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RUTGERS UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCESeptember 16, 2013Kyle FloodCOACH FLOOD: Good morning. Just like to start, I think everybody has probably noticed the patch on my left arm. Because we have a bye the following week, we are going to participate in Coach to Cure DMD this weekend, and our staff will have the patches on, on our game day wear. I think everybody is also aware of the relationship that my son, Kyle, has with his friend, Danny Garofalo, who actually suffers from Duchenne's muscular dystrophy; and it has brought me personally even further into this cause, and it's something that we are very proud to do this week and excited about participating in it again. We've got a really great game this Saturday I think for our fans to see at High Points Solution Stadium. It will be our annual blackout game, so we will have our black uniforms on. We have an SEC team coming to our stadium for the first time in the history of our program. I think that's exciting for us as a football program, but for the coaches and the players, we have got an opportunity to be 1‑0 against an excellent football team. Coach Bielema has done an excellent job there. He's changed the cultures and the value of their football program in a very short amount of time. I think that has shown up most dramatically in their run game where they are one of the top rushing teams in the country with two running backs averaging over a hundred yards a game. With that, I would open it for questions. Q. You said Gary would be evaluated and you might have more today; can you update us on the probable? COACH FLOOD: I have not seen Gary yet today. I know he's going to see the doctors today and I'm hoping by the end of today we'll have some idea. And certainly by tomorrow morning we're going to have to know so we can set the course of the week in terms of reps for the quarterbacks between Gary and Chase, and Mike Bimonte, as well. So we have got to make sure that we are getting the right people ready. It's a very short amount of time you have. Really, the whole game plan goes in in about 48 hours from Tuesday morning until about Wednesday midday. Q. Is it something you would leave to a game‑time decision, or do you feel like however you determine the reps in practice this week, that's how it's going to go come Saturday? COACH FLOOD: It's probably somewhere in between. I think it would be tough for it would be a game‑time decision with a quarterback. I don't know if you put a quarterback in a great position if you put him out there without actually practicing what he's going to see and what he's going to go against. Arkansas has got an excellent defense, and I don't know if you just want to put him out there on Saturday without practicing. Q. Is there anything else that you can tell us about Jamal Merrell with the kidney? COACH FLOOD: I don't really want to discuss it but it is a kidney situation and Jamal was with us yesterday in the meetings, but he is not at this point able to practice. I do expect him back after the bye week. Q. Have you noticed a difference in philosophy, especially on offense, between the previous regime and the new one? Is it much more run oriented? COACH FLOOD: I don't think there's any doubt. I think the‑‑ and part of that could be their personality, and a quarterback last year, one of the top quarterbacks in the country, and I think their quarterback this year has done a nice job but they are asking him to do different things in the game. I don't think it's any secret that Coach Bielema philosophically believes in the same things we believe in here. He wants to run the football and he wants to stop the run and they have done a very good job of it so far, and that's exactly what we want to do. So it is going to be a very physical football game on Saturday with two teams that are going to give it their best attempt at running the football. Q. You have the running back who is No.1 in the nation in yards per game and they have 4 and 7. What are the challenges of those two guys‑‑ I guess somebody will always be fresh. What do you see from them? Are they similar complementary backs? COACH FLOOD: I think they are similar. It's really about the other ten players on the field at the same time that the running back is. I think their running backs are talented players. I think we have got talented running backs, not just P.J. But I think they have an offensive football team that's committed to running the ball. Their players up front play the game in a very physical manner. Their players on the perimeter play the game in a very physical manner and I believe we do the same thing. That's the really enjoyable part of a game like this. You really get to test yourself on offense against a defense that prides itself on stopping the run, and they get to do the same thing; and on both sides, we have had pretty good success doing it. Q. What's the protocol when dealing with a player with a concussion, what's required of them to return to practice and who is involved? COACH FLOOD: I leave it entirely to the medical staff. That's the protocol. When they tell me he's ready to go, he goes back out there. Until then, it's not my area of expertise. Q. Does last year's game have any tie‑in relation to this year's game? Obviously a different staff for them and you might have a different quarterback. What do you remember from that game and does it apply to this game at all? COACH FLOOD: I don't think it does, and I really don't think it does in most cases. I think probably even less in this case just because the staff is different. Some of the marquee players on each side of the ball are different. Certainly some of them are back but a lot of them are not back. So I think we have got two different football teams. We've got a different venue for the game. They have a different coaching staff. We have two different coordinators. You know, I think there's a lot of differences and this will be your prototypical one‑game season. Q. Last year when you had the black jerseys, you hadfamily on the back; is it the same thing this year? COACH FLOOD: Correct. That's what's on the back of the jerseys. Q. Brandon Allen, their quarterback, I think suffered a shoulder injury on Saturday. Are you planning to prepare for him, for two guys, in case he can't go? What do you think of their quarterback situation? COACH FLOOD: I've had the opportunity to meet Coach Bielema. He's one of the first people I met as a head football coach. He was very kind to me. Does strike me as a person who says things just to say them. So Coach Bielema has said he will play, so we'll get ready for him to play. Q. You mentioned Mike Bimonte. Does he factor into it the quarterback look this week or is this Chase's job if Gary can't go? COACH FLOOD: I think he absolutely factors into it. If the doctors tell me that Gary can't go, then Mike becomes the backup quarterback, and then he has to assume the role that Chase has had in the past. Q. Do you see a noticeable difference in their offensive line from last year to this year? COACH FLOOD: I do see a difference. I think‑‑ I think they are more committed to running the football than they were last year. They are an impressive group. They are big, they are strong, they are physical. They look like the offensive lines that Bret had at Wisconsin. So it's been a quick transformation for him with that program and he's done an excellent job. Q. With Paul James, is it a case where he just blossoms now in college where maybe he didn't in high school, or is he just someone that was overlooked at that point in his career? COACH FLOOD: I'm of the belief that players are not overlooked. I think there's too many‑‑ too many programs recruiting and spending so much money and resources in recruiting, I don't believe that players are overlooked. I didn't believe that when I was coaching in I‑AA program ‑‑ or FCS football to say it politically correct. I think different players end up in different situations for different reasons. And having not been involved in PJ's recruiting process in high school, from what I understand, he had some injury issues his senior year of high school that led to him coming to Rutgers as a walk‑on; I don't think that's being overlooked. I think when coaches see that, they are probably less likely to invest a scholarship at that point in a player. But from all accounts, PJ was an excellent, excellent high school football player. So his ability to play the game of football was never the issue. And even his first two years here, he would get dinged up from time to time and maybe didn't‑‑ and maybe because of that didn't get the reps he needed to show what he really could do. I challenged with him with that last year, and we had a great conversation at the end of the season and I challenged him with that, and coming back in the best shape of his life and contributing on special teams, because I thought that was important for every player in our program to really make a commitment to contributing on special teams. And I promised him, you'll get the opportunity, just like everybody else to run the football, and if you're the best one, you'll be the starter. So he has taken that opportunity and made the most of it. So I guess to answer your question, I don't think he was overlooked. Q. Did you see last year that he had the talent to be where he is today? COACH FLOOD: Absolutely. Oh, yeah, PJ, from the moment he's been in the program has shown flashes of talent. Q. I'm curious about the walk‑on program. I know he's a preferred walk‑on and it's a little different, but as far as your walk‑on program goes, how many players generally arrive for tryouts and how many make the team? COACH FLOOD: You mean the tryouts we have when school starts? Q. The open tryouts? COACH FLOOD: Anywhere from five to 15 could show up on a given year. Very few ultimately make the team from the open tryouts. I think the majority of our walk‑ons that are on the team are more of the preferred‑type walk‑ons or people that we are familiar with from high school football, even if they are not necessarily the classification of the preferred walk‑on. Q. How much, if you don't have Gary, does that change your game plan at all offensively, if at all, and why? COACH FLOOD: Philosophically it won't change what we'll do. But from a‑‑ I think where it changes the most is from a play calling standpoint. That is the art of being a play‑caller. It is making sure that what you have in the game plan, you're able to accentuate through the players that are on the field. And that's not just the quarterback; that could be the receivers, the running backs, etc. Q. Just a couple more injury things. Is Jeremy Deering, do you expect him to go? COACH FLOOD: We put out an injury report. I'm not going to comment any more on injuries. Q. The defensive line ‑‑ what have you seen from them? COACH FLOOD: They are a physical, strong group, that also has the ability to rush the passer. You know, with their defensive line in general. I think they have one fewer sack than we do on the season. I think we have ten and they have nine. That really stems from their ability to stop the run, and I don't think it's any different with us. If you can stop the run, you put people off schedule and when you get off schedule, that's when defensive linemen really become dangerous. The more an offense can stay on schedule, well, then very rarely do you see that defensive lineman's No.1 pass rush move because he just ‑‑ he can't tee it up. Q. You suggested on Sunday that this would be the biggest test yet for Paul James, running against an SEC defense; is that how you view this in terms of‑‑ COACH FLOOD: I think this season, this will be the toughest test we've had on offense; not just for Paul James, but really for everybody. I think this will provide us the toughest test we've had all year in terms of running the football. I think this defense has shown already, you know, they are only giving up 105.3 yards per game rushing. So this is an excellent challenge for us offensively for all 11 guys on the field to run the football at the level that we want to run it at. Q. What are you looking to get out of Davon Jacobs and Quentin Gause this week given Merrell's status? COACH FLOOD: I expect them to be better. I expect them to be better than they were last week. Now that they have more experience of being in a game, and I think they need‑‑ they need to improve this week if we are going to be able to contain an excellent Arkansas offense. Q. Can you just expand on that story you started to tell about meeting their coach, he one of the first people you met? COACH FLOOD: It was a head coaches event out in Arizona that I was at. And Bret had worked on the staff at Iowa with Rob Smith who was our defensive coordinator last year, and I knew Bret was going to be out there. As an assistant coach, you generally know a lot of assistant coaches; and as a head coach, you tend to be in more events with head coaches. So I knew I was going to be at this event, and I asked Rob if Bret was going to be there and he said, yes. So Rob had told him I was going to be there. And we spent probably about an hour and a half, you know, just talking philosophically program things. And it was‑‑ it was good for me. It confirmed a lot of the things that I believed in. And as I said, I think philosophically, the way he has run his programs, whether it was Wisconsin or Arkansas now, is very similar to the way we run our program here and I think people will see that on Saturday. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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