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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 24, 2008

Rich Rodriguez

COACH RODRIGUEZ: Go ahead.

Q. What did you do yesterday?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: We had a dinner and then we had a team meeting. First thing we did was talk to the seniors about making sure they finished their responsibilities of graduating. Some are graduating in December, some in May. Then remind them about our annual football bust, which is December 4th, which is an exciting thing. Talked about a few other things. Thanked them for helping laying the foundation, even though it's been a tough season, so on, then excused the seniors.
After the seniors left, we went further along the lines of talking to the team about their responsibilities, particularly academically, some disappointments with the season, some of the progress that was being made that hadn't shown up yet, then some of the things we got to work on.
Going to have to be a new group of leaders. Wanted to make sure that everybody that was in the program was totally in. There's levels of buying in. We wanted to make sure they were a hundred percent bought in totally and talked about that a little bit, and then excused them to go after that. Then we won't meet again until next Sunday 7:00, after the break.

Q. When you talked last week about there's going to be some attrition, how does that work? Do you sit with each guy individually?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, with some individually. I'll meet with several players, several of the position coaches. A lot of the coaches are on the road recruiting. I don't know how much we'll have. I think naturally there's going to be some, but I don't think it's exclusive to us. It's probably a lot of programs in America this guys may feel more -- get a chance to play more or think the system's better for them on another team or decide to make a move.
I mean, we'll have some, maybe not a whole lot. But more than anything, I just want to make sure that everybody that's with us is a hundred percent committed to Michigan first. You know, I told the team, it's okay to have individual goals, whether it's to get so many sacks or catch so many passes or to be All-American. There's nothing wrong with that, as long as they don't become more important than the team goals, and that you play for Michigan first and foremost.
And I think most of our guys are. But I won't be completely satisfied till it's a hundred percent that are. And that's our goal.

Q. Was there anybody not at the meeting that was on the roster at the end of the year?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: A couple guys were excused, had some emergencies. But everybody that I think would be there was there. There's an underclassman that was not there that may be graduating. So before I say his name, I want to talk to him first. He wasn't at the meeting. But he could graduate this year, so he may be finished. He's not listed as part of the 15 seniors.

Q. Is Artis Chambers still with the team?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, Artis left last week.

Q. Anybody else?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: No. Well, you mentioned Kates, and Babb. It's amusing when you say like Kates played a minor role. He did at practice. He didn't play in the games. But, yeah, those three are no longer on the team.

Q. Getting back to what you were saying earlier about a hundred percent buying in, did you see or hear what Minor said on Saturday? How did you react to that?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: No. Should I have? Is there more drama coming? Okay.

Q. He said that not everybody bought in. He also said some guys didn't believe in themselves and some guys weren't trying hard.
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, I don't know about the trying hard part. I think, again, you could judge that by watching it. The one thing I do believe, I don't think anybody laid down on us, you know, as far as they're making their effort, all that. Now, there's different levels of how hard you play. And I think part of that is they may be thinking they're playing as hard as they can, and what us coaches think is playing hard is a different level. That's part of coaching, to try to get them all to that certain passionate level of playing hard.
But as far as buying in, I think the majority of them have. But there is a handful that still maybe question things themselves, maybe their confidence, their role, how they can contribute. And I think that's typical everywhere in a transition year. But it wasn't as much as maybe I thought. But, again, until it's a hundred percent, then you don't know what you have.
And Brandon is a guy that has. Brandon is a guy that played with great passion and completely bought in, and I think that's why he had some of the success that he had.
But we will have everybody -- as we move forward, will be guys that play for Michigan first and foremost and believe in this program and this university, and if not, then they won't be playing for Michigan. It's as simple as that.

Q. Did you see anything during the course of the season that would in any way change your recruiting between now and signing day in terms of emphasis on a position?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, but that's a good question. Probably what we thought coming into the season, what we lacked as far as what we needed in recruiting, we identified before the season started. Some of the games probably highlighted that. We got to be more athletic. We got to recruit faster. We obviously got to get more explosive in our skill positions offensively, all of them.
You know, we've got to have quality competition each position, and that's obvious. I mean, you got to have two or three guys at each position. So if a guy gets hurt or a guy's not playing as well, then somebody else will take that spot. And when you create that type of competition, you get better every day, not just every game. And we're not at that point.
Now, we will be. This next class will create that. The class after that will create that, to where you get an injury or two, you get a misfortune or two, it's not really going to affect your execution offensively or defensively.

Q. What's it like for you looking at the calendar the rest of '08, knowing you have more time to figure out what to do without a Bowl game?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, well, it's disappointing. I mean, you have a little bit more time I guess to get on the road recruiting. I'm used to being in Bowls. But it's also going to be a long eight months. I mean, I've been fortunate to be head coach 16 years now, and got eight championships in those. So half the time we were winning championships. Now we're not even going to a Bowl game. So we're frustrated and disappointed, but we're as determined as ever I think as coaches, at least I am, to make sure this doesn't happen. But it's not going to be solved. I said that several times. We got a lot of work to do. But I feel good about the team. Our chemistry I think will be good. I think each day we grow together, the players understand what's expected of them, the coaches understand that. And I'm in the middle. Again, it's been two days since the season has been over, I'm in the middle of evaluating everything we're doing. I told them. I said that after the game. Whatever I got to do to make sure that we are having success on Saturdays as well as Sundays and Friday, we're going to do.

Q. At what point do you have to make a decision on the staff?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: I'm going to evaluate everything. Again, it's way too early for me to jump to anything. But, you know, I got to sit back, look at everything. I have a vision on what we want -- how we want to go forward scheme-wise, chemistry-wise, program-wise. You know, player-wise we can address in recruiting. As John mentioned, we're doing that. We're excited how that's going.
But, you know, I think our players can sense it, too. Even though we didn't play well the last game, didn't play well all year consistently, I think the players can see that when the plan is completely in place with all the right pieces, we're going to be pretty special.

Q. Some of the defensive players said after the game there was confusion about some of the personnel changes that had to go on, that kind of thing.
COACH RODRIGUEZ: There was a little bit. The staff, again, some of the coaches left right after the game to go recruiting. But I will talk to them about it. Again, I can watch and see some of it on film. You know, we had a couple of personnel things. But for the most part all year, you know, when we subbed, and we did different personnel packages, we did a pretty good job of that.
Some of the big plays happened in that game which hurt us, you know. We had big plays hurt us all year, but some of the big plays were just against the base defense. We were lined up in the right spot and all that, we just didn't fit right or didn't make the play.
But, again, I'm going to evaluate the whole body of work and everything we're doing and then see where we need to go.

Q. Is it what you envisioned for the staff and scheme? Would you consider hiring a special teams coach next year?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, no. I'll make that clear. You know, I think you can hire Knute Rockne, he's not going to make sure the guy catches the ball on the kickoff return or punt. To me, that's got nothing to do with it. Coaching-wise we've got to obviously coach it so they don't drop it and work on it. But our guys worked extremely hard at it. Sometimes it's a concentration issue, sometimes it's a little bit of technique.
But I've never had that many drops. We had more drops and fumbles on kick returns and punt returns than I think in my entire coaching career combined in one season. And we tried everybody. But we'll try even more.
But, no, special teams coach is not the answer to that I don't think.

Q. 20 freshmen or redshirt freshmen played this year. Looking at next year, especially on the defensive side, you lose a lot. The guys that didn't, seems on the defense, how many of those redshirt freshmen do you anticipate fighting for jobs next year?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: You know, I think there's going to be really in the next year or two probably -- I don't know if it's going to be as many as 20, but there are going to be a lot more. Now, three, four years from now there won't be as many freshmen come in. There will be a handful every year. But if you recruit the right way and develop in the right way, you're playing fourth- and fifth-year and third-year guys more than you are playing first- and second-year guys. This year we played a lot of first-year guys. Next year a lot of first-year guys will probably play as well.
But there was a handful of freshmen that were redshirted this year defensively that probably obviously will have an opportunity to contribute and they're going to have to because of the seniors we graduated. Then offensively, all the guys are back. But we're going to get to the point I think -- one of our goals this year, which we did not do as well as I would like, is play more people, especially defensively. We wanted to play more people. The guys simply weren't ready to get in there. We will get to the point where we can play more than 11, 12, 13 guys defensively. I like to play 20 or 21 defensively. I think the next couple years we'll be able to do that.

Q. What recruits are you expecting to enroll and practice in the spring?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Can't say. Can't say the names.

Q. Do you know how many, roughly?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: We're expecting anywhere possibly from seven to eight guys to enroll early, which has kind of become a common practice in college football. Guys are graduating early, taking summer classes, whatever, then enrolling in a school early so they can go through spring practice, which in a sense gives them an extra semester or leg up on everybody else.
I've never had that many, but it's pretty exciting. Those guys will have an opportunity obviously to learn the system, get in the weight program. I think that's one reason why Darryl Stonum was ahead of some of the freshmen. He was enrolled early last spring. It helped him tremendously. For these seven or eight guys coming in in January, the same will be for them.

Q. How about in particular for a quarterback?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: I think at every position it's going to help. But the positions you have to learn the most at are probably O-line and quarterback, and quarterback in particular. So, you know, that would be a big plus for them just 'cause not only the 15 practices, but the fact that they can throw on their own with the wide-outs and the runningbacks in the spring semester will be critical.

Q. The true freshmen linemen that were here that didn't play, who impressed you?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Patrick Omameh was traveling. We almost played him as a true freshman this year. Probably was close to ready physically. Then Ricky Barnum was another true freshman that traveled them. Then Rocko Khoury traveled some. Those three true freshmen right there almost were ready to play them this year. They all got redshirted. Thankfully we did that. That freshman O-line class we signed last year I think is going problem pretty good. Kurt Wermers, Dann O'Neill in that class, along with Elliott Mealer. We've got six guys in that class, I think all of them got redshirted, but all of them I think are going to be pretty good players.

Q. What's the situation with numbers? Because you lose players off the roster, does that change the recruiting numbers you can take?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, you can -- we only had I think -- I think 15 seniors, 13 on scholarship. We put some of the walkons on scholarship. Those were one-year deals for a lot of them. Then you have some attrition as we mentioned. I don't know the exact number that we'll sign. It will be somewhere between 20 and probably 23, something like that.

Q. You've been asked this question the last several weeks. But now that the season's over, where are you with your quarterbacks, with the guys that you have now, how they played, and where do you see them when spring starts?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, you got Nick, who is -- Nick is a competitor. He's a tough guy. He battled. I thought he did some good things. Some other things as a first-year player he made some mistakes. Same with Steve Threet. All those guys are playing for the first time. They really tried hard.
Now, they're going to have to compete. But they're going to have to compete with everybody else that comes in. That's the same as every position. Justin Feagin played a little bit of quarterback, but he'll be moved back to slot receiver, which we think is his position in our system. And then we'll see what happens with a couple guys we signed.
It's a wide-open competition. It's going to be exciting, but yet at the same time I think when we create quality competition, our team gets better.

Q. Is Steve or Nick ahead of the other?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: No. It's wide open. It's wide open at every position. I'm going to tell you that the same every year. It's wide open at every position. A guy that's a returning starter that's very good, if he lets a young guy come beat him out, well, maybe that's his fault, or that young guy's really talented.
I can't stress that enough, there's no guarantees that this guy, you automatically are the starter, you come back. That's not how I like doing things. You got to earn it every day. The way you play, you may have a start job on Monday but not on Tuesday. That's the kind of atmosphere that we want. I think the guys understand that.
I mean, would it be hard for somebody, Brandon Graham comes back, plays hard, doing all he's supposed to do, would it be hard for somebody to beat him out? Yeah. But Brandon is so competitive, he's probably not going to let that happen.
It's going to be wide open and it should be.

Q. Have you talked to him about his future?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: The other coaches have.

Q. Do you have an idea?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, I think he's planning on coming back, and he should.

Q. You said you're evaluating everything. Historically how aggressive have you been with your coaching staff if you see issues there? Have you changed staffs?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, I have. I'm not overly aggressive. Sometimes coaches move on their own. I've been very fortunate, a lot of coaches have been very loyal to me. That's probably shown on my staff. I mean, all the coaches on my staff obviously could have had jobs elsewhere or stayed where they were at. They're terrific. They've been great.
I think it's easy to point fingers. I mean, obviously the major responsibility falls on me when we don't have a good season. So I'm evaluating myself as well. But I've not sat down with any of the coaches or anything like that yet. Again, just two days since the last game.

Q. Terrence Robinson and Cory Zirbel?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Terrence is a guy that would have played this year. Because of his knee, he wasn't able to. So he'll be healthy. He'll be a big plus both at the slot position, also where Odoms is returning kicks. Cory Zirbel I believe will not be able to play. His injury is so severe that I don't think Cory's going to be able to play any more. But we talked to him. We want him back, if he gets a medical, back as a student assistant coach, which he kind of did at the end of the year. He was terrific. He was down working on the scout team. We think Cory's going to be back kind of like a student assistant coach helping us out.

Q. Any other guys who are having off-season surgery?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: No. Talked to Paul yesterday. Steve Schilling's knee, I think it's a matter of a few weeks healing it. It's not an ACL requiring surgery. I think it's an MCL. But it's a sprain. So he doesn't need surgery. Nobody else that I'm aware of at this point, which is a good thing.

Q. You've talked about not wanting to change regardless of where you're at. Yet you sometimes said you talk too much or created drama.
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Have I created it are y'all created it?

Q. I'm saying words have been twisted. Do you see yourself maybe changing and not being as forthcoming or is that going to be hard?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: That's a good point. I mean, what do y'all think? You want me to be? The upside of that is I don't say as much. I say you, it's not you. But people can't twist it as much. The downside is all of a sudden it becomes y'all's opinion. So you write more about what you think. Maybe that's an upside, I don't know.
But, no, I think coaches are becoming more reserved simply because they're not sure. It could be nine out of 10 people get it right and one person writes it wrong, then that one person that wrote it wrong, it gets blown out of proportion.
I always try to be honest with you. Bruce and Dave and I talked about that, be up front and honest. Can't tell you everything. I think there are things that y'all appreciate that have to stay in-house, have to stay with the staff and the program and are better left not being said publicly. I try to give you as much an honest opinion on things as I can. If somebody makes more drama out of it, it's unfortunate. But that's the time we live in. I mean, that's one lesson I learned. There was a lot of big deal made out of little mouse dooh-dooh. I was thinking, geez, you got to be kidding me. We're making a big deal out of that when there's bigger issues at stake? At least there's interest. Like my wife said, when things are going great and all, that they'll make a big deal out of the little things that are great, too. I said, Well, that's a good point, I guess looking at the sunny side of it.

Q. Are you just looking for an off-season of little drama?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yes, sir (laughter). Exactly.

Q. Calm?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Exactly.

Q. Have you thought about that?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Nothing on that ESPN ticker, no statements on he said, she said. No drama on lawsuits, you know, accusations. I mean, it was absolutely ridiculous. And y'all know it. Y'all have been there for the last 10 months. I never seen nothing like it. You can have consultants talk to you, all that, but what prepares you for something when somebody throws something out there that's completely untrue, not even close to being factual. You got to respond to it, you can't. You all are in the profession, you understand you can't. For me to respond to everything, it's just crazy. But that's the way we are today. It's almost felt like I was running for office. God bless the politicians. Why they would do it. They have greater service for our country than anybody can realize what they go through.
But as coaches we're in the public life so we have to realize that. It's a big boy world. So I understand that. I mean, I've been there for a little bit. It does make you I guess want to be a little more reserved at times. That's not my personality. I mean, I want to be open and honest and transparent I guess is the proper word. We'll be that. I'll continue to be that. Doesn't mean I don't get ticked off when somebody writes something that ain't true. That's what happens.

Q. Have you gotten a point in the last 10 months that you got to slow down a little bit?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, I'll slow down when I retire. But I'll retire sooner than Joe or Bobby, too. I'm not going to go till I'm 81, you know, all that kind of stuff. You kidding me? 45, if I can go to 60, that would be good.

Q. What are the characteristics of the best defenses that you've been around? When is more of a finished product on that side of the ball here, what will it look like?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: When it's really a finished product on all three phases, is fast guys playing fast and executing. You're going to make mistakes. You make mistakes as coaches. Maybe a call doesn't go, you don't call the right play or defense. Maybe a guy misses a ball or a tackle. You make mistakes. But you play and you execute quickly. You know, playing extremely fast. First year you're going to play a little slower because there's some thinking involved. Defense has new terminology, offense has new terminology, special teams. You got to have fast guys playing fast. As coaches, you got to coach them where they can execute quickly. That's coach speak, but that's the truth.

Q. When are you hitting the road for recruiting?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: This is an evaluation period. So seven assistants are on the road this week. Next week it's a contact period. I'll go out starting next Monday for three weeks.

Q. It seems like Sam took a lot of big hits this year.
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Well, Paul and I were talking about it. He's had a couple concussions, which concerns us, when you have more than one in a year. So whether we got to have a doctor look at him or whether it's an issue. But it is a concern. In the last game, it was just his first play in the kickoff. It was a pretty good hit. Still, when you have more than one in one year, it does raise a concern. And health is always the most important thing of your players.
We talked about that last night as a matter of fact. I'm going to talk with Sam about that, see if we need to do any further medical tests or what have you.

Q. So it's a concussion on that hit?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah.

Q. You expect him back?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yes, yes.

Q. Could a position change to slot receiver help with some of those hits?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: It could. All of our tailbacks in our offense have to learn the slot position anyway. I mean, Minor did some. Mike Shaw did some. But eventually as they'll go, they have -- they'll be able to play both the slot position and the tailback. It's hard their first year. I would think, yeah, in answer to your question, I think that's a definite thing, all those guys will do that this spring.

Q. When spring practice starts, do you know if you're going to have an actual spring game?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: It starts in mid March. I don't know the exact date. I got it set on the calendar. I don't have the calendar with me. As far as having a true spring game, I don't know the availability of the stadium yet. I'd like to have one. But if the stadium's available, you know, we'll have one. If there isn't, we'll have one somewhere. I think it's pretty neat for the kids.

Q. In terms of the two games that still have to be filled for next year, what is your role in that?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: We just need one game. We got Western Michigan, Notre Dame, Eastern Michigan, then we need one more game. We're working on that.

Q. Do you have a philosophy on what you'd like to be the balance of schedule?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, a home game, somebody that will come here for a guarantee.

Q. Whomever?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah. It's got to be the right fit, the date, all that. The problem with us is it's a mid October open date. So most teams are in their schedules, conference schedules. So we're searching. But we got to find somebody that can come at that time for our home game for us.

Q. Have you been able to get a handle or grasp on how much attrition you might have?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, I don't think -- I mean, I said that. I hope it's not a lot. But I'm not worried about it because the ones that stay will be fully committed. But I don't think it will be a lot. I mean, it may be a handful. Some of it will be, you know, guys that will go ahead and graduate, fourth-year players, which is the most important thing for them to do, is get their Michigan degree. A couple of them will be guys that maybe aren't playing as much. They'll transfer to another level, get more playing time.
I don't know. I don't have any predictions. But I wouldn't be surprised if it's a couple. But it won't be a lot, I wouldn't think.

Q. Anybody on the fence, is that a situation where you try to convince somebody or is that a warning sign?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Depends on what he's on the fence about. If he's on the fence as far as his commitment to the University of Michigan first and foremost, either get in or get out. If he's on the fence about whether he can play here or not, we'll help him. We'll give him an honest evaluation. That's one thing I told the guys. If we think that you can definitely play here, we'll tell you. If we think you'll have a hard time playing here, 'cause of ability, what have you, we'll tell you that, too. If there are certain things we think you need to work on to be able to play at a higher level, we'll tell them that, too. I think you're better off being honest with the guys than giving them a bunch of BS. If guys come to us and ask, we'll be honest with them with that. As far as on the fence, whether they bought in or are committed, they'll either be in or out.

Q. Was Sam ever considered waffling on his commitment?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Not that I know of, no. I talked to Sam last week because he has some family issues. Sam has some tough issues. He's a long way from home, trying to take care of his family. Here is a young man that's trying to take care of his 16-year-old brother, a long way from home. Those things there, you work with a guy about.
But hopefully Sam, he had a pretty good freshman year. He got banged up a little bit here at the end. But hopefully things will work out.

Q. Are there one or two areas you really need to target in recruiting?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: One or two or six or ten, yeah, yeah. A lot of areas. And we need competition at every position. Offense, skill position-wise. Defensively, we got to get some faster athletes that can play in space. The areas which are natural that you lose in recruiting, D-linemen. We need more DBs. We're low on DBs. All those areas. Creating competition at quarterback is going to be huge. We're addressing those.

Q. Which position this year do you think played the best overall?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: It's the same way I've always said, as far as you got two kids, I got a daughter and a son, which do you love the most, which one do you get mad at the most? Both the same.
We made progress in just about every position. There was some positions that maybe didn't play as well at times. You look at the O-line. The only guy that played up front was Steve Schilling. The other guys, some of them were giving up for dead. They weren't even on the two deep. They were third team guys, came in and battled. David Molk came in as a first-year starter. I thought as the season went along, you could start to see him emerge and take control a little bit.
We can play and need to play a whole lot better, get a whole lot stronger up front. For a lot of guys that never played before, I think they battled pretty good. I thought Brandon Minor give us a lift at runningback at the end. The D-line I think was pretty consistent, which you would think, all those veterans coming back. I thought they were pretty consistent all year.
There were times where Zoltan I think had a good year. I don't think he had his best game against Ohio State. But there were times where each unit played pretty well and there were times where each unit could have played better. That inconsistencies was one of the most frustrating things we had.

Q. You played the two Big-10 co-champions almost to a standstill.
COACH RODRIGUEZ: At the half, yeah.

Q. How big is the gap between you and those two right now?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: There is a gap. Again, the score at halftime is really insignificant. I think there's a gap. I'm also encouraged if we recruit a couple of solid years together, we continue to develop like we have, fix the problems that we have, we can close the gap quicker rather than later. I remember my first year at West Virginia. We played Miami back when Miami was winning national championships. We got killed my first year. I thought, geez, this is going to take four years to close this gap. In two years it closed. We got a couple right guys in the right spots and it just kind of clicked. So it happened quicker than we anticipated.
I don't think we have that much of a gap as I had back then. Plus I'm at a great place. So we can -- recruiting-wise and all that, I think we can recruit the gap sooner. But a lot of it depends on how quickly our guys develop, our younger players develop. That's kind of an X factor. But I do think -- I say, I'm not over daunted saying, geez, it may take half a century to get where they're at. We'll get there.

Q. Can you give us a brief scouting report of the two quarterbacks you got coming in, maybe what they do well.
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Can't talk about them. You're kind of hard-headed (laughter). No, it's true. I'll talk after signing date. But a lot of the recruiting rankings and all that I think give the fans a little bit of a false perception on exactly who a player is, who he isn't. Sometimes the guy who is a two star can be overlooked. Sometimes a guy that's a four or five star, not the best player. I think you got to trust your own judgment, your own evaluation, who's the right fit, who's the right person you think you can win with.
The guys we're recruiting are guys we think are the right fit for the university, the right fit for our system, and guys we think we can have success with. I was really excited about last year's class. Even though some of them were already committed when we got here, we hung on to most of them. We added a few at the end, like Tav Odoms, who turned out to be a really good player as a true freshman.
But this is our first full year recruiting. We're really excited about this year's recruiting class. We think there's going to be guys that some can have success right away and some are going to have -- we think all of them are going to have great careers eventually. That's the encouraging part as far as recruiting is, we're excited. This is our first full year recruiting and it's going well.

Q. You spend all those years with people coming to you to learn your offense. Are there things you want to go out...
COACH RODRIGUEZ: I think there are. This past spring, we didn't go anywhere because obviously we were all here for the first year, just getting our things. We had some people visit, like Oklahoma. Our buddies at Oklahoma, they're averaging 50 points a game, a little better than we are. We may make the return trip down there to go down there to see those guys. They took the no-huddle and did a lot better than we did with it.
But we meet with them every year. Kevin Wilson is their offensive coordinator. He's been visiting with us just about every year. We'll probably talk to maybe them and a few other teams that run some similar styles offensively. Defensively still up in the air. Even on special teams, what I'll do is I study who has the best kickoff, kickoff return, see if we can get film on them, then study to see if it's something we can involve or use.

Q. Recruiting-wise, will you look at (indiscernible)?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, traditionally I don't think there's been a lot of junior college kids here because a lot of courses won't transfer. You have to have courses that transfer from your junior college degree to here. I don't think there's a lot of tradition to that. I don't think there's any on mine. There's one or two that we're looking at, but mostly it's the high school guys. But we would. If it was the right guy that took the right courses, and there are a couple out there that we believe are, in that case, we could take 'em.

Q. Did this season's offensive struggles put any doubts in your mind at all that this offense could work in the Big-10?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: No. There's seven or eight other teams using it. Seems like they're doing pretty good. No, I got no worries, questions whatsoever about this offense, whether you're running in the Big-10, the SEC, Big 12, Big East, NFL. You know, I'd run this offense no matter what level or what league it was in. We just hope we can run it better as coaches and players.

Q. Do you really think it could work in the NFL?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, yeah. But I ain't coaching in the NFL, so... I don't know that league as well. I know college. There is a misconception of the offense. I think people running a quarterback or whatever, it can be more pass than run. But, you know, you look at, there's a lot of spread principles in college now and there's a lot in the pros. Nobody just talks about it because it's not easily defined I guess. As I said, every spread has its own little variations.

Q. Wildcat formation.
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, the wildcat is not -- that wildcat is a wrinkle off the spread. It's a runningback back there doing runningback stuff. It's not a true offense. It's just a wrinkle of it. It's like a short yard. Everybody has a short yardage package in there, two tight ends and a fullback. We have some of that. Wildcat is like a small package of it. Offensive system is something you do, you go into every game with, you have adjustments and formations, a variety of things that are all built around the same principles. Spread principles are a little bit different than West Coast principles.
You know, everybody nowadays does a little bit of everything, it seems like. Same way defensively. A lot of people get hung up on an odd front, even front. 90% of the teams in college run both. You run four-man fronts, three-man fronts, five-man fronts. You do them all. You almost have to because of the multitude of offenses that you see. So you could say, well, we base it out of a four-man front. But everybody is going to run odd fronts and even fronts both.

Q. How involved are you in what happens on defense?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Not as much. I like to know what we're doing. Generally scheme-wise and all that, have an idea, concepts. But as far as calling defenses and being involved in the strategy of it, I don't get involved in it. Personnel-wise somewhat, you know, try making a few suggestions here and there, but not in the strategy.

Q. Penn State and Ohio State are tied for the league championship. Which team did you think was better this season?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Boy, they both played well against us. I think Penn State probably had the better year. They were more dominating at times from what I seen on film. But Ohio State was awful good at the end of the year. Playing right now, I think Ohio State is probably playing their best football I think right now. Not that Penn State's not. Seems like they played pretty good this weekend. But they clearly I think were the two best teams in our league this year.

Q. Do you anticipate making any changes in your staff?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, evaluating is just that, it's everything that we're doing. But, again, I don't want to make it, don't overdramatize this, because I do it every year. As a coach, okay, here's what we're doing, how we're doing it, who we're doing it with. Let me take a step back and see if there's ways to improve it and make my own judgments on that because that's basically what I have to do. And I've just started that process.
Again, when you're in the season, it's easy to do some evaluations, and we do it game by game. But you're so worried about the next game, you make a quick game evaluation, you move on to the next one, how you're going to compete in the next one.
I got a little more time now, particularly this week, to sort that out and figure out what we need to do to get better.

End of FastScripts

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