UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 11, 2004

Lloyd Carr

COACH CARR: Of course, we're delighted to have the little brown jug remain in Ann Arbor for another year. We are excited about that because it took a great effort to get that done. By the same token, I think there's some things that we certainly are not excited about, and the number one issue on our football team is if we don't learn to take care of the football - I've been saying that for too many weeks now - but 15 turnovers, in my math experience, that comes out to three a game, or close to it, not quite three a game. What would that be? Six games, 15, what is that?

COACH CARR: It's more than two and a half, isn't it? At any rate, it's too many (laughter). You know, it's too many. It's a problem. You know, we've emphasized it. I think our guys all understand it, and yet we have not found a way three times in the five games that we've won, we've lost the turnover battle and still won the game. That's not going to continue to happen. We've got to do a better job in terms of our kicking game, catching punts. We didn't miss handle a punt there, let another one drop that ended up giving us the ball on the one yard line. It took a miracle kick there by Garrett Rivas and Matt Gutierrez to convert on a field goal. All of those things, we need to get worked out and we need to do it quickly. Questions.

COACH CARR: Well, the thing that Minnesota did, they gave us three different punt formations. They substituted differently than they did prior to going into that game. They have a soccer-style punter. He is a guy that very often -- a year ago, they rolled him to the right to kick the ball soccer style. So I don't think it would have done us any good to have an extra guy back because of the nature of their punting game. And I think, you know, I give them a lot of credit from the standpoint that it does -- it did make it much more difficult because they did not have a conventional punter. And I think that's an issue that you have to give your opponent credit, there's no question about that.

COACH CARR: Well, I think first of all, if you have big goals, if you have aspirations of doing something special, then you better be improving as you go on a week-to-week basis. If you're one of those teams that has a great performance one week and a poor one the next, or if you don't continue to improve in certain areas... We made tremendous strides in a lot of areas on our football team. But, as I mentioned when we began here, when you continue to turn the football over, because the studies that we've done here in terms of winning and losing, about 89% of the time the team that wins the turnover battle is going to win. Well, we've failed to do that three times. So the odds are against us. But I think the main thing is having good leadership. We've got a lot of seniors here who played an important role in our championship team a year ago. They know what it takes. They know the pitfalls. They know how difficult it is to play on the road in October and November. A big part of it comes back to the kind of leadership we have on our football team and maturity. If you are someone who gets distracted either positively or negatively by the things that are said about you or written about you, you're going to have a hard time. You need to keep your feet on the ground, understand, "Hey, let's go to work today. Let's control the things we can control. Let's not worry about the things that have nothing to do with winning and losing."

COACH CARR: Well, we have a lot of drills that our receivers and our runningbacks, for example, every week we're running strip drills. They run with a football. It's kind of a silk covering on it that's very slippery where we try to strip the ball out of their hands, which means it forces them, if they're going to hang onto it, they're really going to have to secure the ball tightly, they're going to have to keep their hips down and their pads up and their head up because that's the way you can protect the football. So there's a lot of drills, a lot of things done on a daily basis. Every time, even if we're not in a drill, if we're in a regular offensive/defensive situational part of practice, as a coach, if you see a guy that's not taking care of the football. If you can ever see a football from behind, when a ball carrier is running away from you, if you ever can see the football, it's not secure. You've got to have the ball high and tight, and you can't be carrying it like you would a loaf of bread. There's a lot of things that you're emulating. And then sometimes it's caused by your opponent. When your opponent makes a great play, you know, you have to give them credit. So some of those have been to the credit of our opponent, but some of them haven't. Those are the ones that we've got to eliminate.

COACH CARR: I think Gabe has made tremendous strides from where he was a year ago. And I think Larry Harrison has made great strides from where he was this spring. Jeremy Van Alstyne got in there two plays on Saturday. That really gives us a great lift because I think he'll be able to play a little bit more each week. He's a guy that we've missed. I think Pat Massey is having a very good year. We're rotating Alex Ofili gets to run in there, Rondell Biggs. So we're rotating some guys. Will Paul is a young guy that's made a contribution. It really has been a position that has been a very, very pleasant surprise for us. And Gabe Watson, I've said this, the real question mark is how good does he want to be and what is he willing to do to get there? Certainly he has all the abilities.

COACH CARR: Well, I go back -- I give Jim great credit for doing a wonderful job in recruiting Michael Hart and Chad Henne. I think the real plus in terms of the recruitment of Chad Henne, Scott Loeffler, Scott deserves all the credit because I think he developed the kind of relationship with Chad. And I think we have a history here. We've got some guys in the NFL that are having a lot of success at quarterback. I think the kind of things that we're doing offensively, if you really want to develop, this is a place where your skills are going to be maximized, your potential, you're going to have a chance to play with outstanding players at the receiver, because that's all part of it. If you go somewhere where there's no system, if you go somewhere where there's no people around you that have abilities, then it's much more difficult. Because it's still a team game. And I think all those things played into it. I went down there I think three times to see, to visit most importantly with his coach. I spoke at a banquet in the spring prior to his senior year there, and then I went back again last winter after he had made the commitment. But I think all the credit goes to Jim getting off to a great start with him, and of course Scott Loeffler. Terry Malone had showed him what the things were that he could do there.

COACH CARR: Well, it was fun to watch. I mean, you know, I think what's really impressive about the last drive is that Chad had been on the phone to Scott Loeffler. The previous drive we had punted there about five minutes to go in the game. And one of those pass plays, Chad went to the wrong receiver. There was another read there if he could have gotten to, probably would have had a first down, probably wouldn't have had to punt the ball. Scott told him, he said, "Look, if we come back to this." It's an amazing thing, because here you can imagine all the things this kid was going through mentally with five minutes to go in the game. He's on the phone. There's 112,000 people around him. He's thinking -- God only knows what the things are going through his mind. But when he went back out, he came back to that same play, and this time he hit the right guy for a big play. You know, he made all the throws there. You know, I think you have to give our offensive line, you talk about coaches, Andy has done a great job with this line because we've had to make some adjustments. You know, we have to go through the real major disappointment of losing Leo Henige for the year. Leo is one of those guys that came here with a knee injury, had to have surgery before he got here out of high school. A year ago last spring had to have surgery on his shoulder. This is his third surgery. He just got to the point where he had earned a starting position, done a great job. So that's a real disappointment. We're losing, you know, a guy that's really made a great contribution. So.

COACH CARR: I would think that he could but I don't say that he will because of when this happened. But if you look at when he's been through, in my judgment, that's really what the sixth year is meant for. But we'll have to see.

COACH CARR: Which exact play, no. But he got down to Jason Avant, he got down to Michael Hart once.

COACH CARR: Well, I think they turned Elijah lose we were not in a punt/rush situation there. But the guy didn't block him. So I think, you know, in a normal circumstance, he would have blocked the punt. I think he was probably worried about roughing the punter. He turned away to avoid the foot. You know, what we try to teach, and a very difficult technique, what you want a guy to do is to run in, and we run this drill almost every day, you have a guy back there who's kicking the ball, and you run in and you take the ball right off his foot. Well, instinctively, you want to get your face away from it because you know you have a face mask, you've got a helmet open, but that doesn't mean it's an easy thing to do. So that's what happened.

COACH CARR: Well, I don't think you can compare Chad Henne to anybody until he's been around here a while. I think certainly we've all seen wonderful improvement. I think being around him, the thing I enjoy as coach is that he's not intimidated. He doesn't get uptight. He handles the pressure, all the things that come with it. I think his feet are on the ground. And certainly you would have to say that there's incredible promise and potential there if he can just continue to have a great work ethic and he doesn't lose his love for the game. I think those are the things. But I think it's unfair to him. He's not going to be able to avoid those comparisons, they're going to be out there, because certainly that drive, I mean, there's some special things that happened there with the pressure and the game on the line, the little brown jug. I mean, your team's trying to win a championship. All those things will put him in a position where he's going to have to hear a lot of things and deal with a lot of questions. But I'm certainly not going to do that as a coach.

COACH CARR: I think Matt is doing extremely well under the circumstances. I think you'd have to ask him. But what I see is a guy, he's always impressed me as a tough-minded guy with a great work ethic and a sense of who he is. So I think he's handling this disappointment I think as well as you ever could handle anything. You know, certainly I think he has hope that this thing will turn around for him. I do think, after watching him throw a week ago last Sunday evening, that he had some more soreness this week. So I don't know what the future holds here, and I'm talking about the immediate future. I think they're consulting other medical people in the field. That's all I can tell you. I've tried to tell you from the beginning. I mean, I've heard some of these stories that are just unbelievable. I've just tried to tell you everything I've known since the first day. That's kind of where we are. I can't tell you I know exactly what's going to happen because I don't.

COACH CARR: I think it's still either. You know, I can remember years where there was a lot of people up there. But I think, for example, this week somebody's going to fall. There's a lot of people potentially that could fall. But certainly with Purdue and Wisconsin playing, somebody's going down there. Yet, regardless, one loss does not put you out of the race here because it may certainly impact the BCS, but in terms of the Big-10 championship, I don't think one loss will mean anything. But, yeah, I haven't studied Wisconsin, but certainly it looks to me like a great defense and very good kicking game. Of course, Purdue obviously playing much better defense than anybody probably had a right to expect, with all the guys that they lost, and a very, very potent offense, a very great kick return guy. Of course, there's other people not out of it. There's still a lot of football to be played. But I think from top to bottom, there's a lot of very good teams out there with one loss, and I think there's some very good teams -- teams that have very good potential with two losses.

COACH CARR: We've dealt with this for a long time. I think at some point that will be changed. But I've always believed that -- I guess if I had my druthers, but I don't have them. We are where we are. We've got a great conference, I don't think there's any question about it. And, quite honestly, what I like about the Big-10 conference right now, with 11 teams, we don't have a championship game. So we don't have to play a game like these other conferences do. And I think that's in the best interest of everybody. Now, that's going to change here sometime. So I think we just enjoy what we have.

COACH CARR: I think obviously they've gotten better each week. I think Michael Hart has shown what he's capable of. He's taken an opportunity, and so has Chad Henne, and they've had the great support of people around them. They've both had very, very good coaching. They came here with the work ethic, with the passion for the game, and now their abilities, because they've had some experience, they're able now to begin to play closer to what their potential is. They've had a lot of impact. Obviously when you touch the football as many times as the quarterback does, and as Michael Hart has, you're going to have an impact on the game. No question about that.

COACH CARR: Well, I think if you take that game, when I looked at the statistics after the game, I was very surprised that we were over 500 yards. I knew we had some great drives. We ran 94 plays. The difference in time of possession was almost 15 minutes. So it's very obvious that we're doing some very good things. I mean, the problem isn't the things that we aren't doing a lot of things well. The problem is that we're doing one thing very poorly, and that's taking care of the football. You know, if the objective is to win, there's a lot of statistics out there, but history tells us the turnovers are what is really important.

COACH CARR: Well, I don't think there's any question that David Baas, the move to center there, has really helped our line. I think Rueben Riley stepped in there on Saturday for his first opportunity to start at Michigan. You know, during any season, you know somewhere, somehow, somebody is going to get an opportunity to play, and he's going to have a big impact on whether or not your team is successful. I mean, when a guy comes in there and plays guard. He's closer to the football than anybody on the field with the exception of the center. So if things go wrong that close to the quarterback, there's a lot of bad things that can happen. So Rueben, we're very pleased with what he was able to do. Yeah, I mean, that's what a team is all about.

COACH CARR: Well, I think their offensive line has really improved over a year ago. There's a whole group of those guys. Babcock I think is an excellent player. But they're playing with a lot of confidence. They're rushing the football extremely well. I think that's particularly true when you look at Halsey, and Thomas Halsey I think is leading the Big-10 in all-purpose yardage. I mean, that's an impressive statistic. They got the ball to their fullbacks. They're very patient. They've got two tight ends there, so they love to throw the football off of play action and control the football. You know, defensively, Mike Mallory, who played here at Michigan, is there new coordinator. They're playing very hard. They got the best punter, second best punter in the Big-10 conference statistically. He's back from a year ago. So there's the makings there of a good football team. Botcher (ph), of course, sixth year quarterback, he's been around forever and knows the offense in and out.

COACH CARR: Well, I think if you're going to run the 34 defense, that's what you need. And that's one of the main reasons -- obviously we've got good depth at linebacker, but that defense begins with a nose guard. If you've got a nose guard in that defense, you've got a guy that can go quickly to the side the ball is run to. A lot of times it forces the guard and the center to what we call scoop or double team him. Gabe is so big and strong that eventually one of those guys has got to come off and block the linebacker. If they stay on him, the linebacker's free. If they come off too soon, he's free. That's the beauty of that defense. Yeah, I think Gabe has made a real difference in there. Hopefully he'll continue.

COACH CARR: I think obviously we went into this season with corner backs, Marlin Jackson is back, and Markus Curry was back, Leon Hall had a lot of experience from a year ago. We were going to play a young safety over there. So it was very important that Ernest Shazor come out of the box and play well from start to finish. I think he's been banged up a little bit there for a short time, but Saturday I thought he was a dominating presence. He made two great plays there in the last five minutes of the game. He led us in tackles. I think he's leading us in tackles. If he's not, he's close. I think the impressive thing, the play where he really destroyed two blockers, you know, went through them, grabbed the ball carrier and tackled him for a four- or five-yard loss in their next to last possession. Then they ran a reverse. Ernest did not go down inside, let the ball around and outside of him. When they were trying to get a first down there, he made a great play because he stayed home. His experience, all the things that he has learned since he's been here, came to bear. He made a big play that enabled us to get the football back. When you throw a team in a four-minute offense for two losses like he did there, by making two very good plays, that really puts the offense in a bind because instead of gaining four or five yards, being second down and five or third down and three, now you're third down and 12, third down and 15. It just adds to your chances to get them stopped.

COACH CARR: In my judgment, it would have been very, very difficult to do that without him. You know, that's the key. I mean, you've got to have linebackers. You can go to that defense, and if you don't have a nose guard, you're not going to be very effective.

COACH CARR: I think what's happened there, what you would say is this, in the old days for me, when I first game to Michigan in the '80s, we were still utilizing -- we recruited small -- we recruited a lot of linebackers to play down, you know. We still have some of that. Rondell Biggs played down in high school. Because we played the odd front, but out of it we angled and slanted. We had quick guys, and it was a running game, you see. Everybody in this conference ran the football. I mean, there was very few down in the '70s and '80s, people that just dropped back all the time. At some point in the '80s, people started going to the one-back offense, throwing the football a lot. At that point that's when the 4-3 defense came in because you had to now be able to be good on -- to be good on defense, you had to rush the passer. To rush the passer, these offenses went to bigger offensive linemen. If you look at some of these games on ESPN Classic, they're 270 pounds. Next thing you know they're 310, 320, so the defenses had to change. Even though we were playing the 34 defense, in today's game you've got to be able to -- you're dealing with a much different type of blocking scheme because today most of the schemes you get are zone schemes where they're going to block the area. A guy like Gabe, he forces, like we talked about, two guys to start off on him. That gives the linebackers time to get to the ball.

COACH CARR: You know, it was such a disappointment to lose any player. And Jeremy is certainly a young guy. He had earned a starting position in the spring. You know, he's a guy that he just -- the way he plays, this guy, he has an energy about him, an intensity. You see him off the field. He's kind of an unassuming guy. You would not pick him out of a crowd as being a tough, competitive, intense football player, but that's what he is. It's just a wonderful thing to be able to see him come back and get to play some this year because he was going to lose the year of eligibility -- he was going to lose it because he's already redshirt.

COACH CARR: Well, when we recruited Ernest, we expected him to be a great football player. But there's nobody -- well, I shouldn't say that. It's rare, particularly at safety. There's some places it's easier to play than others. To play safety, there are so many adjustments, so many checks, so much communication that has to be done at that position, that it's very difficult to do. The publicity that these kids get through all the recruiting magazines, all the things that are out there, the expectation is, because the guy is a great player in high school, he's going to come to this level and step in and be a great player. The truth is in almost every case it's a process. But we never doubted that Ernest would be a great football player, and that's what he's doing. Thank you.