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UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 29, 2015

Matt Limegrover

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Q. In terms of being prepared for Big Ten play, people looked at your non-conference schedule and just how solid some of those defenses were, and how did that help get you ready for Northwestern and beyond?
MATT LIMEGROVER: Well, I think one of the big things was the Ohio game really helped us in a lot of ways from the standpoint of we were able to get our guys feeling a little comfortable because we had a pretty good idea what they were going to do, not that they were predictable, but real well-coached. You knew they had been together for a long time as a staff, so you had a pretty good idea of what you were going to get. Now it became an idea of execution and emphasizing that, and I think that's what you start getting into with the Big Ten schedule.

You know, a team like Northwestern, their defensive staff has been together forever, and they do what they do, and they do it well.

I think leading up to that, that was a good game to lead into the Big Ten schedule for us.

Q. Do you think that going forward you're pretty locked into a lot of the times extra tight ends, the fullback in there, given some of the issues and challenges you've had with the offensive line seemed to work well for you Saturday?
MATT LIMEGROVER: Yeah, I think one of the big things is not getting too locked into one particular thing, to be able to have some versatility and do some different things, and one of the things that we looked at that we felt like maybe gave us a little bit of an edge on Saturday was having three tight ends in on the play or maybe two in a row and then coming back and being in three wide receivers and one tight end.

What we were able to do was we ran a lot of the same plays up front, just tried to window dress it as much as we could anywhere from having our heavier personnel in there to basically going three wide receivers. But for those guys up front, we were trying to keep that as simple as possible, and really emphasize the execution part of it.

Q. What impresses you about Shannon Brooks?
MATT LIMEGROVER: He's an unflappable kid. If you didn't know that he was a true freshman, you wouldn't know that he was a true freshman. He went in there and he got the job done, and he wasn't any different at the end of that ballgame in the locker room as he was last Tuesday. I think that's something that's a real testament to a young man who has some success, especially real early in his career. Sometimes that goes to guys' heads, and they figure, hey, every week it's going to be like this. I think that kid is pretty well grounded and realizes that although we'd all like it to be that way and better, there's going to be some bumps in the road, and he just seems to have a real good feel for that, and there's a maturity about him. That's what allows a kid like him to play early to be honest with you. There's freshmen on our team that have a lot of talent. There's may be some that have more talent than Shannon, not at running back per se but at other positions, but the mental part and the maturity part haven't caught up, and that's a big component, especially with a young kid.

Q. A couple of your freshman receivers made critical catches. Does that give you more confidence in them?
MATT LIMEGROVER: Yeah, you know, it's -- every time they do something good, you feel good about it because you know -- the one thing I'll say is I don't know how I want to put this, but it's not real, real hard to just go in and be a running back and get the ball and do what you do naturally. It takes a little bit more at some of the other positions, so it's taken some of those receivers a little bit longer, to, pardon the pun, catch on, but you do see it and you see it every week something else happens that gives you some real excitement moving forward with that group. Those young guys, you know, Melvin Holland going out there, Isaiah Gentry having the catch that he did and doing some other things, that gets you real excited because we've been kind of waiting for those guys to take that step up, and we need them to.

Q. It seemed like there was a lot of short and intermediate passes, swings to the backs, passes in the flat, comeback routes. Was that Mitch's progression or was that more about the game plan going into it?
MATT LIMEGROVER: A combination of both. You know, I think that Mitch did an outstanding job of seeing where he needed to go or where he didn't need to go, and he didn't just throw the ball up on Saturday. He didn't just say I'm going to wing it and take a chance here, and I think that benefitted -- he benefitted from being able to take that little bit of extra amount of time and make that good choice and check those down, but then also, too, there wasn't as much going way down the field for him. There wasn't as much home or nothing type of stuff for him. I think he felt very comfortable in that kind of combination of what we had where if it was a deeper route, wasn't there, he's feeling better and better about checking it down.

Right there, and people don't talk about it enough, we go for that last drive and we started that drive with a check down to the back. I'm not sure Mitch checked it down to the back maybe eight or ten times all year last year and that was a big start to get it to Rodney, gets us that 1st down. You guys have all been around it; it's really hard when you're in a tense situation like that to get that first 1st down. Your heart is in your throat and you just want to get going, and to be able to dump that thing when there wasn't anything there, and to go get that 1st down, that was kind of that initial lift we needed on that last drive.

Q. Did your offense function Saturday like you wanted to, running the ball and having quick-hitting high-percentage passes for Mitch?
MATT LIMEGROVER: It's getting there. It's definitely on its way, but to be honest with you, looking back on it, the way we played Saturday, you know, we won't beat Northwestern if we have the exact same production and execution. We've got to execute better because at the end of the day, there were too many drives that needed to become touchdowns that ended up in field goals. We had a couple of the drives early in the game that stalled out around the 40 yard line. There needs to be a better job, I need to do a better job of getting us into maybe a 4th and 1 or 4th and 2 in that situation so then coach has confidence, hey, lets go for it rather than a 4th and 6 and a solid drive out. The execution still needs to be better, but one thing is I think the kids felt good going into this game because unlike the week before with the unknown, there was some known there.

Like I said, Ohio was a real disciplined team. We had an idea what they were going to be doing, so we were able to have more answers, where with what Kent did, it was kind of like, oh, man, we have what we have and it was hard to get out of some things. I think the kids felt good about the answers we had, and now we're working on that same type of thing going into Northwestern.

Q. How encouraging was it to see Isaiah have that game that he did after starting the season injured?
MATT LIMEGROVER: You know what, you just can't discount a young kid having a little bit of success. How far that goes for their mindset, I guarantee you he'll be out there in practice today with a snap in his step just because he had that success. You know, when you're a kid like him, and there's an unknown, all these kids, every one of them that comes through, they were the best at their high school, they were all-state this, they were this many stars or whatever, and so they're used to success, and when a kid like Isaiah comes through and has some adversity, the success that he starts to have, you know, as a coach you're just hoping that snowballs, like okay, he's getting back on track, and you could see it on Sunday. Like I said, he had a smile on his face and was feeling good, and I'd be surprised if he didn't come out and really run around today at practice.

Q. How encouraging was the offensive line play against Ohio, and how much do you think all the stuff you guys were doing last week, how much can that help you moving forward?
MATT LIMEGROVER: Well, you know what, I think that believe it or not, right after the game, I said, hey, we've still got a lot of miles to go here before we're where we need to be. But the idea that had five guys that were able to get in there and play, and even Foster Bush was able to get in there for a few plays, I didn't even know it, I was up top, no one told me, and all of a sudden I see 77 out there, and I said, what's going on. But that's a testament to him because there wasn't a drop-off. He jumped in for a couple of plays. But to be able to start practice and get back and go, okay, we're going to have the same five guys going this week, that's huge from a continuity standpoint. Those guys working together, getting comfortable with each other, and I think that's hopefully at the point we're at, and we're doing it at the right time and getting ready for the Big Ten season.

Q. One thing Kill mentioned is the ability to work with Coach Z in the box. How does that kind of help you guys?
MATT LIMEGROVER: You know what, Coach Z had been down on the field. I think a lot of that has to do with a tremendous amount of confidence that we all have just in a short amount of time with how far Adam Weber has come as a graduate assistant because he has a great way with the quarterbacks. There's kind of that shared experience I think with Mitch, to be able to talk with him. So as that relationship grew, it allowed Coach Z to now come back. He was up there in the box with me, for him to come back up, and now rather than trying to communicate with him through lines and other people talking, he's sitting right beside me, so if there's something he really likes in the pass game, he'll slide it over, he'll point at it and go, we need to hit this as quickly as we can, and then I work that in. So that was nice rather than it's one thing, you're in a series and you're going, no one wants to say anything because they don't want to disrupt the flow. But for him to be at the end of a series to slide over two or three things, hey, next 3rd down we get, go right here, hey, this is a shot we can take on 1st down, hey, Mitch is feeling this from my conversation with him and Adam between series, that was very calming for me to be able to have that, that help, I think, with the overall flow of being able to call the game.

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