UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 5, 2005

Lloyd Carr

COACH CARR: I think obviously the turnovers were the key to that football game. Any time you force five turnovers and win the turnover margin 5-1, you should win. I think our offense as a result of those turnovers had some great field position which certainly helped us. I thought we did some very good things offensively, but we need to run the football better. We missed two big plays that should have been touchdowns. One, we get the ball out of bounds down there to Breaston, and Steve should have made the play on the deep pass early in the first quarter. We've got some things there. Special teams, I thought Ross Ryan had a wonderful debut here. I think I told you previously, he's a weapon because he's got a great leg, made a great play down there. So now he is a scholarship football player at Michigan. He's earned that. But yet even on special teams, we had an extra point blocked. We had another one where we didn't get good timing between the operation of the play. We've got to do some things. Missed a field goal. But defensively I'm very, very disappointed in the way we played, particularly in the front seven. I don't think we played well at all up there. I think with one exception, Chris Graham, for a young guy getting a first start I thought really played hard. He made a lot of plays. But we're just not where we need to be. We need to play harder. We need to play more physical. That is our intent. So there's going to be some changes in the lineup because we're not going to sit and watch that type of effort. We need to play harder, we need to play tougher. Notre Dame had an outstanding debut against Pitt. They're a very talented football team. I think they're very physical up front on both sides of the football. Skilled athletes on offense are excellent, at tight end, runningback, the wide receiver positions. Of course, they have an experienced quarterback. Defensively, I like their linebackers. They're very athletic. Get to the football well. We're looking forward to one of the great rivalries we have here at Michigan. Questions.

COACH CARR: I said "changes."

COACH CARR: Well, I think you watched the film. You watched the game. You make your own determination.

COACH CARR: I've learned one thing. You can make a lot of statements after a game as a coach and be inaccurate because there's a lot of things going on out there. But it's in the film. The film, you know, the eye in the sky, it doesn't lie. It's there. You know, that's what you deal with.

COACH CARR: I didn't say "lack of toughness."

COACH CARR: Yeah, well, I think we need to be a more physical football team. If you choose to use the word "tough," that's your prerogative. Freedom of the press.

COACH CARR: I said "physical." Maybe I misspoke.

COACH CARR: You'll see what those changes are on Saturday.

COACH CARR: I just told you.

COACH CARR: I watched part of it because I was messing around with Michigan replay.

COACH CARR: Well, they're very different. They're very different offensively. You know, they spread the ball. I thought, when you look at the statistics, you'll see great balance in the people that got the football. The tightends got the ball, Fasano, the wide receivers got the ball, the backs got the ball in the passing game. You know, they ran the football very effectively. When you rush for 275 yards, I mean, that's a good day's work.

COACH CARR: Well, one of the things on any football team, you have guys that come with the idea that they want to participate in Michigan football. You know, we thoroughly talk to their high school coaches. Dependent on what we think and what we hear and what we know, we invite guys to come out and play. Some of those people down through the years have made great contributions to football, guys that didn't win scholarships, because there's a preparation that goes into any game that is very important. What we do as a coaching staff, I take recommendations and then we discuss it throughout the spring, throughout training camp. It's a very important decision because what you are trying to do is be fair to those people who are deserving and sometimes you have more opportunities to give scholarships than others. But when you do, it's always a great things for those who are the beneficiaries of their hard work.

COACH CARR: I had made up my mind on Ross Ryan before the game, yes.

COACH CARR: Well, you're always competing. Certainly he punted the ball extremely well. It was very, very good competition during the fall. You know, Mark Spencer did a wonderful job. Zoltan Mesko is going to be an outstanding punter. But Ross Ryan just won that battle based on what he did in practice, and certainly his first punt in that game had wonderful hang time. Darnell Hood made what I think was one of the most important plays in the game, stripping the football. Turner Booth, our long snapper, got down and jumped on the guy that was going to recover the football. The ball came loose. We had a lot of guys going after it. Ross Ryan, if you watch the film, there aren't a lot of punters that are going to make that play. But he made an outstanding play.

COACH CARR: Well, we had one play. Let me say this. You saw a great back in Garrett Wolfe. He's a great back. He's going to play in the NFL. Northern Illinois is an outstanding offensive football team, a very, very good, strong, physical offensive line. If you take the one play out, you know, then you're going to come out of there with 70-some-yard effort, which is very good against an outstanding back. But certainly the play that happened, every play, somebody has a responsibility. In that particular play, the ball was designed to be forced outside. We had a guy that didn't get out there. He filled inside. Now, you get a guy that can run outside of a defense. Then on the backside of the play, we had a guy that took a bad angle and took himself out of the play. That's a young player. We had a lot of guys that played hard. But, you know, in this day and age where offenses -- you know, one of the challenges defensively, we saw one offense on Saturday, we're going to see a completely different one this week, we're going to see an entirely different offense the third week. You know, you're forced into the difficulty every week. It's not like on offense, you can run the same plays. You may have to block 'em a little bit differently, but it's challenging. It's a game played by people, and we're all going to make mistakes. We make mistakes as coaches. We make mistakes as players. But there are certain parts of your system that you've got to hang your hat on, and one of those is to leverage the football and keep it inside. Had we done that, that play would have gained two yards. That's one of the things that you try to do as a coach. You're trying to get better every week. The teams that make improvement week to week, they have a chance to be good football teams.

COACH CARR: I just said, they spread the football. They've got a very physical offensive line. They're a senior-dominated line. The only junior, Harris, is a great tackle. It's a very experienced football team. Two wide receivers are both seniors. The quarterback played against us three years ago here as a true freshman. The tailback, we saw him a year ago. I mean, it's a very experienced football team, and they are going to do a lot of things to take advantage of the guys that can do something with the football.

COACH CARR: I think that we have to see. Some of that depends on how Ross does. But obviously you hate -- you do not want to lose a guy's year of eligibility unless he's going to get significant playing time that makes it worthwhile.

COACH CARR: Brady is pretty busy this week.

COACH CARR: I've talked to Tom Brady on numerous occasions.

COACH CARR: About a lot of things.

COACH CARR: I think he's a guy that can make you miss. He's a guy that has great vision. He's a very good pass receiver. He's one of those guys that, you know, can hurt you in a lot of different ways.

COACH CARR: Well, he'll be there tomorrow hopefully.

COACH CARR: He's going to be out a while.

COACH CARR: No. I'm not going to comment on the nature. You can call his parents. That might be the thing to do.

COACH CARR: Well, I think it's going to be a long time. I think I said that.

COACH CARR: None that I can think of. But I am -- you know, my memory's not what it used to be. So if I don't comment, then you'll know that it was an honest mistake.

COACH CARR: I think we had an opportunity in a game like that to get a lot of guys some snaps. I think Fred, I have complete confidence. Normally we go into a game with an idea of seeing how things are going to go. You know, I think a lot of times as a coach, I've been on staffs where you promise a guy's going to play, then you get into the game, the game goes much differently. So the idea here is to be ready to play and be ready to compete. Every opportunity you get to play is an opportunity to earn the confidence of your coach, and therefore increase your playing time. Max Martin would have played probably a lot sooner, but he missed a couple of days last week because he got banged up the week prior. Yeah, I think Fred did a good job rotating the backs.

COACH CARR: I think it's a great plus. Any time you can put two or three guys in there that have different types of abilities, I think it creates issues for the defense. You still have to block 'em, but certainly we've got three guys in there. Just those three, they're are all different types of backs.

COACH CARR: Well, I think they did a good job. I think the truth is they're going to be challenged a lot more as we go forward. But I thought Leo Henige is a powerful guy in there. He's a great run blocker. He will punish you. So I thought Leo -- I never expected him to come back this soon because he's really -- he's had some setbacks along the way, but I thought he did an excellent job, and I thought Adam Kraus did a good job in there. We got Mark Bihl got some snaps. I thought Lentz and Stenavich did a good job.

COACH CARR: Well, I thought Lamar did some wonderful things in there. He's an extremely talented football player. That was a great individual play. He beat his man in a one-on-one pass situation. He came tight around him, managed to get his hand in there and strip the football and then found the ball. That's just a great individual play.

COACH CARR: Yeah, I thought they all got some work. Brian Thompson has earned that starting position at fullback, and he did some good things. And I thought Will Paul got some experience. He did a couple of really impressive things in there. He's a big guy, a big body. He should get better as we go. But Paul gives us some size back there that I really like.

COACH CARR: Well, I think it was a learning point. I think certainly it was Chad Henne's first game on the road, Michael Hart's first game on the road. As far as those two guys, I think both of them came out of there feeling like, "Hey, I've played in a big game, against a big rival, had some success." I think from the standpoint of those two guys, we came out as coaches with great confidence that if we didn't give them too much, that they could be very successful. Of course, that had an impact on our team, no question about that.

COACH CARR: Well, my first memory is not a pleasant one. 1980, we went down there. We got behind 14 to nothing. John Wangler, who is one of the great quarterbacks we've had here, never gets credit for what he did, but Wangler had a lot to do with changing how we play football here. Wangler went in and rallied us with 14-14 at the half. We took the lead with I think 1 minute, 36 seconds left or something like that. I remember the quarterback Blair Keel (phonetic) threw the ball right to us on defense and we dropped the ball. It would have ended the game, but we dropped an interception. Some interesting things happened in the last minute down there. Of course, Harry Oliver stepped in there and kicked the winner. So that's my first memory.

COACH CARR: Well, I think it's a great rivalry because of the history. Going back, it's kind of interesting that Rockne and Yost did not get along. I don't think they liked each other very well. I don't think Chrysler and Leahy liked each other very well. I think because of the fact that both of those men were ADs, as well as the football coach, we didn't play Notre Dame for a long time. And that has quite a controversial part of the discussions today that go on regarding scheduling and conference affiliation, all that stuff. But I think it's a great rivalry because of the history of football of the two schools, being the winningest two programs in the history of college football.

COACH CARR: I think the main thing is we're playing them this week. That's the important thing, you know. The future will take care of itself.

COACH CARR: I've known Charlie quite a while. We had him in here, as a matter of fact, couple years ago to speak at our clinic. I met him once on the visit to the Giants, when he was there. Of course, I visited when they were at the Jets.

COACH CARR: I don't think I said either (laughter). I like him, and I have a lot of respect for him.

COACH CARR: The last -- you know, I went through hell week when I joined a fraternity many, many years ago. Compared to that, this is a walk in the park.

COACH CARR: I think it's all intertwined. You know, that's really -- that really has to be the foundation. If that isn't the foundation, then you cannot be successful on either side of the ball. It's a physical game. It's a contact sport. Of course, that has a lot to do in every game with who wins and who loses.

COACH CARR: I don't want to get into all of that. I think you try to look at a game. The difficult thing I think in coaching is to evaluate a player after a loss. But it's equally difficult to evaluate a player after a victory because the truth is that you see things. As a coach, you can fall into the trap of looking at things emotionally. What we strive to do is look at it, look at him the same and evaluate his performance regardless of whether it came after a win or a loss. In that way, you have the best chance to be fair. You have the best chance to help him improve. So it's challenging either way. But I just think that when I looked at our team as a whole, that's an area that we have to deal with. Sometimes that means making changes. Maybe you get somebody's attention and maybe it doesn't matter. But the issue is that you've got to try to put people out there that are going to play very hard and very physical.

COACH CARR: I didn't hear the first part.

COACH CARR: Well, I think we have to -- this offense gives you a lot more sets. The nickel defense can factor in there. But as far as being set, I think we've got a lot of competition there. We're got some young players. I would have liked to have gotten Brandon Harrison in the game. I think he's going to play as we go forward here because he has some abilities and he's a smart guy. We just have to see how that goes.

COACH CARR: You know, I look at it as what we did on that particular day. All the things that were said, sometimes those are pretty good assessments, and very often they're so inaccurate it's laughable. What I try to do is look at each guy and how he's competing. If he is not competing hard and playing physical, then I'm always looking to give somebody else an opportunity, and that's the case right now.

COACH CARR: I'm not going to talk about individual guys because you can do that. I've seen some very inaccurate assessments about the way people played here, by the way.

COACH CARR: They're all "or's."

COACH CARR: I said "changes."

COACH CARR: No, no.

COACH CARR: Depends on who the players are and who you're playing against. You know, I think the truth -- this is really what has changed, in my judgment, the offenses today. We're doing it. I see it -- I saw it last night. I see it on the games I watched. What offenses are able to do, what they're doing a much, much better job of, the biggest change -- in the NFL they have a 45-second clock, well, we've got probably on an average play 37, 38 seconds. Normally it takes an official 12 to 15, 16 seconds to mark the ball ready to play, and from that point you get 25 seconds. What has happened in that space of 12 to 14 seconds before the 25-second clock stops is coaches are getting the plays in on offense during that time, so you're seeing the huddle being broken a lot of times with 20, 19, 18, 17 seconds. That allows a team to go up to the line of scrimmage and get into a situation where it appears they're going to snap the ball, and then the quarterback makes a call, and then he backs off. The defense now moves. So then he still has time to get into the best play against that defense. That is what has changed, I think, offensive football more than anything else. The offenses are using the cadence, they're using that 12 seconds in there to get the plays in faster. I think that really puts defenses in a bind.

COACH CARR: Who knows. He wasn't healthy.

COACH CARR: Mad? I never get mad. I've been accused of that.

COACH CARR: I haven't slept in two nights. I don't profess to come in here and be in a great mood, no.

COACH CARR: Another issue.

COACH CARR: Hey, I'd have to be psychoanalyzed and then they could probably tell me what it was.

COACH CARR: That's a first (laughter).

COACH CARR: When you get up there, you don't sleep as well, I can tell you that. I should certainly sleep better than I am.

COACH CARR: I think you'd have to ask the people at Notre Dame. I think, you know, they have a tradition, and tradition is very, very difficult to change. I don't have any idea of what the thinking is. I do think college football has changed dramatically if you look at the ACC. I would imagine at some point we're going to have 12 teams in the Big-10. So I think that changes the landscape. Whether or not that would change Notre Dame, I can't tell you.

COACH CARR: Well, I think kids are making up their minds earlier. But I think, you know, they probably have more commitments at this stage than they typically do. You know, as far as our recruiting, no, it doesn't affect us. I mean, if we are recruiting the same guy and we get a commitment, which we did recently, then that's good. If we lose one, that's not so good. You just keep on going.

COACH CARR: Well, you know, I think -- I've always said this and I believe it. The University of Michigan and Notre Dame University are two very, very distinct universities. So they're as distinct as you could ever look at. In most cases, it's a pretty easy decision. We don't go down to the wire on a lot of those guys because they make up their minds, because if they're interested in those two schools, they know pretty quickly where they want to go once they've visited.

COACH CARR: First of all, I don't think it matters what I think or what I would do or if I would welcome it. It's not my decision. If they make me the commissioner, give me omnipotency, then I would be able to do that. I think anything that we can do to strengthen this conference is positive. But how that's going to end up, I can't tell you. I can't begin to tell you.

COACH CARR: I'd like to be the editor. If I were, there would be some changes, trust me (laughter).

COACH CARR: Don't make a big deal out of that, please.

COACH CARR: Well, you just -- you toss, you turn, you get up, you go back. You toss, you turn, you look at the clock. You're mad because you know valuable sleep time is wasted. You know what it's going to do to you the next day.

COACH CARR: Well, I think one of the challenges of any season -- I don't care where you go in this game - I'm sure it's the same in your business - there's things that aren't going like you want 'em to. Sometimes you don't know why something isn't going like you think it would. Sometimes, you know, the more you dwell on something, you come up with an idea. You know, there's always issues on any team. Right now that's the biggest issue we have. We're going to try to deal with it in a way that can help us get better.

COACH CARR: I think that's a great question. I think there was a point -- I can remember when the wishbone came in, and everybody ran the wishbone because nobody could stop it. Then eventually defensive coaches came up with some ideas that made it a very, very difficult offense to score unless you had outstanding personnel, you know. As defenses got better, then a lot of those coaches out on the West Coast, particularly in the Northwest, when they went to the one-back set, because now they forced defenses to take a linebacker out of the core of the defense and spread 'em out. That continues to be the evolution today. You see a lot of teams with no backs in the backfield. I think the game, the fascinating thing about the game, and it's frustrating when you're on that side of the ball that is striving to find some answers, and of course the other thing that's had incredible impact on college football, you know, is the 85 scholarship limit. I mean, we had 105 scholarships here when Bo coached. You know, that's a major difference because I think a guy like Garrett Wolfe would have been playing in the Big-10 20 years ago. Now he's helping making Northern Illinois an outstanding football team. I think that's why you see close games. A lot of times where a traditional name is playing somebody who doesn't have a traditional name. But that's the arena we're in. It's challenging. Thanks.