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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN MEDIA CONFERENCENovember 8, 2010Rich RodriguezQ. Can you update us on Denard and his situation? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Just this morning, whatever tests he went through yesterday were all good. So he should be fine. No issues. Q. Did he have a concussion or is that kind of a -- COACH RODRIGUEZ: I don't know what it was. He was -- I guess he had symptoms. Would probably be a better way of putting it. He had signs or symptoms of not being completely there. A little dizzy. A little headache. Certainly for precautionary reasons the trainers wanted to hold him out. And I don't ever get in the middle of that stuff. They're the professionals in that regard so they say someone's out they're out we put the next guy in. Q. You expect him to be -- COACH RODRIGUEZ: He'll do everything. Q. You expect him to practice today and play on Saturday? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yes, do everything today and be good to go. Q. What are the steps that you take when someone has concussive symptoms like there? Is there a protocol you have? COACH RODRIGUEZ: I leave it up to the trainers and doctors. They tell us what's going on and they have a series of tests they do. And again to grade it, to see what level it's at, I couldn't tell you where it was. All I know is they said he had some dizziness and a headache and they wanted to hold him. So I said okay, next guy. Q. You went back and looked at film. Was it that play that -- COACH RODRIGUEZ: I don't know. It wasn't anything in the last four or five plays he was in. So that's what was surprising to us, because he didn't get hit on the last few plays. So that may have been it. And I don't think Denard remembers which one. But I could see that was the only hit that I saw that possibly could have caused some issues there. Q. Did he come to you and say -- COACH RODRIGUEZ: The trainers did. Yeah, normally after the series, unless I'm doing something else, I'll go back and maybe say something to the quarterbacks, receivers and see all that. But in this case I was doing something else. And it was like normally we get a pretty good heads up on it. But this one it was just a couple minutes before we were ready to go out. They said Denard's having some issues and the trainers are holding him so we have to get Tate in. Q. The issue with Danny Hogue last year, did you talk to him since then and -- COACH RODRIGUEZ: We've talked a little bit in the conference meetings, but other than that we haven't talked about or done anything. It's in the past. Not worried about it. Q. Aside from the offense itself, what makes Roy Roundtree so effective? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Roy's got a really neat feel for the game. I think one of his best attributes, very good athlete. Good ball skills. He can run. He's getting bigger. I don't know what his weight is listed but he was about 150 when he got here. Some skilled players, whiteouts, have a certain feel for the game as far as finding an opening in a zone coverage or being able to separate versus man. And Roy's got kind of a natural feel for that. That's some of the same things we saw in high school. He was well coached in high school. But he caught a whole bunch of passes in high school. And a lot of them are very similar to what he's doing here. He would find a crease, get open and make the catch. Q. I know people will look at the 65 that your defense gave up, but you had a couple of third down stops. Obviously the two-point conversion stop as well. Does that sort of thing help a defense in the future? Also going against a Purdue team that obviously doesn't score a lot of points. COACH RODRIGUEZ: Particularly in light of some of the inexperience we were playing, true freshmen making starts in the secondary and there were times when there were four freshmen, three true freshmen in the secondary for us. You know better than I do, but look around Division I, is there anywhere else that that's happening? So it's pretty rare. And I thought they competed. We gave up some plays. And it was disappointing for them to get a couple of the Will routes and things like that on us. But we did have a few three and outs, five or six stops, and offense really put our defense in some bad situations with some turnovers. We had some turnovers that I thought our defense responded well. There are some things we can grow from and get better at. But we still have to play at a higher level. But I was really nervous going into this game because of the talent that Illinois had on both sides of the ball. And I thought our kids hung in there and battled with them. Q. Seemed like their kickoff return was the other thing that put the defense back. Did you see something particularly on this game unfold? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Again, it's the same thing with athleticism. You worry about the matchups athleticism-wise in our offense and defense but you also have to worry about them on special teams. We didn't kick the ball as well. I think Will did okay, it wasn't his best day on kickoffs. We had been pretty solid all year with kicks, but we let a couple get out there on Saturday. Q. Your overall turnover margin has concerned you, second year in a row. What concerns you the most, the lost or the gained and how do you attack either one of those numbers? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Both, really. We had been pretty good most of the year from the offensive standpoint and special teams not turning the ball over. This past game wasn't good. But the other part has been really disappointing, and I don't want to say totally unexpected. I don't know where we're at in the country turnovers gained, but we're way down near the bottom. We're not -- we're getting our hands on the ball a couple times but we're not quite creating turnovers. And we talked about that a lot with the defensive staff. We're not in a position to make plays or we're not causing enough confusion. I don't know. But that's a stat that's really hurt us. And it seems like our offense has to go a long way a lot of times, whether that's because of no turnovers gained or not getting much on the return yardage. So it's certainly an issue we've tried to address. But I don't know any simple answer to it. Q. You've talked about how this program will be where you want it to be when you have multiple players at each position that can play. Would you say quarterback is definitely that position where Tate, with his experience and ability, you know, helped you score another, what, 22 points? COACH RODRIGUEZ: No question, and you covering us have probably heard me say it a bunch of times. When there's not much of a drop-off or difference between ones and twos and maybe even threes, certain positions that you know you're going to be a pretty good football team because you can handle a few injuries, which everybody's going to have throughout the course of a season. We're there at some positions this year, but most positions we're not. Quarterback is one we're at. Running back to some degree we're at. And I think on the offensive line, for the first time since I've been here, we're at to some degree. But nowhere on defense are we there. But I think in the next year we're certainly going to be a whole lot better in that regard. If we do our job in recruiting and do our job in developing, going forward, we won't have as many true freshmen as we're playing right now. Q. The running back situation, how is Teric Jones? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Teric, unfortunately on that kickoff return, tore his ACL. And he will be out for the season. Q. Other injuries, Rich, Mike Martin? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Mike Martin is better. Jonas Mouton has a little issue with a chest muscle, I believe. So he'll probably be limited. Certainly today we don't hit. But we may not let him -- he may not be actively involved in the hitting practice tomorrow. I don't think we lost anybody else in the game. Teric was, unfortunately, we lost him on a kickoff return. Q. (Inaudible) COACH RODRIGUEZ: I'll see today and in particular more tomorrow when we have pads on tomorrow if he can go. I hope so because he gave us a little boost there at that position. Q. Could you talk about Purdue, what you'll point out to your guys to make them respect Purdue, not that I'm sure you guys are cocky at this point? COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, I don't think that's going to be an issue with our guys. Plus the fact that they beat us the last couple of years. And they've got some very good players. Particularly defensively. Carrigan's an All-American. Both their ends are very good, very athletic and active on defense. They've had injuries on quarterbacks. I don't know if Henry is going to be back for us or not. But they have some fast skilled kids on their perimeter. And they play extremely hard, especially at home. So our guys, I want our guys to feel good for a couple of days. They're going through a little grind like they did. I hope they feel good, have a little bounce in their step. But we approach everything the same anyway. Q. How did you feel Saturday night? Is this the first time you've been here -- COACH RODRIGUEZ: I felt great. No question it was a sense of relief. Not only for the staff and the players but I think in particular for the seniors. The seniors want to -- I would hope one of the reasons they play is because they love playing football. And the chance to extend their college career one more game, I think, is huge to be around. I think if you've talked to the players, when they leave that so-called hot oil, their eligibility is up. That's the toughest transition for any college athlete, from the time their eligibility is up and they're done and they're moving on, whether they're moving on in professional football or athletics or moving on in the business world, you still -- that bond you have with your team is pretty tight and being able to extend that for another month or whatever it is for a Bowl game, I think, is really important for our seniors. Q. Young guys on the defense, the extra practices, is that -- COACH RODRIGUEZ: I don't know. A lot of people make a big deal. I don't know if it's a huge deal, but I do think it is important. In particular, if you have a lot of young players. And a lot of freshmen. The 15 practices in spring help. But having 15 in the winter, I think, especially for the young guys -- and we have a lot of young players that they're going to have to develop and they're going to have to get ready to help us, especially on defense. And so that month of December being able to work and have some practices is going to be invaluable for them. Q. Do early enrollees, any chance of them extending that? COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, they did that a few years ago. I know there were some -- I've never done it, but I think there were a few schools having early enrollees actually go to the Bowl practices and do that. But I think since then the rule changed and they can't do it, which they shouldn't be able to do it. The Bowl game is for the guys, players who earned it, not the early enrollees. Q. You talked about 24 hours, win or lose, but as emotional as the aftermath of that game was, is that the kind of thing that can carry you a little through the week of practice? COACH RODRIGUEZ: A little bit. We'll talk about it today because yesterday was the day off. We'll talk about it today and clean up the issues we had and all that. And then after today we kind of move on. But we always refer back to games and teaching moments. But, again, if it helps them have a little enthusiasm, have a little pep in their step, that's good because it does become a little bit of a grind this late in the year. But it seems -- also for coaches it seems to go pretty fast, too. I think our players are excited. I hope they get a little confidence from it. That's the best thing that a win happens is the confidence it gives. Even if you didn't play particularly well yourself or your group didn't play particularly well, winning gives a lot of the guys a lot more confidence. Q. How emotional was that locker room afterwards? COACH RODRIGUEZ: We were pretty excited. Everybody was -- I think, again, whether it was a sense of relief, I don't think it was just that, getting the six wins, I think it was the kind of game it was. You know, even when we've had scrimmages and we end our scrimmages back in August with an overtime period and it's offense against defense, I mean, they get really excited about that. And every time we did it they get really excited about it. So I think we go to three overtimes and it's at home. The crowd was into it. I think that the way the game was, I think added to the emotion in the locker room. Q. How about all they've been through, too? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, the guys have been through a lot. They have been. And that's why I'm so proud of them, the focus they've kept. And again as much as I or we as coaches try to shelter them in Schembeckler Hall from the external drama, so to speak, they may not hear about it. I think they've handled themselves extremely well. I'm proud the way they've handled it. In particular not just the adversity we faced every week, like last week J.T. Floyd going down. For some teams it would be like oh, boy, oh wow is us, here we go again. But our guys were we feel bad for J.T., let's pick it up. They've done a tremendous job with that. Q. [Inaudible] wasn't that highly rated. What did you see in him and how do you think these played here in these last two games? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Played pretty well. He's a young guy going to make young guy mistakes. Came from a great high school program. Used to winning a lot of games in Youngstown. And he's a very intelligent guy. Good football player. We liked him from the first moment we saw him. Maybe it was whether size or what have you, but again we make all of our own judgments on our guys. And these recruiting sites do really do a pretty good job for the most part rating. But we don't ever make our judgments based on what a recruiting service rates them. We rate them ourselves. Q. One of the things you said early on was that to be able to, win you didn't (inaudible) do you see that as -- COACH RODRIGUEZ: There were certainly moments we didn't play our best. Having five turnovers, some of them were -- you can understand some turnovers happening because they're forced errors. They made a great play or something like that and they did on that. But there were also some unforced errors that we had. So we played pretty well at times. We got a few fortunate bounces at times. But the thing that our guys kept doing they kept competing. Whether we were down or at times we were up or in the overtime. It was from my vantage point there was never any feeling like, hey, we're in trouble here. So that's a sign of growing up. In particular, you look at the young guys. You talk about true freshmen, now most of these guys should be getting red shirted. Most of these freshmen don't play at these positions this early in their career. Now they're out there playing in a triple overtime game in front of 111,000. I mean there's a lot of growing lessons happening. And we're excited they got through it and made some plays and some they didn't. But they're going to be able to -- now we're going to have a whole lot more experience going forward when those other guys get back. That's the neat part about it. Q. Do you think nationally there have been more injuries this year than prior years, maybe more season-ending injuries? COACH RODRIGUEZ: I don't know. You guys could probably research that. I don't know how far back in years that they kept as close of tabs. Now I guess it's so much more public. I mean, everybody -- that's the first question you all ask and it's the first question that every other coach's press conference has is dealing with injuries. I'm not sure that was always the case in the past. But I think it's more public now. But just like the NFL you're seeing -- these kids are getting, and their kids, they're getting bigger and faster and stronger every year. And that trend is not going backwards, because high school programs and nutrition and lifting weights and all that is getting to lower, lower levels. Kids are coming out of high school, faster, bigger, stronger. The equipment people are doing a tremendous job. As they get bigger and faster and stronger those collisions become more violent. There's much you can do about it. People talk about the surfaces and the knee injuries and all that. I think one of the greatest single inventions in football facility-wise has been the field turf. The rubber infield surface. I think that's probably saved, oh, 25 percent knee injuries, because of that. I can't imagine playing on the old harder turf which we used to have here, and what I used to play on, and all that, how many more injuries we would have if the kids still had to play on those type of surfaces. We're on the safest surface you can possibly have, but you still have the injuries. It's just a tough game. Q. Talking about injuries, did J.T. have his surgery and Perry? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Perry, we could have probably used Perry if we got in kind of an emergency situation but he'll be a lot better and we'll see how he works this week in practice but he's a lot better now. And J.T. had his surgery. Q. How is Troy this week? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Good. He's out of his walking boot. Obviously he's not doing nothing lower body but he's working on upper body. Mike Jones is doing well with his surgery. That was all good. Tay Odoms is fine after his surgery. So all those guys -- I don't know what they'll be able to do spring practice-wise, they're on a different schedule. But they're all on track. Q. You took the NFL approach and release an injury report every week. A lot of coaches act like it's top secret. Why do you take the approach you do, I'm curious? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Because you're all so interested in it. If I try to be vague and you get -- we get worried if you get the source from somewhere else, is it accurate. Same old thing. You may hear this or this. It's the old rumor mill. If you want to find out the truth, ask the right source. The only thing we have to be careful about is we want to make sure the families -- the families get notified immediately. We wouldn't want anybody outside the families to know first if there was an injury or a surgery or something that occurred. But the families know immediately. And every young man that we've had had surgery with his mom or dad or both or family members will be able to come up here and be with them when they had surgery. So it's good. Q. Was he playing in place of Perry? COACH RODRIGUEZ: He played pretty well. He competed -- not only can Perry play there, but we wouldn't hesitate at all to put Michael Schofield in there. Michael Schofield can play too. He played a little bit, but he's a redshirt freshman. But he's ready to play as well. Before we weren't nearly as deep as we are right now. And we haven't got Ricky Barnum in as much. But we have no qualms whatsoever about putting Ricky Barnum in there. And Rocko Khoury has played quite a bit. So those guys, and Taylor's obviously playing well at left tackle. We have some good, young players there. Q. You were pretty empathetic about the athleticism of Illinois last week. And you referenced it to Purdue, is it on par with that? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Illinois was probably one of the most athletic teams, or is one of the most athletic teams in the league. We, frankly, have to get more athletic. I mean, some of that comes through development. The freshman, they're pretty good athletes and they'll get -- I don't know if you get more athletic, but you'll get stronger and faster in the weight room when you spend a year with Coach Barwis and his staff. But we have to get faster and more athletic overall as a team and bigger, too. We're still a little bit undersized. And the only way to do that we have to address that in recruiting and first and foremost and then you address it in your development part. And I feel good in both those areas that recruiting is going well and our strength staff I think is the best in the country. Q. Do you think you match up okay with Purdue that way? COACH RODRIGUEZ: I think we match up in certain spots. We have some special players that give us the chance, the quarterback position and I really think, as I said after the game, I think our wide receivers have been playing at their best level since I've been here. And we're pretty athletic up front on the O line, for some big guys up there, we're pretty athletic. Defensively we have some athleticism but not enough. Not enough speed yet. And some of it is due to youth and some due to we've just got to get more players there. Q. You mentioned on the radio show last week that Denard with his knee, he rebanged it; is that still an issue? COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, it was better. He's still going to get some treatment on it, because if he gets just nicked on it a little bit it will bother him some. But his arm felt a whole lot better. And I think we can tell in some of his passes he was a lot crisper with it, taking it down field, and he was running well, too. So I'm hoping he'll feel as good as he has felt in weeks this weekend. Q. Why was it so difficult to fix the coverage mistakes on those cross routes to the running back? COACH RODRIGUEZ: On the Will routes, hit it wide open, I had the same question. But I believe it wasn't the same guy and it was two different defenses. It wasn't the same call, the same guy. So that was my first thought: You've got to be kidding me. Again? To be open is one thing. To be that wide open is another thing. So it was one -- a guy made a mistake in just completely blew it on one and the other one it was, it was a different defense and the guy had his eyes in the wrong spot. But I would expect we'll probably see a play similar to that in every game coming forward. So we better -- we'll be working on it quite a bit. The fact is we have a play very similar to that and we work every week against them. Our guys worked against it in practice. So we've got to do it in game time. Q. I'm sure it's hard to play everybody you would like to play, but seems like Hopkins had some flashes. Do you try to create a way for him to get a rhythm? Seems like he's the kind of guy that could find a rhythm maybe. COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, it's a little bit more by feel, how we're doing in the backs. Vincent Smith is probably we have the most confidence in doing everything. Even when we're blocking, Vincent has some experience and all that. But Mike Shaw gave us a burst, especially when he's running. He runs really hard. And Stephen is the big guy. I like the rotation that we have with them. And it really depends not just so much on the play but how we're going. And we've played two of them at the same time. We did that a little bit last weekend, too. Actually, if we get a fourth guy, whether it's Fitz or Mike Cox, would have been Teric, we like to have all four of them to roll in or out of there. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. End of FastScripts |
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