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PURDUE UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 6, 2015

Darrell Hazell

West Lafayette, Indiana

DARRELL HAZELL: Well, a real quick look back at the game against Michigan State. Obviously you play a really good football team on the road, you can't spot them 14 points on the turnovers. I thought our kids came back in the second half and battled extremely hard and well, and there was something about those guys that really believed they could win that thing in the second half. Just their level of confidence rose through the roof coming out of the locker room, so it was good to see them respond the way they did. Obviously we didn't do as well as we needed to do on that two-minute drive that we had and there was some situations that kind of broke down that didn't allow us to get ourselves into field goal range. We're looking forward to playing a good Minnesota team that comes in here on Saturday afternoon at 3:30 and it will be an exciting contest for us. A couple of quick injury updates, something that came out of the blue a little bit. Austin Appleby has a deep thigh bruise and was really struggling on Sunday. We're going to give him lots of treatment here in the next couple days to see if he can get back for us on Saturday. It will be a day-to-day thing, but we need to get him better as quickly as we can as our backup quarterback.

Q. Can you talk a little bit about Markell's production? His ability to not only gain yards but not lose yards is impressive.
DARRELL HAZELL: Yeah, it was brought to my attention yesterday, Pete, that he has I believe something like 60 carries and no negative plays. That's pretty phenomenal for any back let alone a freshman back. That just shows the maturity that young man has and continues to get better each and every week, not only running the football, Pete, but also in pass protection. He hasn't missed very many. I think where he's really good is his balance and being able to read defenses and slow the game down.

Q. Did you expect him to be able to break the run, certainly the run he had the other day, but his ability to make big plays?
DARRELL HAZELL: The ability to make big plays, Pete? Is that what you asked?

Q. Yeah.
DARRELL HAZELL: Production is production. That was one of the things when we studied his high school film, we saw him have all those productive yards and touchdowns and I think there's a lot to be said about that. Now, did I think he was probably a 70- or 80-yard back in this league in terms of being able to break those long ones, runs? I didn't think so. I thought he'd probably be a 40- to 50-yard back, but he's impressed us thus far already this year with some of those long runs.

Q. With D.J. coming back, how do you assess in terms of who's the starter? How do you divide the carries?
DARRELL HAZELL: We'll let it play out this week and see who gets the nod, but we feel very confident with both of those guys with the ball in their hands. I think they both bring a little bit different things to the table. Like I said, we can't get either one of those guys enough touches.

Q. Do you see the momentum that you had in the second half against Michigan State, is this team maybe mature enough, poised enough, ready to sustain that now against Minnesota and the rest of the way?
DARRELL HAZELL: I believe so, I really do. I think again it's still a very hungry football team, Pete, and we have to be able to take that next step. We keep saying that, but we have to be able to do that and blow the lid off this thing, and I think a lot of good things are going to happen once that happens. But this team is a very focused, very mature football team and that momentum we kind of were building at the end of that game will have to sustain throughout the rest of the season.

Q. And a big key to that is limiting turnovers, which I know you stressed since you took the job and it hasn't happened this year. I guess do you get a sense that maybe it's starting to stop?
DARRELL HAZELL: Well, you know, those two turnovers we had on Saturday, one was a mesh exchange where we had a zone read called and it was a pull read by the quarterback, and he probably should have had a little bit stronger hands on that play when he went to pull it out. He was kind of caught in no-man's land. And then the second one, the ball was being protected by Markell. The guy did a good job of -- one guys stuck his hand in, the other guy put his helmet on the football and the ball popped out. None of those guys want to fumble, obviously nobody wants to fumble, turn the ball over. But we have to do a better job in making sure that we secure that football.

Q. You're looking at a Minnesota team that has really struggled offensively; by numbers, they're one of the worst offensive teams in the country. How do you approach that?
DARRELL HAZELL: Well, you know, they do a couple different things that they've always done in terms of running the zone, they love to run the zone. They love to run the naked off of the zone play, they're still trying to do that. A little bit of power, not a whole lot of power game. But again, you have to go plus-one with your defense in terms of fronts making sure you get that extra hat in the box to eliminate the run. I think we matched up well on the outside in terms of our corners on their receivers, so we have to do some mixing it on man-to-man coverage with press.

Q. Pete asked you obviously about Jones and you've got a sophomore with him there, but then David now as a freshman looks like he's getting better and better each week. Moving forward, it's still a very young team, but those pieces that you're talking about there, you have to be, I would think, just be patient, it's going to come, those guys are going to get better. Talk about David's play.
DARRELL HAZELL: Yeah, David's done a nice job for us his first two starts. That last drive I thought there was some open things we could have thrown. He chose to take the short side of the field when we had some things to the wide side of the field that were probably cleaner throws. Those are things that veteran guys, guys with experience are able to see and make those things. But I love where he's at right now. His competitive spirit, his attention to detail in the meetings that we have, and his whole desire to make this football team better is what you love about David Blough.

Q. Those three pieces moving forward, that can become a core of a lot of success. Would that be a pretty fair assessment?
DARRELL HAZELL: Very fair assessment, but there's other guys to add to that core. There's a lot of good young players that are in the locker room that are joined with some older veteran guys that we really like, Roos and those types of guys. But we have a nice blend of young players that are good and then older players that are really good.

Q. It's unfortunate, I guess, the way the school calendar falls, but this is fall break and this is a big game for you. I'll say it, it's a winnable game and it would be your first home Big Ten win, you'd like to have the students here. It's nothing you can control. You can't really ask the Big Ten about that, right?
DARRELL HAZELL: Well, you're right, we can't control that. It's something we discussed before, Morgan and I, and Morgan's made many attempts to get it changed, but unfortunately we're going to have to talk to our players about that as well. Hey, there might be X amount of people in the stadium, you have to get yourself ready to go regardless of how many people are in the stadium. Hopefully we get our local fans and all the other people who love the Boilermakers, but that's the reality.

Q. Moving forward, though, would you like to see maybe that looked at so that it doesn't happen frequently?
DARRELL HAZELL: I think so. I think it's very important to get our student section back into the stands and have those guys be able to cheer their co-students throughout the course of the game.

Q. You talked in Chicago how important it was for you, the culture of this program, academics were better; you said in Chicago you had only had one problem recently. Then in three weeks you have four freshmen that do things that are unacceptable I know to you. Do you talk to the team further about this? Do you go with zero tolerance? I know you're not happy about what's happened.
DARRELL HAZELL: Obviously you're not happy when you get that phone call. It's very disappointing and I think it's a two-fold deal. It's got to be a discipline that you instill in these guys, but also an education. There's two-fold parts to that. You never want these things to happen because at some point in time they can become a distraction. But they're young kids that make bad decisions and make mistakes and then you have to fix it and move on.

Q. This is a national thing. The Associated Press called me this morning and asked me to ask you. I don't even know if you care or not. But the cell phone policy during the game, a kid at Texas said at halftime that he wanted to transfer after they were (inaudible) TCU. Then that night a Texas A&M kid got a targeting penalty, he went in the locker room and posted the video and started asking his friends, Do you think this is targeting? Bob Stoops said yesterday he's changing his cell phone policy. I've been told to ask you, so do you even care about that or is that a concern?
DARRELL HAZELL: Well, I would certainly care about that. We dress in a different locker room, so all their phones and electronic devices are back in the other locker room. I would be highly disappointed if one of my guys did that, so absolutely I would care.

Q. This backup quarterback, what would be your plan during the week here?
DARRELL HAZELL: Yeah, during the week and during the game just in case Austin's not available, what we have to do is practice Sindelar as the number two guy, but you also have to have a package. Say, for instance, David Blough's helmet comes off, he's got to come out for a play. You can't put Sindelar in the football game and burn his redshirt because his helmet came off, so you have to have a plan. Throughout the course of the game if David were to go down for a couple plays, you've got to assess how long he's going to be out for and make those tough decisions. We've got a chance to win the football game and you've got to go with your best players at that position. But our plan is to have a package ready for Sindelar not as extensive as David's package, so if he is the backup quarterback, that he has all the things that he needs to be successful.

Q. Who would be your emergency guy? Would it be Blough?
DARRELL HAZELL: Yeah, it would be Blough, but we've also talked about Aaron Banks.

Q. Are you optimistic that Austin will be good enough to go on Saturday, or what's he look like at this point?
DARRELL HAZELL: He was hurting two days ago, yesterday. He's better today. Hopefully we can get him enough treatment where he can potentially get back. Obviously you don't want to put him in the game if he's hurting and make him vulnerable to any serious injuries, so it's going to be a day-to-day thing before we make that decision.

Q. What's your assessment of how Gelen has played throughout his first three games?
DARRELL HAZELL: He was one of the guys we talked about potentially starting this week. He played very well last week, I think he gets better and better. We need him down the stretch to be a dominant player when it gets single blocked. He's capable of doing that, we've seen that, but he has to do it consistently on Saturdays.

Q. What do you like about what you're seeing from him, especially in this last game it seemed like he was maybe his most active?
DARRELL HAZELL: He's so strong. He collapses the pocket, he pushes the tackles back on the run game. Those are the things that reduce running lanes, reduced stepped-up lanes for quarterbacks if we can continue to have him do that and get off the block and make a sack.

Q. You played well in the last two third quarters which you had struggled with a little bit earlier in the year. Anything that you can point to do you feel like in the third quarters of the last couple games that you're doing better?
DARRELL HAZELL: I don't know if there's any one thing you can put your finger on. I think -- we talked about it a lot but you talk about a lot of things, but I don't think there's one particular thing that we said, okay, this is what we have to do on this first series of the drive coming out of halftime.

Q. But nice to be a lot better?
DARRELL HAZELL: Oh, absolutely. It takes a lot of stress off of you. I thought this last game they really came out and did a good job. We kicked the ball off and held them, and then defensively they did a good job of getting off the field pretty quickly.

Q. I know your missed tackles were down a little bit in this game. Is there anything that you think is common in those missed tackles that you're not doing well?
DARRELL HAZELL: When you get around strong backs, you've got to do a good job of wrapping up. I thought a couple -- you know, five out of the linebacker room, five out of the secondary room, and I think it was two out of the upfront room, when you get with those physical hard running, you've got to wrap up. That's the biggest thing. We didn't flat out miss and get shaken by any of those guys in the open field, but I thought that we did fall off of a couple guys, Robert Gregory was one of them.

Q. Quickly back to Markell, when he first started in the spring he was swimming a little bit. From there to what he's doing for you now and sort of picked up the pace in pass blocking and some of that stuff, what does that say about him that he's made such big leaps in a pretty short period of time?
DARRELL HAZELL: He's a very confident young man. Extremely confident. You know, it's nothing boastful, but he is extremely confident in his abilities and the things that he's capable of doing. It's funny, I said this last week to Morgan. I said, you take a look at two of our guys that have the same type of personality -- calm, confident, young guys, Blough and Markell. They're both getting their pilot's license. I think there's something to that, I really do.

Q. What do you think that is?
DARRELL HAZELL: You had better be confident behind the plane's wheel, right?

Q. I guess if they're going to fly a plane, you can trust them to hold the ball?
DARRELL HAZELL: Don't know if I'd go up there with 'em, but I still like them as players. (Laughs.)

Q. We did talk about Jimmy and Domo. Any update on them?
DARRELL HAZELL: Yeah, we're going to try to practice both of those guys today, Jimmy and Domo. Domo cleared out. He's got one more test that he has to clear, but he'll be a noncontact guy today so it will be nice to get him back. But Jimmy, we're going to put him through some individual drills and see how well he feels.

Q. With Domo, before he got hurt, where did you think he was at and was he kind of poised to take another step there?
DARRELL HAZELL: He's definitely got to take another step, but I liked where he was going. We missed him one time on a slant route that I thought would have been a touchdown. Can't remember who that was against; it was a home game. Would have been nice to get him some confidence catching that slant route. We threw it behind him. But he's coming, still learning the game, but he's a big physical target that you like to have out there.

Q. Speaking of home games, you haven't won a Big Ten home game during your tenure here. How important is that as you're building this program to have success at home against conference teams?
DARRELL HAZELL: I think all games are important, to be honest with you, none more than others. But we're striving hard to win those games, I can promise you that as a staff and as a football team, to win those games. Every single game's important in this profession.

Q. But you want your home field to be an advantage?
DARRELL HAZELL: Yes, absolutely you want your home field to be an advantage, and we'll keep talking about that, protecting your home territory.

Q. As you look what you're going to do from the running back position, ideally do you want those two to split carries, or are you at a point now where you ride the hot hand?
DARRELL HAZELL: Well, I think -- again, I think both of those guys are really talented, and if we came out of the game, we ran it 35 times and they both had 17 and a half carries, you feel pretty good, right? You feel pretty good about that because they both can catch it. I think Markell's probably protecting -- physically protecting a little bit better right now, but I like both those guys.

Q. But you feel confident that one of those guys can carry you through a game like Markell did last week?
DARRELL HAZELL: I do, I do, I feel that way. But I think in this week, you look at the landscape of this conference, how many guys are nicked up already week five. You look around the league, you've got a lot of guys that are dropping, and I think that's going to be huge down the stretch these next seven games is how many guys can you have available to you to help you win these games coming down the stretch.

Q. You got asked about Minnesota's offense earlier. They lost David Cobb, the running back, and then Maxx Williams, the tight end. Did you anticipate that kind of production dropoff from them?
DARRELL HAZELL: Those are two great players. I think they're both playing on Sundays right now and that makes a huge difference when you lose those two marquee players. It makes the quarterback look a little bit different because the tight end was a viable weapon that he used in times of trouble last year. He's got some guys, but not to that level.

Q. Are you prepared for facing two quarterbacks this week?
DARRELL HAZELL: We talked about it yesterday. We think we're going to see the old guy early and see what happens throughout the course of the game, and maybe they bring the young guy in and see what he can do if they are struggling.

Q. Regarding Wyatt and Chazmyn, what will be the plan for them now?
DARRELL HAZELL: Well, there's a lot of things for those guys to get accomplished before they become completely reinstated. They will have a suspension, two-game suspension, but we also have a lot of other things for those two to do.

Q. With four of those kids getting arrested in the last month, do you feel like your message is getting through to them?
DARRELL HAZELL: Well, I think it is, but obviously not enough. For those guys to make that decision that they made last week, it was disappointing. We talked to them again -- well, we talked to them Thursday before we left, but then we talked to them again on Sunday and hopefully this last time it got through to all of them.

Q. What role do your upperclassmen and captains now play in this? They probably played a bigger role already, but do you ask them for more?
DARRELL HAZELL: I think the whole locker room has to play a role, and I think they have to play a role prior to the incidents happening. I think that's a key component to any type of discipline. You can't wait until the incident happens before you say something. If you see something that's happening that's not right, you have to address it before it becomes a problem. We all do it. And again, these guys are young. Sometimes when you say a message, they don't think you're talking to that person. Sometimes you've got to pull them aside and tell them individually.

Q. Did I interrupt you? You were going to say something?
DARRELL HAZELL: No.

Q. What did Minnesota's defense do?
DARRELL HAZELL: Minnesota's defense plays a four-man front. They mix their coverage up in the back end. They play not a whole lot of press coverage like we saw last week against Michigan State. They'll play more off coverage with their corners. But they like to rotate from an even coverage to an odd coverage prior to the snap. Not a huge pressuring team until you get down deep into the red zone.

Q. How do you think that David handled Michigan State's pressure and blitz packages?
DARRELL HAZELL: I thought he did a good job. I thought he made some really good throws against the press coverage. Hit Yancey a couple times. He threw some pivot routes which are stop routes on the outside versus some tight press coverage is what you want to see him do. Like I said, there's a couple things in that last drive I thought we could have done a little bit better to advance the ball to get some field goal opportunity.

Q. What do you see as the key matchup in this game? What's Minnesota's strength and how do you counter that?
DARRELL HAZELL: I think they've got a really good defensive tackle, number 96, who's very active. He's a short squatty guy who's very quick off the ball. I think we have to be able to sustain him at the line of scrimmage. We have to be able to establish a couple different things in the run game as well as being able to push it deep again.

Q. Do you feel pretty good where your run game is at now coming off the game that you just had against that defense versus Bowling Green, I know you said it just didn't work for a couple different reasons. How much confidence just in the offensive line and the running backs now that you have coming off of that type of performance?
DARRELL HAZELL: Well, I think they get better and better each week, I really do. I think they're starting to become more and more in concert with one another. Just slowing the pace down of the game, being able to fit double teams and come up to the second level, and the back being able to recognize what he's seeing as the play is developing, I think that's where we've made some major strides.

Q. What's the plan this week at right tackle? Will you split again?
DARRELL HAZELL: Yeah, we'll split those two, Cerm and Martesse. They continue to get better each and every week. Martesse is a young player that's learning on the job and he's doing a good job at that.

Q. How did -- did Austin get hurt on Thursday?
DARRELL HAZELL: No. He actually got hit during the Virginia Tech game and it's one of those things that's just reared its head in the last couple days. It's always been a little bit of an issue, but just had some major issues on Sunday and hopefully we can get him back as fast as we can.

Q. How have your linebackers and safeties done in assignments in that part of the game?
DARRELL HAZELL: I think our linebackers have been outstanding, especially last week. I thought they played maybe as a group collectively their best game. I think the safeties have fit well other than that one jet sweep that they had, I thought they popped inside where they have to keep that ball contained, but I felt our linebackers played as well as they had last week.

Q. You talked about how much better the defense was in the second half on Saturday than the first half. What was the difference when you look back on tape, and what's it going to take to play that way from the beginning?
DARRELL HAZELL: Well, again, we present them with two short fields in the first half, which is always hard. We turn the ball over on the plus side of the field, you've still got to get them stopped and kick a field goal. It's a lot easier to play defense when they have to go 80 yards than it is when they have to go 40 yards, and I think that's probably one of the things that you saw coming out in the second half. They played a pretty good defense throughout the course of the game except for that one drive, the long drive.

Q. You mentioned the importance of being able to go deep. After Blough's first start, Coach Shoop said he might have been looking short when there were some things open deeper. Is that something you sense becoming more comfortable with and what's the next step there?
DARRELL HAZELL: Yeah, that's inexperience. A lot of times when you're a young quarterback, you like to get the ball out of your hands as fast as you can and not necessarily go through your reads. But the more he can slow the game down and see the things develop, like we missed one last week, Trae Hart ran a post route, ran a wheel route with Burgess and the post came wide open and he was locked onto the wheel route. Those are things that the more and more he plays, the more experience he gets, the more he'll see it. His vision will become so much bigger.

Q. Do you think that he is improving there like he needs to?
DARRELL HAZELL: Oh, absolutely, there's no question.

Q. You always look for connections between the schools. Obviously Coach Hudson spend some time up in Minnesota. It's been a while back, but there are some things an organization doesn't change. Is there any benefit to having someone on your staff like that?
DARRELL HAZELL: We haven't really talked at all about his time there at Minnesota. A lot of change since then. I think that was back in probably the early 2000s, I would guess. But no, we haven't talked about that at all.

Q. Penalties were a thing that were a problem a couple games earlier, not so much on Saturday. What was the difference there and how important is that? How do you address that?
DARRELL HAZELL: Well, we always address penalties. That's one of the keys to victory every week. When we address the football team on Thursday, having no penalties is one of the keys to victory. We did have two and both of them were significant. We had the one personal foul by Robert Gregory and he's got to stop on the play. I don't know if he couldn't hear the whistle, but you've got to stop on that play. The one that we had in the second half was huge. You may not see it as that, it's a five-yard penalty, but we're driving down the field on the plus side, probably 15 yards away from having a field goal opportunity, we jump offsides and put ourselves in the sticks. That was a huge penalty in the football game.

Q. You already talked about Gelen a little bit, but Coach Hudson said after his first (inaudible,) it looked like he was two games behind, he just wasn't quite in the position he needed to be. Do you feel like he's in that position now and what is it about him that's allowed him to get back up to speed that quickly?
DARRELL HAZELL: I think anytime you sit out for a couple weeks, it's hard for that first start. I think he's getting caught up pretty quickly, and I think the more and more we can do with him, the better off he's going to be when it's all said and done. Still another young player. You talk about another young guy that's in the room that's a good player.

Q. Last week I asked you about the abundance of penalties and I seemed to be corrected on Saturday aside from what you mentioned. However, this past game it was the turnovers. How do you avoid beating yourselves with these mistakes?
DARRELL HAZELL: As I said earlier, no one wants to turn those balls over but we have to be able to secure the football. At any level, high school, college, pro, one of the number one factors in winning football games is that turnover ratio and obviously we lost it last week, the turnover ratio. If you don't, who knows what the outcome of the football game's going to be.

Q. Is there something done in practice with penalties and turnovers because last two games Bowling Green and Michigan State played a crucial part in the outcome?
DARRELL HAZELL: Yeah, we emphasize it all the time. We do drills all the time about both of those, penalties as well as turnovers. You've just got to keep reemphasizing it. At some point in time it will go away. Hopefully it was last week.

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