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ROSE BOWL GAME: IOWA VS STANFORDDecember 27, 2015Greg DavisHenry Krieger CobleLeShun DanielsPasadena, California An Interview With GREG DAVIS LESHUN DANIELS HENRY KRIEGER COBLE Q. Coach, you've been around the Rose Bowl a few times and the excitement around it. Now, with a team like Iowa, what's the excitement been from your point of view with all your experience here? And then for the student-athletes, what's it been like for you guys outside of the practice facility when you're around your community prepping for a game like this one? COACH DAVIS: Well, any time you talk about the Rose Bowl, you talk about "The Granddaddy of Them All," so we're excited. I think our fans are excited. I know our players are. So the preparation at home was really good. This team has been extremely resilient during the course of the year. Since we've been out here now, I guess, we've had two or three practices, and all of those have been very good. The Rose Bowl, the hospitality is unbelievable. It's like none other that I've been to. So it's an extremely exciting time. HENRY KRIEGER: I would say just everything surrounding the bowl is just really a well-put-together deal for all of us. We're just really excited to be able to come out to Los Angeles and get to see a new place. A lot of us have never been out this far, and we're really excited. But we just try to stay focused on the game. Go into practice every day with a good mindset and try to get better, because it's going to take our best game to beat Stanford. LESHUN DANIELS: Yeah, I have to agree with that. It's an exciting opportunity for us as a team and for the community, for The University of Iowa. It's just an exciting time for us, for our families, friends and fans for us to go out here and come to the Rose Bowl, The Granddaddy of Them All," and compete against an excellent team like Stanford. So we're going to have to continue to prep and give it our best shot come January 1st. Q. Coach, can you just talk about the process of the bitter disappointment losing to Michigan State, processing that, and how much is the Rose Bowl a level of bowl that kind of assuages the disappointment from not going to the Final Four? COACH DAVIS: Well, the Michigan State game obviously was disappointing, but immediately the next day we found out we were coming to the Rose Bowl, so our guys were extremely excited about it, and we are excited about playing a team like Stanford that's had such a rich history in what they've done. And Coach Shaw and his staff and what they've done over the last five or six years has been amazing. So we look at it as a great challenge and also as a great opportunity. Q. Greg, what's the relative health of your offense? Kirk alluded to maybe some guys not being a hundred percent going into this game? COACH DAVIS: Well, throughout the year Kirk has talked about it, kind of had the mindset of next man in. So we'll be relatively healthy. I know Steve released that Jake Duzey got hurt yesterday in practice and will not be available for the ballgame. But we've got some guys coming back that we haven't had over the last couple of weeks. Ike Boettger was able to practice yesterday, Boone Myers looks like he'll be fine. Jordan Canzeri got hurt in the championship game, was able to return to practice yesterday. So all in all, I'd say we'll be pretty healthy for the ballgame. Q. Coach, Stanford defensively, do they remind you -- who do they remind you of most in the Big Ten? With Stanford, did they fit philosophy-wise with their defensive? COACH DAVIS: They would probably remind me of Wisconsin because they're a three-four team. They base everything out of a three-four. One thing that you notice when you start looking at Stanford is the number of linebackers, number of athletes that they have, and because they play a bunch of linebackers, they're able to create both the three-down and a four-down front. So your team has to really be in tune to what kind of structure you're seeing. But in terms of who they remind me of, they would remind me of Wisconsin, who is also a 3-4 team. Q. Talk about your quarterback. What type of freedom do you give him at the line of scrimmage? It seems like he's doing a lot up there. With what Stanford does, is that going to be critical in this ballgame? COACH DAVIS: Yeah, C.J.'s done a great job. He's an extremely bright guy, and we put a lot on our quarterback, both in the run game and in the pass game. So he has the ability to -- obviously, we give him a play in the huddle, but he has the ability to take that play and switch sides. He can go from run to run, run to pass, pass to run. He has quite a bit of autonomy at the line of scrimmage. So when you're playing a team like Stanford who will give you multiple fronts, you'll be looking at a four-down front-one snap, and the next snap will be some kind of three-down structure. Your quarterback has to be in tune to what's happening. Has to be a very bright guy. And C.J. has shown during the course of the year that he can handle that. And as the year has gone on, we've given him more and more things that he can do at the line of scrimmage. Q. Coach, what's been the biggest difference offensively for you guys the past couple of years to having some more success? Is it this year, is it personnel? What's the difference? COACH DAVIS: Well, I think it started in January when we got back, and the players really -- a lot has been mentioned over the course of the season about the book "The Slight Edge," and our leadership committee really did a great job and they presented that during spring and fall camp to our players, and the team really bought in. Then I think the guys have been in the system. We've got some older players like Henry that understands. He has a lot of flexibility when we call a pass route about where he ends up. So I think the players are the difference. The players have really studied, and they've taken the mindset that not only is it one game at a time, it's actually one practice at a time. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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