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ROSE BOWL GAME: IOWA VS STANFORDDecember 27, 2015Greg DavisPasadena, California Q. [On the similarities and differences between this team and the Texas teams he coached from 1998-2010...] GREG DAVIS: I think the comparable things are teams that really came together and believed in each other and just had a -- it's amazing what I hear from being in the booth our coaches say over the headset during the course of a ballgame. And then on Sundays no panic, just a feeling of confidence. Those are the things that are similar between teams. I would say the biggest thing that is different is those teams there was an expectation where I think it would be -- you would have to find a really loyal fan to think that we were going to be in the Rose Bowl this year, in August. So the expectation wasn't the same. That would be the biggest difference to me. Q. Are there correlations? GREG DAVIS: I think correlations are not so much in style because two of those teams were very quarterback-run driven, and Colt [McCoy]'s team was very pass-driven. So in style of play, maybe not so much, but in the things that really matter, turnover margin, staying ahead of the chains on first down, end zone success, and those things, there's a commonality that you find in all good football teams. Q. And all three had good quarterbacks? GREG DAVIS: I don't think you win at any level without good quarterbacks. You have to have that trigger guy. Q. When Matt came in, he was 170 pounds, maybe. GREG DAVIS: VandeBerg? Q. Yeah. Matt VandeBerg: Sorry. GREG DAVIS: Maybe. Q. He's a 60-catch receiver, 14 this year. Can you kind of go over maybe his growth points? He's a tough-minded kid. GREG DAVIS: He is very tough minded. Matt was a guy that in Bobby Kennedy's first spring here, Matt had already committed to us. And so we were bringing all these players in to meet Bobby for the spring game, and some of them were walk-on players and just guys that wanted to meet him. And so I remember he walked out of his office, and he said, It's another walk-on. I said, No, he's one of ours. But I think it goes to your point of that's kind of what he looked like. He was a very slender kid that looked like he was probably going into the ninth grade instead of graduating. It was amazing through about four practices that August, Bobby said, This is the one guy that can help us this year. So there was a maturity. There was a mental maturity that was far ahead of his physical maturity. And so that allowed him to actually play for us early. And then he's now gone from 170-ish. He almost looks like an athlete now. And he's probably 190. And the same maturity that he showed then, he still has. And he's extremely hard on himself. So I mean, there will be a ball where it's a bang-bang situation, and we chart drops and all those kind of things. And there will be a lot of times that Bobby and I will say, well, that really wasn't a drop. But in Matt's mind it was. Because I should have caught that ball. I had both hands on it before the contact. So he never takes the easy way out. And then he's like a sponge. He really studies the game. He studies the opponent, you know, how this route should be run, can be run, to the point now where he's got thoughts. I mean he's got his own thoughts about, okay, this guy's playing me here; this is what I'm going to do. So it's been fun to watch him grow, both physically and mentally, and now C.J. [Beathard] has great confidence in him. Probably the thing that goes unnoticed about Matt until you really watch him, he can run. I mean you just think of the number of seam balls where he's been at one on one and he's been able to get free. He's not just a possession guy. He's a guy that can also run. Q. And that really is an element of your offense, the deep ball this year came together a little bit more. I think you're still reaching for it, though. GREG DAVIS: Yeah. We're still not where we would like to be. We're closer, and there's -- in throwing the ball deep, one is when should those shots be taken, because in almost everything you call there's a deep ball element to it. And so now, there are certain plays that when we put them on the game plan, we say, this is a shot play. This is a shot play. We're going to max it out. But in a lot of the dropbacks, there's a deep element, and then it's the quarterback's decision about whether or not he wants to take that element. For example, the long touchdown in the [Big Ten] championship game was when Tevaun [Smith] was on the post. Matt was running the corner or out underneath him. C.J. caught one-on-one coverage and he laid it out. So he just gained success and gaining confidence which comes from success in making those one-on-one throws. And then there's the actual running and catching of those balls, ball traveling in the air at 45, 50 yards with a guy hanging on your shoulder. So we're closer. We're not where we want to be, but we're much closer. And I think it will continue to grow as C.J. has more confidence and more snaps. Q. Those are low percentage plays. People don't realize that you only hit them maybe five percent of them on a good year. Is that the sell to people outside? GREG DAVIS: Oh, you mean fans? Q. Yeah. GREG DAVIS: Fans want you to throw it deep all the time, but what they really want you to is throw it deep and complete it. That's what everybody wants. Coaches want that, too. You know, there's times when defensively you need to throw it deep because of what they are doing. They're sitting on the sticks on third down. And they're playing situational football with you. So you've gotta break. Even though it's third and six, you'd like to throw it for seven because that keeps you on the field. That's high percentage. You've got to force yourself to push it down the field, knowing that you're probably going to have to leave the field. But it's something that you have to do. And so yeah, to answer your question, you've got to do it some, and you got to do it some when it's unexpected, you know, starting off the series, first down, you know, those situations. At the same time, every time you do that, you'll realize that percentage-wise you may have to leave the field. Q. I think that the horizontal game this year, the difference between 2014 and 2015 for a lot of your offense, the horizontal game was much more weak. It was one- or two-yard passes. I don't know what the numbers are. How important is that? GREG DAVIS: Well, it's real important because you know, what sometimes I would like to get across to fans because you'd like them to kind of understand what's happening, is that a lot of times for us, those are runs. They're really not passes. Even though the ball travels from C.J. I mean sometimes the team you're playing and the way they line up, you're going to have to have some four- and five-yard throws, and you have to understand that, okay, if we turn around and we hand it to LeShun [Daniels] and he makes five, then that's really a good play. And if you throw it to Matt and he makes five, that's the same play. It's the same play. But by doing that sometimes you are stretching the defense and the old axiom, well, we run the throw, sometimes that is in reverse in a game plan, you're actually throwing to try to help the run. Q. [On any differences between this upcoming game day and others...] GREG DAVIS: You know, surprisingly the day was like any other game day. I mean there's certain things, just like this Rose Bowl game day will be just like we were in the hotel at Kirkwood. I mean there's certain things. There's meetings. There's pre-game meal. There's last-second staff meetings. So from that standpoint -- and coaches by nature want things to be the way they always are, wants it to be structured. So from that standpoint it's very much like any other ballgame. Obviously the national exposure and those kind of things, you know, that's different. All bowl games are. But I think the more your kids play in those kind of games, the more confidence they have, and the more they realize that once this kicks off, it is -- it goes right back to the fundamentals and taking care of the ball and making the plays that are available. Q. When you win a game like that, I mean, how do you have something like that, not just winning a national title, but being part of such a memorable game? GREG DAVIS: Well, you don't think about it during the ballgame, obviously. It's just a game. But as time goes on and you hear coaches all the time say, you know, As I get older, I want to reflect back. When I retire, I want to reflect back. But yeah, shortly afterwards you're on the way back and your friends are calling and it's an instant classic, and all those kind of things, you realize it was kind of neat. It was fun to be a little part of that. Q. And does it feel like 10 years ago? GREG DAVIS: In some ways, yes; in some ways no. It goes pretty quickly in this business. Q. I'm sure it's helped, but when you're with a team that hasn't been to a game like this, do you feel like you're able to transfer any of that or is it something they just have to completely learn themselves? GREG DAVIS: I think you can tell them, and Kirk's been out here, and he's done a great job. I think there are certain things that you can explain to them that this is different. Media day. And then we have an entire team coming. You know, you explain that those things are a little bit different than most ball games. But at the same time, I think when you're teaching a young man to drive and you talk about there's a difference of driving in the snow, you can tell them there's a difference driving in the snow, but as my wife found out, until you actually drive in the snow, there's an experience factor that you can't put a price on. Q. I want to ask you about Ryan Boyle. GREG DAVIS: I think the -- with all redshirts, but especially with quarterbacks, you can either really have a good redshirt year, or you can have a bad redshirt year. And by that I mean, not them personally but all of a sudden when Spring Training starts, it becomes really obvious that this guy had a great redshirt year, or he had a bad redshirt year from a mental standpoint. Are you starting over like you did in August? Are you able to pick up with those guys? My sense is that both of them had a really good redshirt year, that they really studied what was happening throughout the year. And one of the things that Kirk [Ferentz] has done is that they travel to every ball game. So not only do they travel to every ball game, they sit in on every game plan meeting. They sit right there at halftime when, okay, we're going to change here, versus a diamond, we're going to do this. So they've sat there and they've listened to halftime adjustments. They've given game plan sheets. We're talking about the young quarterbacks. And my sense is that they both have had a really good year. From what I've seen on the field, they both have gotten more confidence and dropping back from under center, neither one had played much from under center. So when you start in August, you say, "is there any question as to where you put your hands. Oh, let me start back over here and explain this." So you know, neither one of them had had -- so that process, they worked hard on that. And I'm very pleased with both of them. And both of them will go into spring, and we'll see what happens. The best thing, yeah, no question. We had Christmas dinner the other day, and my son was there with his family, and the quarterbacks came over. And my son said, Well, you got a bunch of snaps this year. Tyler [Wiegers] said, It's the greatest thing that's ever happened, because there was about a three-week window where C.J. did not practice much. I mean he really didn't practice until the end of the week, so Tyler took all the first-team reps and most of the second-team reps. And you could see his growth as the season was going on, even though he wasn't playing. But you could see it during the week, just the confidence and the checking and changing things. So it's been a really good year for him from that standpoint. Q. From C.J.'s standpoint, how would you evaluate his progress? GREG DAVIS: I think C.J. has a chance to be really special, really special. And when you say that, I'm talking about Gary Kubiak to Kevin Murray to Colt McCoy, Chris Simms, Major Applewhite. I'm talking about he has a chance, because he has all the things that you can't coach in that he's got a really quick arm that can extend plays, he's smart, he's tough. And then he has a passion that he wants to always get us in a better play. Would this check have been better? So what I think you'll see when we start next year is a much more confident quarterback, and even though he plays with a lot of confidence now, I think he's going to be really special. Q. I didn't catch in on [Jake] Duzey, what happened exactly? GREG DAVIS: We were just in practice, and he was blocking, and it was very innocent. I mean, it was not somebody got rolled into him. Sometimes you're sitting there and you're -- oh. You almost turn your eyes away, like a car wreck. They were just going down the line of scrimmage, two guys, and his knee buckles. I don't know exactly what it is. That I'm not sure about. So sad for him. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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