|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCEOctober 28, 2013Tim HintonTHE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach Hinton. Q. Coach, with Purdue still searching for themselves a little bit, do you kinda have to go back to the principles that you used early in the season of being ready for everything when it comes to the Boilermakers? COACH HINTON: You know, you really do. The interesting thing about it is it looks like philosophically they made some changes here the last couple of weeks and they had a bye week about three weeks ago and it looks like defensively they schematically changed, and we're sitting down and watching video and saying, what do they want to be right now? It looks like they've bought into being more of an odd front football team, and we'll see how it goes, and during the week we will have to throw in some four down stuff and practice it, but that makes it hard on the teams going in. When you look at it you say, okay, the teams they have done that against is Nebraska, after the bye week, and then they had Michigan State the next week, and Michigan State is not anything offensively similar to us, so you have to look at it and say how much background work do we have to look at their odd schemes. It's interesting, it's something you fight early in the season, when you change strategies or change position coaches, you figure out what that guy is going to do, and early in the year you see that but we're facing it in week nine. Q. Tim, when you're 8‑0, fourth in the country, 20 straight wins and Urban rattled off everybody who will graded out as champions, I think there is at least one guy if not two guys for every position groups, and then he said Tuesdays are "bloody Tuesday." Are Tuesdays really bloody around here? What are Tuesday practices really like? COACH HINTON: Let's put it this way: I didn't smile when you asked that question. If you had our guys up here, our position players, they would like, shake their heads, like, are you kidding me? Yes, they are. And it's by design. My whole talk yesterday to my position group and what I normally do on Sunday meetings is I recap the week before and talk about the positive and negatives and why we played well or why we didn't play well, and then I start focusing in on our next opponents, because obviously you get a 24‑hour rule. You can play that game, be happy, celebrate, or if you do lose, and hopefully that doesn't happen for a long time at Ohio State, you have to put it away because when you show up, it's time to go back to work. One of my emphasis in talking to that group certainly was, hey, listen, you know you can't be satisfied with where you are. There is a guy that coached here a long time ago, who said you're either getting better or you're getting worse. Well, we still have a lot of room for improvement. When you turn on the video, they were coached very hard yesterday in the film session. Very, very hard. When they go out to practice on Tuesday we will throw a lot of different looks at 'em, a lot of hard things at 'em, we'll make it very challenging, we will be demanding on their effort, we will be very demanding on the fundamentals and we will be very demanding on the execution, I mean, very demanding, like top‑end stuff. When you're throwing new schemes and every team has their own intricacies, everybody does it a little bit differently. You could say well, it's odd defense, well it's odd defense Purdue style, or you could say it's four down Purdue style, so everybody does it a little differently. So that first time you really go out and you show that look, you know, there is always that hesitation, so we'll be wrong a little bit and when you're wrong we really get a chance to coach you hard, I mean really hard, and it's not by accident. We're going to coach 'em really hard because the bottom line is all that body of work we've done to now doesn't mean anything unless you continue to do your job. That's the game. So the body of work is all great and you can pat yourself on the back but obviously we have other things we're trying to achieve as we go through the season, so forget about that body of work, let everyone else talk about it, we have things to do right now and that's get better. That was my whole emphasis yesterday. I'm sure Coach Meyer has probably alluded to that already, to the staff, and I know that ‑‑ I'm sure every position coach covered it that way yesterday, too. Q. Tim, Coach Meyer said that Jeff Heuerman is playing at an extremely high level but you've got to get more receptions for him. What's that like? Do you have to keep Jeff's head up? COACH HINTON: It's an interesting thing. I met Jeff in the hallway today when he was coming in to get treatment and normally they will stop in and watch some film and Mondays is their day off, and in that conversation Jeff looked at me and he said, "Coach, we have a lot of good dudes on this team" that was his quote, you know, we got a lot of guys that can go! Absolutely, you know, the week before we have five catches or something like that and not a lot of yardage, but something I thought it was effective within the offense. This week there is a couple of plays that we called that I thought going into the game the tight end would get the ball, we all thought the tight end would get the ball, Penn State didn't cooperate. But on the one they took the two defenders and guarded the tight end on it, well Carlos Hyde caught a pass, went down the sideline, that's okay. Really. And the bottom line is that we all get what we want if we win. Who cares who gets the credit, how that game planned work, if we are executing at 63 or 64 points, whatever that was on Saturday night, we're good, trust me, let's keep executing at that level. And who is getting the catches, who is not, obviously our tight ends are integral in all phases of it because they got to run good routes to create other things for other guys, and they have to block at the point of attack, or on the perimeter and all of that is part of winning opinion. If we're called upon we're going to do our job and do it well, we hope, and whatever that may be, the surface. So I don't spend time on it, but if I had a guy that complained about it, he might not go on the field for a while, you know. Q. How much better is Heuerman than last year? Why is he better? COACH HINTON: The thing is early in the year we started with Zach Boren, too, so Zach was there and we made a little bit of a position change with Jay sliding out and playing more receiverish‑type tight end, and he was trying to find Zach because's a bonus guy and trying to find ways to get him in the offense, and Jeff was put on the shelf early in the season and emerged late in the year. The beauty of it is when you look at what he does, one, he‑‑ everybody walks up and down these hallways, when you look at his physical stature, he's a big, strong guy and it really he has the highest vertical jump, and I think the highest bench press out there which is really, really positive stuff. Q. Following up again on Heuerman, he seems to have a knack for the block on the end, maybe I'm wrong about that. Do you agree with that? COACH HINTON: I think it's all great coaching to be honest with you. (Chuckles.) Oh my God! I know I saw everyone looking, I said‑‑ by the way, don't ever coach a guy like that. I just want you to know, ever, ever. Here is the deal. He's really, really, really good! I mean really good at what he does. He does have a knack for it. He understands leverage, and you know like every great football player you're around they're very football intelligent and he's a very football intelligent guy. He'll sit there and when he's wrong in a play ‑‑ there is a play early in the game, we run‑‑ we're on the 4 yard line and we're running the inside zone to Carlos and he kinda cuts back and only gets down to the 2. Jeff is at fault on that play, because he saw a linebacker walk out of the box, and he thought that linebacker was blitzing and he didn't blitz; he lined up differently than we had taught him, so he actually made a mistake because he overthought the play. Well, you know, listen, Jeff, don't do it again, but you love that awareness, because a guy who isn't aware of those things and doesn't get it, well that's bad! One of the things that makes him good is his understanding and awareness and he's strong physically, really literally a gifted kid. He works so hard at it. He's got great toughness and like every competitor, and there is a lot of‑‑ we talk about being 1‑0 on every snap, it's the big Coach Urban saying, 1‑0; he doesn't like to lose any snaps, so he's going to battle you and that's what he does really, really well. Q. You said a while ago that Michigan State is not like you guys offensively. Do you mean schematically? COACH HINTON: Schematically, nothing negative to the guys up there, schematically they're more iPro and different than we are in our spread set. Structurally when you watch video, you want to watch "like" opponents, everybody in America asks who is the most "like" us, and that's the thing you will spend film time on. And when you change defenses in the middle of the year, like we did, it makes it a little bit harder. Q. Coach, Coach Meyer said that Jeff Heuerman and Nick Vannett were graded out as champions. How satisfying was that for you? COACH HINTON: Well, it is, you know, we coach for the players, you know, and funny I made that comment today, too, talking to somebody, I said, we coaches complain about this player and that player, and we wouldn't have a job without players, right? So don't complain about 'em, try and make 'em better. And Nick early in the year had an injury and missed crucial time in the beginning of the season as far as practice time, some real crucial time. It's taken him a while to get back to where he was. He's practicing really well, and to watch those guys go out and perform at the level you expect for them and you want for them as people ‑‑ when Coach Meyer reads off the champions, this room is full of his peers, and they get a chance to stand up and run down and shake Coach Meyer's hand, and there is a smile on their face now they're proud of what they just accomplished because it ain't easy. They got graded out at 80% in that game; that means your opponent is not grading out very well. They're on scholarship, too, and practicing really hard. I'm pleased with how both of 'em are playing. Again, like everything else, there is a good momentum right now in our room, good momentum on this football team, and it's our job to continue and enhance it and take it into this week. Q. There are times when catches are slow to come to Jeff because of what the opponent is doing, so the trickle‑down affect probably multiplies that for Vannett, so for Nick to get that complement from the Coach, how satisfying is that for you? COACH HINTON: Very much so, because really Nick is a tremendous pass receiving tight end, and I mean he has great hands, good ball skills, has the ability to run very well and his day is coming at Ohio State. He's going to have great days ahead of him. The thing is you can't be selfish in this game. This is the ultimate team game and you have to be very, very proud. It's like that parent who watches their kid do something they're happy with, the parent is more proud than the kid. We gotta be that way. Without each other being happy for Braxton Miller being successful or Chris Fields being successful, because he doesn't play a lot either, unless we're complementing and happy for each other, you have that dissension in a team that doesn't allow you to be as consistent as Ohio State has been because all those things in the locker room will wear you down, and right now there is none of that, with this football team. No one cares who gets the credit; let's get the final result Ohio State way, and that's why there has been such consistency in our program and why we're winning at a consistent level is that no one cares. They really don't. It's like, hey, what do we got this week? When it wasn't Carlos Hyde, did anybody care? Now that Carlos is getting reps, good for Carlos, but whatever it takes, let's find a way to win this game. 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
|