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PURDUE UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 8, 2009

Danny Hope

Q. You were on the Purdue staff when the Boilermakers traveled to USC in '98. Maybe talk about how difficult it is to travel to the west coast and play a regular season game. And talk about some of those challenges.
COACH HOPE: The thing that I remember about the Southern Cal game was how hot it was. I've been coaching for a long time, and I think that ranks the first or second most hottest football games I've ever been a part of. It was extremely hot. That's what I remember from that particular game.
We'll do some things to try to make up for the difference in time that we're going to practice in the evening on Thursday night. Either Wednesday or Thursday night, about what time we're going to be playing at. Then obviously we'll get down there to Eugene on Friday. That will help us get on to their time schedule. It's one of those elms that you have to overcome, and that's a good thing for us right now. It's a mind-over-matter thing. We explain it to our team pretty simple. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. We've got to go out there and play the game, and we'll be ready to go.

Q. Is it fair to say that you're not too thrilled about this trip obviously because of the time it's going to take one to get out there and what it may do in terms of preparation for Northern Illinois next week, especially since you get in about 7:00 a.m. on Sunday?
COACH HOPE: I don't mind that part, really. I wouldn't say I'm not thrilled. I didn't say that. But anyway, you know, that's part of it. They're a big time program, and it's a great opportunity for our football team. I like some of the non-conference games to be closer to home, because our fans can be more involved. To me that's the big difference. We won't take quite as many people with us to Eugene as we would if we were playing closer to home. At the 1-AA level, you with us everywhere, and we play teams that are 7, 8 hours away. And getting back around daylight is nothing unusual. You can sleep on the bus or on the plane on the way back. Run home, shave, kiss your wife, and go back to work.

Q. You mentioned the opportunity, do you see it as a great opportunity since you will be the underdog, I would imagine you expect your team to be pretty loose, do you not?
COACH HOPE: I think every game we have right now is a great opportunity for our football team. Any time you go out and play a great football team and a great football program like Oregon has, it's a great opportunity for our guys.

Q. Can a trip like this tell you a lot about your team, and should it tell you a lot about your team?
COACH HOPE: I don't see it being different than any other game or any other trip. We have to get ready to play. We're going to be on an airplane. We don't have to walk all the way out there, thank goodness. I think we can manage that regardless who we play this weekend and where they're at. Or we'll learn some things about our team, if you will.

Q. And just your initial thoughts on Oregon, what you've seen on tape that really jumps out at you?
COACH HOPE: Their speed. They're really, really fast, and really, really aggressive. There's not a weak spot on their football team. They have outstanding players in the secondary that are aggressive and talented up front on both sides of the ball. They have a great quarterback, he's an experienced quarterback who played a lot last year. They don't have a weak spot or any glaring weakness to their football team. They're aggressive, fast, they play electrified when they're at home, they're an outstanding football team.

Q. First of all, how would you expect everything they've gone through since last Thursday's game, losing the game, the whole LeGarrette Blount situation to affect them this week? Is that kind of an unknown factor for you?
COACH HOPE: I don't know how they'll manage that in their camp. One of two things will happen, it will become a distraction or it will bond them together. That is the two choices they have. And that's what's happening in their camp. We have to get ready to go play these guys. Like I said, they're a very talented football team. And we have to get ourselves ready to play, and they have to deal with their own issues.

Q. Joey Elliott has stayed here through his career, now a starter as a senior. I guess first of all, how rare is that in your view these days that quarterback does that? You tend to see a lot of guys transfer, don't you?
COACH HOPE: I think if you end up being third or fourth on the depth chart, and there's a long line of guys ahead of you, and uh-huh some doubts on whether or not you can beat those guys out or play at this particular level, those type of guys often transfer. But Joey Elliott's been No. 2, and Ben Hunt. He's a tremendous worker and a guy with a lot of confidence. He's always done a great job preparing himself.
I don't think he ever had any questions in his mind whether or not he was a good quarterback on or not. There was just some competition in his spot. But he's competed since he's been here, he's competed since I've been here. In '08 he was competing to be the quarterback, and '09 he competed to be the quarterback, and now he is the quarterback. So hat's off to Joey.

Q. What does he bring to the table?
COACH HOPE: I like everything about him. He's a great leader. Outstanding intangibles for a quarterback. A vocal leader. Does a great job communicating with the players. If there's something that doesn't go right on a particular play. Joey doesn't run over to the coaches and explain what happened, he runs to his teammates and explains what happened. That is the true sign of a great quarterback. He runs the ball well, makes good decisions. Doesn't have as much decision as he'd like, as much of game experience. But he's getting that now. He's throwing the ball really well right now, too.

Q. Your thoughts about his first game?
COACH HOPE: I thought he did excellent. He missed a couple of checks, you know. We got one sack, they he got one sack on us. And I believe it was the result of an incorrect check or a call. But other than that, I thought he did really well. He didn't seem nervous, he had a lot of fun.
Joey always has a lot of fun. He's a high energy guy, hard to wear him down, he just keeps grinding away. I thought he did well Saturday. Had great command of the offense, excited to play, made big plays, made great checks, I thought he played like a veteran quarterback in a lot of ways.

Q. He's talked about maybe getting into coaching at some point. Your thoughts about how he'd be in that situation?
COACH HOPE: I think he'd be great. I really do. He's a great coach now. He's a coach on the field. You hear that used as a cliche, but he epitomizes that cliche, he is an outstanding coach on the field. I have a lot of respect for Joey Elliott and the way he handles himself with the team, and the effort that he puts in his preparation to be a great football player. He'll be an outstanding football coach.

Q. Your thoughts about your loss to Oregon last year, and how that perhaps affected the rest of your season?
COACH HOPE: I don't know, you know, a lot of people had their own opinion of that. After we lost to Oregon, we still had ten games left. I would hate to think a loss in double overtime would, you know, affect our football team that we're so week weak that it affected our football team and it was an impact on the other ten games. We have a competitive schedule this year, we have a football team that does a great job of focusing on short term goals. We've done that since January, we've set short term goals for our football team.
We have a plan to achieve each of those goals, we put that plan into effect. Our guys have a competitive schedule. If we were to stub our toe somewhere along the ways. We're going to do a great job of regrouping and a new short term goal and get back to work. I don't think that the loss to Oregon, I would hope that the loss to Oregon isn't why we lost the other games on the schedule. I think that would be a sign of weakness for our football team if that was a true statement.

Q. Have you ever been in a position where you had to discipline someone to the extent that you had to discipline their running back? And if so, how tough is it for you when you're put in that position?
COACH HOPE: I couldn't understand a word you said, I'm sorry.

Q. Are you hearing me better now?
COACH HOPE: Yes.

Q. Have you ever had to discipline anyone to the extent that Oregon had to discipline LeGarrette Blount? And if so, how tough is that for you when you're put in that position?
COACH HOPE: It's really hard any time you have to dismiss someone from the football team. And you have to put into their future goals and aspirations and dreams. Normally if it gets to that point, it's the last straw. Normally the first time a guy makes a mistake are you don't dismiss him from your football team.
I don't know anything about the details about what happened down there at Oregon. Don't really care much about what happened in Oregon. But I know over the years I've had to dismiss some guys from the football team. It's been you a difficult thing to do. We've done that since I've been here at Purdue already. You didn't hear a all about it because he wasn't a star running back. But it's a difficult thing to do. When that happens, it's a last straw. Usually when that happens, the player, all players and the head coach knows that we're right in making that decision.

Q. What are your memories of Blount's performance last year? He scored the game-winning touchdown, but your thoughts of what he did last year performance-wise, and just the talent level, and they're obviously going to miss that this year?
COACH HOPE: I couldn't hear you again. I got the last part of it. I thought their football team played excellent in the second half. They came out and ran the football very well against us. We made some mistakes, alignment and assignment wise. But they came out ready to play in the second half. They played well, and we didn't. And he was a factor in the game. They've lost a great running back. The guy that they have to start this Saturday is also a great running back. We've seen film on him and know something about him. He's probably quicker and faster, may not be as big or physical, but he's a handful as well. He's another great player on their roster.

Q. Everybody could see that Bolden had a big rushing performance. Can you talk about what he was able to do on the plays which he did not carry the ball, in terms of blocking, running routes and those sorts of things?
COACH HOPE: Well, that's a good question. I think Ralph's a complete player. You've had some banks in the past. I mean in general in the football world, if you will. There are some backs that do a great job carrying the ball. But they're not good receivers out of the back field.
That's not the case with Ralph. He's a great receiver out of the back field. And some backs do a great job carrying the football, but they're not physical blockers. Ralph's a physical blocker. He did all those things. We just asked him to carry the ball a lot. He did a great job with that. Any time we ask him to block or be a receiver out of the back field. He has the potential to be an A or A plus at that as well.

Q. How does the success that Bolden had, and day lover have affect McBurse's status. With having those two strong backs, does it creep into your mind that maybe you want to register McBurse especially with his injury?
COACH HOPE: We have a lot of games to play. 12 football games to play. That's a lot of reps, lot of snaps. It's a physical game. Al-Terek is an outstanding ball carrier, he's shown that in practice. The problem now is Al-Terek hasn't had the opportunity to practice a whole lot. He missed most of camp, he was very competitive before he got hurt. He was healthy close to game time, and decisions have been made as far as who is going to play, and time had been invested.
He's certainly a varsity player that we're getting ready to play. If we were to lose a running back down the road for some unfortunate reason, he's certainly a guy that you'd want to have ready to go, and want to get the ball in his hands. He's a great player. He needs to learn to be a better blocker and some things that he needs to learn about the offense, but I wouldn't count him out for the season. He's a great player, can be a difference maker. If we had the luxury to red shirt him, that would be nice. I don't know that we'll have that luxury. We're a long ways away from making that decision.

Q. Couple of your newcomers had touchdowns last week. Are some of these young guys possibly pushing for starting spots or are they going to play about the same as they did last week?
COACH HOPE: Well, we changed our groupings around a little bit last week. We didn't have as many receivers on the field at certain times during the game. Sometimes we had three and four and five wide receiver sets, and sometimes we only had two wide receiver sets, and we did that because we had limited experience at the receiver position, and we didn't want all the rookies out there on the field at one time. So we limited the number of receivers that we played earlier in the ball game from a frequency standpoint.
We do things differently from a depth chart standpoint. We compete for our positions on a daily basis at Purdue. We take a depth chart out, first thing we do everything morning, every coach has a depth chart in front of them. First thing I say is are there any changes on the depth chart? So everybody on this football team has to be a player and improve his position on this team on a daily basis.
So don't count any of those guys out. Keith Carlos is a fast receiver and a big, strong receiver from a physical standpoint. The more he learns, the more he'll play, and the harder it will be to keep him off the field. And Edison, he's very quick, very fast, very confident. For him to get a touchdown in the game Saturday as a big deal. He competes on a daily basis as well. There are certain groupings and formations they'll be back-ups in right now.

Q. Dennis Kelly, one of your least experienced player, but playing in that left tackle position. How did he do in his first start?
COACH HOPE: Dennis Kelly did great. I believe he was the high grader on the offensive line. I haven't asked Coach Carr to bring that to me. I get all the grades and put them in a file, but I think he did excellent. Especially coming off that late bout with mono that he had coming right off camp. We had some concerns with him that he was running out of fuel, if you will. And we held him out of practice for a couple of days and got him energized back up a little bit. But he played really well. He has a great future in football. He's 6'8", 290 pounds. He runs good, and he's smart. He's a tough guy.
He's young and inexperienced in ways, but he's a super talent. And he's got a great future in football and played very well Saturday.

Q. After the defendants was missing some tackles and stuff, did you see anything other than that on the tape?
COACH HOPE: I think we still missed those same tackles; okay. Unfortunately. But came in early Sunday morning. We have a lot of recruits here on official visits, and we start entertaining and spending time with those guys around 8:30. So we had to come in really early to look at the film. Early Sunday morning only got about half of the 90 snaps looked at on the defensive side of the ball. I was excited about what I saw. Some of the poor tackling was a result of guys trying to lay the big hit. One of our goals as a football team this year is to be the team that hits the hardest. We want to be a hard-hitting physical football team. And we were excited about playing, and we had some guys that were trying to deliver the big hit, and they whipped on a few. We need to come to balance to get ourselves under control some. But you also have to give Toledo some credit. They did a great job, throwing and catching too.
If you look at the stats a little bit, you know, sometimes stats can be misleading. But they averaged 6.2 yards an attempt. But they threw the football 70 times. You accrue a lot of yardage, passing yardage when you throw the football 70 times. People aren't talking much about our passing game from last Saturday.
But we averaged 8.5 yards per attempt. More yards than they did. So Toledo did a great job of throwing the short pass to the big wide receivers. They were all 6'4, 6'5" and they ran well. They gained several years even on a play that we rallied up and did a good job defensively.
So Toledo gets some credit. Our guys did play hard, they missed some tackles and guess what we're working on today. Tackling.

Q. So the defense was probably playing a little bit better than what the yardage and totals came out to?
COACH HOPE: I was pleased with a lot of things I saw from our defense. I thought they did a good job up front with our defensive lineup front. They got some push against Toledo's offensive line. Did a good job disrupting the front out of our base defense. That's what we wanted to do was keep it simple, so we wouldn't have a lot of assignment or alignment errors.
I thought we got that done with our defensive front. One of the most encouraging parts of the game, we told our defense one of the keys to victory was for our defense to maintain their composure because you have a four-year starter back at quarterback. A bunch of good receivers, great targets to throw it to.
They were going to complete some passes, accrue some yards and score some points. It was really important that our defense maintain their composure. Sometimes when things don't go just the way you want to. It's easy for some guys, maybe to fade off into the background a little bit. And I thought our guys stepped up and continued playing hard.
On the last play of the game on his 92nd play when the game was over as far as the chances of Toledo having any chance to win. They still had a few plays left. There was no way they were going to win the game. Our defense was running the football.
A great example was Torri Williams on his 92nd place to get it all the way across field out of the tackle to get in the end zone. There were some great things on Saturday, but we have to tackle better for sure.

Q. How much of a chance do these guys get to -- you're dealing with 18 to 22-year-olds, and they're trying to do something special for Purdue. How much personal contact do kids still have to be college kids?
COACH HOPE: That's a good question. Because there's been a lot of attention directed towards the 20-hour rule. We try to do some things to help our guys out. Sit down, look at the schedule and say we get a lot of work done. That's a great schedule. We've got a great itinerary here. You put yourself in the student-athlete's shoes and wonder when he's going to have time for himself at all.
During the season, it's tough. Particularly when you're a freshman, because you have to go to study hall in the evenings. They get up, go to breakfast, that's mandatory. They go to classes, that's mandatory, they go to weights, they go to meetings that's mandatory. They go to practice, that's mandatory. They go to dinner that's mandatory, they go to study hall, that's mandatory. They go to sleep at night if they want to. They don't get a whole lot of time off during that first semester. Once they've been here for a while, we can loosen up the restrictions on guys that learn how to take care of their academic business.
But when you put in all the other phases of what's involved with being a student-athlete, all the gotta-dos, things we have to be at from a community is service standpoint, and functions that we have to be present at. It's a rigorous schedule. One thing we do, and I know our players really appreciate, is when the practice schedule says it's over at 6:00. It's called all up at 6:00 o'clock, it's all up. We don't have a practice schedule that says it's going to end at 6:00, and it's 6:20, 6:30, 6:40, when it says all up, it's all up. When we practice, we're not staying out there any longer than what is on that practice schedule. Our players appreciate that. That's all for the coaches, going fast, getting started with your instruction kick quick or else the time will go by.
So I think holding true to the schedule you put in front of them, the players are a little more eager to go out there and get the job done, knowing there is light at the end of the tunnel that they can see.

Q. Just wanted to follow up on something you said about how you're going to work on tackling in practice. Does that mean specific drills or a scrimmage?
COACH HOPE: A little bit of both. We have different type of tackling circuit drills. Several different types of tackling circuit drills. We have turnover drills and drills for everything. And we have live tackling. We're not going to tackle on our number one play makers on offense right now. We're not going to go out there to see how many guys can tackle Ralph today. We're going to save him for Oregon this weekend.
But we'll take some of the scout team guys and we refer to them as the rabbits. We're going to set them up and turn the rabbits loose, and let our guys chase the rabbits and try to get them on the ground. And we'll do in a in conjunction with some of our tackling circuit drills. Most of the time we go out in full pads on Tuesdays. So most of our tackling stuff will be done during Tuesdays, as long as a lot of our cut blocking stuff is done on Tuesdays when we're in full pads.

Q. I wanted to ask you about Kawann Short. Saturday was his first game, he seemed like he was very active. Can you evaluate his first game?
COACH HOPE: Kawann did very well. He's done very well all through camp. He's a rising star. He's going to be a very special player here at Purdue. He's a guy that has a chance to be a very, very top player. We had a lot of guys that did well Saturday. Kawann was won of them. Our football team was well prepared. I want to give credit to our assistant coaches and on our team. We had sat down and talked about the further along we could be at when we played against Toledo, the better chance we'd have of beating Toledo.
And the first along we'd be with the rest of our schedule. So the Toledo game was very important. Marked on the calendar, and we had specific goals in mind as a football team exactly what it is we wanted to get done. And that's what we were out there to do.
We didn't go out there on Saturday and try to manufacture some thing that's we hadn't talked about in the master plan as far as what we're trying to get done in the Toledo game. So it was a great game for all the guys on the team to play. Kawann Short did have outstanding on Saturday. He's certainly a rising star at his position.

Q. We talked some during training camp about one thing. You guys wanted to find that third offensive tackle to bring in. It seemed like recollection man was the guy to move outside, and short of that was Schmeig coming in at guard. You talked about him being one of your improved players. Can you talk about his improvement now?
COACH HOPE: It's amazing. They come in as freshmen, and you look at them and say golly that guy ease a long way away. When Ricky came here he was overweight. He needed to play faster, play harder. I think a big turning point in his time or as far as his development as a player so fast here in the last year, there was a point in time last year where we grabbed him and some of those young offensive linemen that we were pretty sure weren't going to play last year, and we put together a specific program for those guys. I thought impacted his development. It was more than just weightlifting, it was a lot of work with sand bags, and doing some things, getting out of the stance fast, just a lot of position specific training he did last year during the football season that I thought really stepped up his development. He's kind of a natural at center in some ways, he we put him in there a couple of weeks back when Brewer went down in practice with a minor injury.
Just because the number one center goes down or the No. 2 center goes down, you don't go to the guy right behind him. You try to figure out who your next best player is. If we were to lose a tackle now, Reckman is the next best tackle we have out there. We may not go to our second or third tackle. That was the case with Rick.
We looked at Brewer was injured. Didn't know how long he was going to be out. We have a very good center with Jared Zwilling, and that is the second hardest position to play on the football team. I think quarterback is the most challenging position on our football team. And center is the second most challenging. We want to make sure we have somebody ready to go at the center spot that we can win with.
And we threw Rick in there, and he seemed like a natural to us. He's very important to us. He can go in and play at center, or guard without any drop off. If we have to use him at guard, really proud of Rick, and really proud of Zach, he's a guy that we've put a lot on, and he's done a great job getting himself ready to play this year.

Q. You haven't seen him since Sunday's practice, but do you have any idea if your team's in pretty good shape health-wise going to Oregon?
COACH HOPE: We're in real good shape from an injury standpoint. I don't know if we'll have anyone that plays on Saturday will not be ray for Oregon. And that's good for us right now. We're still trying to manage ourselves from an injury standpoint. That was a tough call there at the end of the game as far as keeping the starters out there as long as we did. We didn't want accruing injuries. But we felt like we needed to gain some experience.
Ever since I coached here last time, played Michigan State two years in a row, and we were two scores down with a couple minutes to go. We came back and won both those games two years in a row. A 14-point lead doesn't seem like much to me. So I was concerned about the production that Toledo was having at the end of the game, putting too many subs in there too soon. We needed to get the win and get some experience out there Saturday.

Q. I guess first, can you maybe assess a little more the performance of Jason Werner and his first game back in the year?
COACH HOPE: Well, there are some great things that happened for Jason on Saturday. He got to play football for the first time in a long time, and he made it through the whole game. And he looked just fine yesterday. So I was kind of holding on to make sure that he'd be all right. But he did great. He was our leading tackler. He had 12 or 13 tackles. He missed a few. He was trying to throw some big hits in there and ripped on a couple. First time he's played football in a game in a long time. So is he's still rusty. But I thought he played very, very well. He's certainly played winning football. He was our leading tackler. Where he needed to be on almost every play, and he's still healthy, and that's good.

Q. I know football schedules are made way in advance, and you didn't set up this particular schedule. But you probably have the toughest non-conference schedule in the Big Ten. Going forward, what is your overall philosophy in non-conference? Do you want the toughest, the easiest? Somewhere in the middle?
COACH HOPE: I don't have a certain goal in mind. I don't want to become 0 before we play our first conference game. We want to have a competitive game, one the fans are excited about. And one we can compete with as well. I like to play a little closer to home so the fans can be involved.
I know as head coach at Eastern Kentucky University we played probably the most competitive 1-AA schedules the whole five years that I was there. And in the 15 non-conference games we had in the five years I was there as head coach, they were all 1 A games with the exception of Western Kentucky, and Appalachian State. We played West Carolina two times. But we tried to play teams near home so our fans could go up with us. That's the thing about a trip out west. We'll take some fans, but not as many as if it was within a half a day's drive. I like to play closer to home, and I'd like to have more of our fans at the games. But with a competitive schedule comes some great opportunities.

Q. Some of this had to do with Toledo's passing game and they weren't able to generate any sacks. When you look at that is it more because of the short passes and stuff or stuff that you can work on and get pressure in the quarterback?
COACH HOPE: The majority of it was the result of their quick passing game. And I know we have some connections with some guys on their staff as well. And they thought they had two segments to get rid of the football. Most of their passing plays were designed to get the ball out of their hand in two seconds or less. They were concerned about the rush, we have a good defensive line, they have a good offensive line. But we matched up well with them up front. They had an outstanding game plan as far as getting the ball to the quarterback and get it out of his hand to the receiver and accrue some yardage after a short catch. Great plan on their part.

Q. (Indiscernible)?
COACH HOPE: It was more of the scheme. He's probably six, seven yards deep, and you go about a yard every ten seconds, so do the math. If you have a great shot at it, it's still hard to get there in two seconds. So they had a good plan.

Q. Can you talk about Jared Crank and specifically what it is that maybe he made his move and became a player that you thought could make a big contribution?
COACH HOPE: I think really made his move when Coach Jackson stuck his foot up his butt when he first got here and stayed after him. Because Jared Crank is a super talent. But he was quiet and held back some. And Coach Jackson does a great job of getting the best out of all his players. He stayed after him, and stayed after him, and Jared continued to improve and push himself. He's got a great on body, runs fast, he's a physical player. He can be a good ball carrier. He's improved his skills coming out of the back field as a receiver. He can play more and more, and it can be an integral part of our offense in time.
Right now he's a physical player. When he got his opportunities and Coach Jackson was working with him and showing that great interest in him, he really caught on fire and improved his game, if you will.

Q. Will a fullback continue? Assuming he'll continue to play well. Is a fullback an integral part of your offense?
COACH HOPE: Fullback, one back, no back, you name it, we've got it. We're a multiple formation offense and have been for years. But they forgot to include the I. So we throw the I out there for ten plays, and everybody's snapping for an I-formation football team. But we are still in the shotgun most of the time. And one back most of the time. We thought we could make some hay running the football on Saturday. Thought that was the safest bet further.
We'll be in the eye some because it gives us a chance to go down the hill in some ways. Changes the play-action pass. Changes the defense's concept as far as full flow reads. There are a lot of things, believe it or not, the two-back does to create work for the defense. So we'll still run some of it, but we're a multiple formation offense, no question about it.

Q. Can you talk about your nickel package, specifically some of the things you did on the defensive line with Kerrigan inside at tackle, and moving Golding in there as well? What sort of things you liked out of that formation?
COACH HOPE: That wasn't the result of the nickel package. That was the result of the defensive linemen cramping up and going into the locker room. We were running out of people. And Coach Williams can't play anymore. He was a great player in his day.
You know, Ryan Kerrigan's a big, physical guy. He had a tremendous game. He'll have an outstanding season. Our guys are graded on production points on the defensive side of the ball, you get so many points per tackle or so many points for a batted ball or an assisted tackle. I believe that Ryan had more production points than the rest of our defensive line put together. He has a great future in football.
Our nickel package is something that we use against certain groupings and formations. It's also something we can go to if we start running out of linebackers. We did that a lot last year, so we're familiar with that.

Q. We heard all about how the tight ends were going to catch these passes. Was it a matter of Toledo blitzed a lot so had you to keep tight end run more for reception?
COACH HOPE: That, and we ran the ball a lot more than what we normally do. Ran it more than maybe we will in the future. I don't know, we'll see, we'll try to take what the defense gives us. But they were a big part of the running became game, and we ran it more. That eliminated some of the opportunities to catch the ball.
We knew coming in their head coach was going to blitz a lot. That was important to make sure Joey had a chance to set his feet and give him time in the pocket, and give ourselves a chance to throw and catch. We didn't want to become mayhem right off the bat with all the new quarterback and new offense on the I side of the ball. So we kept the tight end in as a security issue.

Q. Adams was also in the slot quite a bit. Is that someplace we might see him the rest the year?
COACH HOPE: They've done that around here a lot. The same with Dustin Keller. We saw him out there, didn't seem unusual. We'd like to take the tight end, play with him some against the tackle as a blocker and a receiver. Take him, and put him in the slot position, and utilize him in the slot position as a blocker and a receiver. And from the personnel standpoint, it's something the defense has to deal with. You'll see him some lineup next the tackle, some out in the slot. But he's out there to do both, blocking and catch.

Q. On Oregon has a couple of pretty good guys in the secondary. We don't know if T.J. Ward will play. He got injured the last game, Thurmond as well. What have you seen of those guys and what makes them good?
COACH HOPE: They're great players, great athletes. The one corner, number 6 is as good a player as there is in the country. He's on special teams. He's a great player. You watch those guys play defensive football, and they're as good as any player in the country at their position. They're special players with special ability, and they play with a tremendous passion.
You watch them on special teams and they crank it up even more. Couple of those guys play all the time in the secondary, and all the time in special teams. So they're talented, aggressive, their play speaks for themselves and they're spirited players as well.

Q. The review or the play that they did not let you review where they said we can't review an incomplete pass?
COACH HOPE: It got kind of confusing on the sidelines I should have brought the rule book with me. We have a little packet of information on reviewable plays, we don't have instant replay at the 1-AA level unless it's a playoff game. It's not quite as experienced.
So I spent some time meeting with the officials over the summer. Spent time meeting with the staff got the little packet out, had the sheet out of everything that's reviewable and what's not reviewable. And a catch is reviewable -- any pass that's been ruled a catch or an interception is what the ruling is. And that wasn't ruled an interception. It was ruled it wasn't an interception.
So when I wanted to have the play reviewed, the official asked me do you want to use your time out? I said no. Not to review it. But they get ready to snap the ball, then I'll review my timeout. He said they're reviewing it upstairs right now. I was waiting, waiting. The team's getting ready to snap the ball, when the official said that's not a reviewable play.
So after I got the information out and read it, I said must be some of the interpretation. I must have missed something in the language there. But we talked to the head of the official, and it wasn't a reviewable play.
We have great officials in our league, and I was on the NCAA rules committee for a couple of years. That was a great opportunity, I learned a lot. I got on the committee because I thought it would help me be a better football coach. And I walked away with a great respect for the officials. That's a job I don't want. I promise you. That's a tough job. So there is a misinterpretation of the language, and that's just the way it was, not that big a deal, really.

Q. From what you saw, would it have been an interception?
COACH HOPE: I think it was. If I was on the sidelines I wouldn't have been ready to burn that timeout. David Pinder helped convincing me as well.

Q. It looks like you have lines now on the Bermudagrass practice field. Is that ready to go? Are you using that soon?
COACH HOPE: We're going to use it. But we don't want to tear it up the first day. That is the beauty of our new synthetic turf field. It's large enough to put the whole team on it at one time. We don't have to rip our grass field. We'll spend most of the time on the synthetic turf field. But it's ready.

Q. Can you review an incomplete pass?
COACH HOPE: An interception whether it's ruled an interception or not, yes, you can review it. That's the last info I got on it.

Q. When you watch the Oregon-Boise State game, what did you take out of that game that maybe Boise State's defense? Did Oregon have a lack of execution?
COACH HOPE: I think it was just a really tough, hard-nosed football game, and both teams got after it. You look at the tempo in that game, and we realize we better pick our tempo up. Very physical game. Guys playing with great passion. Two teams playing to try to promote themselves in the national rankings of college football. What a great football game.
There are obviously some things that you look on the film and you see Boise State be successful with that you have in your playbook or in your arsenal that you maybe want to dust off and get ready to go for Saturday. But it was a great football game, and could have gone either way in a lot of ways.

Q. With so much attention on Oregon and how they're going to react after everything that happened a week or so ago, do you feel like your team can maybe fly under the radar a little bit and maybe go out and surprise some people?
COACH HOPE: I think they'll be waiting for us. They're going to be ready to go. One of two things will happen in that incident. It will be a distraction in some ways or it will cause them to bond even stronger. They're going to be ready to play this game coming up on this schedule whether that incident has occurred or not.
They were an outstanding football team. They were ranked preseason coming in. They slipped a little bit last week, and they want to get back in the good graces, if you will, in the rankings, but they're going to be ready to play. No question about that.

Q. How did you feel about the new punt formation?
COACH HOPE: It worked.

Q. Why is that such a popular thing nowadays with teams?
COACH HOPE: Lot of reasons. I never thought I'd change. We used the regular punt formation or tight punt formation, the old school punt formation when I went down to Eastern Kentucky. That's what we were using here at Purdue all those years. Took that down with me to Eastern Kentucky university.
I had a snapper who was a good snapper, he broke his hand on Thursday. The No. 2 snapper weighed 160 pounds. We had concerns about how he'd hold up protection-wise. He's a great snapper, but 160 pounds. So we thought if we spread them all out, he doesn't have to block. So we went to that on out of necessity. And I liked some of the benefits from that.
I think the rusher is further away from the punter in a lot of ways. You watch some teams, and you watch Texas Tech, you see their offensive line. I don't choose that particular scheme with our offensive line, but Texas Tech does.
They figure to spread the line out, the defensive line out and it's further away from the rush. There is some carryover to that thought process to the spread punt. Also, if you get a lot of blockers, you lose something from a speed standpoint as far as cover guys go.
So there are some pluses to it. It seems they're closer to that punter than what they really are. The first couple of times you put it on it, they're really further away than what it looks to the naked eye. Sand standing out there, watching the game. There are some benefits to running the spread punt from the personnel standpoint, the coverage standpoint, and all the other things that they have to do to defend what they can do to that spread alignment as well.
When you have them piled in together, they can circle the wagon around you. It's hard to circle the wagon around those guys when they're spread across the field. So there is a method to our madness.

Q. You said you were going to practice at night either Wednesday or Thursday. Are you going to practice 10:15 our time at night? Because that is the time of the game here?
COACH HOPE: Yeah, we'll probably go out about 9:00, stay out for a couple of hours. I don't want to have to go out 12:00 and stay out till 2:00. But we'll go out about 9:00 o'clock. That's close to game time. Starts to get us acclimated to being on their time. Wednesday or Thursday night, 10 o'clock schedule. And again on Friday, we get out there and it puts us already on their schedule.
COACH HOPE: Do you ever talk to your team how to act win or lose, so you don't have an incident about what happened to Oregon or is it just kind of implied?
COACH HOPE: I hate to say it's kind of implied. I know one thing. I don't know anything about the incident in Oregon. I promise you I don't. I saw a glimpse of it on TV in passing and could really care a less. But I know that when you have players that do go in school. When you have guys that make A's and B's, and guys trying to make A's and B's, those guys often times make good decisions on and off the field. It's hard for a guy that's doing really good in school to sometimes act beneath his academic performance in some ways.
So we have some rules and some policies, obviously, that's not tolerable, that type of behavior. And I don't think you have to have a team meeting about that. Don't sucker punch anybody while we're shaking hands after the game. I didn't have that team meeting, no, huh-uh. I would think that would be understood.

Q. Can you talk about how good do you think Bolden can be? How good can he be?
COACH HOPE: I don't know. You know, that's a quantitative statement. He can be as good as there is. If he stays healthy, we can get some good players in front of him. And the advancer on our passing game will help out a lot. We're going to throw the football. Be in the shotgun and throw the football. That's what Purdue does. Right now in the first game, we want to make sure we keep things simple. In their running game we thought we could make a lot of hay with Toledo's front.
As we improved in the passing game, I think that will open up more doors for Ralph. So the sky's the limit. He's got competition from Jaycen Taylor, and Dierking, and Al-Terek, if he doesn't keep performing as well as he has in practice, he could watch somebody else play on Saturday. If he continues to improve. He could be a special player like he was last Saturday.

Q. What are the things that make him capable of 234 yard that's game?
COACH HOPE: He's real fast. In my mind, that was the deciding point at the end with the staff as we sat down. Because all those backs are great. It was some of the greatest competition ate single position that I've been around. It was a lot of fun to watch. And I think it helps set the tone for our football team in a lot of ways to see the backs finishing the runs and blocking physical. And each of those guys competing to be a number one.
But the speed factor for Ralph, many times in practice he took it the distance. Many, many times in practice he took the full length of the field. You see a guy doing that over and over again, and pretty soon you realize this guy's got some speed that can make a difference to the football team.

Q. How close was he to play eight lot last year?
COACH HOPE: He wasn't the same guy last year. He's coming off a knee injury. Wasn't ready to play, he's a lot like Kenny. He had to play because he had to, not because he was ready.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Coach.

End of FastScripts

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