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OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCEOctober 14, 2013Stan DraytonQ. How much confidence does it I didn't have your running backs to run behind that offensive line and what is that offensive line doing so well right now? COACH DRAYTON: Well, there's no doubt about it, any time you have a veteran offensive line that is kind of playing with the quality that they are playing with right now, it just instills all types of confidence in the running back. Just really forces that running back not to worry about first level of the defense, just trust that their players are going to get their job done, and now they can kind of just read through that first legal and kind of take a peek and see what's going on at the second and third level of defense. Any time you're able to do that as a running back, it allows you to anticipate your reads a lot quicker, and it doesn't happen unless you have that confidence in your offensive line, so that is why we are getting the explosives and the nice chunks of yards right now in the run game is purely because of the offensive line. So it's been phenomenal for us this year. Q. When you studied them, is there something they are doing in particular that's really good, and especially playing a very good run defense this week? COACH DRAYTON: Well, they are just rocking off the ball. They don't have any indecision. There's no hesitation in their first step. They are getting a lot of looks, too. They are getting a lot of twists, a lot of movement by the defense, some gap exchange and things like that. So they are just rocking off the ball, very confident in their targets, and once they get engaged, they are moving people, and that is a great formula for productive running. Q. Carlos running with the scout team‑‑ what was the benefit on or off the field for him going through that work? COACH DRAYTON: Well, first of all, I wish I can raise every back that way. I wish I could send every back down to the scout team for a few weeks because the positives of it are, No.1, you're going to play on contact, for sure. You're playing against a younger offensive line and you're not getting the movement that we are talking about for the first question there. But things are not very clean, so now you're forced to really enhance the skill set of playing on contact, playing through contact, spinning off of things, and you know, staying true to your footwork and your landmark. For that, it is a positive. It is a negative in some respects, too, because it's not clean most of the time. You get a back that comes back to a starting offensive line that sometimes he's hesitant; he doesn't quite have the timing together. But Carlos Hyde, having played with this offensive line for the last couple of years, he knows them and they know each other inside out. He was able to make that adjustment from the scout team back over to that starting team, and get a rhythm rather quickly. But I think mentally, it was an unbelievable advantage for him, because No.1, being a starting tailback a year ago and having to play a backup role and a service role to this football team on the scout team made him hungry, made him extremely hungry; made him not take for granted the opportunities that he has in front of him. So that was the biggest lesson, I believe, for Carlos. Q. We were talking with Tom Herman last week and I asked him what's one of the things y'all want to get better at offensively during the break, and he said one of the things y'all have studied is you're a better team when you're hitting receivers on the run as opposed to maybe some of the hitches and bubble screens y'all have been doing. How much did y'all work on that and what do you see coming out of that, maybe sort of more of an emphasis on hitting guys on the run? COACH DRAYTON: Yeah, you know, it's all correlated. To throw the ball effectively, you have to run the ball effectively and that's been our philosophy. There's got some things that we can create out of the backfield by way of personnel, our footwork and our landmarks, if we can keep it moving and get that to plead in over to our playaction game, do some things while our receivers are still on the move. Iowa does a phenomenal job of playing great discipline defense. We know where they are going to get lined up, but we are going to have to be very, very smart on running our receivers through their zones because they are a very physical football team. But usually you get the receivers on the move a lot more versus teams that play man coverage when you're trying to separate and create some space and things of that sort. Wisconsin does‑‑ Iowa does that a little bit, so it was just really calling the right play at the right time, and, you know, but we are going to practice that, because our receivers are at their best when they can catch another move no doubt. Q. You are our offensive expert this week we get to talk to. What are you doing best on offense now do you think, halfway through the season? COACH DRAYTON: Does it have to be a football answer necessarily? I tell you what we are doing a great job of is trusting each other. Our players trust each other right now. There is not a selfish bone that has been exposed to us as coaches and to each other as teammates. You just don't see that right now. Everybody is focused in on doing their job and their job has a major effect on the success of a football play, and nobody is sitting there worried about another man's responsibility within that play right now, and because of that, we are playing fast; when one dimension of our offense gets taken away, the next steps up strong. It's just a trust factor that we have for one another right now and that's what has got us with a good rhythm right now. Q. When you're playing against a team that's Top‑10 in defense against the rush, do you guys take that as a challenge that this is somebody that you really have to be at your best against? COACH DRAYTON: Absolutely. You know, we studied the strengths and weaknesses of every opponent, and we look at both of those as a challenge for us. So, you know, we are a football team that likes to run the football. We like to think that we have an offensive line that presents that to us. So to sit there and say that we are going to go into this football game and not run the ball because Iowa is pretty good at it is not real. We are going to run the football, we are going to trust our offensive line to get engaged. We are going to trust our running backs to play through contact, and, you know, we'll win some and we'll lose some. We just have to maintain patience in that phase of the offensive scheme. Q. Following to an earlier question, what are some things midpoint of season that you have to do better now on offense? COACH DRAYTON: Well, you know, to be quite honest, I don't think that we have kind of put the whole‑‑ we haven't clicked on all cylinders just yet. We haven't had a game where the run completely supported the pass and the pass completely supported the run, and, you know, are we able to take the shots and are we able to still throw ball with some type of a control in an intermediate and short yardage situation. So those are things we need to continue to improve on is we feel as though we still need to continue on throwing the ball a little bit better. I just think we need to complement this entire team a little bit better as an offense. I think there are times where we are clicking on offense and that's good, and it may or may not be the case on the other side of the ball, and what is it that we have to do as an offense to support the other two phases of our team, you know and those are things that you figure out and you don't quite have a pinpointed answer; it changes from week‑to‑week. Those are things that I know Coach Meyer is constantly looking at the big picture and how does the offense better serve the defense; how does the defense better serve the offense, and special teams is in the mix, as well. Those are things that we are constantly trying to figure out and constantly trying to improve upon. Q. I don't know if you would agree with the premise based on what you've said, this offense has been a passing offense one week, you've been able to pound the ball, is it tough to adjust the identity, especially for running backs, when you go from a game like north western where you guys were pounding the ball to maybe this week where you might have to throw it? COACH DRAYTON: That's a great question, because you're dealing with egos.  You're dealing with a bunch of kids who want to play and who want to have an effect on the game. The answer to that is, yes, you have to‑‑ the good thing about the way we go about our install from day one is we conceptually teach these players our plays. They learn the concept. It's a whole part philosophy. So we teach them the big picture, okay, and my veteran backs can pretty much right now sit there and look at film, which I'm sure they are today and they are looking to see what the system of Iowa's defense is. And they are going to see those big defensive linemen doing well at junction point two gap and they are going to see linebackers flowing to the ball really well and they are going to see safeties supporting the run, and they are going to know this those situations, we are going to have to take some shots and throw the ball down the field and they are going to see where there's some times where there's great opportunities to run the football. We try to teach them that on the front end. I would honestly say the veterans probably get it, they understand what it is we need to do at given times. The younger guys probably have absolutely no clue. But that's why we get paid as coaches. We try to put our players in the best situation possible and we take control of that and we've got the trust of our football players right now. Q. Can you shed more light on Jordan Hall's situation? COACH DRAYTON: Yeah, Jordan Hall right now is going to practice this week. He tweaked his knee a week ago in practice. And just did not feel, even though he tweaked it early in the week last week, and he made some progress‑‑ not the bye week, the week before last, he made some progress on that knee and just not enough for his comfort level to get out there and play against Northwestern. So we took a week off, we gained a week with the bye week, which is a bonus. He's feeling much better right now, and we have plans for him to practice this week. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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