|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN MEDIA CONFERENCEAugust 25, 2008Rich RodriguezCOACH RODRIGUEZ: Okay. We're obviously excited to play a game. I think our players have a little bounce in their step, hopefully in practice today, because we are in game week. They have it put a lot of work in. I think we still have got a lot of work to do. I still have a lot of question marks coming into the game Saturday, for obvious reasons, particularly because we have so many guys playing for the first time. But the guys that put in a lot of work, I think everybody in the program is ready to go against another opponent. We know what the challenge is in front of us and hopefully we'll be ready. I'm will go excited about having our honorary captains in Bob Chapius, Ron Kramer and Dan Dierdorf. I think that's something that I'm really excited about and each home game will have a few honorary captains, some of our past grates that will be coming and the fans have a chance to see them. And also have them have an opportunity to be in the locker room with our team prior to the game. With that, with any questions. Q. Inaudible? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Let me look at it and see how safe this is. No, it should be either/or, right? You guys will ask that question -- you're pretty good. You've asked it a couple times in two sneaky ways. When it says "or", it means "or". Now I obviously hope that by the end of the week, we're going to have somebody on all of these ors go out with the first group. But it's still a wide-open competition. It will remain so at a lot of positions. Right now Nick and Steve are still battling and hopefully by -- I don't want to necessarily say hopefully somebody separates themselves. I just hope both of them are ready to play and win by the weekend, and they have made great steps. But you know, that's still -- like the tailback position and a couple receiver positions and the quarterback positions, this week will probably determine who starts on Saturday. Q. Inaudible? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, I'm glad we did it. Accustomed to doing it, and most teams will do that. Same kind of situation like we did last week. Just their substitution from the sidelines, guys knowing where to sit when they come off the field, the organization using the headphones, and with no coaches at all on the field, which is the first time for that to happen; I thought it was very, very beneficial for us and we'll do something again on a smaller scale this Thursday. Just because, you know, we particularly found out with our freshmen, not that they got all wide-eyed, but it was a little bit different when Coach wasn't standing behind them, or a coach telling them what to do. So that was good work for us, and having been in the stadium for the first time, because we didn't even have a spring game there, for our upper classmen, getting to the field and getting excited about being in the big house. Q. Inaudible? COACH RODRIGUEZ: I think one, obviously a transition to the spread scheme. The skill guys on offense all had a chance, and it's played out to be true. The fact that we want to play so many tailbacks and can play so many tailbacks in our system tends to lead to more guys having opportunities and that's where McGuffie and Shaw have had a chance to taken advantage of that. Martavious Odoms has had a had a terrific camp. We thought he had an opportunity but you didn't know how quickly, and he's going to make mistakes -- all of these guys are going to make mistakes. But he's shown enough play-making ability that we have to get in the game. And obviously the receiver position where we lost a couple of guys, that's where Darryl Stonum and even Roy Roundtree, I don't know if Roy is even listed but he's another true freshmen. So there's five or six on offense and even a few on defense. Mike Martin is going to play, Boubacar is going to play, J.B. Fitzgerald is going to play. So we have maybe eight, nine, ten true freshmen who will play for the first time in week en. That's why we are a little nervous. I'm also a little excited for them. Q. Inaudible? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, I've been really pleased with the tight end play for the most part but Kevin has shown us enough. He's a very, very quick learner, very intelligent guy and he's obviously got some ability. So we think Kevin will be right there in the mix. Mike Matthew is a veteran. Carson Butler has played a good bit. But Kevin has shown us quite a bit that he caught our eye and will have an opportunity to play. Q. Inaudible? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, actually I think talking to Scott Draper, our administrative assistant, assistant AD, I think that already was in the works before I got hired; that they were talking about doing something like that. A lot of schools have that type of thing when they go to the stadium on game day. And so I thought, when he talked to me about it, I thought it would be a great idea; and talked to some of the players and they are really excited about it. It's going to be new, and hopefully it will continue and grow and the word will get out so when they drop off the teams coming to the game, there will be a bunch of our fans lined up on either side getting the guys fired up; not that they need any more but think it's kind of fun. You work like crazy -- like I was telling the team, you work like crazy, seven or eight months of the year to play 12 games and hopefully play in a 13th. So those 12 games ought to be very, very exciting for them all the time. So that adds a little bit to it, so I am excited for that. Q. Inaudible? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Actually right outside here, we'll drop off two parking lots down. So it's about a 200-yard walk just down here and the band will lead the way when we get off the bus and the players will simply walk a couple hundred yards right here to our locker room. We tried that a little bit on last Thursday and the guys kind of got a smile on their face. So I think that's pretty neat, neat tradition. Q. Inaudible? COACH RODRIGUEZ: The biggest improvement with them as the obvious in learning the system. There's so many things, so many variables that you can do, in any offense, but this particular with the spread. There's so many decisions a quarterback has to make and so many things he has to see, not just on pass plays but on run plays as far as seeing the field. I think as they become more and more familiar with the offense, they are going to get more and more comfortable. But every player will tell you, the more comfortable they are, the faster they can play; the better they can use their abilities. And that's the thing for the coaches, in order to run, have effective, I think offense or defense, you've got to have enough in there to have answers to the problems you face, but yet you can't confuse your players. So that's the dynamic that they are dealing with now, basically in a sense that because of the new scheme, everybody is a freshmen, mentally. Now, the guys that have some experience or are used to picking up or understand different things about offense and defense learned it very quickly. Nick and Steve have both probably picked up more things than we could maybe even anticipated. Now again, we haven't done it in a game, but as far as what they have shown in practice and even their improvements from spring to now is their gasp of the offense, and they will continue to get better. Q. Inaudible? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, I would think that both of them have got to the point where we are confident that we can win with both of them. Q. Inaudible? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Darryl, one of his advantages is he was able to come here in the spring semester and go through spring practice and get in the weight program. So even though he is the same class with his he other true freshmen, he has a few more months ahead of him, and I think that's helped. He's a fast guy and he's got good skills. He's a pretty quick learner, too. We've having all of our receivers are learning both sides, what we call both the X and the Z receivers. They are two different positions, yet they are very, very similar. And normally by the second or third year they all have it. But we are having them all learn it now. Darryl is a pretty quick learner on that. Now, a lot of these guys will make mistakes and hopefully will keep them to a minimum. Darryl has these skills but he's also a very, very competitive guy, so he's going to play. Q. Inaudible? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, all of them. Really, all of them. Savoy, Matthews, all of them, Junior Hemingway is another guy that's probably not even listed because he's been banged up but as junior gets healthy he'll practice this week. He's another guy in there. Trying to see who else -- Toney Clemons may play outside some as well. I mentioned Roy Roundtree, the true freshmen, will have an opportunity probably to play as well. Q. Inaudible? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, a little bit. I can understand why, the fans wouldn't know what to expect, because in some respect, the coaches don't either. We would know a lot more because we've been around in practice; so I don't want to say we are going into this thing totally blind, because we are not. We've been practicing for several weeks now. Still, until you put them in a game situation, you don't know for sure how certain players are going to react, particularly the guys that have not played but the freshmen. There are some sophomores and even upper classmen that are getting their first opportunity to play a significant amount. So with that, there's going to be a few anxious moments until we get out there and perform but what we try and do is put pressure on them in practice and do some situations where we have at least knowing in our mind that this guy is ready to play or not. So many "ors," and still have another week of putting pressure on in practice and see how they respond. In the game we want to play a lot of people anyway. I think we are going to be in a situation where we are going to and see who responds well in the game. Q. Inaudible? COACH RODRIGUEZ: For me, not really, but I've never been that. I've never been that that nostalgic type of thing, but not that it won't be exciting and all that; I think it will be very exciting. I think it's probably different. Every place you go to and coach at, it's always a neat experience the first time do you that. But I think the very, very first time you run out as a head coach is probably the thing that you remember a lot. And having done it for a few years, not here, but you get excited for the games, but all of the hoopla and all that kind of stuff doesn't particularly make me feel one way or the other to be honest with you. I'm just happy to play and keep score and see how we compete. All of the other stuff is not a big deal to me. Q. Inaudible? COACH RODRIGUEZ: As far as superstitions or something like that, no, we have the same kind of routine practice-wise and travel to hotel and that kind of thing but nothing in particular that we're superstitious about or anything like that. Most of the time I come out and watch our team warm up about an hour before, sometimes an hour and ten minutes before and sometimes 50 minutes before. I don't have a particular -- look at the game plan, talk to the coaches. I'm usually most of the time, you think with coaches being nervous, and you obviously get a little bit -- if you're to the getting butterflies as a coach or player, you shouldn't be playing or coaching. But by and by, usually have a little more fun Fridays and Saturdays because the work is already done as far as your preparation. The preparation is when you've got more of I guess a sense of urgency. I have more of a sense of urgency now than I will come Friday or Saturday. Q. Inaudible? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, we do that. I think everybody takes their travel squad and puts them in a hotel and has a nice meal and has a nice meeting with them. We'll watch -- let them watch a movie, do something, relax Friday night. So it's very similar. I think just about every team does the same thing. Q. Inaudible? COACH RODRIGUEZ: We pick them as coaches, myself, every Thursday, and I had the seniors over at the house the other day for a little meal and told them that our philosophy on that is I want every senior, as long as he proves worthy and doesn't do anything wrong, to have an opportunity to be a game captain their senior year. Doesn't necessarily have to be the star player or whatever. If he is last year's athletic eligibility, if he is a true athletic senior, I think all of them deserve the opportunity to be game captain and then at the end of the year, the team will pick their permanent captains. I like doing that because every senior, they put all the work in throughout their career and can say, hey, I was a captain for Michigan, game can captain or whatever you. I think that's a pretty neat thing for them to talk about and put on their resumé and I've always believed in that and I think it's worked out pretty good. Q. Inaudible? COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, we didn't go live on the Beanie Bowl. That's what's hard for us, obviously on the punt returns we are going to use both Warren and Odoms. Warren will be the first guy. He's the more experienced guy. Any time you put a true freshmen on the return, it makes you a little nervous but also want to put your most explosive player. And Shaw may be back there on the kick returns, but we'll definitely have Brandon Harrison and Morgan Trent and those guys ready, as well. Q. Inaudible? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, I would say the most damaging part injury-wise in camp was to our O-Line, which was an area we couldn't afford. Of course Irbin went out with a knee and his backup, Marafuji (ph) went out with an ankle and all of a sudden we are scrambling with already inexperienced players. That was the most concern we had. But to have John helped -- I think John is still learning it, but he's certainly going to help there and David has been able to play both center and guard has helped us as well. So we are very, very thin there. Knew that coming in. We are obviously thin there on experience, which you're going to have four new starters there regardless. But those guys have worked pretty hard and I think they have got a little bit better each day and we've got to make sure we don't -- we are going to see a whole lot of pressure from Utah. They are going to bring a lot of blitzes. They are a very, very aggressive defense and give you a lot of different looks, and a lot of fronts, even fronts and bring in guys from off the edges and up the middle. So we have to do a lot of work this week in making sure they can take up all the blitzes and be ready for the freshmen. Q. Inaudible? COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, there's "ors" on all of us. I have four tailbacks right there. All of them, McGuffie, Shaw, Minor and Brown are all right there competing. We may start two at one time. On our offense we can play two tailbacks at the same time. But again, and I know it's important maybe who takes the first snap to a lot of people, but to me, it's more important for us to play the guys we feel we are ready to win with and for us, we'll play four equally. Q. Inaudible? COACH RODRIGUEZ: I don't ever go into it. It's more of a feel thing. If a guy is playing well and he's making plays and he's not making big mistakes and he's not getting tired, we'll keep feeding him the ball and doing that. But we don't ever go in saying this guy will get eight carries and this guy will get seven carries. We just kind of let it happen. Q. Inaudible? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Kevin will not play. He's suspended for this Saturday and he knows that. Q. Inaudible? COACH RODRIGUEZ: For now. Q. Inaudible? COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, no, not for team rules. Obviously the guys, like I said, Corey, Mark, Fuji (ph), Terrence Robinson was another injury. Terrence would have played as a true freshman this weekend. And he has the knee situation and he'll be out a few weeks. But he's another freshman that would have been playing. Q. Inaudible? COACH RODRIGUEZ: As long as we deem necessary. He has a few things he's got to do and he's been doing them daily. So with Kevin, I know he's learned his lesson and he's working hard to get back in good graces and he's done everything that we've asked for on the field and off the field so if he continues to do that, we'll lift his suspension at such a time. Q. Inaudible? COACH RODRIGUEZ: The experience they have is one thing, because they are going to a team coming in that's going to be very confident and very aggressive defensively. I've said it before, they may be the best team since Irvin's team went to the BCS. They have a very athletic quarterback who runs the spread that we've had problems with against in the past. They have explosive players and they have some of the fastest corners we'll play against. So they are pretty solid and they have a great punter/kicker, so there's really no weak spots and they are a veteran team so it not like we are opening it up against somebody that we can mess around and play awful and win. We have to play well. Q. Inaudible? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, he's an explosive guy. I think they have the other tailback, D'Otto, those guys can play for anybody. I mean, Mack has had a great year last year. He's a perfect I think spread back. He can catch the ball. He's got quick hips. Again, we've done some live, like everybody else, but it's different in the games, and so our defense is going to have been prepared. We have to really tackle. That's the key playing in the spread. Any coach will tell you, if you're playing a spread team, one of the biggest keys to defense, playing well, is tackling and spacing. Because you don't do a lot of tackling, live tackling in practice, the games are what you really have to judge it on. We've done some in practice obviously against each other, but the biggest concern is can we tackle in these guys in spaces. Q. Inaudible? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, looks like it that way. Again, don't put a whole lot into it until we tell our players. We have a few more practices and I can tell you more definitive about one o'clock on Saturday. We are just trying to get ready to win and get the get guys out there to start the game. Q. Inaudible? COACH RODRIGUEZ: I've got a gut feeling, yeah. Can you keep a secret? (Laughing). No, Wednesday? Maybe. Yeah, I might. I don't know, maybe. Maybe not. I've got a gut feeling. Yeah, but I think it's overrated. They are going to prepare. Neither one is on film, so it's not like you can watch that guy and say he does this and say he does that. They are both similar players anyway. I think if you had two totally different type of players and one was strictly a runner and one was strictly a thrower, and then you maybe would keep an advantage in not saying something. But they are very similar in what we do, and not neither one of them played, so I don't think it gives you one particular advantage one way or another. Q. Inaudible? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Later in the week. And to their credit, they know they just have to keep working every day. I think you say, well, do you want to tell them, get them nervous -- they are going to be nervous no matter when you tell them; whether it's Saturday before the game or Thursday, or Wednesday or today. I'll talk to them and have little conversations with them far as both of them getting ready and all that. But they are great young men. They will understand the situation and will go out there and compete and hopefully have some fun. Q. Inaudible? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Marcus Witherspoon. Yeah, he's still taking a class, so he's not on the team right now until he gets through the clearing house. Q. Inaudible? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, I don't think it's fair to probably compare players with other teams. But we have been -- I have been fortunate to have a lot of explosive players the last several years, and that certainly helps your dynamics of your offense that you've got guys that are great space or run away from people. Shaw and McGuffie are both explosive players. What you don't know until you get them in this environment, how quickly they can learn. They are making mistakes but they are learning very quickly; and then how competitive they will be as far as getting in there and pass blocking and mixing it up a little bit, and most of those guys from the first rep they have taken in practice, we were hoping that sometimes your upper classmen will get. I always tell them, I'd rather tell you whoa than not stick them. And those guys will come out in practice and going full speed and not miss a rep. So this weekend hopefully they have their legs back under them again and I'm excited for them. They are going to have great careers here, both of them. I think we will get a little more depth which we need at that position, so they will play a lot of football. Q. Inaudible? COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, not really. I understand the question. I think for us to win, I told the team that Michigan can't beat Michigan. We can't turn the ball over. We can't make a lot of mental mistakes even though we are going to make some, especially the young guys. We can't do the dumb things to beat ourselves. No, if you're more talented than everybody you play and all that, you can screw around and do those things and still win. But we are not there right now. We are not to the point where we can mess around and screw up and win the game. That's where we are at right now, so we are going to have to execute and keep the mistakes to a minimum, and whatever score that is, that is. Q. Inaudible? COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, you can't. I don't want to lose any more players this week getting ready to play. No, we'll bang Tuesday. Tuesday will be a physical practice and be in full pads and get after it pretty good. We won't tackle to the ground but guy also fall to the ground. Tuesday we'll get after it pretty good. The other days it will be full speed and the execution part we will go full speed but we won't be hitting. Q. Inaudible? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, I'm glad they want to be that but we have to see it. I think we do have a lot more experience obviously defensively and a lot of guys have played. I think they have worked pretty hard. They are in pretty good shape. I still think we have some things to work on defensively, as well as offensively. There's no question that we would expect and hope that we get a high level of play, in particular, against a team like you that that's talented and runs a scheme, a spread scheme, that they are going to give great effort -- we have been in great shape. Our guys have to be in great shape because when you're playing in an open space and you're running a whole lot, there's going to be a lot of guys that are going to be winded at times. Q. Inaudible? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, a little bit, some of the guys that we've had in the past, I've had in the spread offense. Probably more kind of like Shaun King. He's a little faster than Shaun I think. Shaun wouldn't tell you that. But he's very, very competitive. And he ran more I think before he dinged his shoulder up and then he didn't run as much for obvious reasons after he dinged his shoulder up, but he can run and they have all of that part of the zone read and all that part of their offense, so we have to be ready for that. Q. Inaudible? COACH RODRIGUEZ: The obvious key in that is knowing your assignment. You have to do your job first and not say, okay, I'm going to take this guy. Whatever your job is on that particular scheme, you have to do your job. And again you have to tackle well in the space against spread teams, whether it's quarterback running back or wide receiver, you have to get guys to the ball. If one guy does miss, you have to have two or three or the rest of the troops coming on. Q. Inaudible? COACH RODRIGUEZ: We are prepared for both. We have done both. We have done no huddle and we'll prepare for them to run it and run it fast. Now it's easy to prepare for a team that's not but I think that you have to prepare for a team that does no huddle fast. Our team has seen it a good bit in practice, but every team runs at a different pace, so we've got to be prepared for that. We will be, I hope. End of FastScripts |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|