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RUTGERS UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 29, 2018

Chris Ash

Piscataway, New Jersey

Indiana - 24

Rutgers - 17

CHRIS ASH: Appreciate you guys being here. I'll go ahead and just make some comments. First and foremost, hats off to Indiana, played a good game, made more plays in critical situations than we did and won the game. Absolutely love our football team, though I said that several times. The way they played in the second half is an indication of the type of chemistry and love for each other we have on the football team. This team's got a lot of fight in it. You guys have asked me before, has this team quit, this team hasn't quit, there's a lot of fight in this team, this team won't quit. We got better today. Unfortunately it wasn't good enough, but absolutely love our guys, I love our team and we'll continue to improve if we stay the course and practice the way that we did this week. We did a lot of things different here during the week to try to address some of the issues that we had in the last couple weeks and we got better. Didn't look like that in the first half. We dug ourselves a hole again and a lot of it had to do with third down. We weren't good on third down on either side of the ball in the first half. Pass protection against pressure offensively.

And then defensively we just had mental errors or poor pass drops that cost us on third down in the first half that did dig us a hole that we couldn't get out of. But, again, I think we got better and we need to continue to get better and we're not where we need to be by, obviously, by any means, but again this team is fighting and they're going to keep trying to get better and improve as we move forward. So with that I'll just go ahead and open it up for questions.

Q. On the last play, the offsides, were you okay with that? Did you think the man in motion came forward?
CHRIS ASH: No, no, we've got to have more discipline in that situation. It's a critical situation in a game, exactly what we hoped would happen in that moment, we scored, conversations of onside or kicking it deep, we decided to kick it deep, having trust and faith that we could get a stop. We had a timeout and we were right there and it didn't work. We have just got to coach it better.

Q. You said before that Rutgers has to stop beating Rutgers. You had six penalties. Do you feel like that was the case today?
CHRIS ASH: We beat ourselves again today. The penalties, that's not a high number, but when they occur is the biggest issue. Two of them in the first half were on third downs defensively. A third one there at the end of the game on fourth down came defensively. They're just critical situations that seemed to come up and bite us. But we beat ourselves again, unfortunately. That's tough to say, but that's reality.

Q. Were you pleased with the way that Art played, just his decisions he was making and also the fact that he took some big hits and he really kind of stood in there all day?
CHRIS ASH: Yeah, I think today you saw some glimpses of what Art could become and what we have been seeing in practice. Art's a warrior. He took some shots. He's big, strong kid, and he got up and he kept playing. He made some really good throws in there today, obviously wish he would have had the one interception back, but he made some really critical plays in that game today and he keeps getting better. Keeps getting better. We just got to keep working with him and he's got to keep working and grinding and I think we have seen a lot of improvement from game one to this game today.

Q. Seemed like it's been a long time since you had as many receivers involved in the offense as well. What kind of boost was that and what changed this week?
CHRIS ASH: It's what we have been really trying to get to. We have to get more guys involved and we have to get the ball in more guys' hands and we were able to do that today. I think we threw the ball more than we have today and we were able to protect well against four-man rush. That was a positive. But we were not able to protect well against the pressure today that we saw, which was disappointing. But I think what happened is, again, that was the plan to try to throw a little bit more, we did a good job up front protecting when they rushed four, Art made good decisions. We ran good routes. All 11 were working together when we had success of the.

Q. In the second half improvements, what did you say to the guys in the locker room and were there a lot of changes that you made?
CHRIS ASH: No. Halftime adjustments, guys, to me are a lot of times overrated. Most of the adjustments you make in a game are throughout the first half because you see what they're doing and you make adjustments on the sidelines and at halftime a lot of it is just reconfirming the adjustments that you made as you move forward. You make some but it's not drastic. So we didn't make any changes, the halftime conversation was we beat ourselves in the first half. We did a lot of good things, but it was the third down conversation and that's what the halftime was. We've got to protect better on third down when they bring pressure and on defense we've got to get off the field. We can't beat ourselves with penalties or poor pass drops or not running a blitz the right way. Supposed to go contain and we go inside and the quarterback gets outside and can extend plays. We just can't do those things. That was the conversation at halftime.

Q. I know you're not big on moral victories, but is this something you can build on, just being able to play competitively and within three minutes of the game still have a chance?
CHRIS ASH: Yeah, it's a good question. Because again, we're all here to try to win. But we improved a lot and the team showed me a lot in the second half. Very, very disappointed that we didn't get a victory. If we would have played cleaner we could have. But very, very pleased about the fight, the effort and the attitude of our football team in that second half. That's what we need. If we want to continue to get better and give ourselves a chance to win games, we've got to go out and play like that from the start to finish. We've got to prepare the way we did and we got to play that way. The effort and attitude was great in the first half, it was just we kept beating ourselves.

Second half we cleaned it up and still some mistakes. But yeah, I take a lot out of this game, good and bad, even though it's a loss, there's a lot to learn, a lot to build off of and we'll do just that.

Q. Was there anything they did in the first half, it seemed liked there was a lot of times where they would get a receiver in space with a lot of green maybe with soft coverage on your part?
CHRIS ASH: No, there were, when you can't rush the passer and you give the quarterback time, and you're playing zone coverage, receivers are going to eventually get open. We have got to do a better job of putting pressure on the quarterback defensively, whether it's rushing four or bringing pressure. That's really what it was. We're not sitting here being able to rotate eight, nine defensive linemen and our guys get tired and we've got to do a better job of finding a way to get pressure on the quarterback so there's not time for guys to sit in zone coverages and get open.

Q. What did you think of Justin's kick?
CHRIS ASH: Awesome. Really proud of the kid. I think that, I've been asked before, just about the confidence in the kicker, and putting him in that situation and had 100 percent confidence that he would go out and hit that thing. He's been doing it in practice, he's got a lot of strength, got a strong leg, he has been doing that in practice probably for the last three or four weeks and really, really happy for him. He's kicking off exceptionally well, in my opinion, and to be able to go out there and hit a field goal from that distance and still give us an opportunity -- because if he misses the game's over -- and to do it in that situation from that distance was awesome to see.

Q. Have you seen him kick it farther than that?
CHRIS ASH: In practice. He's been able to get probably 55, 56 yards in practice. So he could not have done that in training camp but that's just a testament to his work ethic and commitment to trying to get better. And a lot of it is just the mental part of it, he's really believing in himself right now.

Q. Mike Tverdov made a couple plays, had a big third down stop at the beginning of the second half, almost stopped that touchdown from Indiana in the first half. What did you think of his performance?
CHRIS ASH: I said before I absolutely love Mike Tverdov. He's a young player who has tremendous upside, he plays the game so hard. A lot of people don't realize but Mike's playing out of position because that's what we need him to do right now. What we call our Jack position we got three guys that we thought would have been there not there, so we have moved Mike to learn a new position and he's done it in a couple weeks and it was his first start and he made a lot of plays today. Made some mistakes, but that's part of the process, the growing and learning process, but he has got a bright future and I can't say enough good things about the kid.

Q. Can you talk about the checkoff play to Washington.
CHRIS ASH: Yeah, we kind of been living on bunch formations and the toss play and it's something that has been there, we practiced it a lot, and again it just felt like the right time to call it and John called it and almost -- didn't execute it cleanly, but it was a big play, we really thought it would go for a touchdown and almost did. But again that's another freshman in a critical situation where he made a pass and it may sound simple, but that's a critical situation where we needed a play and a freshman made it.

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