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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN MEDIA CONFERENCEOctober 13, 2008Rich RodriguezCOACH RODRIGUEZ: Okay, ready to go. Q. (Indiscernible) COACH RODRIGUEZ: He didn't practice yesterday. We'll have to wait and see if he does anything tomorrow or Wednesday. We think he'll be available Saturday. Just really a bruise, so you don't know how long those things will linger. But hopefully we can get him a few reps tomorrow and Wednesday and ready to go Saturday. Q. (Indiscernible) COACH RODRIGUEZ: If he can go a hundred percent, he will. But, again, it may be till later in the week till we'll be able to determine that. Q. (Indiscernible) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Brandon is kind of in the same situation. We took x-rays. It's just bruised ribs. He'll obviously have to wear some rib protectors. I think Brandon feels he can go, but we'll have to wait and see. He's got to be able to protect himself. We'll have to wait and see how that goes during the week. He's kind of in the same boat as Steve as far as being questionable. Q. Some of the other guys? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Graham should be back. Odoms should be able to play. He'll be able to play this weekend. Austin Panter is probably still out. Donovan should be better. He's better now, so he should be able to play. Hemingway is still out. Carlos Brown is still out. Q. (Indiscernible) COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, not really, not athletically. We're just trying to make sure he takes care of his academic responsibilities, gets a lot of rest, because he's still in the middle of that sickness. It's probably a couple more weeks for Junior. Q. (Indiscernible) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Again, it was a little bit what we thought. We had some critical mistakes. Obviously we didn't play well. It was a tough weekend. We all know that. We weren't sharp fundamentally at times, too. It starts with the coaches. We got to do a good job of coaching, not forgetting the fundamentals. Not that we have. We always stress it. At times in that game our fundamentals weren't particularly sharp. We got to work that a little bit yesterday. We'll continue to do that the rest of this week. We got to get better. It's frustrating and disappointing. But we had a good meeting last night. The players are usually more resilient than the coaches. Again, our old rule, you've got to forget and move on after 24 hours. We truly have to do that. We don't want this one to cost us twice, as coaches will say. With the challenge we have in front of us, you know, that's the exciting part. The best thing for us is that we have another game in less than a week. It's a tremendous opportunity and a tremendous challenge. Our guys know how much better we'll have to play to have a chance. So that in a sense will hopefully get our focus on the next one. Q. (Indiscernible) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Well, I thought we played that way at times in the Illinois game. Our intensity wasn't terrific in the last game. I think that's obvious. But our effort was pretty good. I don't know if we still played with the physicalness that we need to. It may be that we're thinking too much at times. As coaches, we got to do a good job so they're not thinking as much. It's that balance I said all year of having enough to do scheme-wise that you have answers to what they're doing against you, but not confusing your players. We have a pretty good smart group, pretty conscientious. A lot are going through this the first time. You're halfway through the season. You're not as inexperienced as you were at the beginning of the season. At the same time you're still going through some growing pains and some issues where guys are thinking a lot of times and they're not just letting it loose. We got to do a good job as coaches to find that balance. Q. (Indiscernible) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, that's the issue. You want to simplify it so you can play faster. Yet when you do that, it's easy for somebody to lose things scheme-wise. You got to have different answers. They got nine guys in a box, you can't just run it. They cover you out in spread formations, no-back formations, you got to have different answers. You can't have just one answer or teams can scheme pretty good. We're trying to put them in a position where they can make plays, not let them think so much. Q. (Indiscernible) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Well, yeah. We've gone through all that kind of stuff. The difference is when you add tight ends -- again, you know, you got to get those guys all to play at the highest level. Not that our tight ends can't. We've been playing, at least when they've been healthy, our most productive and explosive players. We think we've got the right guys on the field based on how they've practiced, based on how they've performed in games. I think we've identified who those guys are and are keeping them on the field. Brandon Minor was coming on, and he's out with the ribs. You know, the other junior, Hemingway, some of those other guys, Greg has been limited. We think we know our guys that can make plays. Martavious is one of them. He didn't play in the last game. We can do some adapting, but they've got to be out there healthy and we can adjust. When you add a whole lot of different formations, you can add to the confusion as well. We're running into a little bit of a conflict with that, but we're figuring that out. Q. (Indiscernible) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Have we? At times and at times not. That's the frustrating part about it. I've been through this I guess in similar respects other times. But the glaring major mistakes that have been the most frustrating are things to us that we can eliminate and need to eliminate. Q. The fumbles? COACH RODRIGUEZ: The turnovers are the key things, then some things maybe you didn't see. There may be a missed assignment here. There's not a lot of missed assignments, but a missed assignment, one block here. You see where we're close at times. Again, our guys, they see that. You know, we got to coach them up so they don't make these mistakes. Q. (Indiscernible) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, well, did we have any last game? Yeah, in the end zone. So we got better in that, but it cost us in some other games. Then the interceptions cost us. The turnovers cost us a little bit in this game. It doesn't really come down to one game. Like I said, you want to be good enough to overcome that. We should have been in this past game, we should have been good enough to overcome the few turnovers we had, but we just weren't. Q. (Indiscernible) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Well, I've said this before, if you have one facet or area of your offense that you can kind of lean on, you feature them or you focus on them while the other ones catch up. If you had a bunch of linemen back that had been playing for years, you can put the emphasis on them. If you have wide receivers or runningbacks that have played a lot, you can put the emphasis on there. If your quarterback is a three- or four-year starter, you can put a lot on his package. You're not going to do with that with this offense. There's not a position that you can say, Those guys have had a hundred some career starts, we'll put it all on them. I don't know what the stats were. Again, inexperience. As the season goes along, you should be getting more experience and you shouldn't have some of those same issues. But I don't know, whoever researches it, find another team that has had as much inexperience offensively as we did this year. Q. (Indiscernible) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, you have to. And it starts with me and the coaches. We got to stay the course. It's easy to waiver. I know there's a lot of people disappointed, a lot of fans disappointed. We've got great fans. We've got a great university. We've got great tradition. They're used to winning a lot of games. That's a good thing. That's not a bad thing. That's a good thing. But we have to stay the course. We talked about that last night. I believe in what we're doing. I believe in where we're doing it at. I also believe in our players. We just got to play better and create some more opportunities for ourselves. Our guys know where we're at. We've got to be able to create some turnovers on defense, some things on special teams to help our offense out. There's nobody pointing any fingers, nobody straining off from what I see. They've responded. Like I said, the players are more resilient than the coaches. After 24 hours, we're ready to move on. You know, you can't dismiss what's going on. You've got to learn from it. But you can't dwell on it. I've been coaching long enough to understand you got to learn from it, then move on. That's what we're doing. Q. How is it different being at Michigan, which has so much national attention? COACH RODRIGUEZ: I don't think it needs to be. I mean, I don't think you treat it any different. I mean, I think, you know, back at West Virginia, we built it to one loss was a major deal. Two losses, the sky was falling kind of thing. We built it to that. When I was at Clemson, that's pretty high profile. We start off losing I think our game there to Marshall, I think it was 13-10, a few field goals, whatever. I don't think we're mutually exclusive to having negative things when you don't play well and have some losses. I think how you respond to it is the most important thing. Our players have been through some similar situations last year I'm sure at the beginning of the year. Even though a lot of them weren't playing, they were on the team, and they responded pretty well. That's what we hope can happen. At the same time we've got to stay the course. As I told our team, there's a lot of positive things that are happening that maybe everybody's not seeing. All they see is the games on Saturday. Unfortunately, that hasn't been real positive at times. The other things, as far as building a program, the steps you have to have to have a top 10 program for the future is done, it's just that it's not showing on the field right now. Q. (Indiscernible) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, you know, we got attacked in space a little bit. We didn't tackle really well in the last ballgame. We had some guys that were close to there. We just didn't get them on the ground. They converted some third downs and shorts, got some plays on us. We just got to maybe what we call trigger our reaction a little bit quicker, get there a little bit faster in some of that quick game, short stuff, and they'll get them down on the ground a little faster. Q. (Indiscernible) COACH RODRIGUEZ: I think they're ranked third now. They're playing at a high level, a lot of confidence, very, very talented. The staff has been together a long time. Obviously, everybody knows about Coach Paterno and his staff, the stability they've had. I think they felt probably coming into the year, you know, if things would go right, they would have a special season, and they're having it. There's no weaknesses on any of the three phases. We'll have to play really good football. Q. (Indiscernible) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, I thought we thought he played pretty well for the first time out there. He's got a great future. Football's important to him. He's physical. He did a lot of good things. There was always some plays we'd want to have back. But we're getting more and more confidence in him. Again, for a true freshman, there's a lot of things that he'll learn. There's going to be some moments where we're a little bit nervous when he's out there. But he's a pretty good player. Q. (Indiscernible) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Well, I think, again, you have to move on from your last game in 24 hours. Obviously we're doing that. But I think more than anything, I hope for our players, and for our coaches, Saturday can't come fast enough. We need a week to get ready, get guys healthy, all that. I'm sure our players feel like that's the good part, let's play another game as quick as we can so you can forget about the last one. The difficulty is somebody we're playing is really good. That's who's next on our schedule. But we do have another game. It would be worse if we had a loss like we had in an open week or a loss like we had and it's the last game of the year. So at least we have another game to try to prove that we can play better. Q. (Indiscernible) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Well, still a ability of using Justin Feagin. Wish we would have got him in the game Saturday. But he is one. Again, it's only halfway through. So we still have a possibility of playing some of those true freshmen. Q. (Indiscernible) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Obviously with the Threet situation, we've got a lot of tough, physical ballgames coming up. You have to have quarterbacks ready. He'll take some reps at quarterback, too. He's way behind in that regard, too. It's more for him in the slot. Q. (Indiscernible) COACH RODRIGUEZ: We talked about it. We probably should have. But Toney Clemons was playing okay. The way the game was going, we just never got him in there. Q. (Indiscernible) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Brandon, yeah, he's been a little bit banged up. The last couple games, I don't think he's been completely a hundred percent. But he's a competitor. He loves playing. He's had some pretty good plays. In the last game or two he hasn't played as well as he'd like to. At the same time, Brandon, I think as he gets healthier, his level of play will continue to increase. Q. (Indiscernible) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Probably in the slot. I think that's where he's -- I think he feels comfortable there. He's got some good skills. I think having played quarterback a little bit has helped him understand the offense. Again, he's a true freshman. Q. (Indiscernible) COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, not really. We didn't really look at the (indiscernible) option. We're recruiting some high school quarterbacks. I mean, we were here in January, so you had a month. But normally you're recruiting a year ahead of time. I think most people realize when you first take over, most of the class that you're going to sign are guys that are already previously committed. And I think we had maybe 15 or 16. So we had about nine or ten spots to get. That's what we did. So normally that's the toughest year. Now we've had a year to recruit quarterbacks. Usually you're a year ahead of time. So we're ahead of the game. That's why I feel, at least from a recruiting standpoint, things have gone very well. We're excited about that part of it. No, I couldn't have foreseen this situation. To be honest with you, I didn't look into it before I took the job. It's okay, we'll see what we have and go with it. Q. (Indiscernible) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Both. You know, sometimes he rolls out. We want him to roll out and boom the deep. Sometimes we want him to roll out and get that roller, so he has a hard time picking it up. The biggest thing about that, and either one is location, getting it to the sidelines, close to the sidelines where you don't have a lot of room to run. We can kind of pin the returner in. That's probably the most crucial week we've had probably this year, will be this week with their returners being so good at kicking punt returns. Ball placement is going to be critical. Zoltan has done a great job of that. One of the shining moments, a few things we had the last couple weeks, have been our punt team, the placement of the ball, the coverage. I hope that we continue that. Q. (Indiscernible) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Not really. I mean, he was doing fine yesterday. We didn't talk about it. We just went back to work. KC, again, he's pretty conscientious. I'm sure he knows what he did wrong. He was back at it again last night. Q. (Indiscernible) COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, no. Somebody asked the question last week. I mean, you got to do what you know. There's enough variation in a spread, really any offense, there's enough variation if you have an offense at this level that you can, you know, tweak it around and things. But inevitably, that's a guy that's an important position in any offense, whether he's throwing the ball, whether he's running the ball, whether he's managing the offense. You don't emphasize it, inevitably it's got to be that guy's got to be able to do some things for you. Our guys can. It's just been frustrating, the progress at times. We're going to keep working with them and I think they'll continue to progress. Q. (Indiscernible) COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, it wasn't. I guess a little more upset, a little more angry at times. I don't need to divulge all my talks with the team because I think that's private. It wasn't the same tone, but I don't think it needs to be. There wasn't a guy in that room that wasn't upset over the situation in the game, so... Q. (Indiscernible) COACH RODRIGUEZ: No. They were upset after Illinois, too. I would hope they would be upset after every loss. I mean, as upset as the fans would be, all that, ain't nobody going to be more upset than the guys in the program. I can promise you that because they're the ones putting in all the work. That's a lot of work to put in not only during practice, but over the last seven, eight months. When you invest that much of your time and effort into an athletic endeavor or game, it better hurt. If it doesn't, they don't belong in the program. As bad as it hurts the fans, it doesn't hurt any more than it hurts the players and coaches. You can't dwell on it. It's time to move on. We'll talk about that today. After today, I don't want y'all asking me about it because I'm not going to talk about it. It doesn't do any good. Q. (Indiscernible) COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, no, 'cause we moved on. As I said last week, Sunday, we moved on. Had a great practice on Tuesday. You know, I thought we had a good week. Didn't play like it. Q. (Indiscernible) COACH RODRIGUEZ: No. I mean, I think it's fair for everybody to question it. They're going to question everything I do. I think they've questioned everything I've done since I've been here, the last eight, nine months. There's nothing wrong with that. It's fair game. You can question everything you want. The only thing I wish I would have had in the last seven, eight months, is I wish I had more time to spend with the players. You got NCAA rules. We can't go over the time limits, all that. I wish I had more time to spend with the players over the last seven, eight, nine months. You know, I had some of them over to my house in the summer, spent a little bit of time with them during the spring, then obviously during camp. My upperclassmen, I haven't been to their homes. I haven't had a chance to see where they grew up and lived or meet some of their coaches. Met a lot of their parents, but some of them I haven't met. The freshmen, I know a little bit more because the ones we recruited, been to their school, their homes, a lot of that. That's the only regret, that I wish I had been able to spend some time with the players. My system coaches and the staff, too. You spend time with them, you know exactly what makes them tick. We found out a lot about them since that time, since I took the job. As the years go along, you know more and more about each of your players. But that's the only thing. It's a good group of guys to be around. I've enjoyed coaching them. We're all in a great place. So that's a positive thing. Outside of that, I mean, scheme-wise, weight programs, practices, all that kind of stuff, we're going to stay the course. We'll stay the course and we'll get it right. I mean, everybody says you have to be patient, so... We're being patient, but at the same time we want results, too. Q. (Indiscernible) COACH RODRIGUEZ: I think that's difficult, very difficult, because by nature I know most coaches aren't very patient. I'm not. So that's a hard thing. Q. (Indiscernible) COACH RODRIGUEZ: He's really good. I remember him coming out of high school. We recruited him a little bit, prep school. He's done a great job. The thing that impresses me, he's made all kind of throws that are very, very accurate. I'm talking about deep throws, throws under pressure, timing throws. He's managed the offense. He's in complete command of what he's doing out there. He's done a great job with the screen. I've been very impressed with him. I think he's been one of the biggest keys to their start, how well he's played. Q. (Indiscernible) COACH RODRIGUEZ: They do some similar things. Watching them, again, that's just one day of watching film, but we recognize some of the same plays, some of the same run plays, some of the pass plays there's doing. Again, every spread is a little bit different. So it's not exactly what we do or what we're trying to do. But there are some concepts we recognize. Q. (Indiscernible) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Handle it better? Yeah, I think experience is helpful in a lot of regards. I think having my wife remind me of that today, you've been through this before, which I have. At the time you say, well, I never want to go through this again. That was seven, eight years ago (laughter). But, no, I think that has helped. I think I can draw from some experience right there. Then also from colleagues, seeing some other people go through it, every year it seems like. I've told you all before that there's going to be some rough moments this year, hopefully not too many. We're in the middle of it. But, you know, as I said, we're full speed ahead, keep progressing. Hopefully whenever the time goes when it's all right and dandy, we don't have those bad days like we had Saturday, we can all sit here and have more fun at this press conference. Q. (Indiscernible) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, I would think so. There were some moments in games, That didn't just happen, did it? Some of those moments I would have hoped they wouldn't have happened, but they did. Got to move on. Q. (Indiscernible) COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, I don't think so. Without ever really researching what it's been in the past, I think a lot of it's situations where you combine a new system with new players. I think that's been the biggest issue. This is the most new players, I'm talking about offensively anyway, the most new players I've ever had, first-time starters I've ever had. This is the most as far as being in this kind of role that I've ever been involved or seen. Thank you. End of FastScripts |
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