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PURDUE UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 7, 2010

Danny Hope

THE MODERATOR: We'll go ahead and get started here whenever Coach is ready. Questions.

Q. Could you talk about these next three games, obviously a pretty big three-game home stand for your club, is it not?
COACH HOPE: I think the next three or four weeks is really important to our football team. I mentioned that I thought time was a huge ally for us right now. I would have liked to have executed better in a few areas Saturday, but I'm pretty excited about where our team is at based on how far we've come in a short period of time and what we have from a potential standpoint.
We did some really good things Saturday on offense. I don't think we even come close to tapping what we can do. I think we have the potential to explode offensively, and we did some good things and the same thing defensively, did some really good things, but there's room for improvement.
And you can see the areas that we can step it up in. I think the players can see that. I don't think we're that far off. So I think the next three or four weeks is really important for our football team, because we play here at home. We have a chance to get better and better every week. We also have an open week right before we get into conference competition. That gives us a chance to prepare extra and heal extra. The next few weeks is important to our football team. I like the way it's laid out.

Q. Do you like playing these games against the FCS opponents? And obviously in fans' minds they think you're going to show up and beat teams by 50 points. I guess what's to be gained in games against FCS opponents and do you like these kind of games?
COACH HOPE: I did when I was an FCS coach. It's part of Division I football. From a revenue standpoint, that level of football would really struggle without the 1-A revenue game. So I do like it as far as the spirit of the game goes.
Most of the time you start off with an opponent like FCS school to give yourself a chance to get things wrinkled out early in the season. So certainly there's merit to that. But to be able to play at home and have a home crowd is huge for our football team with an FCS opponent or whatever type of opponent it is. It's a trend in scheduling the last couple of years because it wasn't that long ago when they passed the rule that one FCS team against your team could count for Bowl eligibility. When I went as a head coach at Kentucky it wasn't a rule yet. But I was glad they adopted that rule because it was marketable for those schools and for revenue purposes.

Q. That leads to my next question. Are you looking forward to the day when the Big Ten has nine conference games and it will at least alleviate some things scheduling-wise, will it not?
COACH HOPE: I haven't given it a whole lot of thought but I like the idea of playing nine conference games. I think it forces everyone in the league to strengthen their schedule some. I think it's got some real good to it.

Q. How about preparation this week, as opposed to last week? Is it more this week about your team not that it wasn't last week, but maybe do you focus more on your team than you did last week in terms of looking more at Notre Dame a week ago versus Western Illinois?
COACH HOPE: We'll prepare the same. Obviously there are some areas that we have earmarked in every phase of our football team that, hey, I kind of like what looks like what we can do with some of these plays and some of these ideas, and maybe shy away from some others.
So we'll emphasize some things that we come out of the first game feeling good about. I think that was one of the huge things about playing a team like Notre Dame that you have to get ready to play and create a great sense of urgency for our team preparation-wise, but you can find out where you're at and take a good look at some things that you have success with on Saturday and believe that that's some things you can continue to have success with.
So there were a lot of great things that came out of Saturday. I was pleased with many, many phases of our play Saturday. A lot of our areas of concern going in are areas that we untested waters, if you will, held up pretty good in the game Saturday. We would have liked to have played more efficiently on offense in the first half. We went out there with a goal to be ahead or keep it close, we would have thought would have been key to victory for us.
So we game planned offensively and defensively to make that happen, try to slow the clock down some so they weren't on the field quite as much. And we didn't execute some things that we could have executed in the first half, and we started off a little bit slower than we would have liked to.
But when the game was over and we came back and looked at the film, you see all the great things that we did and how simple some of the things that we have to fix are, it's very encouraging, very encouraging.

Q. One of the good things that came out of Saturday, you come out pretty healthy, I would have assumed against a pretty physical team, right?
COACH HOPE: We did real well injury-wise. We're a bit thin anyway at some spots. So to come out there without accruing any injury of any significance was a shot in the arm for the team.

Q. In terms of Western Illinois specifically, what are the concerns? What do they do well?
COACH HOPE: They do a lot of things. So it gives you a lot to prepare for. So it's going to be a test for our team and also a good step for our team to have to take. Offensively, in the past they've been outstanding running football team, great tradition, great running backs, and Payton award candidates, head coach there has had an outstanding career there as any assistant coach establishing a run game and they've hired a new offensive coordinator that will do some things formation wise.
They'll go from a loaded-up formation with tight ends and back ends and empty and vice versa. So they do a lot and they give you a lot to prepare for. They have a good quarterback that only played in three and a half games last year and threw for almost a thousand yards opened up with a big win against a very talented Sam Houston State, one of the more talented FCS teams. He's a big guy that can throw the football and at the same time they have three or four running backs, great players, a couple of transfers. One guy was a starter a year ago, BCS school.
So they have some guys, three or four running backs, head coach thinks they're the strongest they've been running back wise in depth and talent. He's been there for a long time as an assistant coach, so he would know. So they can establish a running game. They're similar to Northern Illinois. They'll try to come at you with a power play and some run plays with lead blockers, but they have a big draw-back quarterback that can throw the ball as well.
They give you some things you have to defend against and you have to be assignment sound and they will run some trick plays, too. So it's a great preparation for our defense, in particular our young guys in secondary. The challenge for our offense is they also run a 3-4 defense, an odd front, which we just faced last weekend, so there is some carryover or some transfers of training, but they lined it up differently, do a lot more tough linebackers and bring three linebacker stack inside. They can give you some looks and some pressure off of it.
So our offensive line picking up the blitz from a defense that's designed to give you a lot of different types of blitzes, that will be something that will be a challenge and something we'll have to work hard on, but also a good step for our developing an offensive line.

Q. Your thoughts on Evans, the way he played, what you're counting for from him?
COACH HOPE: I thought he and all the secondary fared very well. It's a style of offense that's, you know, goes about scoring a lot of points. They're a big play offense. Spreads you out and takes their shots down the field and they came out with four and five receivers and gave us some empty and certainly tried to test our secondary.
And it's an offense that's been very successful. Holding them to just a couple of touchdowns and two or three field goals on what was on more than one occasion a short field. I thought it was a good performance by our defense in a lot of ways. Would have liked to have tackle on some of the inside run plays. We spread ourselves on the pass because we had to and they were hanging their hat on it and coming after us, a big quarterback and really good receivers and a young secondary. We spread ourselves a little bit thin to cover their spread offense, and obviously they came at us with some run plays and we missed a few tackles against a really good player.
And I thought that impacted the game some. But for the most part I was very pleased with what we did defensively, very pleased with al Evans and all the guys that played in the back half. Didn't have very many missed assignments and didn't have many loafs anywhere on our football team, particularly on the defensive side.
So there were a lot of good things. We didn't have very many presnap penalties. Had a couple at the end of the game when we went into a no-huddle offense and they were stemming their defensive front around there towards the end when we were pushing and challenging to win the ball game, and they jumped and skimmed their fronts a bit and jumped off sides a bit.
But for the first game to go out with no presnap penalties or missed assignments in the secondary, to hold the top offensive players in the country to just okay games, they made some big plays but they weren't break-out games or stellar games for them, I thought was an indication of some good things for our defense. Good signs for our defense. Our offense, too.

Q. This is kind of a general recruiting question, I know you can't talk specifically, but there's a trend nowadays to recruiting younger and younger players, more basketball than football. From your perspective, how young do you go? Does somebody say there's this great kid, a seventh grader, how young do you start really recruiting kids?
COACH HOPE: I think there's two types of futuristic recruiting, and one of them is how early can you get on in the recruiting process with the guys that you sign in the next up and coming class. That's one type of futuristic recruiting, how soon can we get on the ones we want now. And obviously how early can we identify top-of-the-line players. And that's I don't want to say unchartered waters for Purdue, but some new direction that we're putting some real emphasis in.
We restructured our staff and now have a full-time recruiting coordinator whose duties are solely directed towards recruiting. And I believe that over a period of time it's going to greatly impact Purdue football from the futuristic recruiting standpoint.
Before I came over here, between eating my Jimmy John's and coming over here, I looked at some 2012 guys, and they're the ones that are pushed through to my desk first or are the ones we think we like the most right now for sure, not really sure they might be offer guys. We're looking at tenth grade film on them. We've looked at a lot of those guys and we're already getting into position to know which ones we want to offer on on a bunch of them.
I looked at a bunch of them before I came over here. If they're identified that young as a good player sometimes they're really stars and just not that hard to identify them. So we're pushing that process right now before we came over here.

Q. Sophomore film?
COACH HOPE: For football. You can identify a guy if he's really that special, if he's really that big and moves that well. Sometimes you have to develop some things that you need in order to play football that's hard to tell with a guy that's from a preadolescent or early teens as far as lining up and knocking him out or hit people with his face and rub their nose in the dirt and see if he likes that kind of stuff. Hard to tell sometimes on a eighth grader. If they're older sometimes you can tell. Those are important things.

Q. Basketball, say, isn't as physical as football. Maybe you can identify a player in the eighth or ninth grade?
COACH HOPE: Skill level. It's the skill level. We can identify the skill level. We can't tell if they're a football player sometimes as an eighth grader. Hard blocking and tackling. Not something that you do on a daily basis. It's hard to tell who the football players are at that age.

Q. Mostly then unless they're sophomores in high school that's when you start --
COACH HOPE: That's the word. Maybe next year we'll be more futuristic, but this is where Purdue is right now. We're way ahead on the 2011 class. We've had those guys where they're at on the board and feel exactly who is on the short list and who is on the long shot and where very quickly identifying and evaluating and moving on with the 2012 class right now. We've had a ton of film, hundreds of tapes. Hundreds of 2010 guys tapes already. Every day.

Q. Just as a former FCS coach, if I can say that, are you not surprised that every once in a while one of those teams knocks off a Division I squad? We saw it over the weekend and obviously Appalachian State a couple of years ago and a few others?
COACH HOPE: You have to be ready to play against anybody or you jeopardize that liability happening. But sometimes when a really good FCS team plays a I-A football team that's a lower level, there's not as much difference as you could imagine.
So it can happen. If they have a special player or really good team, and Appalachian State won a big game a couple years ago, they had a great player that would have been a great player for anybody's team. I think he was drafted in the second round, Edwards. I believe he was drafted in the second round, plays receiver and quarterback and running back and everything for somebody's NFL team right now.
He's an unbelievable player. He can go beat almost anybody. Very similar to (indiscernible) but maybe a little bit more souped up than Antwaan Randle El with Indiana (indiscernible) first go-around, guy that can just go out there and impact the football team. They have one of those guys, and sometimes they do because they can take transfers that transfer down. They could have -- Appalachian State wasn't. But they can take transfers.
That's really the direction I think I-AA or FCS football has gone the last five, six years, where the better teams are the ones that are best at recruiting transfers, and going out with the philosophy most of us are raised with is we're going to recruit high school guys and build our program with four- or five-year players.

Q. That can probably help you change your program around quickly, right, it sounds like Western has gotten some transfers in, after a tough year last year?
COACH HOPE: They all do it. It's the best way to get a I-A player. If you go after I-A players that everybody knows about, and they all know about everyone right now because of technology, used to be you had some I-A guys they didn't know about, you got some. Now everybody knows about them, so it's harder to get the I-A guys. So it's easier to get the ones that are bounce-back than it is to try to identify and go head to head because everybody knows where they're at, and that pecking order really beats you up in the recruiting process.

Q. Changing gears, now you've had an opportunity to take a look at tape, just how do you think that Peter Drey did in his first start out there in what was a pretty hostile environment?
COACH HOPE: He did very well. He's a good football player and he was part of Coach Tiller's last signing class. As soon as I came on board, I got to fly out and go meet him right when he was halfway through his senior year in high school.
He's really developed a lot physically. Got a good body. He's a big center that he's all of 6'5" and some change. 190 pounds. Three years of eligibility left. Looking at his weight room numbers, he's got pretty good weight room numbers, surprisingly good, based on where he was at two years ago physically. I saw him his senior year playing basketball. I thought he's a couple of years away from being -- certainly a couple years away from being big enough and strong enough.
But he has really developed fast and he's a good player and has a lot of pride and he's a smart guy. He did very well. Did very well against one of the players lined up ahead of him. Took care of snaps, one of my biggest concerns. Inconsistent with his position. Did very well Saturday. He was our second highest grader on the offensive line. I think Dennis Kelly was the first highest grader, and I believe Peter Drey was second, which was really good for first time out there.

Q. What's some points of emphasis Saturday?
COACH HOPE: We have to play against the run, because they're a run-oriented football team. This is a good time for our defense to take some steps in that direction. We did some good things against the run the other day, particularly in the fourth quarter when they were trying to run the ball to put the game away, and we did some good things at times against the run. But we sure had to spend a lot of focus on the pass getting ready for Notre Dame with what they did from a schematic standpoint.
It was good time for us to focus a little bit more from the defensive standpoint. That's been our Achilles heel in the past and it was hard to get great focus and time committed preparation-wise to that getting ready for Notre Dame. So the timing was good.
Like you said, the next three weeks it's really important for our football team. A lot of unchartered waters. I look at the film and it's really good effort. And there's some talent out there. Some young talent and there's some great talent. I like the next three weeks some of the things we'll get a chance to work on, and getting ready for the run game is huge this weekend. Offensively, we might be able to establish more run game so the run game on both sides on the ball important this weekend.

Q. Seems like you used the boot leg a lot last week. I read that Gary Nord said we didn't actually call as many as looked because Robert maybe kind of got a little jittery or however you want to say it and got out of the pocket. How much is that what you want to use and need to use in the future?
COACH HOPE: Anytime you move Robert out of the pocket it can be a good thing because it shrinks down the field and gives you less to look at and also has a run option which is a really good thing. We wanted to go in the first game. Particularly with the lack of continuity we have on our offensive line. I'm pleased with the development of our offensive line.
I think we've made more progress on our offensive line in the last six or seven days than we did all camp put together. Right tackle starting to figure it out. Our center is starting to figure it out. Getting back in shape up front with a couple of our big guys. So I think that we did some good things with our offensive line on Saturday.

Q. I assume you want to incorporate the deep ball more, what needs to happen for that to show up?
COACH HOPE: Gotta catch a couple of them, would help a lot. We went deep a couple of times. Back to your question about moving to the pocket. Some of it was designed -- to answer your question, some of it was designed and some of it was Robert breaking out of there some on his own. Again, we had not had great continuity up front and more sure about his protection than he was going into the game.

Q. Keith Smith staying up front?
COACH HOPE: Looks like it. Natural at feeling the punts. Number one concern going in. Waynelle got injured a couple weeks back, and Antavian does a good job too, and Keith came over and said I can really field them, I'd like a shot to do it. Caught some great punts in practice, some great punts in practice and made some people miss, and he's a really good football player, so I think it's a boost for our football team with him being back there. So certainly seeing him back there a lot. Him and Antavian Edison I would say are our top two punt returners.

Q. I don't think Higgs got on the field Saturday. Is he okay? He was on the travel roster?
COACH HOPE: He's fine, but when you miss a lot it's difficult to come back. We recruited hard two deep at linebacker. Some older guys moving on. There will be some spots. But when you're out for a while particularly the type of injuries he's had, and Al-Terek McBurse in the same boat in some ways where they've been out a couple of times at critical times of the year with injuries that kept them from getting bigger and stronger, slows you down a little bit.
He's missed a lot of time, practice-wise, and the other guys have got their reps in and performing well. It's just harder to nudge yourself into the lineup right now, but he's still a good player and he's out there getting after it and he's pitching the plans, but the depth chart was where it was at when he came back healthy and hasn't beat those guys out yet.

Q. Follow-up on Keith, was it by design for him to fair catch everything last week? Going forward, does he have more freedom to maybe take some of those punts and run?
COACH HOPE: He has all the freedom he wants. It was very, very windy Saturday. We talked earlier at times about areas of liability for our football team last year, pop up now and then, and kick catching was one of them. We spent a lot of time on kick catching. Caught a lot of kicks Saturday, called them well and secured the football on a very windy day.
So I think some of his fair catching he didn't have a lot of room. We need to do a better job sticking with our guys on our punt return team. That was one area we came away from saying we need to get better with that. We can. Some guys didn't do as well. They had too much separation trailing. We didn't stick in front of our guys enough to give Keith a whole lot of room.
It was windy. The ball was swirling around. I thought he did a good job getting underneath it and fielding it. He's going to be a good punt returner. That's going to be good for us and good for him.

Q. Have you had a chance to evaluate the new defensive tackles that played Kitchens and Bruce Gaston?
COACH HOPE: Yes, it was great to have an opening game that was -- even on the road that was close to home. We didn't have recruiters here. We came back spent a lot more time looking at film on Sunday and had a chance to watch everybody several times a piece. And I thought those guys did well in the first game and they made plays. They're like a lot of other young guys.
They're not consistent doing it right enough. There were a couple of times where we didn't get lined up right and that aided to the efforts of some of the running game that they were able to manufacture. We lined up where it was a luxury to the offense a couple times. That was a result of some youth and inexperience, didn't execute some of our techniques a couple of times that aided to their efforts on a particular run play that we struggled to stop. They'll learn some things from it.
As far as going out there playing hard and getting after it and being strong enough to hold up when they do it the right way, they can. So we are encouraged about those guys, and they'll make some big steps. They'll make probably as much improvement as anyone, maybe more so, at quarterback.

Q. How would you evaluate the offense performed on third down? The numbers don't look good, but after reviewing the tape what did you see?
COACH HOPE: The numbers don't look good. We didn't convert enough of them. We went for short yardage situations to try to stay on the field. We didn't make it happen on a couple of plays.
Looking back at it, again, we come out of the game saying, hey, these are some of the things we did in the game on Saturday. These are things that we liked and we thought we would like. If I had to do them all over again, what would I do different? We might call some of those plays in different situations, different plays in different situations.
And I think we can come away from the game having a better idea what we might be good at, that we really increased our third down efficiency in a lot of ways. That's also going to be one of our keys this weekend offensively is to do well on third down. We want to stay out there.

Q. With so many young kids on the field last week, so much hype going into Notre Dame, do you worry about any kind of letdown this week knowing you're playing an FCS opponent and having the focus and the energy it needs to prepare for Saturday?
COACH HOPE: I don't think so. I've been back here a couple of years now and probably the loss of this past weekend was probably the toughest loss. The team was down. They came out and worked hard. But it wasn't a whole lot said. So I think that it was a tough loss and winning would make us feel better. Obviously that would be the perfect remedy.
I think they've worked really hard and they want to feel good. I also think they're a smart bunch of guys. They've done what we've asked them to do from a preparation standpoint. We went out there and knew what we were trying to hang our hat on and they tried to execute those things, and we did a degree enough to allow us to compete but not to a degree enough to allow us to win.
But they know what we have to do and they understand what we have to get done this week and next week and the week after that. It's part of a plan that we've talked about. And what we have to do is take some steps as a football team here the next couple of days. And we need to play better regardless who the opponent is this weekend and we've got to do the same thing the next week and the next week if we want to be in position after the open week to be a football team that can go out and compete for the top spots in the conference.
So if we are goal oriented and we want to compete for top spot, then how we go about our business this week and the next week and the next week and the week after that is the difference-maker to our football team.
And that's the first thing we talked about when we came into the locker room after the Notre Dame game. That's the absolute first thing we talked about as a team. So they understand. We're going to play well. We're going to get ready to get better I know that.

Q. And since you've been on the other side of this, you've been an FCS coach going against a bigger program, how can you transfer how motivated Western Illinois will be to your team to understand that they're coming in, this is kind of maybe a Bowl game for them in a way?
COACH HOPE: It's a Cinderella opportunity. You live for those. When I went back to Eastern Kentucky as the head coach I really upgraded the schedule a lot. Had not played many BCS or Division I-A football teams on an annual basis. To me it was something that was exciting created more revenue than all the other games put together all the years, every time you scheduled one but also created an opportunity for advanced training for the conference and an opportunity to shock the world.
And those are things that fuel your soul and are exciting. They'll come here excited and hoping to manufacture a win that's historic and can impact their program and last forever. It's just a big game. It's a great opportunity for them. That's how you sell it. And that's how you go about perceiving it at that level. No question about it.

Q. Can you assess Dan Dierking's effort last Saturday?
COACH HOPE: He sure did. He's a good football. Joy to coach. He did everything we asked him to do. There's a couple guys that might be a bit bigger or faster, but he's really, really tough. He's a good football player and has a good speed about him and he's a good physical player. I thought he carried the job did a great job with it. Hard to bring down. Read the holes well. Timing was good. Didn't make many mistakes. Played a lot more Saturday than he ever has in a game, played a lot on special teams too.
I thought he did really, really good. He's a good leader on a football team. He's a guy you get the same thing out of him every day, the best he's got with a smile on his face and team-first guy and a real giver on the football team.
So he's really important to us in a lot of ways and right now he's our best overall running back as far as knowing what to do and relying on him as a blocker and timing and ball security and all the things that you want your running back to do. He's our best overall running back.

Q. I guess that leads a little bit into my next question which is about Al-Terek, are you expecting him to be ready this week and even if he's ready is Dan the guy you still go with?
COACH HOPE: He's still ahead on the depth chart. But we have different things we do. And I like what Coach Nord has been able to do with the offense. He's taken the Purdue offensive system as I remember it when I was here -- he can come in here and call the plays with the same offense that was here before, but he's able do it with some two-back looks and doing things from a personnel standpoint that Purdue hasn't done a whole lot of in the last couple of years, and still be in the spread and gun and call the exact same offensive plays we did when we had Drew here and throwing it 60, 70, 80, 90 times a game.
But we've got some other guys we can work in and out of the lineup to carry the football by formations and groupings and personnel, and Coach Nord is the very best at that. You saw some of that Saturday, ways to get the ball to Antavian and Rob Henry and all the other good skilled players on our football team.
But we're committed to a great investment into Al-Terek, and he has to be a good football player for us, and he's had some things that have set him back. They're not defects of character. They're injuries, and it's tough to get better when you're hurt. Tough to get better when you can't practice.
And he's gone when he could. But probably could have done more Saturday if we would have put him in there more. But we had ran a lot of the other plays with a lot of the other guys while he was out and we were comfortable running those plays with these people. That's how we lined them up and schooled those guys up a certain way and he had opportunities. But we had a commitment to Al-Terek, expected him to play well and expect him to be one of our top play makers on offense this year.

Q. What are the chances that we'll see Reggie Pegram get some carries?
COACH HOPE: Depends on what the other guys do in his position and from the injury standpoint. Right now with Crank, who hasn't played a whole lot, is more of a fullback type but he understands the offense now to help us with other looks. And with Dierking and with McBurse, Reggie would be the fourth guy to go in. He may or may not. We'll keep getting him ready to play and utilize him hopefully on more special teams.

Q. Question about Rob Henry, will you look to get him more involved and possibly even maybe in the passing game some?
COACH HOPE: We want to get him involved in the passing game. That was our intentions on Saturday. We wanted to go out there and throw the ball with Rob. He's our number two passer on our football team right now.
We had earmarked a place on the itinerary to get him in the game, third and fourth drive. But Robert, he started off a little bit unsettled. We wanted to get him settled down. And so we didn't get Rob Henry until a little bit later. He's our number two passer. Sent him into the game to execute pretty much the same offensive package that we had set up for Robert Marve. We weren't going to get off the script. They did some things defensively.
Where we're at field position-wise, we thought we'd go more with some of the run stuff and utilize him some. He's a very good runner with the ball. One of our better runners with the football. But his role is our number two quarterback to execute the same offensive plan.

Q. We haven't asked you in a couple of weeks about Keith Carlos. Any chance you can get him back anytime soon, or is he a long way off?
COACH HOPE: It's a mystery. I have no idea how long it's going to take. Haven't seen him do anything. Still working with him, rehabbing him. They're putting him through some light exercise stuff but I haven't seen him do anything football-wise since last spring.

End of FastScripts

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