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ROSE BOWL GAME: OREGON v FLORIDA STATEDecember 29, 2014Mark HelfrichPASADENA, CALIFORNIA Q. How important is it‑‑ you have a lot of players from Portland. How important is it for your team to have such a large Portland group from the players? COACH HELFRICH: We definitely take pride in the fact, as an Oregonian myself, that we have the most Oregonians in Division I football. That's a big deal to us. And those guys play key roles, whether it's Keanon Lowe, unfortunately been in and out with some injuries, but as a leader, he embodies everything that we're all about. In the summertime, he was a guy that was teaching guys to take balls out of his hands, teaching guys to take reps from him, young guys that we're kind of counting on to develop quickly. Just an unselfish, tough dude that leads that group as workers. Q. (Off microphone)? COACH HELFRICH: We certainly want to get the best local guys that are the right fit for our program. If there's a tiebreaker‑type scenario, that would probably come into effect. We also can't take a guy just because. That's sometimes a hard‑‑ that's a hard place anywhere when you're recruiting the local guys. Q. What's the energy like? COACH HELFRICH: Luckily, the passion of our fan base is off the charts. Certainly, the local flavor adds to that. Our sellout streak went over 100 this year, which is awesome. Our fans have been tremendous all year long. I think we had a home‑field advantage when we played Cal down in the Bay Area. We definitely had a home‑field advantage at the Pac‑12 Championship Game. Hopefully at the Rose Bowl it will be similar. Just from a geographical standpoint, hopefully, we have the advantage. Q. (Off microphone)? COACH HELFRICH: That's probably because we're 1‑0 in a row right now. The next thing that happens, we're all idiots again at some point in this business. You see this time of year, unfortunately, there's great coaches that are let go for whatever reason, things work or things don't work. We don't worry too much about that. We just try to worry about ourselves and our process. Q. (Off microphone)? COACH HELFRICH: I don't know how. I don't know how that's possible. Almost 30 games unbeaten, just tremendously talented in every phase. They've got a ton of depth at every position. I think the biggest place where that jumps out is special teams. I mean this as a big compliment. When you're simple on special teams, that's kind of "we think we're better than you" kind of a thing. Their special teams are just designed to their X being better than our O, and a lot of that has come to fruition in their games. But they are a tremendously talented team, very well coached team. At this point, there are no underdogs. Every game is great. Every team is really good, really sound in every phase. So I don't know how that's possible. Q. Coach, do you feel like this is a marquee matchup with both Heisman quarterbacks in this game? COACH HELFRICH: Sure, I think that's a great story line. I think the key is Jameis' team and Marcus' team are the guys that really make this thing go. But, yeah, for the media that's a great story line. I don't know how many times it's happened in the history of college football, probably not very many, if any. Just with the added asset‑‑ or aspect of the College Football Playoff being new and different, that is a great story line. Q. (Off microphone)? COACH HELFRICH: Marcus is as nice a guy as he appears to be. The thing I always say about that is generally people have a pretty positive impression of him from afar, and the real thing is even better. Being around the guy every single day, he makes me a better person, makes me a better coach, makes all of us work hard, harder, by being around him. His teammates love him. The myth is closer to truth than fiction. Q. Coach, do you feel like the time in between games, is it more of an advantage, or is it more of a disadvantage because you have so much time off? COACH HELFRICH: You just have to manage it. We've been very fortunate to be a part of a bunch of these games that are actually a little bit longer than how it's laid out this year because of the additional playoff aspect of it. You just try and manage it. We had basically Finals week after the Pac‑12 Championship Game, getting all that stuff ironed out as well as possible. Then, again, a good problem with the awards circuit kind of a deal, but giving our guys a little bit of time at Christmas to be home and to celebrate Christmas, and then rally back up for this. It's just a matter of managing your priorities. When you're taking a Final, you're all in on that. When you're eating Christmas dinner, you're doing that great. And when you're out practicing getting ready for Florida State, you're locked in. Q. (Off microphone)? COACH HELFRICH: Well, certainly. I think in the past that that was a lot of people's first impression, was the uniforms and the helmets and the difference and all that stuff. You can certainly see what that has led to across the country in various levels of football, how much people have done that. We certainly hope it's a lot more than that. We always say if you put a dog in a shiny helmet, he's still a dog. We want great guys inside those really cool uniforms and the high‑performance stuff. Obviously, we have a great relationship with Nike, and that's something we embrace. Q. (Off microphone)? COACH HELFRICH: Yeah, the perception of that is what it is. We have that reputation for whatever reason. We pride ourselves on our toughness, on our physicality, on being able to run the football. We've led the conference for a number of years now in rushing. That's something that we definitely‑‑ that's our identity. And when we play those teams, quote/unquote, that are really good, we're not playing these guys for a ninth place Bowl game finish. We're playing whoever, LSU, Ohio State, Auburn, all excellent teams, very physical teams, we like to think we play in a pretty physical conference as well. So we can only play who we can play and play how we're going to play to our strengths. At the same time, yes, we try to recruit the bigger, faster, stronger version of the right fit. So that's always an ongoing battle. Q. (Off microphone)? COACH HELFRICH: Yeah, Florida State's outstanding. Up front, offensively, they are very, very impressive. They put in a freshman, that little switch they made, he doesn't look like a freshman. He looks like a fifth‑year All Pro at tackle. That's a huge challenge for us. Literally, a huge challenge for us. Defensively, they're as fast and physical a defense as we've seen, and they're extremely multiple. So it's a big challenge that way, kind of a combination of a bunch of great defenses we've seen both from a scheme standpoint and then just the principles involved. Q. The year you spent playing in Europe, was there anything that you took away from that, anything that sort of stuck with you as a coach? COACH HELFRICH: Sure. That was a great experience for me, living in Austria, kind of centrally located to everything and then being able to travel a bunch was‑‑ it was a chance of a lifetime type of deal, something that I think would be great for all of our guys to be able to do. They probably want to play at a little higher level than that. But there's that John Grisham book, "Playing For Pizza," which is a pretty good representation of what that was. Q. Was that your first year of calling plays or coaching? COACH HELFRICH: Yeah, so a lot of quarterback draws and a lot of passes and a lot of turnovers, unfortunately. Q. What makes Marcus so hard to second guess? COACH HELFRICH: I think it's just a combination of factors. With any guy that's that elite, he's got a few different things that make him special. The two things that I think make him unique are just his competitiveness every single day he comes to practice. He wants to compete in period 2, play 13 as hard as he does in the fourth quarter of a championship game. And then also his willingness and his ability to improve and get better‑‑ constantly asking questions, constantly trying to do more, to be better, more efficient, whatever it is. And those things, that filters down to everybody on our team. He's just‑‑ he has a great feel for our system. All those kinds of natural things make him a great quarterback. Q. (Off microphone)? COACH HELFRICH: Our team? There's not a ton of talk, except receivers and DBs, that's natural. Marcus isn't a big talker by any stretch. There's been many times, and usually at least one time a day, where some sort of live situation or something like that, everybody kind of looks at each other like "Did that just happen?" kind of a moment. He does that so often now, it's kind of like, oh, yeah, that was great. That was fantastic. Third and six, let's go. Q. Do you have any relationship or any interaction with Bo Belichick? COACH HELFRICH: I do not. I wish I did. Q. (Off microphone)? COACH HELFRICH: You stumped me. I'm trying to remember‑‑ not directly, no. Not directly in conversations that I can recall. Q. Who would you say are two of your biggest coaching influences? COACH HELFRICH: Chip certainly. Dirk Koetter, who was the head coach at Arizona State, Boise State. He was the offensive coordinator at Oregon when I was a graduate assistant. And then a combination of a lot of other people‑‑ Mike Bellotti was a big influence. And then just studying a bunch of stuff. Dan Henning. Indirectly. I've never met Dan Henning, but studying a bunch of stuff when Dirk was his offensive coordinator at Boston College, going back to all those Washington Redskins days and kind of combining that with spread principles, option principles, all the passing game stuff that we've done. Just an amalgamation of all that stuff. Q. What's something you learned as a head coach that you couldn't have learned without being a head coach? COACH HELFRICH: There's just always something. When I say that, people always assume it's negative. It's not necessarily negative. Sometimes it's success or guys doing something great for the first time or being complacent, whatever it is. There's always something. Always something. In the program, you know, however many thousand people maybe that affect the things we do, whether it's a student manager or corporate guy, everybody that's involved in our deal. We need those people to make us better every single day, and they're trying to push that tempo constantly. It just never stopped. Q. How much joy do they get out of your being the head coach of Oregon, a native son? COACH HELFRICH: I'm sure it is an added bonus, but certainly because we're winning. They probably wouldn't get such a kick out of it if we weren't, and rightly so. That's a good part of it, being able to‑‑ a place where my dad went to school, my mom went to school. And my dad played briefly and my uncle played football at Oregon. All of that is certainly a point of pride for everybody. Q. (Off microphone)? COACH HELFRICH: Oh, absolutely. Mr. and Mrs. Knight, the neat thing about Oregon is it's not‑‑ it's absolutely not just money. Ted was talking about‑‑ one of the neatest stories I heard him tell was when we were going through the new building and checking out the lockers and all these things, and they're operated by iPads and it's this monstrosity of engineering genius. And he was talking about his locker in Hayward Field was a nail. That was his locker, hanging everything from one nail. The look on his face after the Pac‑12 Championship Game, that says everything about how proud he is about the program. And then you look at everything else he's done for the university, there's over‑‑ I don't know the exact number, but between 40 and 50 endowed professorships, all the things he's done on the academic side that you can't qualify or quantify the impact that's had. Everything he does from a charitable standpoint, fighting cancer, all the things that they've done. It just comes from a place of passion, passion and excellence. That's what that guy is all about. He loves to study passion and excellence, observe excellence, and certainly is well qualified. Q. Coach, what do you say to those guys who question Marcus' fire and passion? COACH HELFRICH: People that question his fire and passion just haven't been around him. I think, if you saw the Heisman speech, that's a little bit of a glimpse of the passion that that guy‑‑ that's the passion of a teammate, a son, a father, all the things that go into making Marcus Marcus. He's a very passionate guy, extremely passionate guy. Again, he's not a natural guy to jump on a locker and throw a chair and scream and yell, but he's also done that. He's done that. He doesn't done all those simultaneously. But if he needs to yell at one guy, he'll yell at that guy. If he needs to put his arm around him, he'll do that. He's got a great feel for people, a great feel for his team because he's a teammate. He's a great teammate. I think those things are‑‑ at this point, from now until whenever that time comes when he decides to make that leap, that's all they do. They just try to nitpick and say, well, his hair's messed up. It's just to take a shot at that guy on top. Q. (Off microphone)? COACH HELFRICH: Not in terms of accomplishment, not at all. But I think certainly from a confidence standpoint, from a preparation standpoint, from a who we are standpoint, I have a ton of confidence in every guy in this room and every guy in our program to certainly earn the right to be‑‑ these guys have earned every scrap of getting to this point. And now it's on. Q. (Off microphone)? COACH HELFRICH: Probably would be Clemson. There's some elements, a bunch of them, whether Florida, Notre Dame, N.C. State‑‑ I forget some. We're going back, Louisville. But they don't change very much. There's some teams that have a totally different spread plan or play the cornerback out, play the tailback. Florida State‑‑ and, again, it's a giant compliment that they do their deal. They go out, they attack you. Set of base defenses, a set of boundaries and field blitzes. A totally different package on third down of how they attack you, which is great. And they've just got great‑‑ they're very well coached, and they've got great people doing it. So just a bunch of issues that that presents for us. Q. (Off microphone)? COACH HELFRICH: Yeah, that happened more kind of right in the initial process of camp. He was a very quiet guy, very quiet guy. He was a naturally quiet guy. The first time you're around somebody like that, you get that feel for someone, it might not be an immediate attraction, and that's understandable. Also, that guy had instant credibility the first day he showed up, he just went to work, and how hard he worked and how well he played. The guy had instant credibility. He won over any doubters very quickly. Q. (Off microphone)? COACH HELFRICH: A combination of factors. That's something. A little bit of luck we've had a few times where it's a tipped ball or a dropped pick, not too many, but a few. Again, it's a combination from there. It's the offensive line. It's the running backs. It's the receivers, the tight ends. It's the offensive staff that's done a great job. And then obviously Marcus his time involved in working on his accuracy, the rhythm and timing that it takes to be an efficient operation. Q. (Off microphone)? COACH HELFRICH: That's a good question. 29 straight, I haven't figured that one out. Again, it's not just Jameis. They've got guys in every phase‑‑ wideout, tight end, tailback‑‑ that can go the distance. As soon as you double‑team O'Leary, now you've got a problem somewhere else. Or if you try to double‑team more, two or three, now you've got a pass rush problem. So just like any cornerback, you've got to change it up. You've got to pressure them, you've got to cover, and that hopefully between the variation that you present, cause some problems. Nobody's really broken that code. Q. (Off microphone)? COACH HELFRICH: Well, it's worked out for Florida State too in terms of internal hire. It's been maybe an unparalleled streak in terms of Coach Brooks, Coach Bellotti, Chip, and myself. But I think it speaks to the continuity of what the university of Oregon is, what our culture is, and it's been a gradual ascension to where we've been the last few years. Q. (Off microphone)? COACH HELFRICH: There was a lot of space out in the parking lot. Everywhere that now we have an indoor facility, an athletic complex. Our practice field is the baseball field, the lacrosse‑‑ all of that was parking lot. There was some wide open space out there. We got some good pickup games. Q. (Off microphone)? COACH HELFRICH: We have a lot of conversations about a lot of things.  Certainly, that's been one for more than‑‑ I would say two years since that subject was been broached. That time will come. We don't campaign. We really don't. In all those situations‑‑ and we have a few other guys in a similar situation‑‑ not exactly like his situation‑‑ but you have to take off your Oregon coaching hat at that point and then totally look at the best interests of that young man, period. Q. Of all the head coaches in the semifinals, who do you know the best? COACH HELFRICH: Gosh, I really don't know‑‑ in the coaching world, we're, whatever, acquaintances, I would say, at best. I remember being at a couple of‑‑ back in the past, when we could go to Combines, Coach Fisher and I were watching a bunch of quarterbacks together when he was at LSU. Played against him when I was at Arizona State and he was at LSU. Coach Meyer, I've talked to several times in terms of guys‑‑ a couple guys that we had crossed paths with that he was interested in hiring, that kind of thing. But nothing‑‑ I haven't had the pleasure of too much personal time with any of those guys. Q. Coach, do you feel like their defense has been overlooked? COACH HELFRICH: We don't overlook their defense. We couldn't overlook their defense. They're too tall. Any time you have‑‑ like I said earlier, the Heisman story, all that stuff, the hype of Jameis, the hype of Marcus, all those things, the numbers‑‑ the defense takes a second or third story line to that. But both defenses have won games this year. They've won games and taken over games. We certainly don't undervalue what our defense has done. It's just hard to talk about. It's hard for the media to look at, whatever, tackles for loss, this number, that number. It's a lot easier to go, hey, this guy's touchdown to interception ratio. Everybody instantly identifies with that. Q. (Off microphone)? COACH HELFRICH: That's a constant process. A constant process. It's kind of like parenting. It's also a huge recruiting‑‑ at the beginning of the recruiting process, that's where you'd like to ideally mitigate any future issues is just managing the knowns of recruiting up front, and, again, that's not an exact science, but we will work our tails off. Our guys in recruiting do a great job. Our assistants do a great job of that. Again, that's something that's an ongoing daily battle. Q. (Off microphone)? COACH HELFRICH: Those things are always interesting in terms of the level of notoriety, but we absolutely want to do the right thing on and off the field 100 percent of the time. And our guys know that. Our coaches know that. Our recruiting department know that. That's really the biggest effect you can have on it is just a guy up front that you know A, B, and C about is going‑‑ being able to say no to that guy and not going, comma, "but he's a really good football player." That doesn't matter. Q. (Off microphone)? COACH HELFRICH: Fun, tough, interesting. Matt's a really intelligent guy. Just has been a great worker. He's one of those guys in the mold of, when we tell you guys, hey, man, you're up, and we have total confidence in, he's really blossomed. He's been invaluable, not only in games, but he's a guy that has gotten us through a bunch of practices, being able to play four positions on the offensive line, and just going. Like I've said many times, that whole line of questioning, our whole deal has been greatly tested this year. Q. (Off microphone)? COACH HELFRICH: Well, yeah. We can't say that, but that conversation has certainly come up. Q. (Off microphone)? COACH HELFRICH: He's better looking, first. That was the first bullet point. He's a smart guy. He gets the big picture. He gets a lot of things. His background is such that he gets it on both sides, from an offensive perspective, from a defensive perspective. And then two things, again, about him that just jump out to me are he's tough and he's smart. Guys love playing for him. He's a great communicator. He has a ton of great qualities. The ability to lead our offensive staff. Q. (Off microphone)? COACH HELFRICH: It's a constant evolution. With anything, you're trying to find the edge. You're trying to get better. He's added some things. Matt Lubick has added some things and done a great job with our young group of receivers. Every year you're always tweaking a few things, whether it's personnel driven, whether it's opponent driven, constant evolution. Q. If this is Marcus' last season with Oregon, what do you think his legacy is going to be? COACH HELFRICH: Well, he's‑‑ Marcus is just unique, which is one of a kind. His impact on and off the field will‑‑ it will be something that, regardless of what happens from here on out, it will be everlasting and positive and great. Coaches, players, administrators‑‑ anybody that's had the opportunity, professors‑‑ anybody that's had an opportunity to be around him is better because of it. Thanks, guys. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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