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UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY MEDIA CONFERENCEOctober 25, 2010Rich RodriguezQ. How did you spend your last few days? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Well, Saturday, watched a lot of college football. Did a little bit of work with our preparation for Penn State and then watched a lot of college games. Then yesterday was kind of a normal Sunday. I got a chance to watch my son, Rhett, play his last game, his little Pop Warner League, but the rest of the day was really just a normal Sunday preparation. The players had the weekend off Saturday and Sunday. Q. What was Denard able to do last week? COACH RODRIGUEZ: I haven't seen him since Friday. Running-wise, everything is fine. We limited his throwing. He did a little bit of throwing at the end of the week. But talking to the training staff, he should be able to do everything this week. Q. What did you guys decide -- COACH RODRIGUEZ: Well, we moved him last week to the offensive line, just for a couple of days. We practiced three days last week, and he took to it pretty well. So we'll continue to do that the first couple of days of this week and see if it sticks. Q. Give us an update on the other banged up guys, Martin, Shaw. COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, they all -- again, having a couple of days off again helped. Very limited last week and today they should all be good. Mike Martin, David Molk and Michael Shaw. Q. Can you talk about what you try to do as a coach, if anything, the helmet-to-helmet hits have been quite a buzz in pro football; in college football, maybe a touch slower. What do you try to do? So many players say it's the way I was taught, split-second thing? COACH RODRIGUEZ: I would hope they were not taught to lead with their helmet, anywhere, which I don't think is the case. But it is a topic because obviously football is a violent game and there's going to be violent collisions but you just want to keep your head out of the collision as much as possible much I think something maybe -- any time you lead with the crown of your helmet, whether you tackle high or tackle low, it should be a penalty. I would hope nobody is teaching that. But I think one thing that's probably not talked about enough is I think the same thing should be true on the offensive side of the ball. I don't think you should be allowed to run, all right, or block with the crown of your helmet, and lead with the crown of your helmet down. Sometimes it happens, you get a big guy running, and he lowers his head and you hear that sometimes, lower your shoulders; lower your shoulders is different than lower your head. I cringe every time a football player lowers his head and hits the crown of the helmet. I think it should be a penalty, any time you lead with the crown of your helmet. It's a dangerous situation whether you're on offense or defense. Hopefully that will -- this attention will get to the point where you don't want your guys, and when you're running, to lower their head either. And I think the all tackling below the knees should be a penalty, because I think if you tell somebody to tackle low, below the knees, the only way to do that for a lot of kids, they think they have got to lower their head. And you know, whether that is going to come about in the future or not, I don't know, but I'm sure there will be a lot of talk about it. Q. When did you start thinking about moving Will to offense, and penalty-wise, is he a better fit on the offensive side? COACH RODRIGUEZ: I don't know, penalty, I guess that's kind of an interesting way to put it. But for him, when we recruited him, I thought, hey, this is a big guy that can move a little bit and those guys are hard to find on D-line but he would probably make a really good guard. So we talked about earlier, in the season this year, I think the open date was the best time. And he actually approached us about maybe trying it over there, and he's a pretty smart football player from the standpoint of picking things up. Again, we were really simple last week and his head will still be spinning for a while. But I think he'll be a natural there at guard just based on a couple of days. Q. Inaudible. COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, not really. I think we are just trying to get our guys to understand what we are doing, more of them. There's guys on defense -- we want the safeties being able to play both safety positions and the corners to be able to play both corner positions. That's kind of been the standard for us all year really to try to get them to do that. Q. Is there anybody, obviously you saw Kenny -- is there anybody waiting in the wings that we might see in the next couple of weeks that could emerge? COACH RODRIGUEZ: No. The only thing that we hope happens, and again, last week, with having a few practices and working on some fundamentals is seeing some more of the freshmen, particularly defensively, being able to -- they have been playing a big role, but maybe playing me more of an active role, all of the -- particularly the freshmen defensive backs. They have gotten in there a little bit but where we are at depth-wise and all that, we have got to play more and play more guys, and I'm hoping the open week will help those guys get more ready to play. Q. Penn State has had some issues, especially on offense. What concerns you about facing them? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Well, I think they are probably healthier now and getting their guys back more so than the first half or month or two of the season. And then offensively, they have got -- what's going to be probably their all-time leading rusher, he's still there. They have some very talented players. Rob Bolden is a very talented guy. We tried to recruit him. He's a local guy and he's got some experience under him. Like a lot -- if you have a lot of young guys, you see them grow and get better as the season goes along. I see them, they played probably one of their better games this past weekend. Q. After starting off with such success this season, what message have you told your team regarding bouncing back from the adversity of the last two losses? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Well, I think you learn -- why did we lose and correct the mistakes. But I don't think we put into oh, this is the doom and gloom and all that. You know, let's take the positives that we did, and try to build on those, and learn from the negatives. We are not going to stick our head in the sand and know that we don't have any problems or issues. But I think you have to address them head on just like we would after a win. It wasn't like after every ballgame that we won that we said, oh, everything is good. I think we took the same approach after every ballgame, win or lose. Q. Considering -- inaudible -- is definitely going to play? COACH RODRIGUEZ: I think with Newsome in there, they probably would run more maybe a little bit. But I don't think they will change much what they do in regards to what their quarterback is. You know, it's a little bit different with us. Obviously with Denard, everybody knows we like to run him a little bit more because he's such a good runner, but I think their offense will stay pretty much the same irregardless of who is in there. Q. How do you think or hope the team is refreshed and ready and mentally and physically after that open week? COACH RODRIGUEZ: I would help that they get kind of fresh legs a little bit, having a couple of days off. Again, I think working on some of the fundamentals and trying to correct some of the problems we have last week, I thought we had a couple really good practices. I thought our enthusiasm was good. That was something I thought was lacking a little bit in some practices and some games, so I wanted our guys to go out and have some fun and have some enthusiasm in practice, which we showed in the Thursday practice that we had in pads. I was pleased with the work we got in last week, and you know, I think the guys having the weekend to relax a little bit, maybe kind of give them a fresh start to the last five games of the year. Q. Do you expect Fitz back this week? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, he did a little bit more last week, but the trainers think he should be able to do. And whether he'll be able to get to the point where he's going to be able to contribute a lot, you know, depends not only on him but what the other running backs do, as well, this week. Q. I noticed Darryl on the depth chart, kick returner now -- I know he's been able to give you a spark in the past. COACH RODRIGUEZ: Let me look -- those are all kind of in there together. You know, Darryl tweaked his hamstring, and I guess it was before the Michigan State game. And so that was an issue there, that one, and I think he's better with that now. But that was the reason why. And we have been pleased with Jeremy Gallon back there, as well. Q. Do you feel like you're able to fix certain things defensively? COACH RODRIGUEZ: I hope so. That certainly was our intent to try to get better fundamentally. It's hard, I think our tackling hasn't been great, but it hasn't been that bad. And it's hard to work on tackling, even though we've worked on it, of course but it's still just hard to do that because you don't want to lose guys in practice midseason. One of the things we have to get better at defensively is getting off blocks. That was a big point of emphasis for us is using our hands, getting off blocks and doing a better job of that. I know we worked quite a bit on that last week. The biggest test comes in the game so I'll answer that Saturday. Q. Devin has not had a chance to play as much -- COACH RODRIGUEZ: He's doing well. I think his back has been a little sore, so he's been a little limited. So Tate and Denard have been getting the majority of the reps. But we like to get three quarterbacks reps, so when Devin has felt good, we got him in there a little bit. He's a sharp guy mentally but he is still a true freshman and he's still learning bits and pieces of the offense. Q. When you hear fans and media talk about -- I don't know if you listen or not, but if you talk about how many wins you need to keep your job, what goes through your head when you hear stuff like that? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Are we still talking about that now? Q. Just curious, over the last week, a lot of people seem to be staying stuff like that. COACH RODRIGUEZ: Really? Q. Yeah. COACH RODRIGUEZ: I'm not listening. Q. But do you have a response? Do you think it's fair? Or is it just, brush it off? COACH RODRIGUEZ: I think fans, there's a lot of passion to our program, a lot of programs and fans will talk about what they want to talk about. I can't control that. I'll worry about the things I can control. Q. Penn State's defense, usually kind of the stout part of their teams, but they have been allowing 100-yard rushes with Minnesota and so on, do you see holes there? COACH RODRIGUEZ: They have had a shell of what they have wanted to play with because of all the injuries. I think that's the biggest part of it, going back to the Illinois game, I think there was 12 or 13 guys that were banged up, either before or during that ballgame, so they have got some guys healthy now and we have struggled against them at times, certainly, the last couple of years, a lot of these guys have played against us. So I know their defensive staff very well. They do a great job, and they will play really well against us. Q. Three quarterbacks against Minnesota does that make it tough to prepare? COACH RODRIGUEZ: They will run -- they may have, like everybody else, a certain quarterback is in there, he may have more play -- certain plays that they are more comfortable calling with whoever is in there. But for the most part, I think they are going to run their offense. I think they will try to run the football, take a few shots. They have got a big 6'6 wide receiver and throw it up to him, and so they will do their thing. I don't think irregardless of which quarterback is in there, and we may see all three, I don't know. But if Bolden is clear, which he's listed as a starter, I think we'll see him first. I've been really impressed, especially as a true freshmen, to play the way he's played this year. Q. Were you surprised he's won the job? Because he is a true freshman; Joe doesn't like to play a lot of freshman. COACH RODRIGUEZ: I don't know, again, I'm not there, it's like everybody being surprised that Denard was a starter for us. I think you had to be at practice every day to see it. They are at practice every day during camp, so they are the best judge of that. Q. You mentioned playing a lot of freshmen in the defensive back, did you use this past week or week and a half, did you shuffle guys around as far as trying more guys and do you have to deep doing that? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Well, I think we have identified the guys we think are going to be ready to play. What we are just trying to do is get them more ready, I guess, to play, they are playing at a higher level. Again, the open week helps. But we like to have three weeks, you know, have a whole spring session with them and all that to get the young guys. That's why I said earlier that some of the things are not going to get fixed overnight simply because it's an experience factor and a youth factor and they have guys that haven't been in the year and away program and all that. You can't accelerate -- you can accelerate maturity to some point, but there's still limits that you can do that to, because they are still freshman. We tried to -- we have tried to accelerate that learning curve, and get them more prepared to play at the highest level, but freshmen still are freshmen. Q. Does having the long day Saturday to kill in state college, is that something that's different with a younger team, trying to keep them focused? COACH RODRIGUEZ: I haven't thought about that much. We'll keep them pretty busy. You don't want to just lay around all day in a room, so we'll have a walk-through, usually the position coaches will take their guys and go for a walk, and depending on the weather, how far they go and all that, where they go. But I think, no, I've played a lot of night games in my career as a head coach, and so we have kind of got a little of a plan or formula to keep those guys somewhat. But the hard part is that I'm sure the players feel the same way, just waiting around all day, to play, you know, you can watch games on TV, but your mind is really on your game. So it does make for a long day. Q. Will you take a walk through Happy Valley; is there a worry about heckling? COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, they won't go anywhere in public. It will be somewhere at the hotel, quiet. It's not like we are going to go down there and tailgate. (Laughter) No, we are not going to do that. I've been there before. They will tailgate with the best of them. Q. You've talked about this before, do you marvel at how long Joe has been there? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, I don't know, what he and Bobby Bowden have done, and are doing, I don't know if -- I doubt that will ever be matched. And not because somebody is not smart enough or good enough to do that; it's just that it's a different game now. From the standpoint of your obligations and all that. You've got to love football, just to coach it, period, but to do it for that long at the same school with that much success is extremely rare. I don't know if Joe's record will ever be touched. Somebody might, because you never say never, but I mean, that's way out there. Q. There's been a lot of talk about his health and how it's deteriorated in the last year, and you've obviously been in meeting with him and stuff like that, have you noticed a different guy from your first couple of years with him? COACH RODRIGUEZ: I've known Coach Paterno for a long time, long, long time and he's always had great energy at the meetings and he's always told a lot of stories and love sitting around with him. Last I saw him was the Media Day back in August, and that was so brief that you couldn't -- I mean, you see the guys for five or ten minutes, so we didn't have a lot of conversations with them and all that. But you know, Joe Paterno has been doing this a whole lot longer than I have, and most of us have, and so I think he knows himself, you know, how he feels and I'm sure if you talk to those guys, he's giving the same effort that he always had as. Q. Where do you think you'll be when you're his age? COACH RODRIGUEZ: I hope I'm still on this side of the earth (Laughter) if you know what I mean. I won't be coaching. But that's why I say, that's phenomenal. And having gone on some different trips with his -- my wife and his wife and the other coaches to retreats, spending a week with him and listening to him tell stories, you know, he knows -- he's been there and done that many, many times over. So you can learn a lot of football, just sitting around and listening to him talk, and all that, so -- and he's still -- and his coaching staff is the same way. I mean, they have been extremely loyal, but I also think that they know they are at a great place and working for a great guy, and you know, it's obviously a great place to raise a family, so their staff, we know their staff pretty well. They used to visit us back when we were at West Virginia and we weren't playing each other then. So we would have some visits with each other and talk football and run into each other in recruiting and all that. Q. Will you experiment with other guys in the D-line and try establish some more depth? COACH RODRIGUEZ: We are still a little thin there at times. I mean, we were playing around with maybe Quinton Washington helping a little bit on the defensive side. But it's just so hard, I guess, midseason, even with an open week, people go like, well, why don't you just move somebody over. There's a lot to that. If you had three weeks before a Bowl game and four weeks for spring practice or four weeks in August you could get more done; I think a week is -- you know, one week is better than know weeks but one week, open week, you're still going to be limited to what you do. Q. Will he stay there then or going forward? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Who's that? Q. Quinton. COACH RODRIGUEZ: Depends how this week goes and maybe next week. We'll give it -- as I told will the same thing, this is not a permanent move yet. Let's see how it sticks. We had three practices last week, and we'll have obviously four this week and today he's in shorts. So I don't know if this is enough time for us to determine that. Q. Considering how the last few weeks went, do you think this game is really critical? COACH RODRIGUEZ: They are all critical. I mean, every one of them is critical. We have the same routine this week as we did, you know, the Iowa week as we did the Connecticut week. One of the things we want to make sure is we have consistency in our approach. Now, every week may have a little bit of a tweak, as you get later in the season, you practice less time-wise. You work on things that you need to get better at a little bit more and all that. But the overall approach and consistency is not going to change. It's going to be the same. Q. Just coming off two losses, and I know you don't like to talk about the past, but what happened last year -- COACH RODRIGUEZ: I've said this a bunch of times. It really is kind of amusing. It's like, are you going to try harder this week. I mean, come on now, we are going to try as hard as we can, every time we play a game. Every time. It's not like, okay, boy, this is an important game, you're going to really coach harder or going to play harder this week. I mean, are you kidding me? They are keeping score. We are playing somebody else and they are keeping score, so we are going to try as hard as we can, irregardless of the situation or who we play or where we play. Q. Do you think you played as well in the losses as the wins -- COACH RODRIGUEZ: No. Q. Two good teams, when you look at -- COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, we had more turnovers in those two games than we did all year. We had mistakes, execution mistakes in all three phases that we didn't have. And again the other team has something to do with that, when you're playing pretty good teams, they can force you to execute more poorly than you did in the other games. But there are also some positive things, too. As I said, we moved the ball against a very good Iowa team. We didn't finish some drives off. We moved the ball in the other game a little bit and didn't finish some drives off. So there wasn't all negative things, and even defensively, there are moments when we played pretty good defense, but there are moments when we didn't. You know, we have got to fix those bad moments. Q. When you say you're playing around with the two position moves, Quinton and Will, are they exclusively now on the offensive side? COACH RODRIGUEZ: They are for this week and they were for last week -- Q. How did Quinton do there? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Okay. But again, how do you tell in just a couple practices? You know, we are just not -- to ask somebody to say, oh, move them over and he's a star, that's kind of hard to do. Q. How much work were you able to do with the kickers, and I don't know if this is a completely crazy idea, but have you thought about using Will in place kicking? COACH RODRIGUEZ: No. If he could do it, he would have done it. If anybody on our team could be a great field goal kicker, we would already have found him and they would be doing it. It's not like, okay, there's all of a sudden, you know, there's a 15 punter out here on our team that we didn't know could kick 60-yard field goals, what are we thinking, let's put him out there. No, Will was a pretty good high school kicker and he kicked off pretty well, but we needed the kickoffs. In the August camp, he wasn't close to the other guys and his field goal kick -- he's a punter and he's got enough to work on to get that right. But again, we have to get better at that. Part of it is fundamentals. I think, just those kickers working on the consistency every day and being able to do it on Saturdays. Q. You is said that Quinton was going to be your No. 3 guy, now, is -- COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, I don't think so. Q. He was not your first guard? COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, Ricky Barnum. And Ricky plays guard, he plays center, he plays tackle. Ricky Barnum is the kind of guy that can play a little bit of it all. End of FastScripts |
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