|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
PURDUE UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCEOctober 29, 2013Darrell HazellCOACH HAZELL: Good to be back in game week. We took Monday and try, our coaches were on the road recruiting. Tuesday was concentrating on ourselves, and Thursday was more about Ohio State, and we had our bonus practice this past Sunday which was a very spirited practice, guys were running around with a lot of tempo‑‑ (inaudible audio announcement) ‑‑ we went about 17 periods. Q. ‑‑ and whether he'll be able to play? COACH HAZELL: Yeah, we have so see him run around today and tomorrow. Right now he is still questionable for Saturday's game. He was very good yesterday after Sunday's run‑around, so he was much better above the shoulders yesterday. Q. And they have an extremely big quarterback, the problems that he presents, Braxton Miller? COACH HAZELL: Braxton is a special talent and the thing that makes him so good, he's starting to throw the ball exceptionally well. He always gets them out of trouble. Doesn't matter what the scheme is, he's back there running around like Fran Tarkenton, and somebody will come open at some point in time. He's a very special athlete, he sees the field and he has great vision when he pulls it down. Q. And Ohio State leads the Big Ten in sacks, and obviously the offensive line as struggled; what's the key to protect Danny? COACH HAZELL: Yeah, they have done a great job, Ohio State with their front four, front three, a lot of times they will just rush three guys and ban the edges with those ends. They do a nice job of drop eight in coverage, a lot of times on third down and bend the edges. We have to do a great job in protection. We have to do some helping with our tight ends and backs, and hopefully we can give Danny enough time to get the ball out of his hands and get some open looks for him. Q. Lastly, you had the background Ohio State, from a personal standpoint, is this any significance in this game or is it strictly just business? COACH HAZELL: This is Purdue versus Ohio State, and it's going to be a fun game on Saturday afternoon. Q. Obviously before the Nebraska game, you guys decided to play a lot of freshman in the last couple games, from afar‑‑ might say playing for the future; why did you is he tide to go with the youth movement? COACH HAZELL: The big thing is we are trying to make strides to win football games this year and that's the whole goal. We are not looking at 2014. Some of those younger players are getting better each week and that's what you're hoping for and right now we are playing a blends of older guys and younger guys and I think we are making significant strides. It's sometimes hard to see that from the outside but you can see some little successes from within the program. I assure you we are trying to win games this year in 2013. Q. Can you address the fact that this team is still playing hard for you? You talked about a spirited practice Sunday, you have a guy like Rob Henry; can you address your team mentally this season after a tough stretch to begin the season? COACH HAZELL: It's been a tough stretch for our guys but you know what, I'm proud of our guys how they come to work. It's going to take off; at some point in time, there will be that breakthrough moment. But their attention to detail in our meetings and our practices, it has not fallen whatsoever and I'm proud of our guys for that. Q. Statistically you're having a lot of struggles, what do you think is the overall thing that's giving your team the most trouble, what you're trying to get corrected most of all? COACH HAZELL: I think the biggest thing, we crossed 55 times against Michigan State and came up with no points. We have to be a better football team in terms of caking care of the ball and not having negative plays. Once we crossed the 50‑yard line and a lot of those other things will take care of themselves. But the first thing is you have to take care of the football, period. You do that and you give yourself a better chance to be successful. Q. Ohio State has lost three of its last four games at Purdue, and you were part of some of those. Knowing that it can be a tough place to play, why do you think it can be a tough place for teams to come in and get a win times? COACH HAZELL: You're right, I was part of two of those games, '04 and '09, I was part of two of those losses when I was coaching at Ohio State. It was one of those things where we turned the ball over early in the game and then the Purdue teams got hot that day and all of a sudden you're in a battle and you couldn't get out of that down slide offensively or defensively. And they made enough plays to beat us back then. Q. For Ohio State fans who have seen Purdue but not studied Purdue, are there things that Ohio State fans would recognize on the field in terms of how you play offensively or defensively that are similar to the Ohio State teams you were part of in terms of style, in terms of strategy, that kind of thing? COACH HAZELL: Not very many things. There's always things that cross over from team to team. There's a couple things, but if you were to study the film, I would say probably not. Q. Going forward, obviously you want to recruit everywhere. How important is recruiting Ohio to you and to the Purdue program with your experience in Ohio, with Marcus experience and of the other guys you have? COACH HAZELL: Ohio is a big footprint for our program going forward. There's a lot of great schools there. There's over 800 high schools that play football in the State of Ohio. They had over a hundred players sign Division I scholarships last year, so Ohio will be extremely big in the location. It's premium for us, three or four hours away from Ohio and there's great football, great coaching there, so that will be a big footprint for the Boilermakers. Q. As you have moved up in your coaching career, are there any Ohio State receivers that you coached that you remain in contact with at all? Or what have they thought as you've moved on in your career and continued to succeed? COACH HAZELL: I actually talk to quite a few of them, some of those guys that were in our room for seven years, Hartline Hartline and Teddy Ginn and Santonio, and Robiskie all of those guys reach out, Gonzalez, he's out in law school out in Stanford, all those guys, we talk a couple times a year and just reminisce about some of those old times. Q. Who are they rooting for Saturday? COACH HAZELL: I haven't talked to them recently. They are probably pretty busy as we are. Q. Talking about being one of the big guys, as you go through this tough season, obviously you have to build for the future, how tough is it to deal with what you're dealing with now but also keeping an eye on where you could be two or three years from now? COACH HAZELL: I think the big thing right now for us is to stay the course and know that there's a plan, and then you have to work the plan day‑in and day‑out and don't get frustrated when things don't go exactly as you planned. You can't deviate from the plan and I think that's the most important thing that there's a stability as you're working the plan. You can't be turbulent and you have to have your eye on‑‑ you're right, what's going to happen, when we get this thing flipped. Q. You're used to winning yourself. Just from a personal standpoint, how tough is it for you to sort of deal with this? COACH HAZELL: Well, any time you put as much time as coaches do into what you try and accomplish, it's always hard not to receive the outcome that you like, the desired outcome. It's always hard. But you've got to keep pressing. You've got to keep going, and you can't be sidetracked on what you're trying to accomplish. So yeah, it's hard, but you move on and after about 48 hours, you start to move back into that mind‑set of, okay, how are we going to get this next one. Q. Talk about Akeem Hunt, this is the kid that is leading you in rushing, he's your leading receiver; just what does he mean to your offense right now from the standpoint of giving you a glimmer there. COACH HAZELL: The thing you try to do as a staff is you try to identify your playmakers. He has been one of our key playmakers on offense. He has done a great job on our screen game. When he gets the ball on the perimeter he's very dangerous because he does have confident speed and he comes to work. I'm proud of how he's grown throughout the course of the season. We're going to need some continual growth from him in the next five weeks. Q. Has he proven to be more durable than you've thought or did you expect him to be that way? COACH HAZELL: Well, I have no preconceived notions coming in on how durable he was or was not. I think I saw some things in the spring that said that he's pretty tough and he took some shots in the spring but he's been kind of a trooper for us. Q. I think you guys are No. 2 in the nation in net punting and some people may even chuckle at that, but is that a sign that in a particular area, you are getting the job done; nobody likes to punt, I don't think, but then when you do‑‑ is that a sign that you are‑‑ that there is something there? You understand what I'm saying? COACH HAZELL: Absolutely. We emphasize that. That's one of the things we continually talk to our football team about is flipping the field and trying to pin them in deep and making them go the distance. And the guys get it. Our guys understand the importance of that play, and we'll make sure we continue to do that. Our guys have done a good job covering but we've got some pretty good punt location as well as hang time which has helped us with that. Q. It wasn't that long ago that you were at Ohio State. Is there anything that you can take from your time there that will help you in this game this weekend? Or is this a totally different team? COACH HAZELL: There are a lot of players there that we recruited when I was there, so you know a little bit about the guys. Now they have gotten a lot better, just watching them on film, from the time that I left. But there's certain things that you can see on film that potentially could help you since being there a couple years ago. But they are so talented offensively, especially offensively, they are a very talented football team. Q. How does this team compare to some of the ones that you were with at Ohio State? COACH HAZELL: I would compare it probably closest to the 2006 team offensively when you had Troy Smith at the quarterback position, you had Teddy at one wide‑out and you had Gonzo in the slot and Robiskie at one of the X's and Hartline coming off the bench and Beanie Wells and Pittman as the running back. Offensively that's what I would compare it to. I don't think defensively it's the same type of team as that year. Q. And you've talked a little about what you needed to correct during the bye week on offense. What did you look to do on defense? COACH HAZELL: I didn't hear part of the question. Q. You talked about what you were trying to do during the bye week in terms of getting rid of the negative plays across the 50 and turnovers and those sort of things. What did you focus on defensively during the bye week? COACH HAZELL: Defensively I thought we played much better against Michigan State. We gave up one touchdown, and there was one third down situation would you like to have back. We rushed three guys and didn't put the pressure on the quarterback that we'd like to on that particular play and they made a good play and allowed them to continue to drive, I think it was third and 12 or so. But we always talked about getting to the right place on defense. When you get to the right place, whether it's a gap or zone and coverage or whether it's the right position on the man‑to‑man coverage, that's the most important thing defensively and if you can do that, then you have a chance to be pretty good. Q. I was curious about why you decided to switch from a 4‑3 to a 3‑4 defense? COACH HAZELL: One of the biggest things is we wanted to get a bigger body. We were a little thin at the linebacker position. We wanted to get another bigger body on the field, so we went to a 3‑4. We were able to get our two big ends now back inside and get to move those guys around a little bit. That was probably the biggest reason right now. Also, we had some freshmen starting to step up and we thought we could play those guys at the end position, as well as the nose with, Howard inside, so we can get some more rotation being able to play with those guys. Q. Are you able to play a little bit more physical? COACH HAZELL: Yeah, that's the goal is always to play physical. I thought we did; I thought we got a lot more hands close to the ball on Michigan State Saturday. Q. What's been the biggest struggle with your running game this year? COACH HAZELL: Well, it's been inconsistent. When we did get it rolling a little bit a couple weeks ago‑‑ again, we have a negative play here, a negative play there. A lot of times it's a physical breakdown. I thought what we did on some of our splits in that game helped us because we were able to get some three‑ and four‑ and five‑yard chunks. But just not getting those big runs, those explosive runs you like to get in your package. You'd like to have some plus‑12 yard runs that we are not getting right now. We need to see if we can pop a few of those. A lot of those is digging out those safeties. Michigan State had the safeties hitting ‑‑ we were not able to get in there and dig those guys out with our wide receivers, and we have to do a better job outside and those will create some of those big runs that are absent in our offense right now. Q. When you changed quarterbacks, did Rob Henry come to you? How did it come about that Henry ended up at safety? Did he come to you with that? COACH HAZELL: When Rob and I met, I told him I was making a quarterback change and the first thing out of his mouth was, how can I help this football team. He mentioned some of the positions that he had played, and I thought we should start him over there on defense because of our lack of depth in our secondary, and so he was all for it. Q. What do you think that is a sign of in terms of the group still buying in? COACH HAZELL: He represents a very large portion of our football team. They are unselfish, they care about each other, and we are all in this thing together. The bottom line is, we all want to win, and the most important thing is we keep working at some of the things that we can improve upon. Q. Your recent experience going from Ohio State to Penn State to Purdue, how do you coach at different schools, different situations, or do you feel you're the same guy no matter what and you're the same as a coach? COACH HAZELL: The energy, the passion, none of those things will ever change. You coach the same way wherever you are, the same day, Monday through Saturday, you coach it the same way. Now, those things will never change. Obviously when you get different personnel, you have to adapt to your personnel and those type of things. But the love and the passion that you coach with every single day, that's never going to change. Q. I remember talking to you when you were at Ohio State about being a head coach some day. Some guys maybe are looking to make that move earlier, some guys are waiting for the right situation. Just how things have worked out for you now to be a head coach and how do you think you handled your career in terms of knowing when is the right time to make a move and maybe deciding when is the right time to stay where you are. COACH HAZELL: My approach in my 25 years as an assistant, 26 years is always the same. I'm going to do the best job that I can that particular day and I'm not going to worry about anything else and whatever comes from that, so be it. But I wasn't one of those guys that was, hey, I've got to move here; I've got to move there. That was not how I operated. I was going to do the best possible job to make my players better to be successful, period. Q. Brandon, what's his status at running back? COACH HAZELL: Brandon is probable for Saturday. He practiced with us on Sunday, and he'll practice today, tomorrow and Thursday. He's still a little sore but he looked pretty good on Sunday. Q. You mentioned you've made significant strides but maybe they haven't been obvious to people on the outside. Can you be more specific as to what those are? COACH HAZELL: Well, you watch the way guys prepare and coming to the meetings and they are starting to understand the game of football. Specifically on offense, you see different coverages and different defensive fronts and anticipating movements. All of those things are a part of the growing process that you see guys starting to understand and communicate with each other about those things. Those are the little things that you look for, the little victories you look for. Q. You are a 30 1/2 point underdog; how do you feel about that? COACH HAZELL: I never looked at those. I never looked at those when I was anywhere else and I never look at them now. All I do is try to get our coaches‑‑ (inaudible audio announcement). Q. What is the significance of wearing black helmets? COACH HAZELL: This was set in place back in July. This was something that was happened a week or two ago. This was‑‑ to be able to do that, you have to put that in motion a long time ago and this was a plan we had back in July. Q. Why this team? COACH HAZELL: No particular reason. Just picked out a game and went with it. Q. Inaudible. COACH HAZELL: You'll see it on Saturday. Q. How much did it cost? COACH HAZELL: I have no idea. Q. Was the design done by an outside firm? COACH HAZELL: We talked, I said, put something together. He went to his people, they came back with a couple designs and I said, no, no, no, yes and that's how it went. This was months ago. Q. The 3‑4 defense, how does that change when you have an option quarterback? Is he looking at different things? Is he reading different things? Or does that make it maybe more of a challenge for him going against a 3‑4? COACH HAZELL: Depends on what type of option you're speaking of. If it's zone read, he's looking at one thing. And if it's true speed option, he's looking at a different thing. And if it's load option where the tight end is blocking, he's looking at another different things. It all depends on which option you're speaking to, but yes, he'll be looking at probably two or three different things in a 3‑4 scheme, as opposed to a four‑man front scheme. Q. So does that give you, I don't want to say an advantage‑‑ COACH HAZELL: It's definitely different. It's not the same. Q. We knew the schedule was going to be pretty challenging. How much of playing these kind of calibre of teams has‑‑ I don't want to say stunted your growth, but I can't think of anything else. How much more of a challenge has it been going against these calibre of opponent every single week? COACH HAZELL: This is good for our football program, and it will pay huge dividends. At some point in time, it is going to pay huge dividends. To be able to play ‑‑ and if you play well and give yourself a chance to win it and win a couple of these things, this is going to help our football program become a championship program. Q. Carlos Carvajal almost had a blocked punt a couple weeks ago‑‑ putting him in in that situation, was that because of his length or is he doing different things and you're trying to get him more involved? COACH HAZELL: He's earned the right to come out on the field because much what he does as a scout team guy blocking punts. And he was a guy that kept pressuring us and making us kick it a little bit quicker. So him and Robert Gregory were two of the guys that we thought deserved an opportunity to be on our‑‑ (inaudible audio announcement). Q. With the black helmets, you established this in July, you are going to do this, but is this in some way a reward for these guys? I guess the motivation to use these helmets. COACH HAZELL: When I first got here, I took a survey in February, I believe the end of February; of all the improvement areas in our program, I had the players fill out the survey, there were 65 items that came back of things that we can do better in our program. Of those 65 items, one of the requested items was a different helmet for our players, and that's why I responded by getting the black helmets. Q. What were some of the other items? COACH HAZELL: There was a lot of items, a lot of different items. Q. Uniforms on that list, too? COACH HAZELL:  Might have been. Q. What do you hope the players gain out of this, out of wearing the black helmets? COACH HAZELL: Again, it all comes back to pride and feeling good about yourselves and comes back to that image. These guys wanted it. They look in the mirror and they feel a little bit better about themselves; see what happens. Q. Do you feel like they have earned the right? I know the wins and losses haven't added up the way you wanted, but have they earned the right‑‑ COACH HAZELL: I'm very pleased with our football team's work and preparation. Obviously we are not where we want to be on the win loss column but I have no‑‑ I'm not disgruntled with our football team on how they have prepared and stayed together through hard times. There's a lot of teams that will go in different directions at this point in time and that has not happened. Q. You have a coach on your staff, who has stronger ties since he played there. Have you talked to him about his emotions this week and how he should handle this week? COACH HAZELL: Oh, no, he'll be bouncing off the walls as he always is, but Marcus was a great player there, and he came in, about the same time as I did. I think he came in the spring, he came in early. He was heavy at the time when he came in. He talked about this great linebacker coming in‑‑ he came in about 260, 265, maybe a little overweight and got himself down and became a great player for us. Q. You talked earlier about being on the sideline‑‑ what was the mind‑set in your locker room going into that game? There's always the talk about overlooking the other opponent. What was the mind‑set going into that? COACH HAZELL: It was a situation where, again, things don't go well early in the game and all of a sudden, the other team gets a little bit of juice and excitement and they start making a few plays and then all of a sudden you're in a battle, you're in a struggle. It was never a situation where we're looking to the next opponent. It was one of those situation where is one team is making plays early and the other team is not, and then all of a sudden, you're in it. Q. How do you use that to your advantage this week in the opposite role? COACH HAZELL: I would love to make some early plays. That's the key. Come out and not do anything that shoots ourselves in the foot and give ourselves a chance to battle back and forth, because you know they are going to make their plays, and we've got to make our plays and keep battling. Q. Your last bye week was when you named Danny the starting quarterback. Now he's had another bye week. What do you see out of him this past bye week and are you still in the process of scaling down the playbook or do you have it right where you want it? COACH HAZELL: I think the playbook is right where it is. I think he's done a good job of preparing and handling what we have in. He studies like crazy. He's going to be a phenomenal player for us. Again, he's a guy who can make all the throws and plays to get himself out of trouble. He made significant strides from his first game to his second games in terms of stepping through the pocket and through the garbage, as opposed to bailing out. So he's getting better. Q. Any conclusion on the linebacker‑‑ COACH HAZELL: Not yet. We'll make a decision in the next day or so. Q. How will BJ be on Saturday? COACH HAZELL: He's going to play the z spot. He'll alternate with a couple of guys there until he gets back into playing shape. Again, trying to identify your playmakers, he's been a playmaker for us, so he's going to have to make some plays for us on Saturday. Q. I think you wanted more consistency from the perimeter receivers, is he a guy you feel like can help you in that regard? COACH HAZELL: I hope so. We need some more consistency in terms of route running but also the run game (inaudible audio announcement). Q. Has he done the things that you've wanted him to do? COACH HAZELL: I think he certainly has shown some remorse for his actions and he's done everything we've asked him to do. All of his class, all of study we've asked him to do he's done for us. Q. What color socks do you wear on Saturday? We know the helmets. Sock color? COACH HAZELL: For the coaches‑‑ Q. For the players‑‑ COACH HAZELL: Oh, they will be in black socks. That was humor. (Laughter). Q. Ohio State's offense, Miller and Hyde, that's a formidable one, two punch but their passing game has been very efficient, just the challenging of covering all your bases against Ohio State. COACH HAZELL: Yeah, they are explosive. You're right, the four marquis players in my opinion on the offense, Carlos and Braxton and Philly Brown and Devin Smith, those guys can stretch the field, and their offense stretches the field both horizontally and vertically and we have to do a good job, one, you have to stop the run. Because they are going to run with Carlos over and over and over again and all of a sudden they are going to run Braxton off of those runs, and they are going to push the field down with Devin and Philly. The thing we have to do is stop the run and then you have to stay in coverage because when he pulls it down and runs around back there for six or seven seconds, we have to be good in the back end and we can't cut guys loose to come up and tackle them, because he'll find them. That's when you have to be really disciplined in the back end. Q. (Inaudible) ... had success last year against their offense‑‑ did you go back and watch their film? COACH HAZELL: I have. We watched a little bit of it and there might be a thing or two that we take, we'll see. But they did have some success. Q. Anybody out there, I think you recruited Kory Brown, but are there a lot of guys out there you personally recruited? COACH HAZELL: Kory and Devin, I spent every week with those two guys. Spence, I was out there every other week, Evan Spencer. Those were probably the three main guys that are still there that are playing for them. Q. Did you recruit regionally at Ohio State or did you recruit by position? COACH HAZELL: We all had a section in the State of Ohio and mine was a local section in the Westerville area, but then we had other areas outside of the State of Ohio and then by position. Q. And speaking of recruiting, you have your two bye weeks‑‑ are you pleased with how recruiting is going and have you learned anything about your needs and how you're going to go forward? COACH HAZELL: Yeah, excuse me for interrupting. We did learn some things about our needs in the first six or seven weeks in the season. We'll address some other things differently than we had prior to the season, so that always helps. Q. Ohio State defense‑‑ you mentioned before they have obviously got a good pass rush, and they dropped most of their defense back and let their front handle it. COACH HAZELL: A lot of times on third down, you're going to get two different coverages. You're going to get cover one man three with different types of cover one; whether it's one with a robber (ph) or one with a rat, with one of the linebackers or one guy being a free guy. You'll get a three‑man pass rush and drop eight man coverage, which makes it hard to throw and you have to do some things a little bit differently under that circumstance. But they do like the pressure, but not a whole lot. They are not a bring five or bring six type of team. Q. Any specific needs that have been identified based on the past X number of games? COACH HAZELL: Offensive lines and defensive backs are the big number areas, but those are the things that we'll concentrate on. 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
|