|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCEDecember 20, 2011Dan RousharQ.  I was going back over my notes at the start of the season and you talked about telling your guys you just wanted them to get better every day. My question for you is how have you gotten better every day? DAN ROUSHAR: Well, I think through the course of the season, got a lot more comfortable with our system. I think the other thing that happened is got a lot more comfortable with understanding what each guy does pretty well, and I think we started getting some continuity and consistency up front and really tried to play to the strengths of our football team. Often times I think we think so much about scheme, how you might try to run a particular concept, and in doing so I think we also take into strong consideration who those guys are that are doing it. I think I've got a lot better there, and I thought our football team did, as well. Q. Can you give us an update on Dion Sims, and by the Bowl game will he be able to contribute in the passing game? DAN ROUSHAR: You know, his injury is still taking time to heal, and our understanding is this will take a number of months. He's still wearing a cast on his wrist, and so his skill set is not what it was. But he looks like he's more comfortable. In practices I've watched him the last few days, and really leading up through the last couple weeks in our preparation for the Big Ten Championship game I could see some positive things there. You know, he's certainly getting work right now, and our hope is that he is very effective in the Bowl game. Q. I'm wondering philosophically if things change in a Bowl game environment, you're playing a non‑conference team, there's nothing to save, they don't know your tendencies, does it affect how you call a game, and do you tend to be a little more wide open or surprising in that regard? DAN ROUSHAR: Well, you know, they have all 13 of our games as we have all 13 of their games, and they'll do their homework and their research, and they'll have a good understanding of what our tendencies are or aren't. I think that going into a game like this, you want to create match‑ups that make it wide open. So I don't know if you'll see it a whole lot different than you did in the final game of the season, where we try to exploit some things and we want to put the ball in certain guys' hands and let them make plays for us. But you know, as we've gone into this week with our preparation, we've got some different ideas that we're going to see if we can't continue to refine, and if we're executing them at a high level, then you'll see them called in that Bowl game. Q. You touched on the continuity of your offensive line. How drastic was the difference maybe from the Notre Dame game or an earlier game in the season to the last four or five games of the year? DAN ROUSHAR: Really, I think when you look at us, I think two things really evolved: When Keshawn got healthy, we got a second receiver that got very involved, and that helped out dramatically. But also in addition to that, the offensive line, it was well‑documented that we had to replace three starters, but we lose Travis Jackson before the season, we lose Blake Treadwell in the Notre Dame game, and we lose Skyler Burkland in the Notre Dame game, and then you're redeveloping‑‑ there's those kind of movements that you've got to make when you take a guy that's playing left tackle and you move him to right tackle and so on. And I really think that through our open week, those guys started to develop, and to be able to put them out there each and every week, I think that was one of the biggest differences in our‑‑ I think in our marked improvement as an offensive football team, that their ability to stay in there and work with one another. I think that you could see consistency. We didn't have nearly the breakdowns that we had early, and I think Mark Staten and the offensive line deserve a lot of credit for how well we improved through the last half of the season. Q. Talk a little bit about Kirk Cousins and just how much you might miss him when he's gone. DAN ROUSHAR: Well, again, Kirk is such an outstanding person, and I think one of the biggest things when I look at it is, or misunderstandings, is that guy is one terrific quarterback. I mean, you look at what he did and how well he's throwing the ball and the things he's done each and every week, he's very impressive. He'll be missed greatly. We have some young guys that we're very encouraged by. Obviously they haven't gotten the experience. But when you watch Kirk in practice and you watch B.J. Cunningham in practice, you see two guys that I think perform at an extremely high level, and what you see in practice you often times see in games. You don't see a whole lot different. I've been impressed with him. I'm watching him yesterday in practice and he came off of a third read and went to a fourth look, and he comes back over, and I just asked him, I said, how did you get there, and he very quickly gave me an unbelievable response. You know, his experience, the things he's done, he'll be a tough guy to replace, there's no question about it. Q. You touched on Keshawn a little bit, but getting him back healthy as you mentioned and having that extra weapon, how much has that helped the offense here in the second half and you guys with your ability to make some explosive plays? DAN ROUSHAR: It really has, I think, changed us. If you watched the first half of the season, we had Kirk throwing it to B.J., and we were trying to hand it to our tailbacks, and we probably weren't quite as proficient as we wanted to be for a lot of reasons. And then as Keshawn got healthy, that dimension that we all were looking for very early in the season started to evolve, and then I think our offensive staff, recognizing what he's been doing, has put him in a position where we can put him in the backfield, we can motion him back in. He has the ability to do so many different things. He's gained an awful lot of confidence. In fact, my recollection after the Northwestern game, he made the comment that he felt like he was performing at a really high level, and you really see that in how he works. Even going back through practice these last three, four days, he's having a lot of fun, but he is playing at a very high level. His best football is still coming. Q. What is the challenge of a 3‑4 defense like this one when they have such huge linemen up front and their linebackers come from different areas, athletic linebackers? Is it good to have this extra time to get the line ready for that? DAN ROUSHAR: Well, you know, it's very difficult to duplicate exactly what we'll see. Their starting nose guard is 351 pounds, and the guy that they bring in behind him is probably 320 pounds. You know, that's going to be a challenge in itself. As I look at them, they're ranked third in the country nationally as a total defense. They are very, very good against the run, and when you become one‑dimensional, they can get after the quarterback. I think they're second or third in the Southeast Conference with I believe 34 sacks or something like that, so they present a lot of problems. Some of it is their personnel, some of it is their scheme. They're very well coached. They have people in the secondary that can cover you. So when they go after you, they're in a position to still make plays on the ball. But we have a great challenge in front of us, there's no question about it. They play 3‑4 front, much like you see from the University of Iowa or you see from Notre Dame. So as we‑‑ Michigan even was running a lot of that as we played them. I don't know if they changed after that. So we have carryover, we have similarity, but again, it's a different challenge, I guess in part because of the size of their people. Q. Two things: If you would off the top talk about how the news of Arthur Ray hit you yesterday, and as an offensive line guy, even though you have a different role now, how pleased are you that this has all kind of come together when it looked four games into the season that this could implode because of injuries and whatnot? DAN ROUSHAR: Well, first of all, Arthur Ray, what a tremendous honor. To be recognized nationally‑‑ it's well‑documented all the things that he's gone through and what he's done, but if we all had his toughness and his perseverance and his passion for what he does, we'd certainly be in a greater place. I admire him so much, and what a tremendous honor. The offensive improvement, I think this‑‑ I don't know that he gets enough credit, but Mark Dantonio, last year, Big Ten Coach of the Year, a lot of honors, a lot of recognition, and since I've been with him, and I just say this from my personal standpoint, I thought it was his best job of coaching that I've ever been around. I don't think there were things that you saw on the outside but things that he did inside, from a motivation standpoint, from keeping us together, staying focused, staying positive and understanding that improvement was needed, and I thought our kids did that. I think it's always been a trademark of Coach Dantonio's teams, we get better. We get better as we go through the year, and I think that's reflective, and when you look at our record in November and the way we do things, and it's also a great credit to our kids. If you come onto the practice field, which I know you're not privileged to do all the time, but whether it's the last period of practice or it's the first period of practice, you see guys working. You see guys working for each other. You see attention to detail. As an offensive staff, certainly we were pleased with the improvement, but I think that goes back to our football team in its entirety. We struggled early for a lot of different reasons, but it was good to see them grow. Q. Going back to the development of the offensive line, which specific individual improvements stood out to you as the season went on the last couple weeks? DAN ROUSHAR: Well, I think the first thing is the collection of the group, being more cohesive and having fewer mistakes and being able to make application of fundamental blocks, whether it be a double team or you're asked to block a guy by yourself, and doing it at a much higher level. That kind of jumps out at me. But I think the big thing was getting guys into the same position, playing the same spot, working together, being able to communicate with the guy next to them and having a much better understanding of what was going to happen. Those were some of the things and challenges that I guess we had to work through. Again, I can't say enough good things about that entire group and what Coach Staten has done with them. Q. Talk about some of the younger guys, what you've seen from them in practice the last couple days. DAN ROUSHAR: Oh, you know, younger guys, Andrew Maxwell and Connor Cook have done some really nice things, you see some really positive things, and I guess they're younger because they haven't gotten a lot of work. At the wide receiver position we've had Tony Lippett back over on our side of the ball the last four days, and that's good to see. A lot of things we would have loved to have had early in the year. Keith Mumphery has had a couple of very good days. He's shown a lot of improvement and showing confidence, so that's positive. Nick Hill has run the ball in there, and that's been good. Our offensive line, although we don't have a lot of healthy bodies, young guys that are working in there, I think Donavon Clark is showing some real positive things. So we'll continue to kind of watch these guys grow. You know, we didn't practice like we have in the past. We gave the guys, because of the championship game, we gave them a few extra days off, and so really, Saturday was more‑‑ Saturday was more of our work with those young guys, and it's hard to say in one day's time what you really are going to see other than the attitude is really good, and I think those guys all have very good ability, and we'll see improvement. I guess I look at it, too, we will go against those young defensive kids. Pat and Ted Gill, they've got some outstanding defensive linemen coming. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|