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PURDUE UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 12, 2010

Danny Hope

THE MODERATOR: Welcome to week 6 of the Purdue football season. The Boilermakers will be taking on Minnesota at noon this Saturday at Ross-Ade Stadium. It is homecoming this weekend.

Q. It seems like the defense really maybe grew up against Northwestern. Can you maybe comment on where they are at this point?
COACH HOPE: I thought our defense had a heck of a night. Definitely showed some real progress.
But I thought a lot of phases of our team stepped up Saturday night. I thought our offense certainly stepped up and special teams showed up and the defense certainly showed up.
I thought we were more physical along the line of scrimmage with our defensive line. We still have to execute that phase on a more consistent basis but we took a step in that direction.
The open week helped us some, allowed us to work on that more and also be rested up going into the game. I thought our linebackers played faster and they were sharper with their keys and reads and made more plays. We probably had about 40 tackles or so between our three linebackers. I think our defensive front really picked it up. When that happens, that changes things for your defense.

Q. The maturity of Rob, it is tough obviously to have your first collegiate start on the road like that. He seemed to handle it very well.
COACH HOPE: He is a very level-headed guy in the recruiting process. We thought he was something really special, you know, from an athlete and also from an intangible standpoint. The players, they've always believed in him. They have always thought he was very special as an athlete and also from the tangible standpoint.
So I'm not surprised to see him go out there and play well and handle it on Saturday. He did a great job in the spring when he was the only guy that we went live on. He was the only quarterback we went live on in the spring, and he was No. 3 on the depth chart and did a heck of a job. He was still able to execute the offense and didn't get near the rep sets that the one or two quarterback got throughout the course of the spring and executed very well under live situations in the spring.
And I thought he stepped in and a great job throughout the course of the season when Robert Marve was banged up. His passing stats I think showed some real promise, and I thought he executed well. I think he is getting better and better. I'm not surprised he played with poise and confidence in the game Saturday night.

Q. You're facing a Minnesota team that has obviously struggled. What do you see in them? What problems do they present?
COACH HOPE: They are a talented football team. They are similar to where we were at last year at this time. They are not real happy about their record. They had some promising play. They are talented. They have very big defensive line, very strong defensive line. They average 300-something pounds a man inside. So they do a great job of holding the point. You don't get a lot of push on them inside.
They have some good ins to get up the field, good edge rushers, guys with good bodies and good fast twitch. They rotate guys in. They have some good young guys to put on the field. They take the same approach as we do as well where we are rotating upfront the defensive line spot.
They are very, very aggressive at safety. They have moved guys around in the secondary, so they haven't really had a chance to establish a lot of continuity. We've had new guys in the secondary but pretty much playing the same positions. They've got new guys in the secondary that they have moved around some. But they got guys that are running hit back there. They are a very aggressive defensive football team.
Offensively, they have evolved the last couple years and feature the run more, a lot more now. They have a big, physical offensive line. They certainly established the run against us last year, and they have a veteran quarterback and a couple big-time receivers from a talent standpoint to throw the ball to and big backs that run hard. So they're a good football team.
They got a great kick returner. So they pose a lot of problems. They're talented and well coached and have schemes that can give you things to work on. So we're going to have to play really well Saturday to beat Minnesota.

Q. Continuing with Minnesota, just talk about Adam Weber. You mentioned him, veteran quarterback and, you know, the problems he presents.
COACH HOPE: They keep playing even in some of the games that they were behind at. In the end, they kept playing. They have scored some touchdowns in the fourth quarter. He is the guy that knows what to do, and he knows how to execute their offense. He is a polished-up player. Any time you have a veteran quarterback that's a good player, there are some things you can do offensively. He is a key to what happens on Saturday.
He does a great job attacking the defensive front with the right runs, and he's an experienced and poised passer as well. They do a great job featuring the play-action pass. You have to do a lot of things right defensively when you line up to play against these guys.

Q. Wanted to get your thoughts. Your team will be wearing the throw-back uniforms, of course, honoring the Rose Bowl team. Of course, you were on staff here at Purdue and have some special memories, I'm sure. Your thoughts on going back in time, if you will.
COACH HOPE: It will be great to have those guys back and had a great experience with them, certainly one that impacted all of our lives together. And, you know, it was a difference maker, that point in time was, a difference maker in Purdue football. That era, that point in time really impacted Purdue football forever.
So it is very special to have them and also some of the other teams that are coming back as well. I think the '85 team is coming back and the '60 team is coming back. I've got great feelings about the Rose Bowl team. We had a lot of fun. Weathered some rough sledding but had a lot of good times. It will be great to see those guys. We have a lot of moments to share.
They will have a blast here this weekend. They will make a difference in this the weekend having that bunch back.

Q. Will your time permit where you will spend some extra time with those guys? Or is your time --
COACH HOPE: It is really busy. They have some events that's going on that I will try to get over and see them some at different events. And then, obviously, they will be with us on the sidelines. Some of those guys I stay in touch with anyway.
We have done a really good job over the last couple years, our phase of our football program, in getting former players on board or back involved or reconnecting with them. It has been a huge push for our football program, through our Varsity P which is part of the John Purdue Club. We have events throughout the course of the year. That's one phase of the program that has picked up great momentum in the last two years that was almost nonexistent two years ago. Great job with Clausen and Leroy and all of our coaching staff.
That's a thing that's been going on that makes it even bigger this weekend.

Q. When you talk about the preparation for Minnesota, just maybe touch on the importance of turning the page and going out and taking care of business on Saturday because, obviously, you don't want to negate what you guys accomplished up in Evanston.
COACH HOPE: There are some things we could do a lot better. Coming into the game Saturday, we challenged a lot of guys on our football team, take a look at their game and their coaches with earmark areas that they felt like if you could step up in these areas, make a decision to step up in these area, you would be a lot better player and we would be a better football team. The light came on in some aspect for a lot of our players Saturday. The light came on for some of our defensive linemen Saturday. The light came on for some of our linebackers Saturday.
But it is not just beaming bright. It is flickering a little. We have to keep doing it. We have to show up and get ready to take another step as a football team because the competition gets tougher every week.
So we'll move on and start practice here in a couple hours and get into our preparation for Minnesota. Obviously, we've lost to them the last couple years. And, certainly, we would be shocked if our team would overlook an opponent like Minnesota coming into Ross-Ade for homecoming.

Q. How valuable -- can you put into words how valuable that was for your guys in terms of confidence?
COACH HOPE: We had confidence going into the game. We didn't waiver. It's not magic stuff or storybook stuff. We had things we could sink our teeth into that made us believe we could win the football game.
We really believed going into the football game Saturday we were at the best we had been all year defensively. We really believed that. We had a couple weeks to get some things wrinkled out. We were a faster football team and an offense that was a little easier to execute.
We felt like we matched up with our opponent very well from a talent standpoint. They had good players, and we have good players. So we went into the game with some confidence. Again, we took some steps and we executed better. And execution means doing your job. Guys do their job better, then all of a sudden you execute better as a football team. We executed better on Saturday. That was a big step for our football team.
All the things we are emphasizing, we think we made some progress towards during that open week. And we're rewarded with a win. So it was a huge win from a momentum standpoint. It will help with confidence. But I promise you we went into the game confident that we were going to win. We didn't have any doubt when we took the field.

Q. I know Pete asked you about Rob Henry's maturity. How about his decision-making especially on some of the zone reads and option reads?
COACH HOPE: He is a smart guy and things make sense to him. When you talk to him, the conversation is always productive and you are the same page when it is over. From a cognitive standpoint, the game is slower to him compared to other guys that have been around in the past. So he has a good demeanor about him. He has confidence about him. He competed at a really good level of football in high school. So he is a great competitor. He has all the intangibles you want.

Q. Coach, can you update us injury-wise on Siller and Bolden?
COACH HOPE: I don't know if Ralph will be back this season or not because we're approaching halfway. He is starting to practice more, and eventually we'll have to make a decision whether we are going to red shirt him or if he is far enough along to step out and play. He is starting to practice more.
Regardless of the decision, that's not our decision. That's us, Ralph and where he's at health-wise and all that. So a lot goes into that. So regardless of whether he is red shirted this year or plays this year, he's got to get on with practicing more to be the player that he can be next year.
So he is starting to practice more. We will see how it goes. I don't know if he will play this year. We are halfway through the season and he hasn't.
I believe Siller will be back in a couple of weeks. He's not -- he won't play this week, I don't believe.

Q. Have you guys -- I don't know -- taken a look at maybe some of the teams across college football that are doing so much damage with running quarterbacks, seems like Nebraska and Michigan, and maybe take a page out of their play book going into last week?
COACH HOPE: We went into the game with a couple new wrinkles that helped us manufacture some more run game with our quarterback. We had a great plan from a passing game standpoint, I thought, and I thought we would go out there and execute it. But the running game went well. Ball security was a big part of it because the last couple years we've lost to Northwestern and ball security was a major factor.
Timing is really important in life. We talked about that a lot this week. I think that gave us some confidence going into the game. We thought we were playing this particular opponent at the right time. Obviously, the Nebraska game, you know, watching those guys play some on television, similar offense. They played against Kansas State last Thursday night. They are also 5-0 wildcats. That type of offense worked well against that type of defense. Our players had a chance to watch that and reflect on it some.
But, certainly, we've researched what we're doing. We already had an clue anyway. But those that major in it and make a living in it, they know all the nuances of it. So we're always researching. You don't have to stay the same.
And it all fits within our system. We haven't changed anything in the play week. We haven't changed anything in the play book. It all fits within the system. We have an offensive staff that's smart enough to get it implemented without it being a task for the players to learn. We haven't hardly changed anything with the players.

Q. I don't know if you can say this in general terms, but from a defensive standpoint, what makes the zone read play so difficult to defend? It seems like a lot of the damage with the running quarterbacks is being done with that particular play.
COACH HOPE: Well, it is an evolution that's been added on to the spread offense. So you're already -- it can be. You can pack them in there tight and still do it or you can spread them all out and do it. When you spread them all out, there is more grass to defend for each guy on defense.
You answered your own question when you asked it. Zone read or any kind of run-play read, you are reading a guy so you have negated having to block him. So you increase your numbers by one. Instead of having a hat for a hat, you have an extra hat theoretically in some ways.
That's pretty basic, but that's what it boils down. It is very similar to option football where you are pitching off of a guy or reading a guy. Now you have an extra person on your side, on offense, to execute with.

Q. From a standpoint of -- last thing is how difficult was it for you guys -- I know you said you didn't really have to change very much in terms of your system, but how difficult was it in that bye week to change basically from a pass-based attack to a run-based attack?
COACH HOPE: It was very simple. We really didn't change anything for hardly anybody on the football team. We were already running the run plays that we run. We already have a reach game end in our offense. We have been running a zone read for a long time. We just added a couple wrinkles to it. It was very, very simple.
The linemen don't even know what happened. It didn't change anything for the backs. We took Rob Henry and taught him a couple things. He is a smart guy and he is a talented guy and able to potentially feature him some more and helped us win. It is a lot simpler than what you would think.
It is something that we can also evolve with. It can grow and become larger, and we can add wrinkles to it and get wrinkles out of it. We will get better at it and add to it.
Again, we're not going to be a one-dimensional football team. If you look at our stats coming into the game, we were almost 50/50 even though we didn't have very glamorous stats coming in. They were still 50/50. If you look at our stats last year, we were about 50/50 run, pass, percentages, very balanced. Coach Nord does a great job with that. It is uncanny how even he can keep it. We don't want to be a one-dimensional offense.
There was passing game there. He threw two or three away, which is a good decision. Incompletes don't usually beat you. Sacks and picks beat you. You can throw incompletes and still make a living in the passing game. So he made a couple good decisions, and he threw it where no one could get it up in the nickel seats a couple times. But he threw a couple away and we had a couple of drops. Otherwise, we would have manufactured a more passing game.
What were his stats a couple weeks ago against Toledo in the second half when he went in? He had pretty good stats. I think he threw for 150, 170 yards, whatever it was. I don't think he had a 60-something percent completion or anything but he was productive and made good decisions.
So there is going to be a passing attack. We have to be able to do that. We are not going to let our people load it up where they have more hats than we have around the line of scrimmage and shut the run game down. If they do that, we have to void them with a pass. That's what the spread offense is all about. We have to do that. We have the players to do it, and Rob can do it.
The more reps he gets, the better he gets. He is a lot better now than he was a week ago and a lot better than he was two weeks ago. He is a lot better than when the season started when he got to go in the games and play than he was when the spring ended. He has been getting better all along. He is easy to coach.

Q. This might be a little bit of a follow-up. As he gets more experienced, I would imagine, sort of as you said, the offense can evolve a little bit as you shape it to what his strengths are?
COACH HOPE: Absolutely. And going into the game, we had, I think, a really good plan for the passing game. Some of it was similar to what we have been doing. But each quarterback has a certain throw that he likes better than others and certain route combinations he likes better than others.
And Coach Nord is a pretty unique coach. He is always on the same page with what his quarterbacks like to do. They have to turn in their top plays that they like for the week and they talk about why do you like those plays. And usually the quarterbacks make a lot of sense when they put it on paper and feature some of the game plan around that. It will evolve some and certainly will evolve accordingly to what we have personnel-wise.
But a lot of it is already there, it is just us dialing it up.

Q. How important was it to allow your team to see that you guys could win with this style? That had to be pretty important from a confidence point of view, right?
COACH HOPE: Well, going into the game we were confident it was going to work because we had executed it in practice and from a mathematical standpoint, it made a lot of sense. We had good blocking schemes and angles and we had talents and fast guys to hand it off to, a quarterback that was going to make good decisions.
So I'm sure everybody is excited that a couple of wrinkles that we put in helped us win a ball game. We were pretty sure it was going to going in on Saturday. Everyone was confident it was going to work.

Q. Cody Webster had a really good game obviously including the long punt there. Are you happy with his progress particularly? It seems like he is becoming more and more consistent.
COACH HOPE: It is really hard to stay who stole the show on Saturday. You know, coming into the locker room everybody is chanting "Rob Henry." And first thing out of Rob Henry's mouth is, "Great job defense." And Keith Carlos made a couple huge plays. And I thought KK took his game to a different level many times throughout the course of the game. We stepped up special teams-wise, too.
It was a great team victory, great team victory. Everybody celebrated after the game. Even the guys who didn't play much who were just as happy as the ones who did. That's a great sign for your football team.
Cody Webster is a talent. We expect him to punt the football a long ways. We had him in camp. We have a full-time special teams coordinator that does a great job for us. Part of his duties is training our specialists. He's an expert at it. And he is also, I believe, an expert in the evaluation process and he is connected to that inner circle that trains all of the kicking specialists in the country.
So with the facilities we have and having a full-team specialist instructor as a coach, we feel like we are more marketable to the top specialists in the country than most schools. So we really bring in four or five of the top punters in the country. We know they were the top four or five top punters in the country. And everyone recruited them like they were the top four or five punters in the country.
We saw them inside the Malakoff Center. We saw them all kick, and Cody knocked the laces off of it. He had some great punts, and he has a great leg. And he is a competitor. He has a little something about him.
He played some other positions at times in high school. He has got thick skin. That's really important when you are back there because if it doesn't go right, everybody tells you about it. But he is a talent. Not surprised to see him getting big punts. He has crushed them in practice, even though he shanked one the other day. Everybody laughed early in the season. I said he is going to shank one, but he will shank them further than the last guy because he has a stronger leg. It was a 30-yard shank. The guy has a leg. He has a legitimate leg. I think he showed some real poise.
It was a high snap. He got up and got it. And then they brought a lot of heat on us, and we didn't execute as well as we needed to up front. We were a freckle off. There were a few more guys attacking that shield in front of him, and he boomed it under pressure. It was good to see him make a big play and showing great athleticism and great potential as well. He's a real weapon, real weapon. He can be.

Q. You are one of the top teams in the country of getting sacks and tackles for loss. A lot of that is Ryan Kerrigan. How much also is it a lot of the teams are playing attention to Ryan, bringing up some guys to generate big plays from the defensive line and linebacker spot?
COACH HOPE: If they all show up, they will all get after him. Gerald Gooden had not been full speed since the beginning of the season. He is, I think -- going into the season, I told you we have some guys on our football team that will be great players at their position, in the league, and at a national level and other guys that can play winning football.
Gerald was one of those guys I had a star by his name thinking he should be a star player for us. And he made a lot of progress over the open week. It was by far his best game.
There was some pressure on the quarterback, and we got some hits on him. We got some push upfront by the D line. We didn't dominate all the time but we got some push. And those two good ends we have had both those tackles on the edge, so there is a little more pressure. They were breathing on the quarterback a little bit more. That changes everything. So we have a lot of sacks because we have a lot to sack them with.
We have two really good ends and for strong against the run. If we can stop the run and be physical against the run and force people to have to throw it, in a lot of ways it can be an advantage for us. So it is critical for us to be able to continue going in that direction.

Q. You talked about the D line was more physical against Northwestern. Was that, in your opinion, just a result of having extra time off with the bye week or, as you said earlier, the light flickering and starting to go off with those guys?
COACH HOPE: Go on. We don't want it to go off.

Q. My bad.
COACH HOPE: That's a big bad.
It is a combination of everything. We are young, we are young on the defensive line, inside. Not Kerry and Gooden. In my mind, they should be dominant players for us. Kawaan Short in my mind should be a dominant player. He can be and his sometimes. We got to get him to do it all the time.
He was where Mike Neil was a year ago. We reference that to him so he can have something to relate to. I think that he wants to be a really good player. He'll keep getting better and better. But there are a lot of guys that stepped up on Saturday.
I think it's young guys getting some experience. I think it is guys wanting to win, people starting to figure it out, the time off a little bit, taking the time to address the physicality issue. Addressing the physicality issue is not a speech. You can give that speech to go out there and do it. It is going out there and lined up in full pads and paying close attention to firing out. You still have to fire out across the line of scrimmage. We made progress on a lot of phases.
We are not there yet. I hope it is soon. But it is just a matter of time before that front is a dominant front with all those big, good-looking guys that they play inside with. I'm very encouraged with those guys.

Q. Did you -- were you concerned at all if you would get Carlos back this season?
COACH HOPE: Yes, yeah, I was very concerned about it because a stress fracture is a funny thing and his started last spring. I dug some records out and looked at him. We have a meeting every day with the athletic staff and you go over the injury report and always put the comments by.
We never could tell with this guy. We thought it would be a couple weeks. We thought it might be three or four. Next thing you know it would be a month. We didn't have any idea. Nature has a funny way and it healed up.
He is a heck of a talent. We overworked him some during the open week trying to get him caught up. He hadn't -- has not had any reps since whenever he went out in the spring. He hasn't had any reps. He had some, I think, maybe a few reps Wednesday before the Toledo game and a couple reps on Friday. We don't do much on Fridays, and he played a little bit in the Toledo game. So we probably forced him a little bit too much during the open week. I don't think he was quite as fresh as he could be.
He is faster than that. He is. They never should have caught him from behind. His legs were a little bit tired.

Q. Is that the dimension he adds to the running back group there?
COACH HOPE: Speed and size and maturity and strength, all those. He is a good football player. He is a good running back.
Coming out of the '08 season, we were eight receivers shy on the depth chart. We had a plan to pass the football a lot, and he was a fast guy that was available. We put him at wideout. But he is certainly a more natural running back. We can all see that. He is a tough physical runner and very fast.

Q. Rob Henry has led the team in rushing the past three weeks. Do you need someone else to step up and add an extra threat in the running game?
COACH HOPE: I think we will. I think we have the guys there to do it. Some of that is play calling. Some of that is when we spread out in the passing game some. We have too many players in the perimeter that we need to get the balls in our hands. I feel like we can be a great vertical threat football team. There is going to be some opportunities for us to get the ball down the field vertically. We will spread it around some.
I like to see someone -- I like to see Rob rush like he has been doing and someone rushing and us throw for a couple hundred, too. That's what I thought we would do Saturday. I thought we would rush for a couple hundred and throw for a couple hundred. I really did.

Q. How do you assess the special teams play against Northwestern?
COACH HOPE: I think our special teams play has been pretty good all season long. Everyone will certainly become critical of that and point to statistics. But a week ago or two weeks ago I think we had five kickoffs and we handed them down four times inside the 23-yard line. That's good stats, good numbers. We have accrued more touchbacks than we had at this point in time last year.
So I think we have made progress. I think we have done some good things special teams-wise. We haven't manufactured a big return in the punt return game, and a lot of that is play calling. We go down to play against Notre Dame. If we turn the ball a bunch over against those guys with what they had offensively, we wouldn't have a chance. And it was windy. We went with Waynelle who is the most sure-handed guy we have, we think. Probably not the guy that's going to manufacture the biggest returns but we wanted to make sure that we caught the football and we had it.
It was really windy going into the Notre Dame game. We really liked Keith Smith back there because he can field as good as anybody, as good as Waynelle, maybe even better. He has an unbelievable knack for fielding a punt. He said, I can catch any kind of punt and I will show you what I can do. He was outstanding in practice, and he can make people miss. We thought we had potentially an outstanding punt return and he got hurt.
So, again, if you ever you had a spot on our football team that was affected by attrition, the return game has. Musical chairs in the backfield a little bit. I think we've given a good effort. We have had two -- I think two returns of significant distance against our kickoff coverage team. And one of them impacted the game. And a lot of that has to do with a guy maybe getting out of his lane, one guy.
Or against Toledo they made us miss. They made us miss in space. That guy is a really good punt returner. If you get a crack in there and the guy gets through it, he can be gone and it happened.
So I think we have done some good things. I think Carson is still a great kicker. I think we are doing a good job with our punt protection. I think Cody has made a difference to our punt team. I think we are doing a lot of good things special teams-wise. We just haven't made many of the big plays with our return guys from a numbers standpoint.

Q. Staying on that team, what did you like about Josh Johnson, that he got a couple of opportunities back there to field punts depending on where you were on the field, it seems like?
COACH HOPE: He was a good ball carrier. He was a really good offensive player in high school. He didn't play a whole lot of defense in high school. We were facing becoming completely depleted, but it was going to be a major turnover in the secondary forthcoming . We could see it coming in advance. That has been a tough thing to have a complete turnover at receivers and a complete turnover in the secondary and a complete turnover at the tight end position. If you lose four, you have to go out and recruit more than four to replace those four because some guys are further along than others.
So it has been a task in the recruiting process. But Josh was an offensive player in high school, very good offensive player. He played quarterback. He played some receiver, some running back. He was a great kick returner in high school. We have been wanting to get him back there all along. He has had his hands full, becoming a starting corner for us.
He is one of our most improved players, and he is a talented player. I can't tell you how many hours he has spent in West Lafayette since he graduated from high school. I think he has weathered what a lot of those young, skilled kids that are coming into Purdue that impact the program immediately, it is tough for them coming here in the summer right after they get out of high school not going home until Thanksgiving or Christmas. And then all that time they put into it, it is a lot in a year and a half's time.
I think he is over the hump in a lot of ways. I think he has gained momentum as a football player. He is confident. He makes plays. He is a really good ball carrier and fields the kicks really good. He is the best guy we have back there now.

Q. You got Brandon Taylor back this week. How did he hold up for having not played in a couple weeks?
COACH HOPE: I thought Brandon did pretty good. I thought he and most of the rest of our defensive interior guys made the same amount of progress. They took some steps in terms of lining up. That's will be really important this week. The men they will be lined up against are really big. So they will have to play physical.
He is strong and he has some leverage advantage in some ways. He is not much taller than 6'1/2", 6'1". He is really strong and has a lot of girth to him. He is one of the stronger guys as far as taking the guy on. We thought we made good progress in that regard.
He got up the field some and he stayed in his gap and he forced some of those handoffs to the back to bounce outside which shows that he's executing or doing his job. He is coming off the ball and getting physical and maintaining his gap integrity. I thought he did pretty good.

Q. The only other thing I wanted to ask you about, you probably have touched on this some already, but when Rob takes the snap and he is going to run that zone read, what exactly is the process for him? Is it just a matter of him reading too much?
COACH HOPE: If I told you too much, then everybody would know exactly what we were doing. There is a lot of different replays. All those guys across the line of scrimmage, he can read any one of them at any point in time. All the play we have on our offense, we can run all the run plays we have in our offense and pick out which ones they are going to read. That is as much as I will share with you. I have got books on it.

Q. Can we check them out?
COACH HOPE: Sure, you can. Go to AFCA and you can buy them.

Q. Doug touched on this. Doing a lookback at the month of October 2000, maybe Purdue's greatest month in its football history when after losing at Penn State you go and win at Michigan, Northwestern, Wisconsin, Ohio State. You obviously are the line coach. That team had to gather itself after losing at Penn State, after some special teams mistakes. What did your kids do on the offensive line to pull it up by the boot straps and have a great month?
COACH HOPE: I don't think we changed much upfront with the offensive line. I thought that group for a sustained period of time played about the same. They got after it. It was a tough bunch of guys, and you just not always got their best.
Sometimes we played against other teams that were better than others and some things that were harder than others to pick up from the blocking standpoint. But that group of guys right there, they were pretty consistent in how we went about our business. That 2000 team was a confident football team and a team on a mission.
We all along knew we were going to be conference champions and go to the Rose Bowl. We had the players to do it, all the great players we had. Certainly Drew was one of the great players in college football. The fact that we stubbed our toe, we weren't out of it from a mathematical standpoint. I don't think anyone ever thought about wavering. The guys, if you talk with them now, I'm sure they probably were rowdied up some amongst themselves. I thought that team was always destined to be champions.

Q. Looking back, there were some characters on that line as well, certainly Matt Light and others, looking back after ten years, what do you see -- your favorite memories of those guys, especially during that month but also just the fact that they brought some real personality to that football team?
COACH HOPE: Probably the friendship that we had and still have. Any one of those guys -- and you can reverse it if you want. But I can call any one of those guys right now and they would stop what they were doing and be there for me and vice versa. We had an unbelievable friendship, an unbelievable commitment. And most of the times that I cherish the most happened in the sanctuary of our meeting rooms and I can't share with the general public to, be quite honest with you.
We had a blast in there. We really did. We had a lot of fun. Thick and thin, good or bad, we enjoyed playing the game together, the camaraderie part of it. We liked getting after people. We took a lot of pride of being violent, physical and enjoying the physical part of it. They were an easy-to-motivate group. It was probably five of the greatest years of my life. Great experience.

Q. When the team comes out with those uniforms this weekend, what is going to be, like, the flashback moments from that team or the memories you have?
COACH HOPE: I probably won't give a whole lot of thought to that. We got to get on with what's going on now and that's the game. I want to win for this football team here, for the 2010 football team. We are going to go win this game because we want to win this game and we need to win. This is a team that's destined to do some great things.
They have paid a heck of a price and they have had some tough luck, if you will, you know, a few bumps in the road. But this season is about this football team, not any other football team. But, you know, it is kind of like when your friends and family are watching, you always want to put on a good show. I want to play well.
I remember a game last year with our running back coach, one of our backs didn't run very physical and I heard him yell, "I got friends watching this." Any time you got friends or family watching you want to put on a good show. We love those guys. I want those guys to leave here with a great experience. But we are focused on this team, this game, nothing else.

Q. And are there any similarities that you see with this team to that Rose Bowl team back in 2000?
COACH HOPE: They are entirely two different teams from an age, maturity and accomplishment standpoint. We're a young-- we are a very young football team. We played 40 something guys against Notre Dame. Twenty of them haven't been in a game before. The youngest football game -- not the youngest but one of the youngest football teams I have ever been associated with. A lot of that was a young football team. We had young linebackers and young people that stepped up. But there were a lot of veteran players on that football team.
So I don't see similarities from that standpoint. I think this is a team that's on a mission in some ways and that was the team that was on a mission in some ways. But from a personnel standpoint, they are entirely different just age-wise and chronologically and developmentally. Entirely different.

End of FastScripts

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