns you about Michigan State's offense?
DARRELL HAZELL: Michigan State does what they do and they have since Coach has been there. They're going to run power and they're going to run power to the tight side, they'll run it to the split side. And when they get running power, they'll run some other type of gap scheme. They'll throw it as well as they need to throw it, but they're just very consistent in what they do offensively. And then defensively, they've always been very good. They play that matchup on the outside with those corners and they play those safeties in the box, they dare you to throw it and they obviously want you to run the football.

Q. As they're daring you to throw it, tying in on the question, can you kind of assess the way now that you've had a chance to look at it, the way Blough played and what you need from him going forward?
DARRELL HAZELL: Okay. I think you asked about David, Pete?

Q. I asked about David, yeah, the quarterback.
DARRELL HAZELL: All right. David, I thought for the first time being out there, did a really nice job for us. I thought he was very poised and composed, threw some really firm balls. He missed a couple throws down the field, but you talk about a guy that hasn't played a whole lot, he looked very relaxed. He needs to, you know, web the ball a little bit better in the pocket, keep two hands on the ball, he had it a little bit loose at times, but I thought he did a pretty good job for the first time being out there.

Q. Your third-down defense, what do you really need to do to dial in to get a little more effective?
DARRELL HAZELL: Two of those third-down conversions, Pete, were missed tackles. They were tackles for losses and that's one of the areas that I talked to our defensive staff here this morning about doing the drill today because they're getting there fast, but they're moving too fast at the point of the tackle. Just slowing down and making sure we buy some time in getting that guy on the ground. A lot of those third-down conversions were missed tackles and that's one of the areas we need to improve on.

Q. When you come in and you're coaching a new program, schedules are set years and years in advance, but you played along with Michigan, Nebraska, probably the most difficult nonconference schedule. Moving forward, some people would say, well, gosh, why didn't they schedule a little softer, but other people will say this might help you. What's your take on this? Will this moving forward these four games help you?
DARRELL HAZELL: I think it's definitely going to help us. You played a very good back when you opened up against Marshall, a very good running football team. You played a really good defense against Virginia Tech and a very good special teams against Virginia Tech. Then you throw last week's competitor in, their passing offense is really, really efficient. That tempo of their offense makes it hard for your team. I think it's going to help us down the road here this year.

Q. Your kids are pretty smart. Did they see that? Do you sense that they understand they played some good teams, they're 1-3 but they played some good opponents?
DARRELL HAZELL: I don't know, we never had that conversation. We take each opponent and try to do the best job we can as coaches and players to try to win that football game. So I don't know what the discussion is amongst the players, but I think that they understand that some of the those opponents are pretty good. Very good, not pretty good.

Q. Looking at all your special teams numbers, punt runs, sample size isn't really fair to judge because I think you've only had two punt returns?
DARRELL HAZELL: We had three.

Q. Three. But collectively, missed field goals, coverage of kicks, I would think moving forward that's got to be an area you will want to shore up. What are you seeing that maybe isn't quite as good as you would like it to be?
DARRELL HAZELL: Just said, punt return, we haven't had that many opportunities, so that skews the numbers sometimes. Obviously the blocked punt, you can't have those blocked punts. We had one kickoff coverage that came out pretty good that has to be corrected, which we felt like we corrected it last week. And then kickoff returns, we're not sustaining the block as well as we need to sustain the blocks. We have to get better, but in all those areas we must improve. And obviously the field goals, that's a huge area that we need to take a stride in.

Q. You're using a lot of starters and frontline guys on special teams. Are you surprised that you're not farther along in some of the those units than you are?
DARRELL HAZELL: No, not really. A lot has to do with opportunities, especially in the punt return game. I mean, that thing can flip in a second as soon as you start getting a couple big returns. We feel the need to put those starters on those special teams. That's the emphasis. That's one-third of the component of being successful and we've got to keep playing those guys.

Q. What things from the nonconference do you feel like you can build on?
DARRELL HAZELL: I think a lot of those pressure situations in the Virginia Tech team, all those moving fronts and being able to pick up those blitzes, we're going to see those things down the road, so I think we'll be able to build off of those. That tempo that we faced last week, I mean, you're not going to see one any faster than that whether you're playing Illinois and some of the those other opponents down the road. The running back, he was a hard guy to tackle in the first opening game.

Q. You mentioned earlier the ends of halves and you guys have struggled there at the end of the first half and the end of the game. Aside from talking about it, what can you do? Is there anything you can do to coach those situations in practice or better prepare for those or what?
DARRELL HAZELL: I think some is scheme, but some is also mentality. You know, you hate to say you've got to really button things down from a mentality standpoint. Okay, this is what you can give up, this is what you can't give up in these situations. And each opponent's a little bit different, but we can't allow teams to go down two or three minutes to go in the half and change the momentum, more so -- not so much the score, but the momentum of the football game.

Q. You mentioned scheme. Is there something you feel like you can do different defensively that you're not doing at this moment?
DARRELL HAZELL: I thought in the Marshall game, yes. Not necessarily the last game. The Marshall game, I thought we could have played a little bit more of crowd the receivers, don't give them the easy throws. I felt we did a little bit more of that last week, we just didn't tackle well. Once they got inside the 20, we didn't tackle well in the run game.

Q. Any updates you can give us on Jimmy or D.J.?
DARRELL HAZELL: We're going to take a look at Jimmy today, see how far advanced he is with the hamstring. Still a questionable guy for Saturday. D.J. Knox is going to get out and run around a little bit. All the x-rays were negative so he's just dealing with a helmet bruise in the back, so we'll see however along he is and we'll make some decisions from there. (Indiscernible) is another guy that is a questionable guy. He's got to clear out by tomorrow for him to be able to go on Saturday.

Q. What did you like about Greg Phillips' performance and maybe the approach that he has taken here in the last few weeks to put himself in position to be able to step in and really not miss anything?
DARRELL HAZELL: I think the biggest thing that you can say about Greg is he was starting at one point in time and all of a sudden he was jumped. He never complained, he just continued to work and enhance his craft, made his game a little bit better mentally as well as physically. He came in when his opportunity arose and made some plays for us.

Q. He struggled some having to play as a true freshman but has he become pretty reliable in his route running and catching the ball and some of the those things. Is he a guy that you can turn to if you have to?
DARRELL HAZELL: I think he's getting there. I still think there's a lot of technical things in that position that he has to learn. I think he has to still continue to learn to play more comfortable than he does at times. I thought he looked very comfortable last Saturday, but when you're getting bumped and pressed, like this week will be a challenge for us because they're going to play man-to-man 80 percent of the game against our wide guys, so this will be a good test for him if he's the guy.

Q. What did you think of Andy Garcia's performance there in the start over the weekend?
DARRELL HAZELL: I thought it was a good performance. Wasn't a great performance, but it was good, it was pretty good.

Q. What does he bring you when he's out there?
DARRELL HAZELL: He loves the game, his energy is very good, he can run. Again, some of those things that we need to get better at, tackling, he's part of that whole group.

Q. Probably your linebackers in general for that, right? They're going to be tested against, as you mentioned a Spartan offense that runs the power over and over again, right? Is that the key?
DARRELL HAZELL: Yeah, the key for us this week defensively is to stop the power run. That means that you've got to eliminate gaps and get the linebackers close to the line of scrimmage and hit the gaps that are vacant and make sure that we wrap them up and make it a 2-yard gain and not a 7-yard gain.

Q. You keep having an illegal formation. Is it the same thing every time? I didn't look at the numbers, but maybe once a game you're having it. What is the issue there? Is it the same thing over and over again?
DARRELL HAZELL: Well, Martesse was off the ball and the rule states that the offensive lineman's helmet must break the plane of the center's belt, not the guard's belt. So he was sometimes lining off the guard where the guard's going to be a little deeper. All of a sudden he's lining up off the guard and his helmet needs to break the plane of the center's belt line.

Q. Is that what it's been each of those times?
DARRELL HAZELL: Yeah, yeah.

Q. You have him listed just as your backup tackles in this week's depth chart. Is he strictly going to play tackle these days or will you still play him occasionally inside?
DARRELL HAZELL: Right now we're going to play him at tackle. We're going to play him a lot this weekend. It will probably be 50/50 between him and Cermin at the tackle spot. We just think he needs to be on the field a little bit more for us.

Q. I have a follow-up to an earlier question. Why do you think this team, what have they done in the nonconference that you think they're ready for what they're going to see in the Big Ten?
DARRELL HAZELL: I just think we've seen so many different things that puts stress on you that you're going to see it over and over again once you get into conference play. Hard-running football teams, teams that can throw the ball relatively well, and then pressure defenses. I think we've seen them all.

Q. Through your four games and film is out there on you guys, what's the next step for your running game?
DARRELL HAZELL: You're always going to add a couple wrinkles every week to try to keep teams off balance, whether it's by formation, whether it's by a shift or a motion. You'll see something a little bit differently this week with someone else in the backfield, but we're also going to add something to the package each week.

Q. Markell and D.J., kind of assess their first four games and kind of where they're at right now, the production they've given you, and what is the next step for them individually?
DARRELL HAZELL: I think they're getting better each week. I think for two young players, probably a lot to ask for to be able to play at a high level so early, but they're doing it. We missed a couple leads on Saturday for the first time, I thought we missed three or four leads that potentially could have been bigger plays. But I'm very pleased at the performance of those two guys after four weeks.

Q. With DeAngelo, did you kind of see this coming a little bit where he had such a subpar year last year that he was bound to bounce back, DeAngelo Yancey?
DARRELL HAZELL: No, I didn't, to be honest with you. I wasn't sure, could have gone either way. But I am so proud and pleased with DeAngelo, how he's playing, the speed that he's playing at, the confidence that he's playing at. I can't be more happy for a guy right now because, you know, again it's one of those things where he has a relatively good freshman year for a freshman, comes back, does not have a good year as a sophomore. Now which way's it going to go? He's taken all the right approaches and he's helped us tremendously because of his play right now, the way he's gone.

Q. What other things made you pause and wonder if he could rebound?
DARRELL HAZELL: You just don't know, you don't know how a guy's going to perform. I thought one of the things that he lacked last year -- two things, actually, was being a physical guy, whether it was in the passing game or the run game, and sometimes when you're not physical, you're not physical, you know. That's something like Dick Vermeil used to say: If he's not going to bite as a puppy, he's not going to bite you, right? So one of the things about, you never know if a guy's going to be able to take that next step of being physical, and he's been physical for us both in the run and the pass game.

Q. At what point did your concerns go away?
DARRELL HAZELL: You know, when we got into camp, for sure. He had a great summer, you saw that, but still he hadn't put the pads on. But once we got into camp and he started playing at the speed he was playing at and how he was using his body to leverage defenders, we said he's got a chance to be pretty good again.

Q. When you look back at the last two games against Michigan State, why has your team played them down to the wire basically in each game?
DARRELL HAZELL: You know, I think our guys have a lot of confidence of the schemes that we're playing against those guys. Michigan State plays an offense that they're going to try to grind the clock down and try to wear you down a little bit, and I think that plays a little bit into our hands. Now, they can throw the ball. Connor Cook's done a nice job of locating guys. But also on the other side of the ball, they play a scheme that where you know where guys are going to be. They're not a high pressure team in terms of true zero coverage. They will bring them a hot zone blitz every once in a while, but you know where their guys are going to be and that kind of helps you a little bit.

Q. So do you not expect Michigan State to pressure in terms of blitzing very much this week because David is still -- he's still a young quarterback?
DARRELL HAZELL: Yeah, they're going to blitz us, but they're not going to blitz us like Virginia Tech blitzed us. They're going to play zone coverage behind their blitz, not man coverage behind their blitz.

Q. Obviously kind of turning the page from non conference to conference, what did you like about what your team did in the first four games?
DARRELL HAZELL: Well, they're competing. That's the first thing you look for in guys is how hard they'll compete to give themselves -- if you don't compete, you don't have a chance, but if you compete as hard as you possibly can. I told them on Sunday, we talked about a lot of things on Sunday, one of the things I told them is I still think you can compete that much harder. But you give yourself a chance if you compete hard.

Q. What do you need to do better?
DARRELL HAZELL: Like we talked about, we've got to tackle better, we've got to stay away from those critical penalties, and obviously you have to be able to finish a half, that last three to five minutes of the half, and then obviously you've got to make the field goals and finish the game.

Q. What do you consider the strength on offense right now?
DARRELL HAZELL: Diversity, just being able to go everywhere with the football and there's not one particular guy that you can get locked in on. I think the ability to be able to hand the ball to two good backs and then throw it to four or five good receivers, that puts pressure on people.

Q. You talked about having a, quote, special year. You can define that any way you want, I suppose. Is that still the word you would use to define the season right now?
DARRELL HAZELL: There's a lot to be playing for right now and that was how we started the conversation on Sunday. As you look across the Big Ten, everybody's 0-0 right now, so there's so much, so much to play for right now. You know, you still, you have to play better because you're getting into really, really good competition, but we're all on the same slate right now, that's what makes it exciting.

Q. You have yet to play an environment like you're going to play in on Saturday. Will you do anything practice-wise to try to -- you obviously play music, but will you try to simulate crowd noise or something like that?
DARRELL HAZELL: We always try to, when you get into a Big Ten arena, you know, how loud it's going to be. We might do some no-cadence snap count to try to simulate that a little bit, but not too much different.

Q. They have a pretty good player on their defensive line, Calhoun. What makes him good?
DARRELL HAZELL: He's a phenomenal, phenomenal rusher. He drops his shoulders better than anybody I've ever seen. He gets so low to the ground on those tackles and bends the edge, we have to know where he is every single time. Now, he lines to the field, so that gives you a tip, so you've got to be able to do some things structurally to make him not just a pass rusher. He's got to be able to play some wide things as well as play some misdirection things. You've got to slow him down somehow. He's a great football player.

Q. With the tight ends, you played some double tight ends still, but is that maybe you play more tight end this week just to be able to --
DARRELL HAZELL: Not necessarily. We will -- without giving up too much information, you're going to have to use a tight end sometimes to slow him down, but that's not the primary part of the game plan.

Q. You were trying to be coy when you mentioned you would have a third guy in the backfield this week. Who is it?
DARRELL HAZELL: Another guy.

Q. You said another guy?
DARRELL HAZELL: Yes.

Q. Going into the season, the offensive line was talked about as the strongest unit on the team. Can you just assess what you've seen from them in nonconference play and what's the next step moving into the Big Ten season?
DARRELL HAZELL: Good question. I think Kugler has been really solid. I think King's been solid, I think Hedelin's been solid. I want to see us a little bit better at the right tackle spot. Cerm's been good but not good enough at times, and then Roos has been really good the first three games. I thought he was a little bit not as strong as he needed to be that last week, so I'm going to challenge my man Roos. I'm a big Roos fan right now because he plays -- he's one of the hardest playing guys on our football team. But we've got to play better across the board up front now that we're getting up against bigger, faster defensive lines.

Q. You and Coach Shoop have both talked about the importance of your quarterback not playing favorites with receivers, something Appleby did really well, Blough did pretty well in the first game. Can you talk about why that's so important for the offense?
DARRELL HAZELL: I think it's important for those guys to know that they're always a viable receiver within the package, and the confidence that the quarterback has to be able to spread to any of those four guys potentially could be on the field or the tight end that could be on the field, it allows us to keep double teams off of specific people.

Q. Can we get a Danny Anthrop update? You said he's been feeling better after every game so far. Have you talked to him since Saturday?
DARRELL HAZELL: His mind's in a good place right now, I really think that. Without giving up the conversation we had on Friday night at our dinner, I think his mind has flipped over to a great place right now, and I think because of that, he feels so much better about where he is health wise and I think he's going to continue to get better and we've got to continue to get him more and more touches. I think he had five touches last week, he's got to double that this week.

Q. Something you touched on, how tough the penalties were on Saturday. Is that something you really dealt with in the first couple weeks of the season too much? Can you pinpoint where that's coming from and then how have you or how do you plan on addressing that with the team?
DARRELL HAZELL: We always address it. We had four penalties in the first half, we had two offsides on the defense, we had a guy lined up in the backfield, and then we took a delay of game in the punt unit, which is a noncritical situation there. Then in the fourth quarter alone we had six, four of them were hands to the face or face mask. We had an unnecessary roughness, which I don't know what you tell the kid on that one, I thought it was a good hit, and the other one was a pass interference against Danny E. So we have to get better at technical things of keeping our hands out of guys' faces obviously, but we address all those things constantly.

Q. Jarrett Burgess, kind of an interesting story, picked up his first touchdown. What have you seen from him growth wise since he first got here and where is his next step?
DARRELL HAZELL: Well, we're going to continue to try to feed him with the ball because he's fast, he's legitimately fast. He's getting more and more comfortable. One of the things as a young player, he's a 25-year old freshman that he's still learning the game, learning the speed, learning how to control the football. That's one of the things we were concerned about early was how well he'll handle the football and take care of the football. But the more and more we can get the ball in his hands, the better off we're going to be because he's a good player.

Q. Everyone's 0-0, but how else does the mentality change entering conference play?
DARRELL HAZELL: Well, every time you play one of these games, it's a Big Ten championship game and that's the way you have to approach it. If you don't, you can't lose too many Big Ten games, championship games week to week and give yourself a chance to be in the championship at the end of the year. So that's the mentality you have to have when you're playing these types of games.

Q. With Young's status uncertain right now, do you go with Young at wide receiver -- do you go deeper? Do you add another receiver to your core group or you go with the guys right now?
DARRELL HAZELL: We'll go with the guys that we have. We'll go with Ballow (sp) will be a backup to Greg at the wide positions, and everyone else will be the same. We have Trae and Danny and Posey inside, and DeAngelo will be an outside guy with either one of those outside guys, like Ballow (sp) can swing to either side. We're playing right and left, we're not playing X and Z so they can swing either side.

Q. Is your mystery person in the backfield a running back?
DARRELL HAZELL: When he's in the backfield, he will be, yeah.

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