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PURDUE UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 20, 2016

Darrell Hazell

West Lafayette, Indiana

DARRELL HAZELL: Looking forward to getting out on the field again with our guys towed. We went out Sunday for about 45 minutes to an hour, just ran around and got extra bonus practice. I thought the guys were moving quickly and with a purpose. So it's going to be fun to get out there this afternoon and get ready to the last couple days of preparation for a good Nevada football team. 2-0 or, excuse me, they are 2-1 coming in here, played Cal-Poly and then played Notre Dame and then played Buffalo last week. They have done a nice job competing real hard these first three weeks and it's going to be exciting for us on Saturday.

Q. First off, what were the objectives heading into the bye week and did you get accomplished what you wanted to get accomplished?
DARRELL HAZELL: Yeah, I thought we got done what we needed to get done. Obviously, you take a couple days off and let your guys get healthy as they can get that bye week, but also we wanted to come back and just talk about some specific things offensively, defensively, get some things fixed and I thought our guys did a good job of paying attention to details and look forward to seeing the rewards of those this coming week.

Q. The key to eliminating the interceptions, what would that be? I know interceptions can be caused by a variety of reasons, but, basically, what is the key to get that addressed?
DARRELL HAZELL: You're right, there are all kind of interceptions that occur. Obviously, the decisions when to throw that ball is a critical decision, obviously. Now the one he through in the end zone right before halftime I would have thrown the same, I would have thrown that ball, probably would have thrown a little bit further outside, but it was a good decision to throw that football. The receiver had two steps on the defender, the defender had his back to him.

We had a couple of the other ones deflected, he forced one of them. The fourth one he forced to Domo on a dig route. He had some check downs underneath that he could have thrown. But I'm really confident in where he is and how he's responded to those things in practice and he'll have a great week this week.

Q. Can you give an update on the health situation of like Jones and Hunte and Herdman and Markell?
DARRELL HAZELL: Yeah, Markell stopped by my office after we had our meeting, our staff meeting this morning, and he's ready to go. He's got a little fire in his belly and his eyes are bright. So he'll be ready to go for us. Obviously, we won't beat him up this week in practice, he'll take enough shots in the game. So we'll see how he is here the next two days. But he looked really good this morning.

In terms of the other guys, Da'Wan's a probable, as well as Larkin's a probable, Jimmy Herman is still a questionable guy.

Q. When you look at the Nevada, anything offensively that really stands out? I know they have had some success in running the football. Is that maybe the number one strength as you see it?
DARRELL HAZELL: Yeah, they're committed to running the football. They got a really good back. He's quick, he's got really good vision, he makes a lot of people miss in the back field. He's a strong runner. That's probably our number one goal is to stop him.

The second goal is to -- the quarterback's got enough ability to pull it down and run with it to hurt you. You got to make sure you have quarterback responsibilities.

And then the third thing, part of the package offensively for those guys is they bring in a backup quarterback, No. 6, and he's an option guy, he loves to run the option and they have an option package that you got to make sure you're sound in all your assignments in option football.

Q. Not specific to this game, but as a coach what are your thoughts on -- and I hate to use the term "prevent defense," but I know it's been used a lot, do you like to keep your regular defense out there, what are your thoughts on prevent defense when you have ahead and you're trying to protect a lead?
DARRELL HAZELL: Sometimes if you play prevent, it prevents you from winning, so you got to be careful. I think you got to know what the quarterback is, what his, obviously, the things that he does well. But I'm not sure specifically what you're asking, but you got to -- you're going to mix it up in prevent defense which is sometimes you're going to blitz, sometimes play coverage, three-man rush, sometimes you can get better, faster personnel, I shouldn't say better, but faster personnel on the field depending upon what the situation is. There's a lot of things that go into prevent. Amount of timeouts on the clock, where the ball is on the field. So, yeah, there's a lot of things that are involved.

Q. Lastly, there's been several highly publicized incidents of players getting ready to score a touchdown and dropping the ball before they get into the end zone. Do you feel like you have to address this to your players to make certain to hold on to the ball?
DARRELL HAZELL: We did. No, we did. I had our film guy pull those two clips from last Saturday's games and it's just amazing how many times you see players do that. We talked very heavily after watching those clips about giving the ball to the official. Those are things that will cost you football games. And I don't know why guys do it, I'm not sure why they feel like they have to drop the ball and play to the crowd, but we talked extensively about that this week.

Q. I know after the Cincinnati game you had talked a little bit about maybe guys needing to react quicker defensively, getting to the play quicker. What did you see there and how do you go about correcting that?
DARRELL HAZELL: Yeah, that's our focus for this week. The message on Sunday is no hesitation. When you see something, when there's a gap and you're a linebacker, run through the gap, go make the play. If you're a receiver and you're not sure which way you're getting walled, it doesn't matter, go, go as fast as you can. So that's the message for this week and those are the things that we got to eliminate is that, one, hesitation -- and it's not happening a lot, but enough that we're not making that specific play that we need to make.

The other part of that is just being able to make those plays that had nothing to do with hesitation, just being in position to make those plays, and then being able to make those plays on some of those balls that are in the air. We're off by a foot, six inches, sometimes, and you got to be able to make those plays.

Q. Since you've been here I know that one of the things you've wanted to do is improve team speed. In the Big Ten you got to be quick. And it seems to the naked eye that you have addressed that a lot offensively, but it just seemed to me like Cincinnati was really, really quick offensively against your defense. Did you notice that and is that something you got to try to continue to cope with?
DARRELL HAZELL: No, I never sensed that at all, to be honest with you. Not watching the film, I didn't sense that at all. We were in position a couple times to make four or five critical plays in that football game and we didn't make the plays. But I didn't sense the fact that their speed was any better than ours.

Q. Last thing, you talked about using a lot of nickel this year. How is that working out and in the bye week are you maybe going to make some adjustments with how much you use nickel or maybe this team isn't, doesn't throw it as much as others, but you still feel strongly about the nickel package?
DARRELL HAZELL: We do. We still feel strongly about the scheme, the packages, and we're going to match personnel with personnel. When you're in position to make a play you got to make a play. And that's what it's going to come down to.

Q. Offensively so far this year you passed the ball pretty well. You're among the leaders until the Big Ten. And they have spread to a number of targets. One of those guys is Domonique Young. How have you seen him kind of develop and grow into the role that he has right now?
DARRELL HAZELL: I think his confidence has gone through the roof. We have called 98 pass plays, we have actually run 93 and we have completed I believe 51 of those passes and 55 percent. But to speak about Domo you just see his confidence grow week in and week out. He's playing so much faster, and we got a couple other things for him for this week. But he's playing stronger and in the receiving game, when he's getting confronted. He's going to continue to get better throughout the course of the season.

Q. We expected that he would be one of the guys that would be stepping up this year but did you expect to see him right now top of the Big Ten in receiving in yards?
DARRELL HAZELL: I'm not sure how many catches or yards he has, but I know he's playing well right now and that's good for us because now, all of a sudden, you have two guys on the outside that you really feel good about with 7 and Domo 5, now you get your guys on the inside to start playing a little bit better, a little bit faster, and now you have some problems defensively.

Q. For them defensively, they're one of the best teams in the nation at defending the pass, do you see that as kind of one of the key matchups in this game?
DARRELL HAZELL: Well, yeah, I think that they are. They played Cal-Poly, who ran the ball all the time, but, yeah, they will go out and will challenge us. I'm not sure how much they're going to go out and press us based on the film that we have available to us, but we'll play fast and play hard outside, for sure.

Q. What times of things have they don't to defend the pass well, other than obviously some of the opponents are more running teams?
DARRELL HAZELL: I don't know if the first game against Cal-Poly, Cal-Poly threw it more than once in the fourth quarter and they had the ball for probably 10 minutes of that fourth quarter. But they're going to play their coverage, they're a one high safety team, they're a man free on the outside, and that's what they do. Their philosophy defensively is two linebackers in the box at all times. You want to have that extra hat in the box and play man-to-man on the outside and see if they can hold up.

Q. Pro Football Focus had Jake Replogle graded among the best or maybe the best at stopping the run so far this season. What have you seen from him that reflects that?
DARRELL HAZELL: Well, Jake's still the same guy that we always thought he would be. He's a physical guy, he's got a big motor, he's strong, he's quick off the block, he's a penetrator, which really creates problems for defense, but we need Jake to continue to do the things he's done in the past, keep going this fall, because we're going to need him to make some big plays for us coming up.

Q. We talked before the season about how you knew what he was going to do and the attention he was going to draw so it was going to be a matter of what else happened. So what isn't happening around him that is contributing to what isn't happening with the run defense right now?
DARRELL HAZELL: We missed a couple fits. We missed a tackle or two, which is always a problem. And they had a quarterback pull that we didn't contain the quarterback on the fourth and eight. A safety has nothing to do with the inside interior people, those guys can only handle what they can handle. So it's the whole defense, it's not just those interior or three technique shade type of guys.

Q. When you went to this much nickel, you knew that stopping the run had been a problem last year so how did you reconcile that with playing so much nickel as far as still being able to stop the run the way you need to?
DARRELL HAZELL: Yeah, the nickel will have a little to do with the run when we're in man coverage. So he's a man defender. However, the safeties got to drop down in the position so it's move more the safeties coming down in the box getting into their run. It has nothing to do with the nickel.

If you're playing base defense, and you walk your nickel Sam out, the guy that you're calling your nickel, he might be a pass defender as well. So it has nothing to do with nickel personnel so much, it's the structure of the safeties coming down in the box.

Q. We talked to you last week, you mentioned setting the edge being a problem on a couple of occasions. What do you guys have to do better to set the edge better?
DARRELL HAZELL: We got to set it with all the defense, it's not just one particular guy. It got outside of us four or five times last week. It's the ends, it's the corners, it's the linebacker on a blitz, it's all those things that are combined to make sure the ball's contained it and turned back to its help.

Q. Do you like this matchup that you have with their defensive front as far as being able to run the ball?
DARRELL HAZELL: I do. Just evaluating our personnel and their personnel, I think we have a very good matchup and it will be interesting to see how much they drop the week side safety into the box early in the game or are they going to rotate strong if we're having three receivers to the field. But, yeah, I like where we are.

Q. You talked coming into the season about how much different the leadership was this year. What were some examples that you saw of that coming out of the loss last week?
DARRELL HAZELL: It hasn't changed. The guys that have always stepped up Ja'Whaun Bentley's and the Jake's and DeAngelo Yancey's are still stepping up and that you they're very vocal on the field and again, they will be where they are leadership-wise as we hit the field today and the rest of the season.

Q. When you say step up, what do you mean by that?
DARRELL HAZELL: The way they talk to the team and try to encourage those guys to do more, do better and those times of things.

Q. No sacks allowed through two games. What are you seeing from the offensive line that's creating that protection?
DARRELL HAZELL: I think they're doing a good job and in communication, that's where it starts, making sure when we're man protecting, they're doing a good job in their actual techniques, but when you're turn protecting being able to help each other guys out you'll see guys trying to clean the pile when there's a free guy up front. But I just think the communication has been good and I think David's helped those guys. He slipped a couple tackles maybe once or twice last game that always helps those offensive numbers.

Q. How has Tim Lester positively affected David as a quarterback through at this stage?
DARRELL HAZELL: I think he's giving him that calmness on sideline, he's got constant feedback, initial or immediate feedback as well. When he comes off the field he goes and meets with Tim and sits down and says, hey, this was good, this was not good, what did you see? So there's a constant dialog between those two throughout the course of the game.

Q. Is there something about Tim's personality that could be especially beneficial coming out of a game like last week where he's thrown five interceptions in a loss?
DARRELL HAZELL: Oh, yeah, there's no question, because Tim's done it. He's done it, he's probably thrown a few multiple interceptions in a game and he says, hey, you can't let one game turn into two games of doing those things. So I'm sure Tim has a way of speaking to David that only a guy that's been in that position in those shoes can talk to him.

Q. I don't know if you saw the comment that Austin Appleby made about, I never been around a place where our coaches truly care. That's been out there on social media and I wanted to give you a chance if you wanted to respond to that.
DARRELL HAZELL: I'm not going to respond to that comment.

Q. How much pressure in terms of blitzing do you expect from Nevada?
DARRELL HAZELL: No, I don't expect them to change their way of thinking in terms of pressure. Now, if they do, we'll have some things ready for it. But I don't see it. I think they're going to be a one free team, they might bring a fifth defender. I doubt it. But it could happen.

Q. Did they look differently defensively against Notre Dame than they did against Buffalo or did they generally play like you said just kind of the man free?
DARRELL HAZELL: Structurally?

Q. The coverages they ran. Because it looked like against Notre Dame they were backing off the receivers and maybe playing more zone. Did they not do that against Buffalo?
DARRELL HAZELL: Yeah, they're still playing a little bit of what we call bail technique. They will come up and press you early and prior to the snap and then they will play a little bit of bail. Now will they come up and press us? I don't know. I don't believe so, but we'll see.

Q. How did you got better over the bye week?
DARRELL HAZELL: I thought it was a good time for us to reflect on where we are after two weeks and the things that we have to improve upon. Specifically, just a lot of little things. One of the goals that we talked about is the details in our jobs, not just, this is our job, but emphasizing and stressing the details of, this is how you got to get to this level, this is how you have to execute when you get to that level, all those details. And last week we really took Wednesday, Thursday, and worked on us and not Nevada. And obviously we looked at film of Nevada and all those things, but it was about us fixing the things that we had to fix.

Q. You mentioned that you had to get some things fixed. What were they?
DARRELL HAZELL: It's everything from steps and angles and technique, more things like that, not so much skills.

Q. Any personnel changes that you're going to make this week?
DARRELL HAZELL: No, not right now.

Q. Starting the same safeties as you have the first two games?
DARRELL HAZELL: Yes.

Q. You mentioned a little bit kind of your message to the team, but I was curious if there was anything about this is the last game before you head into the Big Ten, you get this win you're 2-1 going into the Big Ten, any kind of big picture messages?
DARRELL HAZELL: Nope. Nope. We're going to worry about this game. We're not going to talk about next week. Talk about next week, next week. But this is the main folks right now.

Q. Cancer game. Are you doing Volt colors or what's the plan?
DARRELL HAZELL: We will have a ribbon on the back of our helmets, the ribbon that we traditionally wear for this game. And, obviously, it's an important game for a lot of people, for a lot of different reasons, but we'll have the Rally Kids up from Indianapolis and we'll take care of those kids as much as we can throughout the course of the day and I'll get a chance to visit with them after the game and that, but we're just going to wear our Volt ribbon on the back of our helmets.

Q. How do you think Ja'Whaun's played the first couple weeks? The tackle stats are incredible, but have you seen him be the old Ja'Whaun quite yet?
DARRELL HAZELL: I think he's still getting back into the flow of things. I think the more and more he feels comfortable, the more productive, the more productivity he will have. I don't worry about Ja'Whaun, he's the least of my worries on our football team.

Q. With Markell, it's a shoulder injury for a running back. Do you have to take any, aside from not hitting him during practice, on Saturday do you do anything differently for him?
DARRELL HAZELL: On Saturday or this week?

Q. Well this week I know you won't practice him a lot or at least won't hit him a lot, but on Saturday and going forward from Saturday with a shoulder nicked up like that.
DARRELL HAZELL: We'll see how he responds when he takes those first couple hits and then we'll make some adjustments from there. But those things some of them can linger, some of them can disappear pretty quickly. So we'll see how he is after that first couple of hits and make the adjustments that we need to make.

Q. How do you feel that Tario has played through his first couple of weeks?
DARRELL HAZELL: I thought he played really well the first week. The second week, didn't see him enough probably to make that evaluation on where, has he improved six inches or a foot. But again, I'm confident in Tario and his ability to make plays for us. He's learning the offense, he knows the offense, he's able to execute the offense, so when his opportunity comes, he'll make some plays for us.

Q. What are the things that he's doing particularly well for you right now?
DARRELL HAZELL: I think he's playing fast. I think he's playing fast with the ball in his hands. I think he's playing physical with the ball in his hands. I think he's catching it well out of the back field. And you know what, one of the things you always worry about with young players is how well they will handle the protection, but he's done a really nice job with protection.

Q. You called the other two injured guys Hunte and Larkin probable, what will you do with them during the week?
DARRELL HAZELL: We're going to try to accelerate their pace this week. I know Larkin's going to take two reps in each period today, just to get him back into the flow of things. Now, Hunte, went quite a bit on Sunday, so he's probably going to get a little bit more reps in practice, but Randy's going to ease Larkin back into the flow this week and then he should be ready to take symptom snaps. How many snaps he takes on Saturday, I don't know. But he'll be able to take some snaps.

Q. How much better and in what way do you guys need to be better from your pass rush from your front?
DARRELL HAZELL: I think if you can get some pressure with a four-man rush that allows us to play obviously seven guys in coverage. But I think we got to get better push maybe inside, just a little bit more push inside with those three in the shade, which we will get from those two guys, because they're good players. But last week against Cincinnati they turned the protection and they weren't going to let you push them inside, so you're going to have to bring it off the edges when people start turning the protection on them.

Q. Have you been able to be as aggressive defensively as you've wanted to be?
DARRELL HAZELL: Yes. Yeah. We have called a lot, quite a few blitzes, I don't know how many, but we called quite a few blitzes. And that's the other thing, you got to get home when you call those blitzes, because you leave guys on islands and we were, the one touchdown that Mosely gave up on the corner route, if you watch, the blitzer, he's literally, I mean he's six inches away from getting the hit on the quarterback. And that's one of the things we talked about getting better at. The blitz entry, but not only the blitz entry, but the blitz timing, so we can get home.

Q. You talked earlier about hesitation and from a defensive point of view is some of that just new scheme or are they still working themselves into that a little bit and/or what do you feel like?
DARRELL HAZELL: I think it's just seeing something, trusting what you see, and then react. Instead of thinking, is it that, is it this, just react. And again, it's, don't think like it's all the time, it's three or four plays, but three or four plays is huge in a football game.

Q. I think Mike earlier was talking about their pass defense. I know the numbers are probably skewed a little bit because of Cal-Poly didn't pass much, but what do you want to see against I guess from your passing offense? What's sort of the next step? Because they have generated a lot of yards, I think they're ranked 18th in the country or something like that in yardage, but what's sort of the next thing to be able to do to take it from being a squad that gets some yardage to one that turns that into points better?
DARRELL HAZELL: I think coming off last week's game we had some verticals called and I think if the vertical is not there, we got to be able to drop the ball off. I think that's the next step as an offense that we have to be able to make. We'll call some shot plays, but if they're not there, drop it off, take what they give you, and then be able to be efficient that way. All the other things, I think we're moving in the right direction.

Q. With David, he has some passes that really jump off the page and accurate, the touchdown to Domo and the sideline throw to DeAngelo and then others where he's just not as accurate. Can you tell something mechanically or has he been able to diagnose something mechanically that's doing that are separating the accurate passes from the inaccurate ones?
DARRELL HAZELL: I don't know if there's any -- he's always -- it always comes back to your feet, your body position on accuracy and not accuracy. If you are an accurate quarterback, which he is, try to remember some of the inaccurate throws that he had last week.

Q. Maybe Hopkins and Domo the two that ended up in interceptions were a little bit off.
DARRELL HAZELL: Yeah, he was off a little bit. He was trying to keep it away from the defender and that's part of the deal as well.

Q. How are you and your staff able to use the bye week from a recruiting perspective?
DARRELL HAZELL: Yeah, we went out and Monday, Tuesday, and saw some schools. We talked to some coaches. And then we went back out on Friday and did the same and saw some games on Friday night.

Q. I think you were in Indy on Friday night. Did you get to go anywhere else or was it just kind of a one game deal when so many teams play on Friday nights in the Midwest?
DARRELL HAZELL: Yeah, you talk about just Friday or throughout the course of the week?

Q. The course of the week.
DARRELL HAZELL: Monday I was in Ohio, Tuesday I was in Detroit, and then Friday I spent the entire day in Indianapolis. I went to six or seven schools in Indianapolis and then went to one game.

Q. I know you're solely focused on what you're do you think here, but just what are your thoughts on Danny and Austin getting starts in the SEC?
DARRELL HAZELL: Well, I wish them the best and I hope they both have success down there.

Q. You mentioned a little bit earlier about the cancer game, the Hammer Down Cancer, why is that important to you and important sort of mission for this team?
DARRELL HAZELL: Well, just stop and think about all the people who have been touched by this disease. It's not been good. And hopefully we can, we're moving closer a closer to finding a solution. But I think it's important for us as a program and important to me that we honor those people that have fought the good fight and who are fighting the good fight and that we show our respect and always be supportive of those people who are, who have gone through it or are going through it. Whether it's the actual person or the family, the kids, the relatives, so that's where we are.

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