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UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 19, 2010

Jeff Horton

COACH HORTON: All right, great to see everybody here today. Obviously it's my first time being here. It's been a whirlwind week. It's only Tuesday. Still got a lot of days left to go.
Thought I'd start out by telling a couple things we're going to do coaching-wise. Defense, Kevin Cosgrove is going to come down to the field. With his veteran leadership, needing a different spark there, bring him down. Obviously I know him very well, coached with him a long time. Having his presence down there on the field with me when we're on the defensive side, I think easier to talk to, go through some different strategies for the game.
Ronnie Lee, our co-defensive coordinator, secondary coach, is going upstairs. I think it's easier for him to see how their defense is attacking coverages. I think that will be a smooth transition. He was up there last week actually. I don't think there will be any problems that way.
On offense, I wanted to stay upstairs. I figured nobody could yell at me up there, but figured I could come down to the sideline. Thomas Hammock will be going up. He'll be coordinating. Total confidence in him going up.
During the season up to this point in time, I obviously originated the call, talked to Thomas. Basically it was him and I talking the whole game about different play calls. That will not change. But he will originate calling the plays, then go in that direction. If I want to change something, obviously I'll say it. But we'll be talking back and forth. It's just he will start the play call with what we're doing.
Tony Sorentino, quality control on offense, will work very closely with me with the quarterbacks. He will now be our quarterback coach. He'll step right in that role immediately. I think he has a great relationship with the players. He knows what I want being around him all the time so far this year. So I think that will be a really smooth transition. I'm looking forward to him stepping up.
Obviously it was an emotional day on Sunday. Coach Brews gave me my opportunity to come here. I stated in the press conference I felt I let him down as a co-offensive coordinator not getting things done good enough. He has a great passion and energy. I think that's a tremendous trait. Sometimes in today's world, people don't think so. But people can think what they want to think, I happen to like that trait in people.
But I'm really excited about the opportunity Joel Maturi gave me over the last five games. What a tremendous schedule we have in front of us. I think three teams are in the top 10, hanging right around there. Penn State are 3-3 at this point. They lost to Alabama and they lost to Iowa. Both of them are really good football teams.
Penn State is Penn State. Everybody on their team, everybody in the country, recruited. They got good-quality athletes. Obviously Joe Paterno is a legend. That will be an exciting game to start the new week off with.
I really think hopefully that because of the direction we're in now, the pressure's off the players some, that they can go out, play harder, play better. As coaches, we can coach harder, better. I told both the staff and the players, whatever we've done, whatever we've given up to this point, it hasn't been enough because of what the results are. We have to find a way, all of us, to give more. We need to do that starting on Saturday.
I think it's really crucial that our fans, the student body, the community comes behind. I really anticipate them really getting TCF Bank Stadium rocking Saturday against Penn State, really rallying around the players with the things they've been through. I think that will be a great energy boost for them. I'm excited for that day to come.
The big thing with the team was I told them, you know what, usually with transition you have seven months to prepare for that next game. Transitions usually happen in the off-season. We have five days. But our job as coaches is to be professional. I've been a part of that before at Wisconsin back in 2005 where we actually found out in July we weren't coming back, ended up having to go the whole year all the way to the January 1st Bowl game.
As I mentioned to the coaches, our job as professionals is to prepare this football team to the best of our ability. We owe it to this university, to this community, and more importantly to these kids, to give them every opportunity to be successful over these last five games.
When the bottom line comes, it's about the kids. It's about having them having success and having something positive happen to them. Obviously up to this point that has not happened. Now is the time hopefully we can just rekindle all this energy and get it moving in the right direction, really rally around each other.
I always talk to the quarterbacks during the course of the game being the calm in the storm when things are going up and down. As the interim head coach, I have to be the guy, the calm in the storm. I have to settle things down. Kids are 19, 20, 21, 22 years old. A whole gamut of emotions that run when they were told the coaching change. Every kid is different. Some kids it affects more than others.
My job is to provide that leadership, move us in the right direction. Craziest thing is, there's five games. There's five games left. We got a lot to play for, obviously starting with Penn State this week.
I think the kids will respond. Practice is practice. We'll change a few things. But you still got to go against each other and do those things. But we're going to tweak a few things there in practice.
I feel good that our coaches and our players are really going to buy in and just move forward from this point out. As I told the players and stuff, Let's move on. My thing is always moveon.org, moveon.com. We have to move on. We have to get ready for Saturday.
Penn State is going to be here, kickoff at 11. We all expect to win. That's our expectations, the people's expectations here at the University of Minnesota. We have to do everything in our power to try to do that.
All I got at this time. Open up to any questions.

Q. Have you talked to Brews since Sunday?
COACH HORTON: I haven't since Sunday. I talked to him Sunday obviously before he left. Texted him a couple times. I told him probably best to get out of town, go relax, enjoy yourself. A lot of pressure you're under.
I don't know if people realize that when you're attacked from all different areas, right, wrong, indifferent, as coaches we know that happens. I mentioned as a coach, you jump on the train. Eventually they ask you to step off. You have to find another train, walk along the tracks, take that train. The Joe Paternos, Bobby Bowdens, don't happen too often. As a coach, you never like to see it happen. It's disappointing. We all feel bad. Things keep moving on and we've got to move on.

Q. Jeff, you you've been a head coach before at the college level. If you were to crystallize a couple of things that have helped you, you take out of that that can help you in this situation, what would those things be?
COACH HORTON: I had some success as a head coach and I had some failures. I got fired as a head coach. I think you always take a look at yourself and try to analyze why it happened, how it happened.
For us at this point in the season, we got to analyze where we're at as a football team, what our strengths and weaknesses are, try to identify them. It's easy to say this, change this, change that. We've only got five games yet. Hard to do wholesale changes.
Hopefully some of the coaching things I've been trying to do will add a spark to us. Hopefully some of the things that we're going to try to do on the practice field, change the tempo a little bit, put time clocks on, try to speed up everything out there while we're out there, will make the kids realize that things are a little different.
But there's no magic format. I think the biggest thing we can do is provide that leadership and just keep marching forward, try to help our kids get better.
I told our coaches, the situation at Wisconsin, that was seven months, basically eight months that we knew we wouldn't have a job. There's a lot of uncertainty with coaches. We're human beings, too. We know when the season is over, we're done when our contracts run out, which isn't long after the season. So coaches, we're like anybody else, we got to take care of our family, look out for ourselves, too.
But within that, it's a profession, we're professional, we still have to do our job until the day they say you're not doing that job anymore. That's the approach we're taking.

Q. Will you be involved a lot more with the offense than you were the defense?
COACH HORTON: You know what, I sat in as many offensive meetings as I could. Find out real quick, all of a sudden you got -- the time I used to sit there by myself, enjoy it, nobody bothered you. Now I got to go do other things. That's why it was crucial and really good that Tomas was coordinating. We were on the same page all year. That transition is really smooth.
I'm looking forward to getting over and watching and getting around the defense more in meetings and on the practice field, doing everything I can to try to get that going better also.

Q. Are you going to try to use MarQueis more, even some in quarterback?
COACH HORTON: Obviously I think I've got over 200 emails on that. Amazing how quick they find out your email address. Didn't have any up until Sunday. Now everybody hit me.
I firmly believe, we're with these kids every day, our best chance for success right now is with Adam at quarterback and MarQueis at wide receiver. I know the last couple of weeks, MarQueis hasn't put up the numbers as early in the season. Not a game plan situation or want of trying to get the ball to him, it just hasn't worked out. The reason we originated that position at first was, when you identify an offense, who your best players are, obviously he's in the top two or three, so is Adam Weber. To have one of those guys standing on the sideline with us, in my opinion, is hindering what we can do offensively.

Q. When you came in, were you surprised at all that he hadn't had looks at wide receiver?
COACH HORTON: A little bit. When you test out, he's one of the top athletes. He's as good looking as you want him. His 6'4", 6'5", 235 pounds. Every day he gets better at receiver, not his natural position. Whoever they hire next year, I would hope if we were back, he was going to be our quarterback. We were going to probably incorporate what they call the pistol offense now, do some of those things. That would be somebody else's responsibility now unless we win five in a row, then maybe make it tough on him.

Q. Are you looking at this as an audition at all?
COACH HORTON: Me?

Q. Yes.
COACH HORTON: No. I have no visions of grandeur. I said the other day, I lived in Nevada 18 years, I don't know what the odds are. If somebody posted them right now of me being the head coach here now, if you put $5 now, you could retire if that happened. I'm sure those odds are five million to one because you'd make $25 million.
I'm not worried about that. I know I'll be okay. Life happens. Coaches hired, coaches fired. I'm not worried about me. This is all for the kids. We have to get success for the kids.

Q. You were the new guy on the staff. Was there any awkwardness?
COACH HORTON: I think so. As I mentioned at Wisconsin, I had been there seven years, other coaches had been there 14, 15, 16 years with Barry. Bret Bielema had been there one year. He gets the job. That does upset you. I'm sure there's guys here. I tried to address it right from the start.
I don't know how the decision came about. This is the decision that was made. I need all of you guys for us to have any chance for success through these next five games. We're going to have fun over these last five games. We're not going to sit around here and be doom and gloom, morbid place. I'm not going to allow that. I'm not going to wallow in pity. I'm not going to feel sorry for myself and I'm not going to let anybody else. If anybody wants to be like that, we're not going to have them around. We want to have some fun, let the kids feed off our energy, see how we respond to adversity. That's what we talk about as coaches. We talk about finishing. That's our motto on our wrist. Then we better show it as coaches before we expect it out of players.

Q. Do you have the you don't have anything to lose, where you may open the playbook a little bit more, go at it?
COACH HORTON: 18 years in Nevada, I like to gamble, okay (smiling)? And if it doesn't work, I think they'll fire you twice, I don't know, right?

Q. Do you see a change in players' demeanors the last couple days? Do you think they seem lost or are they ready to get back out there?
COACH HORTON: I think Sunday was an emotional game. Usually on Sundays we meet, watch film, lift before that, do a 40, 35-minute practice. I canceled that. On Sunday you were not going to get anything out of that practice. We have had a good meeting. Told them, let's come back Monday fresh, clear minds, everything is behind us.
They lifted this morning early. I anticipate coming out and really going. Some kids it affects more than others. One thing I did emphasize, just because it's an interim head coach, same policies are still in effect. Still expect you to go to class, study hall, do what's right and wrong. If you're not going to do those things, it's easy to suspend somebody, and then the next coach can worry about reinstating them when they come in.
We have good kids. They work hard. I don't anticipate those problems.

Q. Can you compare this situation to when you were with the Lions, getting out of the rut, the negativity?
COACH HORTON: That's a big rut in Detroit. I was only there one year.
You know it is. Just listening to all the interviews, the questions, Why has it been so long here at Minnesota? To me everything is in place here. You got a great stadium, great city, great university. We just haven't had that continuity. Kind of saying, you try to get to Pasadena, but to drive to Omaha, turn around, come back. You got to go again, try to get out there.
Hopefully with the next hire, you're in the Big Ten, I think there's great opportunity here. I think there's great young players here that are coming up. Everybody can get behind it and try to do everything to help it.
I think a lot of times, seems like it's tried to get tore down a little bit. This is just me speaking. This is a big pro sports franchise team. This is not a pro sports team. We're different. We're college. A lot of times we're looked upon like we're a pro team. That's neither here or there.
I think whoever gets it, there will be great candidates out there, they'll have 200 candidates for this job, people would love to get this job, that will just get everybody driving to Pasadena, nobody stopping, let's try to get it there. This is a great place, it really is. Wish I could be here longer.

Q. You talk about continuity. Penn State is kind of the epitome of continuity with Joe Paterno.
COACH HORTON: Obviously you have your systems in place. I think the biggest thing is recruiting. You have the same coach goes back to that high school, your recruiting area, every year. That high school coach gets used to seeing you, know you, trust you, instead of you trotting a different guy in there every other year or every year.
It's hard to develop those relationships. Recruiting is your lifeline in college football. I think everybody can coach pretty well at this level, then you got to go out and find players to fit your scheme, try to make that work. I think that's a huge difference, that continuity in recruiting, that stability with your staff. When you're constantly having new people, that's a hard deal.

Q. With Penn State coming in, my guess would be that the coaching staff would feel, We can beat this club. Talk about that.
COACH HORTON: Yeah, I would hope every week we would think that. But here is the thing with us. When we get a chance to get some great opportunities, we don't take advantage of them. If you look at last week, you have the touchdown pass called back because of motion. You have the fumble instead of holding onto the ball, the ball rolling out to the one, hits the pylon, they get it back. Until we don't do those things to ourselves, we'll have a hard time to win because we're not a great football team. We have to do things well. We have to take advantage of every opportunity we get to be successful. So we have to eliminate those kind of things.
Now, this week with our team, I think stressing in practice really fundamentals, have an awareness, knowing situations. Not that it wasn't taught before, but almost trying to overemphasize those points because, you know, I really want those kids on Saturday to have a chance for success and to taste success, just be able to stay out on that field forever and celebrate because it's been a long time. That's tough coming in here every week when you're getting beat. Tough to put in that time and effort. But our kids have. They're resilient.

Q. Brewster talk to you guys on Sunday as a team?
COACH HORTON: He talked to the team by himself. He talked to the coaching staff as a group, then the team by himself.

Q. Can you express what he said?
COACH HORTON: The coaching staff, he expressed his thanks and his gratitude. Like I said, Coach Brewster, he's full of energy, full of passion. He put everything he had into this job. There's no doubt about that. Unfortunately, it didn't work out the way we all wanted it to. I didn't expect to be up here right now. I expected to come here and stay here a long time.
Coach is a great guy. He was thanking us. You know what, we should have been the ones thanking him for giving us that opportunity.

Q. You were on staff at St. Louis that had a mid-season change. Can you draw anything from that?
COACH HORTON: I think so. Scott Linehan was the head coach, Jim Haslett came in after four or five games I think it was. I don't know if that means I'm the 'kiss of death'. Probably nobody will hire me next time that happens. Pro level, a little different transition. Players are players. Everybody is really an independent contractor, whether you're a player or coach in the NFL. It is a little different.
I thought Coach Haslett came in and turned a tough situation. We actually won the next two games with that. I don't know if it was because you kind of had that cloud removed, guys responded to that, whatever.
Hopefully this week is the week we talked about, let's move forward. It's obviously very unfortunate it happened, but let's try to move in the right direction, give these kids some success.

Q. Touch on the importance of recruiting. Obviously there's not a whole lot you can do till the new coach comes in. But what is being done right now with the kids that have committed to Minnesota?
COACH HORTON: Over the last couple days, we've tried to call every kid and talk to them. My message to them has been that you made this commitment for a reason, great school, great academics, you fit in socially, great town. Want you to be firm in that commitment. The athletic department will honor that commitment. When they hire a new coach, you have to see if you're a fit for that. I.
Told them, just like we tell them in recruiting, when you go to school, a position coach might leave, possibly a head coach. Look at yourself and see if you're comfortable living in that town, going to that school, playing football there.
We've encouraged them to stay with their commitments. We think we've got some great kids committed. When the time comes, when they hire the new coach, obviously your quarterback and a guy comes in running the option or something, if you're throwing quarterback, you might want to look at something different.
I think these kids, they all seem solid, talking to them, that this is where they want to go, this is the decision they made, they feel good about that.

Q. Kids will stand under the new coach?
COACH HORTON: Yes. I can't speak for a new coach. I know from us and from the athletic department, they're saying they'll stand by their commitment.

Q. Position coaches, I assume you will want to stick around with the new coach?
COACH HORTON: Right. And I think that's a key point in transition. I think that's something as coaches, as professionals, if we do our job, other coaches notice that. New coach comes in, looks at the adversity these guys had, looks at how they played. They're going to have their own guys, but I think we'll have opportunities for our guys. We have great guys on the staff, great coaches.

Q. Mike Rallis' status?
COACH HORTON: Still kind of fighting back from that injury. If he's healthy enough when he can play, he'll play as much as he can. But he's still limited just some from that. The other one you probably see is Troy Stoudemire. He'll be starting at corner and we'll open it up between Michael Carter, Kyle Henderson, let them compete at the other corner. Thought Troy played very, very well last week. Only been over there two weeks. Defended some passes, made a nice tackle. Did a nice job. Played really quick there.

Q. Will he return kicks?
COACH HORTON: He'll get back on some kicks, yeah.

Q. (Indiscernible) because of the record that just got broken.
COACH HORTON: I haven't heard that. Hand John Butler most of that. Run for that many yards, sure he'd want to finish that out. I think it's a race between him and the other kid, right?

Q. (Indiscernible.)
COACH HORTON: Hopefully he'll be back this week. Hopefully he'll be able to return to practice. We're anticipating him coming out there today and be able to do some things.

Q. And the running game?
COACH HORTON: Hopefully it gets better.

Q. Now that you're the head coach, maybe help the running game more.
COACH HORTON: I think we need to help all of them. I think we need to be more high-percentage throws. Need to get at them more in a groove throwing coming out early. That's my fault. I think obviously the better you can run the ball, the better your play-action. That kind of passing game opens up. I think that was our strength through the middle of season. Gotten away from us the last couple weeks. We got to get back to that.

Q. Is a depth chart a little more fluid for you over the last five games? Other kids you think deserve a shot at this point?
COACH HORTON: We'll look at a lot of those kids. I think that's why we're going to try to turn the tempo up in practice, see who responds to it, see maybe some guys who haven't been involved as much, seeing if they can step up.
Really for the most part, I mean, it is what it is. We just got to get better.

Q. Have you seen some of the negativity around Coach Brewster play out on the field itself in the kids?
COACH HORTON: You know, I don't think so. I think the kids obviously have to answer that. But you know it's there. I mean, it's not easy not to see it. It's got to weigh on you. We're human. Whether that affected our play, I mean, to me I think personally that's a crutch.

Q. You said you want to make it fun. Has it not been fun?
COACH HORTON: It's hard having fun if you're not winning. That's for anything. I want to say we want to have fun. In order to have fun, we got to go get a win. Otherwise it's not fun.
I know people hurt. Players and coaches hurt even more so. The time and effort we put into it, I don't think you can be tight and go play. We got to be focused, be intense, but you can't play tight. So we got to somehow make it fun and make it happen.

Q. Another transition for Adam having Thomas basically being the play-caller. He's gone through so many coordinators and so many changes already.
COACH HORTON: I think the thing that's different a little bit is it's the same system. We're not changing our offense or anything like that. I'm still heavily involved in it. But I feel good with Thomas. We think a lot alike when we put all this thing together and stuff. So I don't think that will be a problem.

Q. Last year in Vegas must have been so hard for you.
COACH HORTON: Tough. I said they must have looked around, This guy has a bad record, we can throw it on him.
Obviously, you know, we're all in this game to win and to compete. We're no different. We want to go out. Again, the biggest emphasis I want to make, it's not about me. I've been in coaching 30 years. I've done my time. The biggest thing I want is for those kids and the staff to have success, to have that good feeling again. I'm not worried about me.

Q. Do you see one of your roles in Nevada, they've been down, now they're up, is this an example this thing can get turned around here?
COACH HORTON: No question. You see it all over the country, teams come out of nowhere, step up to the stage, make things happen. I don't think it's far away here, I really don't. I think things are in place.
Can things always get better? Sure. You'd like this, like that, need this. But I think good things are in place here. You just got to continue to build on it, sell it.

Q. Obviously taking over a program, pretty difficult task. Does it make your job more difficult considering you've only been here a matter of months?
COACH HORTON: Again, I'm excited about it. Honored they showed faith in me to do it. Told the staff we're going to do it together. Would you like to take over a team that was 8-0, something like that? You know what, we love these kids. They busted their tail. As coaches we're going to have a good time putting out a plan, put it together, making it happen on Saturday.

Q. With coach, did you talk about things specifically you would have to know taking over this position?
COACH HORTON: I didn't. I didn't. Coach, he had a tough time. He needs his time.

Q. Move into the corner office?
COACH HORTON: Not yet.

End of FastScripts

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