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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 29, 2008

Steven Threet

Q. When you looked at the film, what did you see? Like maybe when you looked at the first half, what did you see?
STEVEN THREET: You know, there's obviously some plays in the first half that should have turned out differently. Some decisions we should have made better. But I think the thing I liked the most was that the offense kept on coming out, kept on grinding it out, just keep on struggling, trying to get those yards, get some first downs. And, finally, in the second half we were able to do that.

Q. Technique-wise, can you identify something?
STEVEN THREET: Yes, there's some things, just habits that take a while. When you're in practice and coach is standing right there, it's a little bit easier to have those things corrected. When you get in the game and you're thinking more about the plays and the defense as opposed to your mechanics, you go back to old habits. So it was just things that take time to get corrected.

Q. The people down on the field said you didn't show a whole lot of emotion in terms of being rattled or anything coming back onto the field. How did you manage that, put the first half behind you, given that the fans were getting a little restless?
STEVEN THREET: You just have to put it out of your head. Come back out in the second half, treat that first drive like it's the first drive of the game. You can't let anything that's happened before affect you because you can't change any of it. You can't change the fact that we were down 19-0 at the half. We had negative passing yards at halftime. It's something you can't change at the time, so you just go out and just keep trying to move forward.

Q. Talk about Terrance's big speech at halftime. Did you take any of that personally?
STEVEN THREET: No. Terrance is a senior. This is his last year. He obviously wants us to play well. And that's how I took it. You can't take any of that personally. You can't take anybody criticizing you personally.
They just want to see the positive play or things like that. He's disappointed in the way we had started out, which I think everybody was.

Q. Do you have any theories for why just four games for the most part the team plays better in the second half than the first half?
STEVEN THREET: I don't know if I would say we have any theories. To us, I don't really think we get very tired during the games, which is a point to our conditioning and practice as well as the summer. So I think for us it's about getting into a rhythm. We need to start doing that sooner.

Q. Is there any way you can work on getting it to that?
STEVEN THREET: Not that I know of. We just have to come out and start a little bit better, start faster in the first quarter instead of waiting for halftime.

Q. You guys are going up against teams that run the spread. I know obviously you and Juice Williams are two entirely different players. But do you try to watch him or watch him on film at all this week to maybe try to pick up anything on what he does in the spread?
STEVEN THREET: I might. I might look at their offense a little bit because I know they run similar offense to us. But most of the time it will be spent watching their defense.

Q. Have you gotten any grief on getting cut from behind at the 58-yard line?
STEVEN THREET: I was talking to some of the guys and they were -- I went for the two hands over the ball just to make sure I didn't fumble. So that was a positive, I think, as opposed to getting a couple extra yards.

Q. What's the mood in the locker room among the team now? What was the mood yesterday at practice?
STEVEN THREET: You know, I think we were pretty upbeat. We were pretty excited to keep on fighting like that and come back and get that win. But we realized that we get to appreciate that for one day and we've got to move on. Because we've got another great team coming in here on Saturday and we've got to get ready for Illinois.

Q. Did you watch any of that game?
STEVEN THREET: The Illinois/Penn State game, yeah, I watched it live while it was on TV. But I haven't broken it down yet. They're a good team. They played against Penn State, who is another great team. There's a lot of good teams in the conference. But it's a chance to see it against the spread defense.

Q. Is there one or two, for the offense to get off to a faster start against Illinois, what would that be?
STEVEN THREET: I think we've got to get some early completions and get the running game started. But obviously that's easier said than done in recent games.
But that's just something that will take time and hopefully we can get that going.

Q. You emphasize having positive first downs. That's something you struggled in the first half, turned around in the second half.
STEVEN THREET: I think that's huge, because you get in second and long and that puts you in a tough position, obviously, for third down. So positive, any positive yards on first down's obviously going to help. Three or four yards is great. Who wouldn't want a second and 6 every time? So that's obviously big.

Q. Any calling change at all between the first and second half?
STEVEN THREET: No, not that I really recall. It was just I really think it was just execution more than anything else.

Q. What has Kevin Koger been doing in practice to put him in a position to catch such a big passing game?
STEVEN THREET: He's been playing well in practice. Learning the system good and working hard and trying to get better in his techniques. He's been doing well.

Q. You and Greg Mathews seem to be connecting a lot better in the second half, maybe in the pass game. Do you think it's the result of him coming back from the injury or working on it in practice?
STEVEN THREET: I think working on it in practice as well as making decisions. We had open receivers there in the first half, just wasn't able to connect with them, even some in the second half, missed some passes. But that's part of the game. So just gotta go with it.

End of FastScripts

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