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UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN MEDIA CONFERENCEDecember 8, 2013Gary AndersenTHE MODERATOR: Any questions for Coach Andersen from any participants on the call today? Q. Tell me what your familiarity is with Steve Spurrier and what matching up against a guy like him will mean to you? COACH ANDERSEN: Just from afar, really, and understanding what Coach has done and the tremendous career he's had, and he's meant a lot to college football for a number of years and had a number of unbelievably successful teams and as in this season. It's going to be special. I don't think anybody could tell you, you are going to line up against Coach Spurrier and it won't be a special experience for all of us involved. A tremendous coach, doing it for a long time. I have tremendous respect for him and obviously for his team. Q. Anything specific that you've seen or know about South Carolina right now that you feel like is going to be particularly worrisome for you? COACH ANDERSEN: Well, it appears, in just a quick glance, that I know that they beat Clemson and UCF, BCS teams. You play a conference they play and the conference they play in and to get ten wins at this point is something special for them. But I know they're going to be very balanced offensively. They want to be able to run the football. They obviously can throw the ball effectively, very talented offense and a defense that can make a bunch of plays with some special players. I haven't seen them play much this season at all; but just from afar, tremendous respect, obviously, and overall team balance, offense, defense, special teams and go do some things to keep you on edge and take some chances, which is always a sign of a good team, good coaches in my opinion. Q. Obviously there's some disappointment not being in a BCS Bowl, but is it offset by playing against a high caliber opponent, is that something you want to have if you can't have a BCS opponent? COACH ANDERSEN: Absolutely. I think we all strive at the beginning of the year and fight through the year to get a BCS game that's very difficult to do. We won a bunch of football games. We've got nine wins and now we're going to go play a team with ten wins, it's a tremendous matchup. Tremendous challenge for both teams, I believe. And they both have shown that they're very capable of playing at a very high level week in week out throughout the season. But it's a great Bowl game for us for so many reasons. It's a great reward for our kids and it's an honor for us to be selected in this game; but to play South Carolina in that setting on January1st, sit back and end your career as a player or as a coach and the opportunity to play in a Bowl game on January1st is something that you'll never forget, I promise you. And we're just very honored to be part of it and we're excited we could get this team to this point and the kids in the program and all the coaches and everybody involved at the University of Wisconsin is very proud to be representing Wisconsin in this game, that's for sure. Q. The guys were talking about obviously the season ended against Penn State. What are some of the things you need to do to get them whether it's refocused mentally or restore some confidence that may have been lost in that game? COACH ANDERSEN: I don't think either one of those things will be a problem. These kids are confident. I don't think they need to be refocused. We took some time off. The bottom line is this: In the last couple of football games we played on the offensive side of the football, people have basically said we dare you to throw the ball. And it worked out for them, even in the Minnesota game, you sit back and look at it and they dared us to throw the football and Penn State did the same thing. We've got to be able to run the ball more effectively. To be able to do that at this point you are going to have to be able to throw the football better and open up the offense a little bit and get some of the other people involved. It's very difficult. We've got great running backs and very talented offensive line, good blocking tight ends and good blocking wide receivers, all the stuff that comes with it. But when you're plus one and plus two in the box it becomes very difficult on defense. It wasn't typical as far as giving up the big plays. We have to get healthy on defense, especially in the back end. Getting Michael back there is a huge key for us, and I believe he'll be back in the Bowl game ready to play. But our kids they had a great pop in their step last week when they were out running around. They'll be excited and I promise you the fact that they know they're playing in this Bowl game they'll come out tomorrow at practice and be ready to roll. Q. How do you approach Bowl preparation? Do you try to make it as similar as regular season preparation or are some things different? COACH ANDERSEN: Well, you know, we're looking at an opportunity to get, 17 opportunities I guess it wound up being for us. I wanted to have an enjoyable experience. It's important for me.  I want to be prepared when we walk out on the field and play well. You have to combine all those together and it gets tricky to get the schedule the right way and then you throw finals week on top of that and give our kids the opportunity to compete in the classroom the way they're supposed to compete and the grades we expect them to get, with those expectations, we're set this week we'll have some good practices. We'll get out there four, five times this week. Next week we'll get out there three times and we'll keep practicing right up until the 21st and on the road, give them off the 22nd, 23rd and 24th and then we'll travel to the Bowl site on the 25th and go from there. But that gives us plenty of time. Heavy emphasis on the young guys and also understanding we want to keep our older kids fresh, ready to go, but completely in tune with what we expect to have take place on game day within the game plan. Q. Have you heard from fans; do you think they're going to be excited about this matchup? COACH ANDERSEN: Oh, I believe they will be. No, I've not heard from anybody. I'm actually recruiting right now so I'm getting ready to go on a home visit here in about ten minutes. We're very excited. I know that Badger Nation will be excited. It's a great destination. Lot of things to do outside of the game. And a great climate, great environment for us to be involved in. And I'm sure the fans will be there. As we all know, this is a very powerful senior class. They've had some great opportunities in their career, and what a better way to send them out than to play a big time opponent and have an opportunity to win a Bowl game. I'm sure Badger Nation as well as these kids and all the coaches and everybody that has anything to do with Wisconsin football is excited about the game. And it's a January1st Bowl game. Really, if you can't get excited for that I don't know what you can get excited for. Q. Couple of the guys said they did not bother to watch the Big Ten championship game last night. Did you catch any of it or was that not on the agenda for you? COACH ANDERSEN: You know, I was watching my son play in a championship game, Fresno, and I watched him play. I did not see that game. I followed it closely on my phone. If I had a chance to watch it, I would have watched every snap. Sounded like it was a tremendous game. DVR is sitting at home waiting for me when I get back and I'll watch that game. Q. To revisit the Penn State game a little bit defensively, have you gone over, since that game was over, and really explored what some of the issues were? I know you mentioned the injuries and not having Michael on the back end, but just the communication issues and that that cropped up that hadn't been there all year. COACH ANDERSEN: You know, the change of pace caught us a little bit in a couple of situations. We've discussed it. It's not acceptable on defense to have that happen to us. That overall was just one of the situations that took place in that game and it looks bad when that stuff takes place and we don't want it to happen. It did. And we've addressed it. That was not what cost us the football game, the big plays is what cost us the football game and obviously our inability to score enough points to have a chance to be able to win. But the big throw over the top was big. The bracket coverage, we had the guy double teamed and he split us and a great player made a great play and the quarterback threw a great ball. The other one, we had a missed tackle in the open field early in the game and gave up draw plays in third down. It was a culmination of a lot of things, but communication, when that stuff goes wrong, I look at myself and all the coaches gotta look at ourselves and get that fixed to give the kids an opportunity to compete. If you get beat because you get beat, missed tackles, completed pass, what have you, that's okay. You've got to be better in those situations to give the kids the opportunity. Ultimately that cost us the game? No. But we need to learn from it and we have addressed it and we'll fix it. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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