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UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 3, 2015

Matt Limegrover

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Q. Another good day for Mitch for your high-passing yards. What was key for him and how healthy is he to be able to keep it on the read option?
COACH LIMEGROVER: Well, I think a lot of it has to do with his health. He's probably as healthy as he's been since the beginning of the season. Still taking too many hits. We've got to keep working on that, but standing in there. I think one of the things is he's standing in, delivering the ball better than he has because I think he's feeling better and because of that he's more accurate and being able to put the ball where he needs to on a more consistent basis.

Q. The way you went in there and put heavy pressure on him, has that been the big difference with him when you face the pressure he's facing?
COACH LIMEGROVER: I think without a doubt. There was a time when he was a little skittish, and he was stepping away from his throws and wasn't getting much on it. He's more confident stepping in there. Like I said, we still need to do a better job of protecting him, but overall he's facing it pretty well and putting the ball where it needs to be put. I think that's been a huge difference for him and for us as an offense right now.

Q. (Indiscernible) how much has he gone through?
COACH LIMEGROVER: I don't know. He's a tough dude. That's all I can say. You watch some of those hits and you cringe. I don't know what the exact science is of it, but it's like repeated car crashes, in my opinion, what happens to his body when he takes those shots. Because anytime you watch a quarterback when he does decide he's going to stand and deliver that football, he's exposed, and if somebody's breaking free late, they have a shot at him. He's a certified tough dude. I'd go to battle with him any day.

Q. This time of the year I'd expect the other teams are keying in on KJ, but he's still finding a way to get open.
COACH LIMEGROVER: KJ's a remarkable young man as far as that goes. For what he's gone through, and I talk about it all the time, there are just some kids that have it, and I can't fully describe it, but you kind of know it when you see it in a young man. And KJ's got it when it comes to finding ways to get open and making himself available.

There are kids with a lot more raw talent than KJ, necessarily. They can run faster or bigger. Probably have better hands or what have you. He's just the kind of kid you could tell growing up, he was the kid that always had some kind of basketball, football in his hand. He was always doing something. He was always around the ball and right in the middle of everything. I think that's continued on.

I know Mitch feels very comfortable. When in doubt, he's going to try to find KJ. And he knows if he gets it in the area, KJ's going to find a way to make a play.

Q. You did get the chop block there it felt earlier in the drive. What's changed? Is it just the offense has matured a little bit?
COACH LIMEGROVER: You know what? I don't know. I'll be honest with you. I usually try to have a good answer to everything because I think everybody collectively in the stadium's shoulders went down. The only ones that didn't were probably the guys that were standing out there on the field because that is, like you said earlier in the year, that's an insurmountable climb to make right there.

I think we've got enough kids right now that have just gone the heck with it, let's go play. Let's not worry about this or that. Let's just go out and play. One of the things for two weeks we preached to them is sometimes we get caught up in the big picture as coaches and as players. The single thing we talked to the offense about for two weeks was just play one play hard. Just play that play. Don't worry about the half, don't worry about the end of the game, don't worry about the score or how much time's on the clock. Just go out and give us one play at a time, and you'd be amazed at how one play turns into two, turns into four, turns into five.

I really think that drive was indicative of that, the fourth-down play. You're talking about some things that maybe game 2 or game 3 would have been a does not compute for those kids. I think they just kind of decided, hey, we are going to play one play and figure it out from there. When that happens, that success starts to build.

Q. Can you take us to the second to last play, 19 seconds left, kind of what went into that and why that play call was something you wanted to do. Reflecting on it after that?
COACH LIMEGROVER: Yeah, the biggest thing about it was we knew they were going to give us man. We knew they were going to make it tough. We had tried early in the game out of the same formation to run off tackle, and they really had gotten some people through. Didn't feel like running it off tackle was going to be the way to go. Felt like we needed to throw. We had two options. We had that and a naked that we had. Based on what we have done traditionally and how they were playing it felt like they'd be ready to sniff out the naked and didn't want to lose any yards on it. So it was either going to be our-catch, no-catch type of deal.

Wanted to get a little confusion on their part. Get people moving around. The one thing is they brought in extra D-linemen, so we felt like when that happens then people are out of their comfort zone trying to get people spread out and covered.

In the emotion of thinking we won the football game, and I know Tracy keeps blaming himself, but I should have been the one to say, hey, we need to Spike it here, stop the clock, collect ourselves, and then do what we need to do from there. And he's been falling on that sort of a lot. But that needs to be -- there was a whole lot of emotion, and starting to reel it back, getting the kids reeled back. We knew that was going to take a little time, unfortunately not as much time as what ended up happening.

Felt really good about the call too. Give their kid credit. He had good eyes. Stayed locked on Brandon. Wasn't obviously the end result that we wanted. You know, Tracy said we're a half yard from this thing. We need to go. I wasn't going to argue with him. We didn't get it done. There is a group of guys that I coach that feel terrible about that. There is no more playing football that's going to be, hey, it's either you're going to do it or you're not and then a quarterback sneak. We couldn't get it done, so those guys are living with that now.

Q. When Mitch was talking after the game he said he was surprised to see the clock going on that. Anything as a staff that -- again, back to the emotion of that moment, you think you've just won the game.
COACH LIMEGROVER: I knew the clock was going to start. Wanted to get the play in. I think ultimately what happened, and Tracy alluded to it, it's not making excuses, but not having that voice that was kind of separated out as far as like -- and Tracy talked about it, he and Coach Kill during that time when that's happening, those are usually the guys as I'm getting ready for a call, I'm in the moment, getting ready to make a call, those guys would have had a better chance to talk with each other.

I think that was a tough part of the deal because I wasn't of a mind at that time to be able to talk with him about, okay, here's what's going on kind of big picture. My thought was, hey, how are we going to get this thing? It didn't work out the way we wanted. How are we going to get this back?

I think that's where I probably let him down a little bit. I knew the clock was going to run. But I felt like we had this. We were could come back. To be honest with you, I called the play with the full expectation we were going to score a touchdown. So when it didn't happen, then we had to go to Plan B.

Q. What have you noticed on film about Ohio State's defense?
COACH LIMEGROVER: You know, they're a little different than Michigan. I think they're probably better in the linebacker and secondary from a coverage and playing the game standpoint. But I really think probably it's very similar up front as far as what they bring.

They've got some really, really good players that we've got to be prepared for. We've got to step up to the challenge if not the same even more than we did against Michigan. Because even though statistically they're not quite the same as Michigan, I think they play a little tougher schedule, and I don't even want to say they've held their own because that's not giving them enough credit. They've gotten after some people.

We're going to have to have the same kind of week preparation-wise that we did last week. I think that's going to be the number one key for us. Guys come out today, we start putting that game plan in, and they work hard. We do what we need to, we hit the things we need to, and if we can execute the way we did Saturday night, we've got a chance.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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