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RUTGERS UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 7, 2016

Chris Ash

Piscataway, New Jersey

CHRIS ASH: Monday's come by very fast, don't they? Welcome, appreciate you guys coming. It's amazing that it's the first week of, what is this, November already. And the weather's still nice. We were able to go out and practice last night. And not sure how many more practices we'll get outside here in November, but it's really nice to be able to continue to get that late here in the season.

I'll start giving a quick recap of Indiana, things that we saw from watching the film. You know, I'll start with the defense, and you guys will think I'm crazy, but stats don't tell a true story of the defensive performance in that game, in my opinion. Obviously, Indiana is an offense that can run the football. They had run the football exceptionally well the week before. I thought it was one of our best defensive efforts in terms of stopping the run. 44 attempts that they had, we let out two runs that were significant plays. The first one was when they were back in their wildcat formation, and it's a play that we repped a lot. Didn't execute the call the way we needed to when it got out the gate.

The rest of the game, that little set really didn't have much production, and that's the way we planned it going into the game, but it just didn't work out on that one particular play, and then got another play late in the game.

But I thought overall our front seven with the D-line, and especially the linebackers, I thought the linebackers played their best game of the year against Indiana. So really pleased with that. I think they played faster, they were more aggressive. They were healthier, was one of the biggest contributors to that success. But was really pleased with what I saw, not only out of our D-line, but our linebackers, specifically.

When you look at the pass yards, you get concerned. Obviously, when you have that many yards allowed, you try to figure out what happened. When you play the run the way we needed to play the run, you're going to put your DBs in one-on-one coverage, and a lot of those yards came in the first half when they were able to efficiently throw and catch fade balls or we got pass interference calls.

Basically what a lot of teams do, when you're in tight one-on-one coverage, they throw it up and they hope that their guy can go get it or they can draw a pass interference call. Unfortunately that happened most of the time.

Going into the game, when you watch teams that do that, those are called 50-50 balls. You hope to win 50% of them. If you win 50% of them, you're going to be okay. We didn't win 50% of them, that's where it got bad, especially in the first half.

I would not have anticipated that happening. I thought Isaiah Wharton had been playing pretty consistently for us and had been playing well. Unfortunately he was on the losing end of a lot of those one-on-one battles. He's our guy. He'll continue to work and get better. We will work with him on finishing some of those plays better. But I'll give Indiana credit. They threw and caught those balls exceptionally well, and they did it consistently there throughout the game.

Encouraging thing for me when I look at that defensive effort of the guys, the 11 guys that were out there on the field playing most of the time, nine of those 11 will be back for next year. We'll lose J. P-O and Darius Hamilton, Anthony Cioffi is another one that plays a lot, but Kiy Hester played a lot for Anthony in that game. When you look at those 11 players out there, 9 of those 11 will be coming back. And when I see the effort that most of those guys were able to put forth and the production they had on Saturday, that's very encouraging as we move forward.

If we can build on what we did, we just played one game like that, with our front seven, if we don't build on it, it doesn't mean much. But if we can build on it, it will look a lot better in the future.

The other thing about the defense that I was excited about, we had three takeaways. We have not had a game with takeaways like that. Got three takeaways, and I know everyone thinks the block kicks are special teams, but those are defensive clips. Those are defensive reps. It's the defense that goes out and blocked the extra point. It was the defense that went out and blocked the field goal. When you get three takeaways like we did, can block two kicks on defense, that's saying a lot about the guys effort. Really pleased with that.

Offensively, first half I thought we moved the ball well, not great, but I thought we moved it well. Good enough to give us an opportunity to go into halftime like we did with the lead. Third quarter we really struggled. We had seven straight three-and-outs there in the second half and didn't use much time off the clock, and kept going back out on the field on defense. Their D-line was stuffing the run on the inside, and we were struggling to pick up their movement and pressures to protect the quarterback the way we needed to to be able to move the ball.

But when you look at the seven straight three-and-outs in the second half, and 1 of 16 on third down, that tells the story of the game offensively. We've got to be better at that. It's just a little discouraging based on what we had done at Minnesota to come back and not to build on that and to continue to improve on that performance at Minnesota. We've got to get back to that. It's no different like I talked about on defense. If we don't follow up and build on what we did the last couple weeks defensively, I think we've gotten better; if we take a step back, it will be discouraging. And I kind of felt like we did that in the Indiana game coming out of the Minnesota game.

Special teams-wise, still have to be cleaner. We missed a field goal that would have been critical, kicked the ball out of bounds on a punt block, and you can't do those things. We have to get better in that area.

We invested an insane amount of meeting time, walkthrough time, and practice time. Unfortunately, we're having a breakdown in a few units each game. It's a different unit, a different player. That's got to get cleaned up.

That's a recap of the Indiana game.

Just talking about Michigan State, tremendous respect for this program. I know they've got a 2-7 record. But when you watch film, that's not what you see. There's a lot of good players on that field on offense and defense. There are a lot of seniors on that offense that have been around a long time. Played a lot of games. Been around a lot of success. For whatever reason, it just hasn't gone the way they probably wanted it to. But there are still a lot of good players.

Defensively, the same thing. I have been able to coach against Michigan State several different times and I've had some really tough, hard-fought games all the way back to when I was at Wisconsin. Played them in the first Big Ten championship game, and it was one of the best games I've been a part of, going back and forth.

But I have a tremendous amount of respect for the program. Coach Dantonio and his staff do an outstanding job. Regardless of what the record is, we have to have a great week of preparation. We have to go play an outstanding game to put ourselves in position to have a chance to win it when we go up there to East Lansing.

So with that being said, I'll open it up for questions.

Q. You mentioned special teams. How much is starting field position on both sides of the ball hurting you guys, whether it be punt, kickoffs for the other team?
CHRIS ASH: Battle of field position, that's what special teams is. When you look at our starting field position on offense and defense, it's not where it needs to be. It's not where you want it to be. Obviously the better starting field position on both sides of the ball, offensively, it's fewer yards to go get points, and defensively, it's more yards for them to be able to get to score points, and it's not where we need to be.

When you look even further into those stats, Saturday, I thought it was one of our best kickoff cover performances, but yet still the starting field position was not great. They were fielding the kicks out on the 12-yard line, 16-yard line, getting the 14-yard return, now you're out by the 30-yard line. That's not where you want to start. The kick return average was not great, but the starting field position was.

And that's what it's all about. It's not about the kickoff return average or punt return average, it's where you start the ball, where you put it down and give yourself a chance to lineup and play football, and we're not good enough in that area.

Q. Does Michigan State remind you of yourself and your program in some ways because they've been so close with Illinois, Northwestern, Indiana? They've been right there with some of these games and they just haven't been able to find a way to win?
CHRIS ASH: No, I think it's completely different. We're in year one, and they're in year whatever. They're a team that just came off a national playoff; we're not. So it is completely different from that standpoint.

If you want to look at just this year and some of the close games, yeah, you could probably say there are similarities. But there are a lot of differences, too.

Q. You mentioned Cioffi and Hester. What is your plan this week as far as who you're going to start and give more reps to?
CHRIS ASH: We'll see how the week goes. Cioffi's been our starting strong safety. Cioffi's had some injury issues that have come up that's limited him in practice. Hurt him a little bit in this last game. That's why Kiy played more, and Kiy came back and was healthy. So we'll really have a three-man rotation. That's what we like to go through at safety with Saquon, with Anthony and with Kiy. They can play both positions. So it's not just Kiy, Hester, and Anthony Cioffi deal. It's a three-man rotation that regardless of what happens in a game, they can each play those two positions.

Q. Tyler O'Connor, obviously he's been splitting it a little bit. But do you expect him to start, and what do you remember about him from last year? Because I guess he played against Ohio State?
CHRIS ASH: Yeah, I don't know who's going to start for him. I know he got dinged up last week. But he's a good player. We played against him last year at Ohio State, and he did a nice job. He's done a nice job in the reps that he's taken.

But I don't know who will start. The focus for this game is not about whose playing for Michigan State, what they're doing. It's all about ourself. We've got to continue to get better ourselves, and that's where our focus is at.

Like I mentioned Saturday after the game, our focus isn't just about getting wins. Our focus is about trying to go out and play a complete game in all three phases, and if we do that, the scoreboard will take care of itself. And that's really what our team is focused on and our coaching staff is focused on.

Q. You just mentioned Saquon Hampton. You were raving about him in the preseason; unfortunately, he suffered an injury early in the season. He played very well last game. Do you finally think he's coming into his own in this part of the season?
CHRIS ASH: I think Saquon has tremendous potential. Unfortunately he hasn't been able to reach it this year because of the injury in the first game against Washington and the amount of time that he's missed. He's starting to get back into a groove. But he's nowhere near the player that I think he will be down the road. Will it be next year or two years? I don't know. Good thing is he's got a lot of years left.

But I think he's got potential to be an outstanding football player. I was hoping that it would get to -- he'd get closer to his potential this year through the course of the year. It just hasn't happened because of the injury. I love him. He's one of my favorite guys. He's one of our favorite players, and I think he's going to be a great player for us here over the next few years.

Q. J. P-O was talking after the game about how these guys, this team, won't give up, and obviously they haven't given up, they've obviously been right to the end in the last two games. How encouraging in your first year in this program is it to see that despite what's going on, the effort has still been there?
CHRIS ASH: It's everything. It's everything, to be honest with you. Because, again, you talk about the stages of building a team, the first thing you want to be able to do is get your guys to compete consistently from week to week and for four quarters each week.

I can sit here and say, honestly, I see that happening. Our players have competed every game. Our players have competed for four quarters in the game. Even though the scores may not necessarily reflect that, that's what's happened, if you really watch the game. And it says a lot about the players. It doesn't say anything about me; it says something about the players and their commitment and love for each other. And that's what it's all about. Now we've gotten our football team to compete, now we need our whole program to execute better on Saturday.

Q. I think we all thought that the running backs would be the strength of this team at the start of this season. Between the four of them, they only have one rushing touchdown. I know Martin was banged up. What do you expect from them over the last couple games? Will Martin be back, more involved? What more production can you get out of these guys?
CHRIS ASH: You guys all know this. Running backs aren't any good unless they have people that block for them. You know, you can look at the best running backs in the game of football, they're really good, why? Because they have outstanding offensive lines that block for them. Our running backs, I think, are good running backs. I think we have a good offensive line. We have struggled in certain games to put it together, especially when we get down in the red zone. We need to do a better job of that. There are some games we've run the ball exceptionally well, and the running backs get all the credit.

But it's because we're able to create blocks and holes and do some things up front. That's not only with our O-line, that's our tight ends and wide receivers as well. This last Saturday, that didn't happen the way we wanted it to. Justin Goodwin had really good production against Minnesota. I thought he had a solid game this last game, but not a great one. Is that Justin's fault? Is that the O-line's fault? I think it's a combination of all of the above.

And we need to continue to get that better. Not really better, but we need it consistent is where we need to get it. We've had games where we've run the ball exceptionally well, but we've struggled to do it consistently. That's kind of the theme of the team, to be honest with you. That's not just the run game, that's the pass game, that's defense, that's special teams. There are times that we do things with our execution and our effort, and all the pieces of the puzzle are fitting together and it looks pretty good. But it hasn't been consistent enough. That's the challenge that we all have is to get that to happen.

Q. On election day?
CHRIS ASH: That what it is?

Q. Tomorrow is election day?
CHRIS ASH: Who you voting for?

Q. Well, I should ask you. It would probably be a better headline.
CHRIS ASH: Should I just laugh back at you too? Got to have a little fun in here, right?

Q. Do you encourage your players, do you put it under the radar? And then obviously with out-of-state players, do you let them know ahead of time that maybe you might want to get involved?
CHRIS ASH: I'll be honest with you, we don't talk about politics a lot here in the program in this team room. I do stress that each player has their freedom of speech and their opinions, but it's not something we talk a lot about within team rooms and our meeting rooms and things like that. We're focused on our football team and going out and win games and be the best that we can be.

But whatever they choose to do from a political standpoint, that's their own right, and obviously they have their own opinion, and it's not something that I feel like we should spend a lot deal of time dealing with.

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