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UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEOctober 18, 2016Tracy ClaeysMinneapolis, Minnesota Q. Hey, what happened to the running back that made 177 yards? COACH CLAEYS: Well, he's got two good ones in front of him, and you can't always play three running backs, you know? So, he's playing on special teams. He's getting a few reps on offense, but right now the other two are the ones that are in front of him. Q. Connor came in here and shared his story about the time he had to put in as a walk-on to finally get his chance. What did he show you as far as his willingness to stick with it for so long? COACH CLAEYS: Well, you just -- you know, walk-ons, to make it, it has to be important to him, football has to. Because they got to spend the same amount of time and demands, and they have to pay for their own school and stuff, so he kept working and got himself in a position to play, at least be a back-up, and when that happens with any walk-on, we try to take care of them. I think it's -- why go and recruit somebody that you think you know, but you really don't know when you have a kid whose who's playing well enough that you do know. I mean, that's always been our philosophy, so -- to go ahead and reward those walk-ons before you recruit somebody else if a kid is helping you play, so Connor did all of the things he needed to do, got himself worked into that position, and once he did, he was awarded a scholarship, you know? I have a different philosophy that that's theirs, and we don't make a big deal out of it, you know, outside of the team. You know what I'm saying? I think kids respect him, and he's worked awfully hard and -- but we've had several who have done that same thing. Q. Tracy, can you give us an update on how Mitch is doing? COACH CLAEYS: I'll know more actually after practice, but they're going to let him do some light activity at practice. I guess that's the next step. So we'll do that and see what happened. Q. So, similar to last week where you guys put the injury report out on Tuesday, but it's always subject to change, is it possible that he's back? COACH CLAEYS: I don't know that. In my opinion, it's going to be hard for him, you know, to take enough reps and do all of that, you know what I mean? You know, we put a lot more on the quarterback's plate now than what we have in the past, and you need to practice, so I'm not saying that he won't, but I think it's extremely difficult for that. I'll have a better idea today after I see how he gets through today. Q. You realize you were only six minutes from being unbeaten? COACH CLAEYS: Yeah. Yeah. Two possessions. You know, and I think it's been -- the thing on both sides of the ball, at Penn State we needed to get them stopped defensively and we didn't, and at Iowa, you needed to do better on offense. But we did get a throw in the end zone, but for the game we needed to play better. I think we have a good football team, but at the same time, we have to play well, and I thought this last weekend was the first time that all phases kind of played together and showed what we can do, and it was on the road, so -- but, yeah. You don't get those back, so you keep moving, and we got to make sure that we do our best, prepare this week and get this week and try to get on a roll. Q. Your running backs seemed generally unselfish. These guys are used to getting a lot of guys in high school and carrying these guys. How do you create that culture? COACH CLAEYS: I guess the good thing is they are friends and they get along, and -- but it's hard anymore, for one back anymore to get through a whole season, and I think the kid at LSU is as good as anybody in the country, he's been banged up, missed a couple games, and you carried the ball 30 times a game. I think that's hard to do anymore. And so you can usually keep two of them happy and, you know, say that's Kobe, he's the one that's in the toughest position because he got two awfully good guys in front of him, and he's an awfully good football player and finding enough things for him to keep him happy and keep him in it is the bigger concern than the first two. Q. Coach, the full back play at the game seemed to be a classic game where if you don't beat yourself you can win an awful lot of football games? COACH CLAEYS: Yeah. No question. Late in the game -- not late. We got up 17-0, and when Garrison Wright went out, we were awfully careful. We didn't want to get in a situation we had somebody running through on a blitz, got a sack fumble or put pressure on him through an interception. We felt good the way the defense was playing. What we did, we got very conservative about it and said, hey, let's just play, and then Rodney, Connor did a good job of getting us in the right play and he took the long run and scored, and so he's -- Connor's capable of doing a lot more things than that, but because up front, we slowed that down a little bit, but yeah, he had the one dropped snap where he couldn't hand it off on the one play, but at least he got on the ball and didn't turn it over, and any time you -- I think we got 14 points off turnovers. We were creating some turnovers and getting some points, so, yeah. As a team, we didn't make the big mistake that cost you. Q. Tracy, how is the offensive line looking and how do you evaluate the guys that are playing, the people that are getting to play now? COACH CLAEYS: Yeah. Yeah. We have some kids that, you know, we played better. I still think we can improve on what we did. But we did finish some blocks, gave the backs a few more seams to be able to hit the seams but we still got to be able to make improvement up there. It's getting tougher with the injury part of it, but that's part of the game, and the guys who stepped in there played well enough to win, and we just got to be -- we got to be careful with their guys up front, because we need them on game day. So, you know, they get limited reps in practice, and we're doing everything we can to stay healthy up there with the people we think we can win with. Q. Is Wright more banged up than you first thought? You said you thought he could play at Colorado State and now he seems to be still battling, especially on the last game? COACH CLAEYS: Yeah. I think we could have put him back in the game. But it was the same thing, as long as we kept a two-score lead, we weren't going to do that and get him some rest, and, you know, we do have a conference rule that -- around here that when we win, we don't practice on Sundays, and so, you know, I'm sure that will help him out also, but I think we could have put him back in there if we absolutely had to, but with the lead, we decided not to. Q. Cody's not on the injury report. How is he doing? Is it possible that he plays? COACH CLAEYS: Yeah. He's been -- he's the same way as those other guys, so he's been injured for a while now. He's cleared to practice, and so we'll see how he handles practice. But he's been cleared to, but it's the same thing. You got to practice well, and you got to hold up during the week during practice, and so he is cleared. I don't know how much he'll play, though. Q. When you first got here, it seemed like depth of linebacker was a real issue in terms of how many guys you played, being creative. Is that emphasis you put as far as recruiting different types of linebackers? It seems you have a lot of -- COACH CLAEYS: Yeah. And it's probably not fair to the linebacker coaches, but wherever we have been, when you get here and start recruiting, it's always been D-line and secondary first, and I think that's where you win football games to start out with, you know? And so they had a lot of linebackers on scholarship when we got here, and so that's all part of the -- you know, when you're building things, is we try to take care of the D-line and the secondary first, and now, you know, start with that class a couple years ago that we signed a lot of linebackers, and since then we continue to sign three or four a year. The other thing is the special teams. It's a lot of defensive kids, and we're getting a little bit more help from some kids on offense this year and that, but when you're going to play all of those defensive kids on special teams, you got to sign a few more, too. Q. Tracy, you see Brandon Lingen playing even more this Saturday? COACH CLAEYS: Yeah, as he knocks the rust off, you know, and gets more comfortable, then, yeah. I mean, it is -- I said last week, some of these guys, they missed three or four ball games. It's hard to just jump in there and play a whole bunch all of a sudden, and so I will work him in more and more. Q. Tracy, when you're facing a team that struggled, like Rutgers, and your kids look at the schedule and see 58-0, 78-0, how do you kind of manage that as a staff to make sure that they keep their eye on the ball and don't take anything lightly? COACH CLAEYS: One was 14-7, the same as ours, and the Illinois game, they moved the ball awfully well. They just turned the ball over, so they moved the ball awfully well against him. But still, it all comes down to, is you worry about yourself, you know, and if you want to have an opportunity towards the end of the year, you got to play your best each and every Saturday, and, you know, have respect for your opponent, that you prepare for them, and if you don't, then something's going to happen. I mean, it happens every week somewhere, you know? I'm -- you know, Virginia Tech's and awfully good football team this last week. They slipped up against Syracuse, you know? And so that's the challenge, and that's what we get paid for, is to make sure they're ready to go on Saturday. Q. Tracy, I was going to ask you about Coney Durr. He, of course, has been injured and played just that one game. Is it a potential medical situation? COACH CLAEYS: No, no. So he'll -- he still messed around a little bit. He's not 100 percent, but we're going to start getting him worked back in, and, you know, that medical depends on the type of injury and a bunch of stuff like that. You know what I'm saying? And so I don't think we can get a sprained ankle through on that, you know? And so we'll start working him back in. Q. Tracy, is Williams going to become a more complete linebacker? COACH CLAEYS: Yeah, which you hope he would. You know, in high school, a lot of it is against the run, and not a lot of the pass, and by the time they get to their junior year, you would hope that, you know, that they would be towards the top of their game, and they do -- and he's worked extremely hard. I mean, he watches film, and he's fun to watch play, loves to play football, and we needed him to come through with the injuries, and he just seems to get better and better each game. Q. What did you think of that play where he did the push-ups, he was so mad at himself? COACH CLAEYS: Yeah. Yeah. I guess they all have their own ways to motivate themselves a little bit. Q. With Winfield, you see a lot of poor tackling, guys going up top, trying to go for a kill shot. He's always going low and wrapping up. Do you see that often from a true freshman that tackle like that? COACH CLAEYS: No. I always said, some tackling is natural. It really is. You usually get tackles. You watch film, they get tackled, but he's probably been doing tackling drills since the third grade, you know? I don't know, they may have their own set of tackling dummies, or whatever. It just -- and again, I say that in the right way. I mean, his dad is a tremendous person, and football is extremely important to that family, as you know, and so, you know, he's being critiqued on everything he's done since he started playing the game, and it's a neat deal, and the more and more comfortable he gets, I'd say the more responsibility, and he just keeps getting better and better also, and this helped us. We needed somebody to come through in the -- at safety, and he's done that. Q. Tracy, he didn't have a lot of stars associated with his name. What did you see in him as a high school player? COACH CLAEYS: He's awfully good on film. He showed up at camp. We knew he could run and, you know, as I say, you take good athletes, and -- you know? Everybody says, boy, you would like to have everybody in your secondary be 6'1" and 6'2", but not everybody can do that, you know? And no different than the D-line with Steve Richardson and stuff, so you take athletic football players, and because they're a couple inches short, they don't deserve how many stars or whatever, that's why, I said this before, you trust your own evaluations and your own eyes, and you sign kids that are good football players, and he definitely was. Q. How have your wide receivers graded out the past couple of games? COACH CLAEYS: They actually grade out pretty good, you know? Iowa did a good job of, you know, and of getting up and being physical with us, and then we didn't get the protection to throw the ball and get it where you're supposed to on time, but the kid played well. I think Brian Smith had three big blocks in a game that led to big runs, and so they're a good group. They continue to get better, and again we had five or six kids catch balls. On Saturday, it wasn't as many, but at the same time, the running game was going good. But very pleased with where they're at. Like I said, we need to get Rashad worked back in a little bit more. He's still knocking the rust off of his injury a little bit, and -- but Drew continues to be steady, and we're blocking, so I'm pleased with where they're at. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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