|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN MEDIA CONFERENCEOctober 27, 2008Rich RodriguezCOACH RODRIGUEZ: Mike Williams and Sam McGuffie had some slight concussions. They did not practice last night. It's a day-to-day evaluation. See how they respond tomorrow. Outside of that, Jonas Mouton had a slight hamstring, but he should be able to go tomorrow. Perry Dorrestein has a slight knee sprain, but he should be okay. So really Sam and Mike were really the only two coming out of that ballgame that had some injuries that kept them from practicing yesterday. He was playing in the first quarter and would have played more in some of our packages. I'm not sure exactly when he got dinged, but from that point on he wasn't able to play. I think he was on all special teams, too. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: I think he had some symptoms. I don't know what they all were from the slight concussion, but it was enough I think from a cognitive standpoint that the trainers didn't feel he was able to go back in. He seemed fine yesterday talking-wise and all that. Outside of that, I'm not sure what else it was. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Some of it is defensive packages, having different guys in there. Some of it, too, is still trying to get the production we want, both at safety and corner. The disappointing part is it's almost the same as some of our games have gone, the inconsistency. Sometimes we're playing pretty well and sometimes we're not. The frustrating part is after eight games we should have more consistency on the level of play, hopefully a high level, but we're not. That's the thing that's probably the most frustrating to our coaches. It's not just the secondary; it's really at every position. That's why we're sitting where we're at. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: You know, it's probably giving us more frustration, you know. We know we're capable of doing some things and all that, but we're just not able to sustain it. You can say youth and inexperience, but eight games in, we have to be able to get over the top. Some people say if you get a win or if you can put it all together, that will keep building on it. You know, there may be something to it, but we've got to be mentally to the point that we're able to handle adversity and able to handle success with the same mindset. We've got to be mentally tougher that regardless of what the situation is, that next play, we're going to go as hard and play as well as we can. As I told the team, I said we're playing pretty hard, but it ain't enough just to play hard, you've got to play hard and play well, you've got to play hard and execute. It's not mutually exclusive. You've got to be able to do both. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: I think there is, but I think there has been, at least from my standpoint. In particular the first year, I think you do quite a bit of evaluation all the time. For me, it's easy to evaluate the guys that are playing. Or some of the guys in backup roles aren't playing as much, I evaluate them every day. We watch practice film every day anyway. A large part of our practice film to me is not execution, it's evaluating our guys, are they getting better. You know, again, I'm going to stand up here and look at the silver lining. The only thing that you all see and that the fans see, unfortunately, is our play on Saturday, which has not been very good. But I see the progress made daily during the week. Now, I hope there's going to be a point where the progress during the week shows up on Saturday. Right now it's not to the extent that we want. But I see it daily. And not just on our freshmen, but even some of our upperclassmen, some of our sophomores and juniors. That's why we're going to remain positive, because there is some progress being made, but not nearly as fast as I would like. So we continue to evaluate that. Some of the needs we'll address in recruiting which are obvious. Others, simply our players are getting fundamentally better, particularly our young guys. Both practices help with that. Those 15 practices you get in the spring help a good bit, too. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Well, there obviously is one because I'd be playing ones if they weren't. The gap between maybe some of the true freshmen, talent-wise, there's a little bit there from a physical and maturity standpoint. The biggest gap there is mentally. Even though the system is new for everyone, an upperclassman that has been through spring practice, an upperclassman that has been through a few games is able to grasp concepts more than a true freshman would be. We want to play people, but you can't play people when there's a significant gap in mental and physical preparedness to them. We haven't been playing them as much as we'd like. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Justin is not even close to being ready at quarterback. In fact, his move to slot receiver is probably permanent. We can play around with him and all that, but he missed a little bit of time with injuries. He would throw one day, the next day he wouldn't be able to throw, all that. But having spent time at quarterback, you have to learn the offense. He's probably closer to being able to play at slot receiver than he ever was at quarterback. But for him to be ready at quarterback, he's not close. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: The biggest thing with Mike, he's probably beyond his years physically ready to play. I mean, mentally Mike is a pretty quick learner, too. But physically, you know, according to Coach (indiscernible), when he got here in the summer, did his summer workouts, he did a great job preparing. His high school coaches did a great job getting him ready. Physically when he came in in the summer, Mike said he was almost at the upperclassmen level conditioning-wise from the day he got here. That's been the biggest reason he's able to play. Then Mike is a pretty sharp guy. He's learned the scheme. I don't know if I've ever had a true freshman, defensive lineman, I guess as Division I ready as Mike has been. He's going to keep getting better. So we're excited about him. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: I think he's understanding -- obviously understanding our schemes better, but also getting a feel for the speed of the game. Everybody talks about the speed of the game, some of the technique things. He still makes mistake, Martavious does, but he's a true freshman. He's a very, very competitive guy. He's one that he loves playing football. You can probably see it out there. He loves to compete. He's probably thrust into a bigger role as a true freshman than normal, as some of those other guys have been. But he's handled it okay. This will help him in the future. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Well, you know, I'm going to state the obvious. I mean, Steve Threet is starting because he's the best quarterback we have right now. Nick Sheridan is the second best quarterback. If it wasn't that case, it wouldn't be in that pecking order. I'm telling you based on everything we see daily. So if we thought Justin Feagin could do something better than those guys and could compete and give us a lift, by all regards we'd have done it and would do it. But we haven't seen that yet. Pretty simple. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Well, you know, that is a good point. Some of those guys, we've been getting Justin ready to play at slot. In the game situation, Toney Clemons has played and played okay. We weren't going to throw Justin in just for a few plays to burn the redshirt year. That's still in our mindset. But, again, we've got to take that game by game. Obviously they play now, as a freshman they've used that year. If we're going to play them, we've got to play them extensively, not just a little bit. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, he tweaked the ankle a little bit. It was sore at the time, but he'll be fine. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: No. No matter who you play for, you play a game, you wouldn't give up. If you're going to play for Michigan, you're going to play hard all the time. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Well, I see progress in practice, but also in the weight room, from the reports I get academically. So it's not just in practice. You know, I still see frustration in practice. There's still things. A lot of people are impatient. Nobody's more impatient than I am. We want to do it all right right now. The execution part of playing on Saturdays and some of the fundamental things that we're still not doing well are very disappointing. You know, we've got to continue to coach it and get it right. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, no, I bring it up a little bit. I mean, it's obvious. You all aren't writing anything about it, are you (laughter)? It's obvious. We're struggling a little bit. It's been a long time since our guys, maybe the first time our guys, been a long time since I've went through something like this. But it's not the end of the world. One positive in recruiting is that guys can see that, Hey, maybe I can make an impact and help them get it turned around. It's a typical thing. How do you get it turned around? Well, turning around -- I can tell you this. Turning it around from a wins/loss standpoint, that's an easy mindset. Turning it around from a progress standpoint, that's already happening. So when people say, When are you going to get it turned around? We're already getting it turned around. It just ain't showing up on Saturdays. It will. It will eventually. Hopefully sooner than later. Is it going to take longer to get to where I want to be and everybody else is going to be? Yeah, maybe. Longer than maybe I anticipated. You know, we want a bunch of quality student-athletes, fast guys that play fast. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, I'm just saying the way -- when we go out there as coaches, fans, everybody else, seeing the type of team that everybody wants to have. I'm like every other coach. I'm not the only one. We want to go out there and watch some quality student-athletes, fast guys playing fast, playing hard, executing, not making mistakes. But, you know, young guys are going to do that. Players make mistakes. But there will be a time where we can maybe go out there and play poorly and still win. Hopefully there's times -- most of the times we go out there and play well and win. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah. Well, the obvious reason is you're playing with a bunch of guys that never played before. That's the first part. Then the second part, the guys that have played, you know, I think they've tried to do most of what we asked them. But they're like freshmen, too. New schemes in all three phases. We knew there were going to be growing pains on offense. We knew there would be some on defense. I didn't anticipate maybe as many on defense as we're having. But, you know, nonetheless, you're going to have that. And it's not easy, but it's nothing we're going to give up on. We're not going to give up on any game we play. That's obvious. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, a little bit. Making plays. Again, it goes -- I always talk about execution, but it is. Giving up the big plays was the most frustrating thing in the last game. I mean, a lot of it was on third down, third and 20, third and 8, they hit a big play. Those are things that you just, you know, can't let happen. They make plays; we didn't. It's as simple as that. Again, for us to have success as far as wins and loss, our defense has to give our offense good field position because we're not good enough offensively to drive a long way most of the time. Then we got to create something on special teams, which we haven't been able to do. We've been okay at times, but our kick return has not been very good. There's a lot of things. But, you know, I won't say most, but all the problems we have that don't allow us to win I think we know, we've identified, and we're fixing them as we speak. Q. Are the young guys you're playing with now good enough to win? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Sure. I think part of it is not just the freshmen that are playing now or the sophomores. Everybody in our program's got to continue to get better. I mean, our freshmen, if we're doing our job as coaches, they'll be better players as sophomores, better as juniors, real good as seniors. If you run your program the right way, which most programs do, there's a step they take each year. Even if they start as a true freshman, how good are they going to be when they're a senior? That development is something we take great pride in. You have two main jobs as a college assistant coach. One is to recruit quality student-athletes for your program and two is to develop them. Developing those players is a big umbrella. It's developing them athletically, academically, socially, spiritually if they like. That umbrella is a pretty big umbrella we take very, very seriously. Fortunately, here at a place like Michigan, they give us the resources and things we need to develop our guys. That's why when I talk about progress being made, you know, I think we're making progress in that development stage. Playing winning football is part of that. Not the only part, but part of it. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, yeah. A little bit more with the defense yesterday. Yeah, I usually do this a couple times a year. Like on Sundays, I'll meet with the whole offense. On another Sunday, I'll meet with the whole defense. I did that. I met with the whole offense a couple weeks ago. Met with the whole defense yesterday. Watched film with them. I don't know what all the calls or checks they made all the time, but I can watch the effort and intensity, getting off blocks, all that kind of stuff. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Well, we had some calls to try to draw them off-sides. A couple times it worked. Then we had a couple times where we messed up. We've usually been pretty good with procedure penalties. Obviously, the one play where we thought they were off-sides, on film it looked like they were. But, you know, nonetheless, we've have ways to change the cadence up. Normally you don't have to remind them. With redshirt freshmen at center, a young quarterback, you got to remind those guys to change it up. A lot of times the linemen, the tackles, will be the ones to tell. But they ain't that confident yet. We have to remind them of that. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Well, I think sometimes Steve sees it and sometimes he's just afraid to let it loose a little bit. We want him to go ahead and be confident, let it loose. I think sometimes as a quarterback, you know, you want to be perfect and you just aim and the ball doesn't come out with the velocity it can be. Steve's got to trust his read, trust his vision, trust his arm strength and the timing. The biggest thing is the timing of the play. He's got to trust the timing and let it loose. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Well, I knew they had some players coming back. I didn't know they had 10 seniors starting on offense and I think six on defense. So they've got a lot of veteran guys. I think they'll probably kind of regroup, the seniors kind of coming together. I think with a veteran group like that, particularly with 10 seniors on offense, they'll be able to fix their problems internally. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, Jonas, I think his athleticism, we needed that out there. That was a big thing. John Thompson, his intensity, he brought a little bit of intensity and leadership to the defense, which we thought was needed. Austin Panter probably would have been playing more, but he got hurt with a shoulder. He's been out really for about five weeks. Hopefully he'll be healthier this week. We're going to need more play from the outside backers. Marell Evans was dinged up a little bit, too. He's back now. Hopefully we can get a little bit more rotation and get guys back now. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, I think Mike will play more. We'd like to have got him in in the last game. But the way things were going, you know, we went with Minor and Grady a little bit. But Mike Shaw, again, he's another guy that was dinged up a little bit. But Mike's going to probably play more this weekend. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, not at all. There better not be. Won't allow it, no. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: He would have played in that last game a little bit more. He got knocked out. Mike's biggest thing, as a young guy, mentally, it's knowing what we're doing. A lot of times, the young guys back there, you make a mistake, it's a big problem. But Stevie has been okay. In the last game, he obviously didn't have his best game. Got beat on a few plays. A couple other games he's played pretty well. We need to have more guys ready in the secondary. Mike is one of them. But, again, he got knocked out. Nothing you can do about that. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Boubacar is really very competitive. Freshman playing out there. Going to make a few mistakes. We consider him one of the three starting corners. He's going to continue to play quite a bit. He's a very active player, very competitive. So in our mind, I don't know what's listed on your depth chart, we've got three starting corners with Bou, Trent and Donovan. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: We could. You know, in particular with the spread teams, we're playing some spread teams coming up, including Purdue. We've got to get more athletic on defense. I mean, I don't know if it's obvious to you all in your infinite wisdoms, but we've got to play, we've got to get fast guys playing faster. A lot of that is when you play a spread team or somebody spreads you out, you can see that more often than if somebody plays with two tight ends, a fullback and pounds you. Our issue is out in space that we've had in the past are still there, but we're working on (indiscernible). We're going to have to play a spread team in Purdue that will expose you if you're not prepared in that. We have to get more DBs ready to play. Hopefully they'll be healthy and ready to go. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Like I said, for any of the guys, trust me when I tell you this, if they would help us win, they'd be playing more. We're playing the best guys that give us the best chance to win. Why wouldn't we? I mean, doesn't make any sense. Why wouldn't we play the guys that would give us the best chance to win? We always will do that. Every coach will tell you that. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, not at all. Again, I didn't research the depth chart. Didn't look at who we lost, who was going to go in the NFL Draft, what the recruiting class was like, anything like that. After we took the job, I did. Addressed our last, I don't remember, there may have been 15, 16 commitments when I took the job. I think we signed 25. So the last, whatever, eight or nine commitments we got, guys like Martavious and all them were guys that we felt we needed right away, we didn't know whether they were going to have to play as freshmen. I knew a little bit more after spring practice, which I probably told you all, knew a little bit more about where our issues were and all that. But, you know, this is a process. We're building a program, but at the same time trying to build as good a team as we can, too. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: He's closer to it, yeah. He's really been there two weeks. It's not easy to move a guy and say, Okay, here you go. There's a lot of schemes. There's different plays you've got to defend, all that. But Carson is probably closer to playing this week because now he's had a full week, two and a half full weeks, of practicing at D end. I'm excited to see what he can do over there. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, I think so. I mean, he's got the athletic ability. Particularly when you play spread teams, we need more athleticism, rushing the passer. Carson is a big athlete. The little bit I've seen him practice, he's got a pretty good first step. Again, he's a tall, rangey [sic] guy. I'm kind of excited for him, thinking he can help us. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: I think the coaches have worked hard. I think the defensive coaches are just like the offensive coaches. With the exception of probably there were more assumptions made defensively that we're okay at this position or we'll get this kind of production at this position. You know, even though the scheme is similar, there's still some guys in different roles, playing significantly for the first time. We haven't been as productive at times as we would like. I think there's an assumption that this guy is a returning starter, so he'll be able to pick up the scheme, go just like that. That's not always the case. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Well, I don't think there was too much of that because we went through spring practice with him. I don't think there were a lot of surprises when August started. I think there were more surprises in spring ball. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, this was strictly from that one hit where the ball came out. I think it was a combination of guys hitting him. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Oh, that thing there, the snake oil deal, yeah. No, we had a good laugh about that at the Big-10 meetings. Joe and I had been friends, gone on that apparel trip, his wife and my wife, for five or six years. Always had a great time. We got a nice chuckle out of that at the Big-10 meetings. A lot of people made a big deal out of that. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: No. At the time it was like kind of stand in line, take a shot, you know. So, no, I don't know if I've got my snake oil sample with me or not. I can bring it down to West Lafayette this weekend and get Joe. We had a little chuckle about that. I believe there's probably people calling our commitments now, that I know of. Probably some Big-10 schools doing that. I mean, Sam may now. There's probably some Big-10 schools calling some of our commitments now. That's part of the deal. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Don't want to. Can you tell (laughter)? Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Recruiting's going very well. Very excited about recruiting. That's all we need to say. We're excited about recruiting. We're at a great place. We've got a great program that's got great tradition. We're going to continue to build it. There's a lot of young men that would love to go to the University of Michigan, play here, go to school here. We're excited about recruiting. We think we'll have a great class. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: A run play where he runs to the side (laughter)? He's running a zone play and he's making his reads. A lot of people think that wide sweep -- if you're watching, the runningback, he's patient before he goes. He just needs to make his reads. We don't just hand it off to him and say, Run to daylight. It's not as simple as that. He's got to run. He's got landmarks he's got to go to. He has to put his eyes on his reads. He has to hit the hole. We talk about patience to the hole, speed to the hole. That's part of the learning curve. Our guys are learning. Sometimes they get it right and sometimes they forget the reads. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, not really. Some of the times it's been tougher to block because of who they're blocking against or because our fundamentals slip a little bit. That's the disappointing part. Sometimes we block it just right. Sometimes the fundamentals slip a little bit. But there's a lot of technique involved in that. Sometimes they make plays, too. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Not nearly as hard as you would think. I think it really depends on their ability to learn, how much they progress physically. Most cases, the true freshmen make their most gains physically and mentally from their first August to their second August. I mean, I would think our guys will make progress every year, that's our job. But we'll see the most progress made in their first year. Those guys right now, the freshmen and the sophomores, the young guys, they're in a true off-season program lifting three, four days a week, all that. So they're making great progress from what we've seen. Then obviously the winter program and all that will take them another step. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: Well, every job's open every day. I mean, again, that's the way we run our program. You may start on Saturday night on Sunday. You might start Tuesday night on Wednesday. Everybody has to earn their job each and every day, from your first day to your last day here. The sense of entitlement, what have you, I don't know if it was here before, but our guys understand they have to earn their thing every day. Our guys know, if you're playing at a high level, you're the right kind of player that's very, very competitive, you're going to do that anyway. You want to prove yourself every time you go out there. That's part of the message we're telling our guys every day, whether it's a practice, game, no matter who you're playing, where you're playing, what the situation is. If you're a true competitor, you try to win every play. That's kind of the mindset we're trying to teach. Q. (No microphone.) COACH RODRIGUEZ: I didn't think he was in. Then I saw the replay and saw his foot hit the pylon. I didn't know if his foot hit the pylon in the air or on the ground. Watched it on film. Couldn't tell much either. Didn't matter. We still lost. Thank you. 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
|