UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 28, 2003

Tyrone Willingham

COACH WILLINGHAM: It can come to us in a variety of ways: Sometimes it comes from the trainers; sometimes it comes through the position coach. So it comes in a variety of ways.

COACH WILLINGHAM: No, because sometimes I am not aware of some of the specific the personnel.

COACH WILLINGHAM: That, as you know, I think is always a part of human nature that sometimes when things aren't going well, you can very easily feel down. But I like our football team, I like the way they fought back this past ballgame; that it would have been very easy, I think, at some point when you are down 6-24 to just let it go. They didn't do that. They continued to battle. I think the spirits are very high.

COACH WILLINGHAM: Look at it -- always trying to find ways to get turnovers, anything you can do to create that because that hopefully changes the football game. But the team, more than anything else, dictates what you do and how you try to match up and what you can and cannot do versus them.

COACH WILLINGHAM: Well, we were because we put Jerome in a very difficult situation. We had to make one of those adjustments. I think you have look at those things last week when those things happened; how they occurred. We had to go to a total -- a different personnel group that we'd been to all year and he's stepped in and did a great job for us. So we need to find ways to, I think, get him on the field and have him do some things but we're pleased with what he's doing.

COACH WILLINGHAM: I think, one, he has speed, size and strength. And those are always wonderful advantages. Probably he and Derek Curry have been in a great competition for that position and Derek Curry has done a great job of being a total player that can do a lot of things for us.

COACH WILLINGHAM: No, that was ordered sometime ago.

COACH WILLINGHAM: Heck of an opportunity to upset one of the best teams in the country.

COACH WILLINGHAM: Well, we're lucky that our schedule at this time of the year gives us that opportunity that we have got one of the top 4, 3, 5 times depending on what particular poll you are looking at, whether it is BCS, AP, or the College Rankings, we have got a great football team coming in here that gives us an opportunity to be the spoiler.

COACH WILLINGHAM: Well, it's a fragile thing sometimes to keep a team moving always in the right track and the thing that we have not done and I have consistently said this, we have not executed and if you don't execute and make the plays, you are not going to win.

COACH WILLINGHAM: We can knock off Florida State. We have got to play consistent. We have got to execute. We can't have lulls because Florida State, from what I have seen this year, doesn't have lulls. They go pretty hard the entire football game. They have great confidence at what they are doing and their players are doing a great job in executing it. Their quarterback, I think, is throwing the ball right around 60 percent, I think his completion rate. They have an excellent runner. As a matter of fact, they have got two or three of them that come in and do very well. So this is a good football team - probably better than that - a very, very good football team.

COACH WILLINGHAM: I have always said that when you play as a team it makes a tremendous difference because you kind of alluded to that statement with your statement earlier about the duration they were going, there were a lot of in-house problems, et cetera, they are playing as a team; and when you work together as a team it's amazing what can happen.

COACH WILLINGHAM: All along I said that Courtney, because of his knowledge of the game, makes him special. And with that he plays and he makes plays. When you are smart, you understand the structure of the defense, you can help other people get in the right place, you are also able to do your job, I think it makes you a special player.

COACH WILLINGHAM: I think he talks, I will say sparingly will be the term, but I think he's very selective and appropriate when he says things to the football team. But his example is not one that you see just on the football field. He's also involved, very involved with the community in different things that really set him apart.

COACH WILLINGHAM: It is probable, I guess is the best way to say it.

COACH WILLINGHAM: Well, it always takes great leadership, great coaching, great playing to get it back to its height. As you relate it to the ballgame, you have to execute - and I keep harping on that, but that's something that you can't say enough because it's true - everything you do, if you execute it, you got your best chance of being successful.

COACH WILLINGHAM: I wish I can give you all the explanations on why one week it's good; one week it's not good. You have to have, with running game, you have to have patience and sometimes based on the score of the ballgame, it doesn't allow a coach to have patience; that I have to be more involved in terms of trying to put the ball in the air and trying to get points. So what dictates running game, you hope, would be a nice close ballgame where you can be confident, you can stay with it and be in a position to win the football game.

COACH WILLINGHAM: There's no question about that. I have always said execution is important, okay, you are tired hearing me say that - but it's true. That's a part of it. We have got to execute. We, as coaches, have to try to put them in the best possible calls you can put them in for them to be successful and you have to have patience and score does play a lot of that. If you get a team like we faced with Boston College and you were in the second half, okay, you know that they are a running team and they have the lead, they will continue to run the football. As they run the football, time goes off the clock, you don't have many opportunities. So often the best way to take advantage of that is see if you can get some passes, get something going, and passing more than we'd like to which hurts our running game.

COACH WILLINGHAM: (Laughs) The difficulty there is sometimes placement; sometimes just defeating a block and sometimes just making the tackle because there are a couple of times I look at this past ballgame we had a guy right in the site to make a tackle, we miss it, all of a sudden he is up in the lane and now they have got a big return.

COACH WILLINGHAM: No, we don't want a kicker to make tackles. That's not an advantageous position for us when he's got to make the tackle because usually it means he's the last guy. But you try to structure yourself where you can get the young people in the right place and hopefully that they do the right things and make the tackles and they don't get to that level where D.J. had to be two of the last four. But that's a critical part of the game because I think in that ballgame alone they started just with our kickoffs on the 36, 35, 39 and the 50, and that's far, far too good a field position to offer any football team.

COACH WILLINGHAM: Game plan, package, just the overall acclimation that a young guy goes to in adjusting to the system and improving. Those are all things that are kind of keeping him out of the lineup right now.

COACH WILLINGHAM: We're trying to keep him really more at the strong spot, okay, just kind of gradually bring him along and make sure we have got the right timing for him.

COACH WILLINGHAM: One, we try to incorporate a little more play-action into our system versus BC because of the things that they did. I think the play-action helped with that process of our receivers being in better positions to catch the football.

COACH WILLINGHAM: I think both. I think they can continuing to improve. I think the improvement that you've seen in Rhema and Maurice from the beginning of the season from last year with Omar, I think they are continuing to improve.

COACH WILLINGHAM: That we're counting on him, that he's an integral part of our offense, our passing game and that he makes big plays and we expect him to make big plays. Let that one go and let's pick it up.

COACH WILLINGHAM: My wish list. Okay, my wish list is to be heavy starting with the run and then heavy with pass. Now will Florida State allow us to do that? I am not sure yet because this is a very good football team. So we're going to try and map out the best plan for us to have success. We think first we have to improve the running game in there.

COACH WILLINGHAM: Let's see. I would say like USC explosive, speed, talented very much along that line, yes.

COACH WILLINGHAM: Nick is questionable. We'll start the week to see how he can perform and see if he's healthy and ready to go.

COACH WILLINGHAM: Yes.

COACH WILLINGHAM: I am pretty consistent on that one: I'd like to have the ball last. I'd like to know what we have to do to win the game.

COACH WILLINGHAM: One, stability. Two, he's put, I think, an excellent system in place. And he's done an excellent job of recruiting.

COACH WILLINGHAM: I think probably the primary thing is just our need as a coach to have things fixed right now. So therefore when it's not, you see change.

COACH WILLINGHAM: Brandon has a special, what I call, a special-type player. He's really -- you look at him sizewise and you don't see how physical a football player he's. But he's probably one of our more physical, big-hitter type-players. And with that comes a personality that he likes to get involved in the action right away. What we say when we say patient -- when we say -- I think you said polished if I am correct, is that the word patience fits in there because what is important is that you not react too soon but yet you flow with the nature and the responsibility of the defense and really that's where the biggest change, I think, has come in Brandon this year, he's begun to do that better and better each week; to be able to fit into that defense and now still maintain that aggressive of physical nature that he has.

COACH WILLINGHAM: I think the communication between those three and really all of our linebackers is excellent and when you have guys like Curry and Watson that really, in my opinion, have a pretty good handle on the overall structure of the defense, they can relate to each other very well and help him see things that maybe he does not see.

COACH WILLINGHAM: The first thing is the public may not know but I think coaches notice. Joey is -- I thought just did an excellent job last year with the number of punts that he downed inside the 20 and inside the 10 and his ability to, what we call, directionally punt, which makes a major difference in your coverage where you can isolate a guy to only one-third of the field, it really, I think, improves your coverage. So when you have a loss of that nature, it's important. Yet at the same time, I think Nick has done a great job; he's grown into the two roles and it is just a unfortunate that we haven't had him for the last couple of weeks.

COACH WILLINGHAM: The No. 1 area that I see that affect is, in terms of stability and being a positive thing, is that your players have a constant personality. They know that person. They understand what he says, things they understand, what he means when he nods his head, when his mouth moves in a certain direction, I mean, all of those little things, those subtle things have the impact on the young people that they can really feel comfortable in the program. As far as the coaching, it makes it a lot easier because you know in most cases that if you have been in a program that long or you have been with people, then you think along the same lines, and your structure for your program, the things that you do, you don't have to spend time re-teaching things and you can kind of, in a sense, advance your program from just the elementary days.

COACH WILLINGHAM: I would agree with that statement.

COACH WILLINGHAM: You said 75?

COACH WILLINGHAM: Gosh, I hope to be alive when I turn 75. No, that's not my desire to coach that long. I don't know what that year will be and I haven't even thought about that, but I think they have done a remarkable job in terms of maintaining their youthfulness and being in a game that is for the young.

COACH WILLINGHAM: I think, No. 1, it starts with, what do you believe in and what do you believe you ultimately can accomplish. I think myself and our coaching staff believe that we can have a good football team and at some point we're going to turn this corner that we're in and play the kind of football that we expect and we will meet our expectations as a football team. Therefore, the only way to get to that level of expectation, is to keep pressing forward, to keep working, to keep driving our young men and to keep being very positive with them.

COACH WILLINGHAM: The game is an emotional game - that's with the players, with the fans and I have said that hopefully our players will pick up our fans and create some energy in them, with the way they play the football game, and hopefully our fans will at points during the ballgame, pick up our team because during every contest there's some high points; there's some low points. If we can have our energy level raised during any of our low points to our fans, then you can have a chance to be consistent and play better; if you can play better, you've got a better chance to win.

COACH WILLINGHAM: I probably label it tradition and I think that's something that if you can get that throughout every bit and piece and particle of your system then it adds something to your program because there are not a lot of people that have the tradition and the history that you have at Notre Dame. That should work for you and that should be a sense of strength as you play your contest.

COACH WILLINGHAM: I would probably say the most drastic thing is the number of turnovers. I think last year we created more, I think, more interceptions, more scores from our defense, and when things were going along that line, you have the tendency to just kind of build on it and right now we are not getting those kind of plays from our defensive team.

COACH WILLINGHAM: He will be out.