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UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCESeptember 27, 2016Tracy ClaeysMinneapolis, Minnesota Q. Tracy, I asked you the other day about Coney. I see he's on an injury list. Any update there? COACH CLAEYS: He's -- I don't remember wherever he is on that list. Yeah, yeah. He's out. Q. Just temporary or season-ending or anything? COACH CLAEYS: I don't know. You know, so, we'll just see. Each week, we'll update it. You know what I'm saying? If it was a season-ending injury, I'll tell you. But it's nothing like that. But he's out this week. Q. Tracy, what kind of time line is Lingen on and your other players that are out, too? Anything you can identify there when you could expect back? COACH CLAEYS: Him and Rashad have the same injuries. So in the three-week range probably. Q. Going back to without Coney, what sort of things do you need to see from guys behind Antonio and Jalen and those? COACH CLAEYS: You know, Alonzo will play well, and I still think we're fine there. You know, we got enough depth. Obviously, we can't handle any other, you know, injuries right now. In the secondary, we're about as thin as we can be without getting into problems. Q. Given where you're at there, is Kiondre a possibility, or are you really hoping to redshirt him at this point? COACH CLAEYS: You know, it -- that's a good question. We talked about it. Obviously, he'll practice all week long and stay down with the defense, and we'll make that decision before this week. If we don't play him this week, we would like to redshirt him. Q. Tracy, there's always some curiosity when you take your team on the road for a first time especially in a big environment like that? COACH CLAEYS: We played -- most of the kids that played are playing in some pretty big stadiums. I do the first time. I worry about the sound with offense, you know, on the stop. Sometimes the center gets the snap off but guards and tackles be like popcorn when they get out of their stances and you can't get anything done, so, I'm glad we have a great sound system, and offense will spend a lot of time this week with the crowd noise and things like that blaring. That's my biggest concern going on the road right now. Defensively, it's not a problem. Defensively most of the crowds are quiet on the road when you're playing on defense. Whether you get a roar at the end or something else defensively, yeah. I worry about the offense and timing of it with the noise. Q. Could there be fewer checks at the line of scrimmage given the crowd noise? COACH CLAEYS: I suppose there could be. Q. Do you anticipate that? COACH CLAEYS: No. We're going to try to run our offense, you know. Try and run our offense. Q. Trace, you've been part of huge wins here, Nebraska twice, Michigan. Coming so close to Michigan last year, since you've taken over as head coach, do you see this as an opportunity to get one of those quote, unquote, signature wins at Penn State? COACH CLAEYS: It's hard to win on the road. So, any time you win on the road in a conference, I think that you're getting ahead of people, but, you know, it's -- it's not easy to be done. And we're going to have to play well and I think they're a lot better football team they showed at Michigan. I mean, our first year, when we went into Michigan, it was over by the first quarter. I was ready to go home. I can't remember, I think they score 25 points in the first quarter, something like that. Sometimes things snowball. I don't think any team deserves to be judged by one game, by one game. They have a tremendously talented tail back. They spread the field on you and create problems. I think they're a lot better team than they showed last week. We will have to play awfully well in order to win on the road but like anything, the game -- what happened last week, whatever, I don't think it ever has any bearing as the team that shows up, prepared the best and plays the hardest. We usually have that opportunity to win. Q. Tracy, have you made some decisions on redshirts, who you're going to red shirt at all? COACH CLAEYS: We will after this game. Yeah. If we get through this game and through practice. Usually if you don't play them by the first conference game, we try to redshirt them. Q. All of the tackles for losses, is that a sign of how you're playing up front with your line? COACH CLAEYS: Yeah, you know, Steve's played well, especially against Colorado State. I don't know if they recruited him or made him mad, whatever. But he's had two games against him that's been very good. He's healthy right now. I mean, he's healthy, so he is a special talent, and hopefully we can get that out of him every week and keep him healthy. I'm pleased with the tackles for losses. Our sacks are up, you know, and if you look at some of the best teams in the country each year, that's two things that they usually do well. But the thing you can't do, we can't give up 15 plays at 10 yards or more. I mean, we got to cut down on that and a lot of that has been the tail back that has hurt us. And that's my concern this week. We're going against one of the better ones in the country and he can run inside, he can run outside, screens, catching ability. We're going to have to do a good job of containing him and not let somebody else have a career day on us. Q. Have you seen Mitch's progressions in the pocket from going from one, to two to three. How has that evolved from last year. I know he ran defense last year. Have you seen them improve? COACH CLAEYS: Everybody is worried who is going to replace K.J., who's going to replace K.J. Sometimes that hurts you you always go to the same guy. I think last week eight different people caught the ball. Tells me Mitch is going through progressions. Not trying to force balls, he's taking who is open. I know as a defensive coach you can't look at one or two guys and take them away and make them go their third option and beat you. I think that helps you on offense. I'm pleased where the offense is at. We have the one turnover that obviously on the road you cannot turn the ball over and have a chance to win, and I thought we left a few points on the field that I like to get but for where we're at, we need to continue to progress. But I like where we're at now and we got to continue to get better. Q. Who else besides Kiondre is on the fence of redshirting? COACH CLAEYS: Oh, boy. I knew you was going to ask that. We don't have a lot more of them. You know, Conner Olson is a kid in the offensive line. If we could get beat up in the offensive line. He would be there. Besides that, I don't know that there is a lot more you, you know? Q. You see Barber as possibly getting in on defense, or -- COACH CLAEYS: Yeah. Yep. He's somebody that, you know, we sat down last week and went through special teams depth chart. Everybody in charge of the special teams said they would take Thomas Barber. That's 20 snaps a game. He plays awfully well on defense, too. We've had more time this week to get him prepared defensively, get him more defensive snaps. Yeah. That's definitely he's going to play. Q. Coming out of the Colorado State game, Tracy, what did you think or what was your evaluation of the three men in front versus the four-man front and are you likely to show that mix, then, you know, that kind of balance going -- COACH CLAEYS: Yeah, I think -- here it is. It's all situational. I don't think the three-man front is good for certain things. I just don't. I mean, you're going to get big and try to stop the run. I don't think that's good with three down linemen in there in my opinion, so, it will all be situational, depending how the game goes. You know, if we get up big and get teams to where they're throwing the ball more, you probably see a lot more of the three-man front but people are going to try to run the ball at us. More of a four-man front and the challenge is, can you do both? I'm not for sure yet. You know? And that's something left to Jay and the defensive staff. They think we can do both of them, and -- but you can't do both to everything. So, it has to stay situational. Q. The nine penalties again last week, quarter of the way through the season, how concerning is it for you that they might be changing the way you're getting them but they're still -- COACH CLAEYS: The only penalty, the procedure penalty, you got to eliminate and that, holdings are going to get called every now and then. Jalen's, as I said, you can't have things like that where you lose your emotion and get a penalty. And then, you know, but aggressive penalties, sometimes you have them. I think you can go back and look at some of the better teams each year. I don't know the penalties. That is a great indicator what type of year you're going to have. Q. That's what you consider -- COACH CLAEYS: I don't want a bunch of procedural penalties. The way the game is being called, there's some gray areas in there. If you're going to get mad about that and start having to play flag football in some situations in the quarterback scrambles and start pulling people off, you're going get hurt even more. You know what I'm saying? So the aggressive penalties, as long as we're trying to avoid targeting, I don't want kids to launch, I don't want them going to the head and neck. We don't teach that. Sometimes in a game where everything's moving so fast, it's going to happen, and you have to live with those types of things. I don't think that has anything to do with how good of a football team you're going to be. I do think pre snap and procedural things, that is what keeps you from winning. Q. Could you talk about the difference between the three-man front and four-man front. Seems like you have different personnel type linebackers now. Does that limit you in trying to be more creative, that type of thing? COACH CLAEYS: It does. Like I said, we tried to get out of it. They hit a big play on us, and we tried to get out of it. And we got called for 12 men on the field because we couldn't get the personnel back in there. Part of that is because of the injured player. We got and injured player, Tayon gets hurt on the play and he's trying to get off field he gets called for being offsides and 12th man. There's not a player safety when it comes to defensive kids. That's not in the books. So, you learn to live with that. You tell defensive kids that happens you just got to go down, stay on the field and make them stop the clock. So, I thought that could have been handled a little bit differently, but now, now we know. And so, like I say, that's -- that's the thing I worry about. We get in it and all of a sudden we can't get out of it because of the no-huddle stuff and things like that. But I do think situationally and the way we're built it takes some reps off the D-lineman, so when you play against the bigger teams that will try to pound the ball. Hopefully those guys are fresher and you don't have as many reps on them. Q. Coach, do you see an added element facing off against Matt Limegrover this week? COACH CLAEYS: No, kids play. Kids play the game, so, no, I don't know. Q. Tayon? COACH CLAEYS: Yes, sir. Q. Was he cut on that play? Or did they attempt to cut him? COACH CLAEYS: Yeah. Attempted to. He has to learn to protect himself. He's going to see that a little more without a good athlete. He's got to know when to go against an O lineman and when the back is coming to block him, and he's got know the difference. It's part of growing up. Q. Coach, I know you can control what you can control as head coach. Do you think your fans are taking a "wait and see" approach this year based on the attendance so for in the stadium? It seems like a big opportunity the next couple weeks? COACH CLAEYS: I don't think the attendance is different if we played top five team like we did TCU. That's my opinion, you know what I'm saying. I've said it before, the increase with the ticket thing made it extremely difficult on people, and -- and Mark has taken some things to do that, but there's no -- I've said before, you can try all of the gimmicks, you can do all you want. The only way to improve the attendance, you got to win. So, yeah. I mean that's part of it. And I understand that. You know? Winning, we win, more attendance comes, we don't, less attendance, I get fired. It's pretty cut and dry. Q. You win the game -- if you win the game Saturday, what do you do to celebrate? COACH CLAEYS: Get on the plane and get back here as soon as possible, that's for sure. I enjoy on Saturday, I think coach said he liked ice cream or whatever, and, I like to get back and enjoy a little TV and a little pizza, and I like to watch other college games. I really do, especially from other conferences, I get to watch the Big Ten games all year on Sundays, and with the video and that, so I like to be a fan of the game. I truly love college football, and I don't try to figure out what people are doing or anything, I just sit back and watch the games and enjoy watching the games. That's why the night games I'm not a big fan of. I don't get an opportunity to do that each week. Q. So you wait until Sunday to get ready for -- COACH CLAEYS: I always do believe it or not. I think Saturdays, I think after the game, there's a midnight rule there, you enjoy that game or you stay disappointed until midnight, but when you get up the next morning, it don't matter whether you win or lose. That damn sun's came up every time and you go back to the office and go towards the next game. Q. Thank you. COACH CLAEYS: All right. Yep. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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