UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 13, 2004

Lloyd Carr

COACH CARR: In my experience in this business of coaching, you find most cases, if you win the turnover battle, if you win the third down battle and if you win time of possession, you're going to win. But unfortunately for us in this case, that wasn't true. And I think it's primarily true because too late in the game we turned the football over in the fourth quarter, and so here we are. But after reviewing the tape offensively, I think the most disappointing thing was that we were unable to take advantage of all of the opportunities that our defense presented us. We had too many three-and-outs and we were unable with probably one exception in there before the end of the game to sustain any drive of any consequence. Obviously, our ineffectiveness running the football put us in a lot of down-and-distance situations that led to doing a poor job on third down. We threw the football too many times. We don't want to throw the football 45 times a game. But when you rush for 53 yards and 30 carries, that's what happens. So offensively, certainly, we've got a lot of work to do. Defensively, I thought for three quarters we played really hard. I thought we played very effectively with the exception of two plays. And let me go back to offensively. I think the critical play, or the critical sequence in the game for us probably offensively was at the end of the first half. We got first down and goal at the seventh, and on first down we had a communication problem in the huddle and if that happened again, we would hope that we would call a time-out. Chad called a play and then at the line as he went to the line of scrimmage, he realized he had made the wrong call, tried to trade it, tried to change it. As a result, we had a linebacker unblocked, he ran through and hit us in the backfield for a three-yard loss, so now we have second and ten. On third and six, we have a certain number of plays on a wristband and then the quarterback gets the number that's on the wristband that corresponds to the play we want to run. We gave him the wrong -- he did not get the number of the wristband play that we wanted to run, so as a result, we didn't run the play we wanted to run in that situation. Our inability to take advantage of that sequence and get the ball to the end zone, you know, really I thought hurt us. But going back to the defense in the third quarter, we gave up a big play and long touchdown pass. They were -- it was a hard play-action and we didn't get enough pressure on the quarterback. We relaxed a little bit on the coverage, and I thought that play really sparked Notre Dame and it gave -- it changed the momentum of the game. But with that exception, and we gave up a big play in the second quarter, but our defense came up with a great goal. In that type of game, very often what our defense did on the goal line down there is the difference in the game. Unfortunately didn't work out that way but it was a magnificent goal line stand, and that's something that certainly we can build on. I thought in the fourth quarter, our defense, even though we put them in a very poor field position three times, all three times they came up with touchdowns. Certainly we are disappointed that we couldn't find a way to hold them to field goals. If we had been able to do that, then it's a different ballgame. The kicking game, I thought Garrett Rivas was outstanding. I thought he had a great day. Of course, that has something to do with the guys that helped him. He had great protection on a rush that we had not seen Notre Dame give. The snapping was excellent. The holding, some of the things that we had problems with last week obviously we corrected. I thought Adam Finley punted the ball extremely well. He averaged 46 yards. When you look at the stats, our stats there are going to be skewed because of the block, but Finley did a great job. Our coverage to teams, particularly the kickoff team was outstanding, and even our punt coverage what we figured was about nine yards of return and one of those punts that was we punted out of the end zone where you have everybody gathered in there, and we didn't get the ball particularly high. But I thought for the most part our coverage, with one exception where we allowed I think a 13-yard return, was good. The blocked punt was a freakish play, something I have not seen quite like it. What happened was that our -- they came with a rush from the right side of our line, our right tackle, Tyler Ecker, as he backed away from the line of scrimmage to get himself in a position to protect, and Scott McClintock, who was our N-man on the line there, the guy who blocked the punt came from the outside and Scott -- Tyler Ecker stepped on Scott's foot. As a result, when he went to protect he had no leverage. He couldn't move his inside foot and that's how the punt was blocked. So very unusual play and certainly a bad break for us. I thought, you know, we always talk about officiating and instant replay and all of the things that are going on but I think it was the best officiated Michigan/Notre Dame game since I've been in Michigan. This week San Diego State presents quite a challenge for us. I think an outstanding defense, a great secondary. I think they have as much quickness and athleticism as probably a lot of the teams we're going to play. They were eighth in the country a year ago. Offensively they give you a lot of different formations, a lot of different personnel groupings and they are going to throw the ball deep, often. And so we are going to see that kind of leadership we have. We have to find out if we can get ready to go into the Big Ten season. But certainly, we've got a challenge here this week.

COACH CARR: Well, I don't think there's any simple solutions. I think it's a combination of things. Obviously when David Underwood went out, in terms of your practice repetitions, your starting lineup, those guys are going to get the most repetitions, and when they are injured, it means that somebody did not get as many. In our case, a year ago Chris Perry took 90 percent of the snaps, so we don't have a lot of guys here that have any real experience. So everything is new. On any particular running play, you're trying to run the daylight. You start off in the direction, but you're trying to find, is the cut here, here or over there? And a lot of times that takes experience. It's not something that just happens, so we've got to block better, we have to knock people off the ball. I don't think there's any question about that. So, I think you know there's some things there that we just have to attack and work at it. That's the only thing I know to do and get as much repetition in practice and come out with a mind set that we are going to run the football.

COACH CARR: Well, I think there's something like game competition and that's how you really gain confidence. You know, a lot of these guys, they have all been here, they have been in the system. But doing it against the caliber of competition; Miami had a good defense, Notre Dame has a big, physical defensive front so. Part of it is that we have played good competition. But it's not going to get any easier. And timing and experience and doing it together, all of those things are important. Yeah, they are all important.

COACH CARR: Oh, I think absolutely. I think we have some competition in there and I think we've got to do a better job running the football and we've got to do a better job blocking. Regardless of -- I don't think of it in terms of how good we were a year ago. I think the truth is a year ago, Chris Perry was coming off a great junior year; and if you remember when he was a sophomore, he could not find the hole. So that's all part of it. It just doesn't happen overnight.

COACH CARR: Well, I think that's certainly at some point, where they went up 21-12, even then, but the confidence to run the football, you know that's a big part of it. We never felt like, we hit a couple of creases in there but you never felt like we could take the football and run four, five, six yards a crack, and of course, we didn't. But yeah we probably threw it -- the fact that we were behind certainly at the end of the game, we had to go to our two-minute offense, I think there was eight minutes to go, and of course then you're practically throwing every down. Regardless, we did not run the football enough, my judgment.

COACH CARR: Well, I think in the long term, in terms of his development in terms of his confidence, you could never imagine a guy opening his career, his first two games playing at Michigan stadium in front of 112,000 and then going to South Bend and playing down there in that kind of game. That's invaluable. I think there's a lot of -- when you look at the film, there's a lot of times where we're throwing the ball short and some of those are designed -- he made some great though throws and he made some great reads, absolutely outstanding reads and threw some great passes. But also, there are times where you have normally three reads on a pass. Sometimes you're going over here, but if the coverage rotates this way, now you have to go back and go to the weak side. And if that's covered now you've got to check the ball down to either the tight end or the back. So what happens to a young quarterback is a lot of times the first read is there, but you close it off too fast. Now you go to the second read which was not where you -- you should have thrown the ball over here. So now you get ahead of yourself and you make up your mind sometimes that, you know, you want to make the safe throw. Or as what happened in that game a couple of times, is that we didn't have good routes run. So the other factor in there that is critical in my judgment is because of our inability to run the football, we end up too many times on third and long, and it's against a good defense. I think he made some excellent throws on third down and two, third down and three where we picked up first downs. Now, if we would have had more situations where we were third and two, third and three, then we would have been able to sustain some drives. But we weren't. So that's where we are. I think he did a good job, I think he's got a lot to learn. He'll be the first to say that. Certainly he's had some opportunities to learn.

COACH CARR: You know, I think from the beginning we've all had confidence in him and he's done nothing to indicate that we shouldn't have confidence in him. I think his teammates have confidence in him. And yet, as we go forward here, I think it's important that we hopefully can get some opportunities for Clayton Richard because as we all know, that's a position where a lot of things can happen in a hurry and Clayton has done a great job of preparing himself. So, we'll see what happens there.

COACH CARR: All I can tell you is that we have Monday off here, or our kids have Monday off because of academics, so we have a short workout last evening, he did not have a throw and so I don't have anything other than that to add.

COACH CARR: Well, I think any time a lot of other people get an opportunity to play, they get a chance to improve, they get a chance to gain confidence. I thought Pierre Rembert did some good things there. I think he's an excellent pass protector. He's physical. I thought Jermaine did some good things. I thought Michael Hart did a very good job. So, I don't know exactly where David is and I won't know probably until tomorrow because of the trainer's report. And a lot of times, a guy may feel pretty good on Sunday fight but Monday he gets worse, so I don't know where we are there. So to answer your question, it's still, we've got a lot of guys trying to win that job.

COACH CARR: I'm not saying. I'm not talking about injuries.

COACH CARR: Yeah, very good try.

COACH CARR: No.

COACH CARR: Well, one of the challenges we have as a coaching staff and I'm not going to tell you everything we are going to do in practice, otherwise I might as well open it up. But that's something because a lot of people say don't ever open practice up because then we'd have to come. But they write about, well, he closes practices and he won't let us in. So it's a Catch 22. But to answer your question, one of the real difficulties you have, difficult decisions that you make as a coach is how you handle the repetitions and practice. Because we, again, the guys that are playing that position right now are all inexperienced, and so they all need practice reps. And yet we can't get them all the same number of practice reps so we are going to have to make some decisions. How do you make a decision? You make a decision based on what they did in the previous game. You make a decision based on where you are from an injury standpoint and you make a decision based on what you see down the road; what's the best thing for your football team.

COACH CARR: Well, I always have things, the way I see things and that's something that we will discuss as coaches. Certainly Fred Jackson, I mean, he's got a great history of, there's nobody in the country that has developed as many great running backs as Fred Jackson has. So, you know, you have to take a look at what you want to do offensively. I mean, we have got to get this running game going. And so how we do that, that's our job, and then hopefully we have somebody that's going to seize the job and take it. Do I have somebody in mind? Yeah. But I can't tell you that I'm going to be right, and I can't tell you that he's going to do that. I've got to see that and that's what practice is for.

COACH CARR: Well, he was a great back.

COACH CARR: Well, I think you're always competing. In any game situation every single play is graded. And you're looking at a guy's effort, you're looking at to see if he knows what to do. If he's making mistakes in assignment or if it's lack of effort; or if he just isn't being successful in executing his assignment, then you've got to give somebody else a chance and that's really, it's that simple. What you do is you assess it and then you -- sometimes you give somebody else a chance. Sometimes you move somebody else into another position.

COACH CARR: I didn't find any lack of effort in that game. I mean, and that's really you know something that you hope never happens. It was not -- there was no lack of effort. That was a hard-fought, hard-hitting football team game.

COACH CARR: Well, I don't think it does any good to find fault and to get into that. That's your job. I think it was a big play in the game. With as it a great throw? No. Was it a great throw? No, absolutely not. And yet, Braylon is very capable of making that catch. He made some great catches in the game, and that one didn't go our way and those are the things that happen.

COACH CARR: I think any time you win or lose a game, you can look to big plays on special teams. Had we won that football game, Garrett Rivas would be the special teams player of the week. I mean, that's what it would have been. We would say, boy, we have great coverage on the kickoff, all of those things. And it's no different when you lose. There's one play there, that's the only play that I would -- that I was very upset with. And as I looked at the film and saw what happened, so I don't think we have -- you know, going back to the first game, you know, I thought we kicked the ball better, I thought Adam Finley kicked the ball and punted the ball much better in this game. Obviously our place kicking was much better. Our kickoff coverage has been outstanding in both games. And when you look at punt coverage if you're under -- if you hold a team under ten yards, which we did under returns, if you averaged -- I think they punted the ball seven times. Now when you look at the stats, net punting, 26 yards, that's horrible. But you've got a play in there where you had a blocked punt. So statistics don't tell it all. We had one bad play. You know, when I watch our guys on special teams, we grade every play on special teams. I thought the effort was excellent. I thought the intensity, they played hard. I don't have a problem there.

COACH CARR: Well, I think Larry Harrison played his best game since he's been at Michigan. I thought with the exception of one play, Ernest Shazor, he was outstanding. He had a great ballgame. He made one mistake in there. But I think our front played okay. You know the play probably that bothered me most in terms of our front was the play that went for a touchdown. There's no way that you can allow a quarterback to stand back there that long because if you do something bad is going to happen. I think we relaxed back there a little bit, Markus, and you know, you can't afford to do that. But part of it, it's not just -- it's not just coverage. And I don't think we did a good job there of getting off our blocks and forcing the quarterback to throw the football.

COACH CARR: I think Gabe played well.

COACH CARR: Well, I don't want to evaluate them, you know, publically. I think what you're looking for is a guy that can do it all, a guy can catch a football, the guy that can protect, and certainly, the guy that can run the football. And to do all of those things in most cases, you need a guy that's 220 pounds because those linebackers are big, and a lot of times those defensive ends in the protection scheme, you may have to block those people. And so if you don't have size, you're going to get manhandled. So that's where David is an excellent pass defender, pass protector and he got hurt on a pass protection play. Because of the physical abilities of some of our backs, we're in a position where we will probably rotate guys in and out.

COACH CARR: Well, I think as he gains experience, the first read you think would be the easiest because it didn't -- because it's down the field. So if you're first read is an 18-yard square-in, as you get set and a five-step drop, there's a patience there that comes with experience and a lot of times, a quarterback will run, he comes off it. So I don't -- I'm not sure if that answers your question or not but it's -- and there's always things happening. All of that changes if they blitz. Now what is it's a blitz right here? Where do you go if it's a blitz? Where do you go, what do you do? Because normally in your protection, the quarterback is responsible for one of those guys; in other words, he's not blocked. Now if he comes, and putting all of that together, it's an incredible challenge for a kid that's never been in the college game. And it's a challenge for a fifth-year senior. So you're saying why sometimes a guy rushes, well, because he has not been there, and that's part of the development. I think anybody will tell you, developing into a quarterback is a process, it's a long, hard, arduous process. And that's just the way it is. I mean, there's no magic, there's no silver bullet out there. I mean, it's hard work and time. Now, what we have to try to do is give him things that he can do and allow him to develop in such a way that we can play to the strengths of our team. And right now, the strengths of our team is our defense. So, you know, that's what we've got to do. But he can make plays, and we've got some receivers but you know, the passing game is more than just the quarterback. It's protection, it's guys running routes and guys getting over.

COACH CARR: Well, I thought he did a great job. The one kickoff, one tackle he made on a kickoff, he ran over the blocker. And the tendency for a young player and the tendency for anybody on a kickoff coverage team is they slow down and once they slow down as they did down there, they are much easier to block. What you want to be able to do is have a guy that's going to run through the blocker, and now you penetrate the scheme and you force the ball carrier to make cuts right and left. And now the other people who are coming down with you make the tackle, so if you're at the point where he's trying to return the ball, if you can run over the blocker, I mean you can cause something bad to happen. Of course, that entire team did a great job there.

COACH CARR: Well, they are in the same conference and I think it's a conference that I mean to tell you, when you watch UNLV has had some great victories, Utah has done a great job there. And Colorado State, I think one of the best programs in the country. So that conference has really developed and down through the years. San Diego State has had many great football players, has a lot of power. If you look at some of the guys that are in the Hall of Fame from San Diego State, and you know they have a tradition there. As I watch them, they are well-coached, great speed and people who pursue the football. I mean, their defense is really impressive. Their linebackers, Morrison I think is a great player. And I like the other two, all three of their linebackers are returning starters, so this is a good football team.

COACH CARR: Well, I think more than anything else, he's been banged up some. So that has -- we're trying to get him healthy.

COACH CARR: We knew a year ago when Ryan was a freshman, one of the reasons we played him was because we liked his maturity. He's a smart guy. You know, it was obvious that he didn't have to wait. I can say this; it's unusual for a guy to step in and start as a sophomore free safety and play as well as he's played in the first two games. Now, he's got a lot to learn like any other young player, but I can say that what he has done has been impressive. He has done a great job. I think the sky is the limit for him because he's got good size, he's got good athleticism and he's smart.

COACH CARR: Well, my experience, and I think there are very few teams in this country that are not going to face some adversity. And I think the mark of a team, the mark of a program is how you bounce back. Do you continue each week to get better; do you continue to fight; do you compete to the best of your ability; do you play with great pride; those are the things that really mark a football team, and every team is going to leave it's own legacy. Some teams measure up and some don't. As a football coach, the thing I believe strongly is that we have great kids, we have got people that have good character and I think they will respond. Now, those things alone don't ensure anything, but they certainly give you an opportunity and a chance to be successful. This is a pivotal point early for us because we do have a very, very capable opponent and you know when you get beat, you know, there's a lot of ways to respond.

COACH CARR: Well, I think with regard to Max, he's -- you're into a situation now after two games where it's hard to find repetition. Now, I don't rule him out at all because I think he has a good upside. We just have to see how this things develops.

COACH CARR: Well, that's a challenge. You know, that's pretty well stated for a young man. You know I think that's all challenge. But certainly, if we don't run the football better -- now again, there's other recipes for success, and one of them is play great defense for four quarters. You don't let people score many points, you get a chance to win. You have a great kicking game and offense -- we knew when this season started, regardless of what the circumstances were, that we were going to have inexperience at quarterback, at tailback at center. So we are not going to pick up right where we left off a year ago with a fifth-year quarterback and a great back. Those are -- it takes time. So in the meantime, don't turn the football over. Don't turn it over. If you've got to give it to them, punt it to them.

COACH CARR: I think Tim Massaquoi is really a solid guy. He's a good person. He has a work ethic, a passion for the game. I think he's made dramatic improvements since the day two years ago, just two years ago over spring practice, he decided to move to tight end. And I think this ball he's playing his best football. He's caught the football extremely well in practice. He's smart, he's tough, and I think he's off to a very good start.

COACH CARR: I think he's done a great job with it. I mean, all of a sudden, you know it's only a matter of moving a few yards, but it's like -- I don't know what it's like. But it's a different world when you move from outside the ash mark to down inside the tackle box, because you're going to find some nasty people in there and you'd better want to fight and compete and block people and Tim has done a good job of that.

COACH CARR: Well, you go into every game as coaches and you talk about, okay, what happens if this happens, you know, where are we going here. You know, the thing I mentioned, with David out of there, now you've got some guys that one guy, maybe his strength may be here and he may not be as strong in this other part of the game. So you have to make determinations on how the game is going. If the game is going well, then Joey is going to play. If it's going another way, then Jimmy is going to play.