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PURDUE UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 15, 2009

Danny Hope

THE MODERATOR: Welcome to our week three of Purdue football. The Boilermakers will be hosting Northern Illinois here at Ross-Ade Stadium on Saturday. We'll start off with some phone calls.

Q. When you look at this Northern Illinois game, do you think it could be viewed as a game track game in that you're coming off the tough loss to Oregon and Notre Dame looms?
COACH HOPE: I knew that would be the first question you asked. You know that? No.

Q. You say no, why?
COACH HOPE: We'll be ready to play.

Q. There's no doubt in your mind that you guys will be ready, huh?
COACH HOPE: Yep.

Q. What was the mood in the locker room after the Oregon game and obviously you wish it could have been celebratory, but from what you saw from the guys in the locker room, was it what you wanted to see?
COACH HOPE: We're very disappointed that we didn't win. They really played their hearts out, and that's a tough thing to deal with. We had a chance to visit a little bit, and pointed out some great things that we got out of the game. I thought it was certainly we were ready to play. And I was really proud that we went down and played like we did with no regard for the elements. Not the time zone or on the quality opponent. The crowd noise. We were never intimidated. I thought that showed some great intangibles for our football team.
They did a great job sticking together. Never doubted they were going to win all the way up to the last play of the game. So we walked away from there very disappointed that we didn't win. But I feel like we came away with some confidence in our football team realizing that if we could minimize our mistakes, that's one of the three big things we've set as a goal this year. Be a team that hits the hardest, be a team that makes the fewest mistakes and be a team that never quits.
If we can minimize just a few mistakes, we could have won that game hands down. That's not taking anything away from them. Because they could probably say the same thing, because it was a great game, great football game. Great football game. Great football game. It really was.
So we acknowledge that, and realize that we can be a pretty good football team. So we were very disappointed. I think we walked away with a little bit of confidence.

Q. Having read some of your comments after Oregon and talking to you on Sunday, you know, why do you think you know, your approach, I guess, that you were so positive with the team after the game? Obviously, coaches have philosophies. Some guys would go in, and I don't know if they'd rip their team, but wouldn't be too happy that they let that game slip. But you take the other approach, why?
COACH HOPE: I wouldn't rip them for playing their hearts out. That's all you can ask of them. Any time that things don't go right on game day, it's not lack of effort, then we can do a better job of training them. So game day is for fun, and they played as hard as they can possibly play. We made a couple mistakes. We learned the importance of it. And maybe we'll focus a little bit better in some areas in practice during the week that will minimize a mistake or two. It can make a difference in a huge game like that.
So we're going to walk away from there with some confidence and gain something from it. I didn't see any reason to go in there and be negative after the way they prepared and they played. It's unfortunate we made a couple of errors.

Q. Do you think your team's performance Saturday night got Purdue recognized around the Big Ten and maybe even the country? I don't know if you're aware of it, but leading up to that game Lee Corso said Oregon would hang 50 on Purdue, and Kirk Herbstreit said Purdue is exactly what Oregon needed to cure itself?
COACH HOPE: I saw that, but those guys don't watch a lot of film.

Q. Do you think you opened some eyes with your performance?
COACH HOPE: That's possibly so. We have a long ways to go in some areas. We're gaining some momentum as a football team. And the light is coming on for more and more guys on our football team. We're going to keep getting better and better, that's for sure.

Q. The last thing I had is when you look at Northern Illinois, I guess, what jumps out at you with film, and maybe some concerns you have about the Huskies?
COACH HOPE: They're a really good football team, and they play the way it's supposed to be played. If you look at them on offense, they have a sophomore quarterback, but he throws the ball well. Gets the ball out of his hands fast. He's accurate with his throws, and he threw it for 65% last year. Took them to a bowl his first year as a quarterback in their system. They have an aggressive offensive line. They have really good running backs that make a lot of things happen.
Spent some time this morning looking at a lot of film on their offense. And they have the potential to put a lot of points up. Defensively they're very aggressive. They're hardly ever out of position. They're coached very, very well. They have a really good interior defensive line. They have a very good nose guard. They have inside linebackers that are really tough guys. They are a really good football team. They make very few mistakes. They are a detailed group from the specialties standpoint. They're well coached and an aggressive football team.
They've played well against some of the best teams in the country the last couple of years -- Tennessee and Wisconsin just a week ago, and when they went to a bowl game last year.
So last year they were a better football team than us, because they went to a bowl game and we didn't. Certainly we weren't going to overlook them.

Q. What have you learned about your team these first two games that has pleased you?
COACH HOPE: Well, they have some fun together, playing together. They enjoy playing football and playing together. They're a really good football family, a close group of guys. They're very, very committed football team. They play hard, they play the whole game. Just a lot of the intangibles you're looking for in a football team I see in that football team.
So we're excited about our progress and the development of our program and the players on our team. I see a lot of good things, a lot of promising things from our football team. It's all things we're marked to work on. It's not just things that are happening by chance. It occurred through osmosis. It's we have a plan, we put the plan into effect. We communicated with the guys on the team, and we can see it happening. That's encouraging. That's the way to continue setting goals and meeting your goals.

Q. How about the offense? It seems like you guys have set a pretty good tone there in terms of the quality of play?
COACH HOPE: Doing pretty good. Really. We run the ball well. We throw the ball well. I think Coach Norton, his staff, and all the offensive players are having a lot of fun and doing a great job of keeping the defense off balance.
There are a couple of things that we need to do better. We need to learn to make some better decisions at times. But what I see out of our offense, it's fun to watch. I know the fans have commented and said some great things about how fun our offense is to watch. We're very multiple formation-wise. You don't know what we're going to do next, and that's always fun. I like what we see out of our offense. You have to secure the football better.
You won't win a championship or compete for the top spots if you are behind in the turnover margin. We all know that in every level of football. So we have to secure the football better. Makes a big difference in the season.

Q. I take it from what I've read and seen, Elliott hasn't taken you by surprise at all. This is kind of what you felt he could do?
COACH HOPE: Yeah, he'll keep getting better. I thought he threw the ball very well Saturday. I thought he threw the ball very well. He had a lot of zip on it. Stuck it in some high spots. They were some big-time throws. He ran our offense. Made a couple of poor decisions, negated some play -- gave us some play on on the offensive side of the ball. But I'm really excited to see Joey. The zip he has on the ball. He brings great potential to our offense. He's a lot of fun to be around. He's a great leader, too.
He's a good quarterback, he's playing well. He'll keep working hard and making the best decisions, and that will impact our team.

Q. Just to start you off, obviously, you haven't seen them on the practice field yet. But any word on Brandon King yet and his availability for Saturday?
COACH HOPE: I would say he's probable, and it's not for sure. We'll know when we get out there in a couple of days. If he had to play today, he probably wouldn't be ready to go. They're young and they heal fast.

Q. Does that have any bearing on whether you move Royce back?
COACH HOPE: It does. It does.

Q. Is he going back to offense?
COACH HOPE: He'll stay at corner until we need him somewhere else. He played good Saturday. He had a big hit on the special teams and was into it. He is an excellent team person.

Q. What about Chris Summers? Is he okay?
COACH HOPE: He's going to be okay.

Q. Obviously everybody was eager to see Jason Werner. Your assessment of him?
COACH HOPE: He's playing good. He's really playing good. He's doing a good job of managing his health. He's a good leader. He's really smart. He's not perfect. But he really works hard at being excellent. He really does. So he's having a heck of a year. He stays on track, and keeps playing like he's playing, and continues to improve, it will be one heck of a year for a guy that hasn't played in two years.

Q. Just from a personality standpoint, he's a very, very positive guy, isn't he, especially for a guy that's been through what he's been through?
COACH HOPE: Extremely positive, and he's really bright. You give him an idea or a direction, and you can tell he's on the same page. He's really quick. He's a very, very smart guy.

Q. I think you made comments about how well he knows football. Is that kind of one of his strengths, too, being able to recognize things?
COACH HOPE: I think it is. He's really smart and decides his plays, and you can see when he makes a call on defense, he understands why you make the call. They have formations and tendencies, and every team does. That's how you base your game plan.
He understands the game plan. And when the coach makes the call he realizes he's made that call because one of these couple things are fixing to happen, and he's waiting for it and he's on his way. Rather than making the call and sending him and running into whatever there. He has a great understanding of football. He really does. He's a smart guy.

Q. I wanted to ask about Keith Carlos. He got a little more involved at Oregon. Part of that had to do with Royce's situation, obviously. But is he kind of taking a step forward a little bit?
COACH HOPE: Absolutely. He's gotten a lot better the last couple of weeks. It was a lot for him all at once. So the intensity level, the demands of it. And he had to get used to things. He had to get acclimated as well just like the other freshmen. He's a little further ahead because he's a little older than they are. But he's a good player. He's playing well right now. He'll block, he'll work hard. He catches the ball. He has big play potential. He'll have a couple of breakout games that will get people's attention. I don't know but he's got some coming.

Q. Up at Oregon, you got the wind back in Antwon Higgs in the game. Do you want it on get them more involved, too?
COACH HOPE: I like to get them involved. What they were doing from an offensive standpoint, what Oregon was doing was a lot of assignment football. That's what's tough. That's what's tough about what they do. Being aggressive, and you miss the key on a simple assignment.
It can be exploitive in what they do. They have not unabridged edition of what they do. We didn't know if that was the best scenario of Antwon Higgs and Beckford. They played well on defense. Anticipate them. They haven't played a whole lot. They're going to need to be.

Q. I know when they talk about the quarterback in a lot of ways, it's the toughest position in all of sports, not just football a lot of it had to do with mental toughness and resiliency. Joey seemed to have kept his poise.
COACH HOPE: Our whole team's that way. We know we're not going to be perfect. We strive to be excellent. We knew going in there we had to maintain our composure. When things went bad, you couldn't fade off or start doubting or hide and you have to stipulate up.
I thought we did a great job start as a team. You bring guys over to the sidelines look right through you. Bring guys over to the sidelines and look right at you. There is a big difference: He did a great job with that. A great job with the composure part of it. And he does really well.

Q. Can you assess the role the linebacker plays in the two games?
COACH HOPE: Good, they're still learning, they're good players, good football players. Definitely football guys.
You know, in sync and in groove, we can still improve. Jason Werner hasn't played a couple of years. Carlino hasn't played one year. It's not like it's a veteran group that's played together four or five years. So we're still learning and growing some. And some of our top back-up guys are real young guys. But I've been pleased with it so far. They give you all they have, and they play hard and practice hard and they're fun to be around. They've developed a lot, I think, since spring ball, they're better now than they were. They have the potential of getting better. That's what I like about our football team, we cannot continue to get better.

Q. I just wanted to follow up about Royce. It's a nice luxury to have someone you feel comfortable putting them on special teams, offense and defense.
COACH HOPE: If we were ready to play, we wouldn't have to do that. I wouldn't call it a luxury, we spent some time over there, he'll go over there, and he'll give you his all. He's always into football. The focal point in the recruiting process is in the secondary. We're shorthanded now. It's obvious you can see numbers-wise. We've got good players. Not near enough of them, and we have our top players all fixing to graduate.
So we're a great opportunity for a young defensive back that wants to be a three or four-year starter. So we're hoping in the recruiting process we can impact that position.

Q. One aspect of your offense we haven't seen yet is maybe the long ball. Is that an area where you'd like to see that evolve a little bit?
COACH HOPE: We've been saving it. We're saving it. You know. We played the ball well, and we've run some high percentage passes, and we were new early. People were blitzing a lot. I think we're doing a good job protection-wise. I think we've only given it two sacks. I think that's what it is. I haven't checked the stats. We've practiced long balls and hit them well in practice. We just haven't pulled that trigger in the game. Haven't really needed it.
The percentages of completion on the long ball aren't quite as high as they are on a short ball. We've been playing higher percentage football. Trying to keep the offense going, getting in rhythm, keeping the experience offensively and having positive plays. There is a huge arsenal there that can happen.

Q. Kind of a different question. Someone on our staff is doing a story about the swine flu and how it affects. Are you doing anything different with the guys to kind of protect against that?
COACH HOPE: We wash our hands a lot.

Q. Really, that's all you can do, right?
COACH HOPE: That's all we can do. We talk about it all the time. Make them wash their hands. We have a sanitizer by the door. Hope you used it on the way in. I did. After you guys handed that microphone around, I'm not touching it. The guys do a good job of watching their stuff. And make sure to sanitize, you know, everything. That's part of it nowadays. Taking all the precautions that we can.

Q. When you talk about minimizing mistakes, do you think the ones you've had so far, would you characterize them with physical or mental?
COACH HOPE: Some of those mistakes have been physical we haven't tackled as well as I'd like to. There are different reasons to it, and we're working on it. And the other mistakes, Joey threw the ball well Saturday. I thought some of his passes, he drilled some straight shots in the area. Got the ball out of his hands in a hurry several times. He made a couple of bad decisions. They weren't really bad throws, they were bad decisions. So a little bit of both from everybody.

Q. You mentioned Brandon King and Chris Summers. Are there any other guys that would not be ready to go this week?
COACH HOPE: Panfil.

Q. What is his?
COACH HOPE: A burner, you know.

Q. You mentioned that the offense is kind of fun to watch at the play calling. Can you talk about what Gary is, is that something you sit down and try to game plan? Or is he the one that's saying we want this formation in the personnel group?
COACH HOPE: I didn't say we're fun to watch again. I said we're fun to watch. That's the type of guy that he is. He's a fun guy, he's unpredictable guy. What I like that he's done, we have a system. I talk about this a lot. It probably goes over almost everyone's head. We have a system that is in place that I want to utilize as an offensive package. And I want someone to come in and be creative in that system so I can still look at the film and recognize the plays based on what they're doing. And I think he's done a masterpiece what he and his staff has done since none of them worked together before. I felt like every one of those guys brought something special to the group and that's why I have them here. But they've done a great job. They really have.
He makes a lot of sense. He's got a lot of horse sense about him, he really does. He keeps it simple, which is really important, or we wouldn't have the production that we have right now with all the experience that we have.
We kid around, and he refers to it as LLD offense, it's a combination of LLD and AD, anybody can learn it, even us. And he makes a lot of sense when he puts the play in and how he presents it to be able to remember it. And the way he goes about presenting it, it sticks in your mind. And you have a vision of what to do.
You know, so he's an excellent teacher and excellent play caller. And he's got a great staff. Doing a great job. The players are having a lot of fun. They're the ones that should be commended because they've worked so hard. They really have. That group has worked hard. They've bought in and really extended themselves.

Q. Just a follow up on Keith Carlos. Will he start at receiver regardless if Brandon is ready to go or not?
COACH HOPE: I haven't given it any thought, to be quite honest with you. We're not really into it. We're getting ready to play. And right now we have to have Reese over on defense in case Randy can't go. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. That hasn't given any thought to winning or losing the game Saturday. I haven't thought about it. I'm sure they haven't thought about it. We'll worry about that when it gets here.

Q. Another guy that's elevated his play a little bit over the last couple of weeks?
COACH HOPE: No question. Particularly as much as Aaron Valentin is playing on special teams. He's a heck of a player, Aaron is. And so is Keith and Cortez. And Cortez needs to play more. It will make Aaron and Keith better players as well. He's going to play more, absolutely.

Q. We asked Gary this the other day. But are you in a position now where you have to force yourself to play these young receivers because you've got Valentin spread pretty thin? And you've had to move Royce back. But just to get these guys from gaining experience?
COACH HOPE: We don't have to, but we need to. You know, not put him in there, but we need to play them. We need to play younger guys, Higgs, and Beckford, and the younger receivers. We need to play TerBush, and a couple of other guys. Then another offensive lineman. But it's been tight. The game last week, as long as they were fresh, they were some of the guys we weren't going to pull out, no way.

Q. Is this a week you'd like to get TerBush a series?
COACH HOPE: Every week. Every week we'd like to get him in. Every week. We like to play the football game. We want to earmark the spot to get him in there in the games. We did that in the first game. It didn't workout for different reasons. And last week with everything that was going on, we felt like we needed to have our most experienced quarterback in there with all the things we had to deal with there. Checks and noise and all that stuff.
Joey's trained hard for five years, four and a half years.

Q. You moved Royce over to defense, is Josh Johnson, is his progress slowed a little bit? You talked very highly him in camp. I don't think he's been on the field defensively?
COACH HOPE: He's been on the field some. He played well this weekend, and played very well on special teams. He got banged up a little bit couple weeks ago. It was a really big game. And that tends to happen with Torri Williams. We put Torri over there. And you guys always look at it as who is the number two corner, who is the number two offensive tackle. We say who is the number one defensive back, two defensive back, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, all the way down the board.
Right now if something happens, we'd put Albert Evans or Josh McKinley, and they're probably our top four or five defensive backs, maybe not go to number 7 right now. It doesn't have to do so much with the guy progressing. And being ready to play in the game. We're going to play him more because he did well when he was in there on special teams.
He can really run and he hit very well. And he needs to be out there. So he's going to be playing a bunch. But he hasn't regressed any. He got a lot better the last two or three days. If Torri hadn't held up, he would have played more than Royce over there. In a game before or place like that, he played football on defense.
We make sure we have Royce over there in case something happens. We'd have to hang it on that freshman that hadn't played yet. That's the method to our madness behind that.

Q. Wanted to ask you about a couple of punts on Saturday?
COACH HOPE: The good ones or the bad ones.

Q. They're going to be the bad ones?
COACH HOPE: Figures. We've got good ones, too.

Q. You did. But it's kind of a rugby style or however you term that punt. Was that something just for that game or is that something that you plan on?
COACH HOPE: That's part of the arsenal.

Q. The arsenal that you're going to use?
COACH HOPE: Yeah, absolutely. It's part of the attack. The weapon. We just haven't done it yet in the games. We've been working on it, it's there. There are lot of things you can do for it. It's very important for a lot of reasons. We've learned a lot about it. I've been hooked up with Coach Gibboney. And we wanted to have the spread punt down to a science where we weren't going to get a bunch of punts blocked. We can do both. We can do both well. And we can only utilize one in the game up until Saturday. We wanted to kick it away from those guys. They kept running with it.
With the rugby, we give it a shot, and we rugby right to him, you know.

Q. Is that something like the spread punt formation you had to warm up to a little bit?
COACH HOPE: No, I've always liked the rugby, because a couple years back, three four years back I felt like we lost the championship down in Kentucky by not being able to defend it properly. So I always wanted to do it and do it a lot more. Having someone on board that knows more about it, researches it, has a passion for it. A lot more acclimated to it.
Lost a big game a couple years back to Eastern Illinois. I liked it a bunch.

Q. I'm sure you've been asked this before. But why do you wear a whistle during the games?
COACH HOPE: Well, because I have it on before I go out in the game, or if the whistle blows, they stop and they listen. They use the whistle, they use it pregame, and make a couple of calls. Every once in a while I pick it up by mistake. Every once in a while I take it off and they see it.

Q. You mentioned Valentin earlier. How important is it for your offense to have a break out game?
COACH HOPE: Well, all of them receivers coming on is huge to our offense because you can't double up on Keith. He's a really good football player. He'll catch a ton of footballs this year. He could be a leading receiver in the Big Ten. He doesn't have anybody else around him. So all those guys make each other better.
We needed Aaron to come on, and Keith Carlos to come on, and Cortez Smith to come on, and they are. We don't just have one receiver now, but two receivers now. We're getting to four, five, six receivers. Don't be surprised if you don't see Williams in the near future get on the field and play. He's healthy now, and he's a good prospect. He catches the ball great. He's a physical runner. We're doing tackling drills, and they can't tackle him. Whether he has anywhere to go or not, he's tough to get on the ground. He's a good player.

Q. How do you feel in general about your defense? You've given up some points, given up some yards. But at the same time we saw how well Toledo did against Colorado. Is it a concern or a matter of you guys playing really good offensive teams?
COACH HOPE: We've played some really good offensive teams, but everything we struggled with, we're working on and it's correctable. As long as it's not due to lack of effort or courage or ability, you know, and that was a fast bunch the other day.
I don't know if we'll play a faster football team. We might. There are some great players in our league. But that was a fast football team the other day. And a lot of people feel like it's one of the most talented teams in the country. And a football team that was picked preseason for maybe the top spot in college football, and played them at their place, and they were very angry.
You know, so, I like what I see out of our team. We're going to do well.

Q. Ralph Bolden, 29 carries, so far, 25 carries a game. Could you see him handling that number of carries over the course of the season, or do you think he might balance out a little bit more as the season progressed?
COACH HOPE: Well, I throw it to him some, too. He's an awful good player.

Q. Can you talk about their ability to gel? You have some injuries. Now they're all together. And they look like they're doing a good job?
COACH HOPE: They're doing great. We have a really good offensive line, and I'm really proud of those guys. We're a long you ways away from seeing how far they have come is a real credit to those guys. They work extremely hard. They do everything you want an offensive line to do. They have a redeeming quality about them. They run the ball, they're fairly athletic for as big as they are. They don't make a lot of mistakes. Right now, our offensive line is playing well.

Q. How much of the effectiveness of the running game have you expected out of this through these first two games?
COACH HOPE: Say the question again, please.

Q. The effectiveness of the running game through the first two games. Did you expect this?
COACH HOPE: Yeah, we've got good players, you know. A good offensive line, good backs, tough, hard running backs, good tight ends. That's real important to the run game. We have people that have to defend the pass to get us there. If they have to, they better because we have the potential to do well in the passing game.
I'm not surprised to see he's doing well in the running game. We ran the ball well in the defense. They ran it well in fall camp. You could see it happening. They see us doing well in the running games and we did very well in camp with it.

Q. How has that helped Joey along the first two games?
COACH HOPE: It takes the pressure off of him. I don't want to have to go out there and throw it 70 times a game right now. With the inexperience we have in the throwing catching part. That's not a knock on those guys. We won't set records doing it. But we're polished in those positions, but we're absolutely the best at it. We're very good at something else. We don't have to throw it 75, 80 times a game to win. And there are times in the past that we had to. We don't have to do that right now. So it takes some of the pressure off on of him.

Q. You were talking about the running game. He's talking about Ralph Bolden what he's meant to the offense so far in the first two games?
COACH HOPE: Ralph has really impacted the offense, and given us a chance to win every game, he and his teammates. But he's certainly been a focal point of it. He really plays hard, and he is a warrior on the football field. He's impacted our offense. He's impacted our football.

Q. I know you've been high on him, but could you have envisioned him playing well in the first two games?
COACH HOPE: Yeah, numbers-wise I don't put a lot of stock in the numbers -- over 2,000 yards, 3,000 yards, 1,100, 1,600. I don't put so much stock in the numbers as I do the play.
In spring camp, I thought he was one hell of a player. So I'm not surprised at the numbers. But if you would have told me he's going to be a leading rusher in the nation, I would say I would bet on that. But it's out of 100-something teams, you know, for any spot. Always that's our goal. The leading rusher, leading passer and leading team. He's number one in the nation for two games. He's healthy, and we're playing good. We don't see that changing.

Q. Doing a story on a guy you know, Kevin Sumlin and his big win over Oklahoma State. Just wanted to get your thoughts on the job he's doing down in Houston, and what you thought about that victory?
COACH HOPE: I thought it was a great win. I didn't watch a whole lot of the game. I saw some of the highlights of it. But I'm not surprised. Kevin was here, and we were here the last time. We had a great staff with Kevin and Sumlin and Jim Chaney, and Scott Downey, we had a blast. Had some great offenses.
And Kevin may not have gotten a whole lot of credit for that. But he was a big role in it. He's a great offensive football coach. He's a great offensive football mind. He's an outstanding recruiter. A great recruiter here at Purdue. Lot of fun to be around. He's an exceptional football coach. So I'm not surprised to see him having the success that he has.
He's very outgoing. People like him. He's really up front. And that goes a long ways in some places. I'm not surprised to see him having the success he's having. I think he's a very successful football coach.
THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you for your time.

End of FastScripts

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