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OUTBACK BOWL: NORTHWESTERN VS TENNESSEEDecember 29, 2015Butch JonesPat FitzgeraldSt. Petersburg, Florida BUTCH JONES: Well, first of all, again, I'd like to thank Jim McVay and the Tampa Bay Bowl Association for their professionalism. Bruce Poli has done a tremendous job, the highway patrol, everyone involved with the bowl game. It's been outstanding, so on behalf of the University of Tennessee I'd like to say thank you. Also Larry Marfise who's the director athletics at the University of Tampa, a very good friend of mine, for their hospitality. Facilities have been first class. The accommodations, couldn't ask for more. Chamber of Commerce weather, maybe a little too hot, but who's to complain. But I think we've had a very, very good week of preparation, a great challenge ahead of us. I think we all know the respect that I have for Pat and his football program. They do everything first class in everything that they do; tough, physical. When you look at the discipline of their football team, the way they execute, just very, very impressed, and when you go along and you break it down, the more film you watch, they either get better and better and better or they feel more confident, and they continue to get better and better and better when you watch them on video, and it's a testament to his football team. We've had a good week of preparation, but as we all know, now it comes down to execution and making plays on game day. PAT FITZGERALD: Yeah, I'd also like to echo some of Butch's opening comments and thank Jim McVay, everyone here at the Outback Bowl. It's been absolutely first class experience for our young men. It's great to be back. We were here a few years ago, and as we quality controlled the bowl experience for our seniors a few years back, and they were just ecstatic with the experience that they had, and none of our guys on this team were a part of that experience. So to be here and have it duplicated has been absolutely outstanding. I'd like to thank everyone over at Jesuit High School. We've had great accommodations. We've had great practices. The weather has been terrific. It feels like 24 in Evanston right now and that'll feel like 25 on game day. To be down here in paradise and to experience the bowl system and the bowl experience is truly in my humble opinion what college football is all about. We've had a great experience at all the events. It's just been absolutely terrific, and as we look at our preparation, it's been a challenge getting ready for Butch's team. I mean, they've done a terrific job all season long, played one of the most competitive, if not the top schedules in the country. We've watched the way that they've just gotten better and better. With the amount of youth that Coach is playing, it's been really impressive to see the way that they've improved in all three phases, one of the best special teams units in the country, offensively very explosive, great tempo, defensively the same way, physical up front, locked down secondary, and just very well coached in all three phases, and play very clean football. It's going to be a great challenge for us on Friday, and a few more days here of preparation to get ready for, but very thankful for the opportunity to represent the Big Ten, and very happy to be here, and looking forward to the game. Q. What is your approach/philosophy for a bowl game? BUTCH JONES: I think you always take, when you go to a bowl game, you take a first game approach. It's kind of the game of the unknowns. Obviously you have time to prepare different nuances, but at the end of the day, it gets back to doing what you do in executing. But if you look at the bowl trends each and every year, it's been tackling, it's about taking care of the football, winning situational football, special teams, all that really goes into the elements of playing winning football. Pat said a word that he's exactly right, was clean football. As a coach you want a clean football game. You don't want pre snap penalties, you don't want turnovers, you don't want missed assignments, all those things that are execution based. PAT FITZGERALD: Yeah, from a prep standpoint we're probably very similar. Obviously I've followed Butch and his programs for a number of years, and very similar approaches. From our standpoint I want our guys to have a blast. This is a reward that they've earned, both teams, and to be here playing football in paradise on New Year's Day, when it's time to work, it's time to work and be focused and disciplined in what your doing, and when it's time to go have good, clean, American fun, go cut it loose and party your tail off. I've watched two of our teams out in the Big Ten West that were five win teams go off to bowl games and I saw conversations prior to the bowls that those teams shouldn't be involved, and I totally disagree. It's about the players. It's about their experience, and I think any coach would want to play in the Final Four, but those are four teams, and the rest of us, it's not about us as coaches, as it's about the experience that our young men get to have, coming down to a great community, go and be involved in hockey games and Busch Gardens and going to hospitals and seeing young people that are in challenging situations, and talking to our guys after that experience, that's what this is about. We get the reward of playing in a very special venue and a pro stadium on Friday, but to see the experiences that the young men get to have, their families will all be down that can afford to make it, and that's what this is about. To keep the bowl experience where it is and have as many teams and players experience it, I sure hope no one has the great wisdom to ever change it. That would be a mistake, because this is a great experience for our kids, and we're very thankful for it. Q. For both coaches, how did you rebound from tough losses to win the last five. How did you get that done? PAT FITZGERALD: I have no idea what you are talking about. We didn't lose any games this year. That's what we did. That's what we did. You've got to flush it. You've got to move on. And you've just got to have a short memory, and you've got to learn from the experiences and you can't duplicate it. Our young men, we had a two week stretch, a 10 day period, let's not kid ourselves, now, we played two very good football teams, one on the road that played as good of a game as they've played all season long, we turned it over, we played poorly in the kicking game, we couldn't get out of our own way on offense, and we gave up more points as a defense than we gave up all year, so we got our fanny whipped. And then we played a team in Iowa that frankly kicked our butt in all three phases. They got after our tail in the second half. When you look at the team, we said we've got to make a decision who we're going to be? Are we going to be the team that started off 5 0 and beat a team that's playing in the Rose Bowl, a team that just won a bowl game, or are we going the team that decided not to show up and play, and that's my responsibility as the leader of the program, so they didn't really have a choice, and then that was the direction that we went, and we were able to go there because of leadership. We had 27 great seniors that will get their last opportunity to play college football here this weekend, and the credit goes to them. As a leader, I think you set the vision, you set the plan, and then you're the pied paper and they're the ones that own it and lead it and that's what our guys did. As a coach you hope you have that type of leadership. BUTCH JONES: Really the exact same thing. A lot of times you can learn much more from losses. Those are all learning opportunities. You learn through adversity. Sometimes when you win, things are swept under the table, but it really comes down to character, the character that you have in your football program, the competitive character that you have, and they were gut wrenching losses. A lot of times, particularly being in Knoxville, you can let the noises, the distractions creep in, and I was really proud of our players, the way they responded, and they had no choice. If you're a competitor, if you're a fighter, you're going to get up every day. You try to learn from those and not make mistakes. It's hard to really practice those, so you have to learn from those and continue to move on and grind, and it's a long college football season. And I say it every year, it's usually the teams that can manage the natural adversities of a long football season that brings about them playing in great bowl games like this. And let's make sure we never take the bowl experience for granted, and I think we found that out in our storied tradition at Tennessee. When you go a few years without a bowl game and what it does for our players, it's all about our players, but also for our communities and our fan bases and our players' families, opportunities to see this part of the country, to be involved in stuff like this. It's very, very big, and you never take these weeks, you never take these experiences for granted. I'm just proud of the way our players responded. They had gut wrenching losses but we stayed the course, we stayed together, and both teams are on a five game winning streak, and I think it's a credit to leadership on both teams. Q. What have you learned about bowl preparation and what would it mean to win 11 games for the first time in school history? PAT FITZGERALD: Well, from the standpoint of structure, we approach bowl week very similar to what we would a bye week, and then also the opening game of the season, so any time we have a little bit of extra time, I guess, to prepare, we'll go on basically what would be a Thursday Thursday, Wednesday Tuesday structure of getting prepared. It's been pretty good for us. I think in either one of those games, we played really good teams in our bowl games, and they've been slobber knocker street fights. They've been battles, rare. That was a heck of a football game against Auburn (2010 Outback Bowl) and we ended up on the short end. Our guys are comfortable in that routine because it's not just the bowl experience that we do. I've learned to kind of evolve, to tweak that. I've been fortunate. Haven't had a staff change in over five years, so our staff has been together. We've got a pretty good plan, kind of know what to expect and how to go about our business during this time period, and then from the standpoint of 11 wins, any time you get to double digit wins, it's a special year. You know, for us to be out of bowl season two straight years and be a win away I think has been really good shots for our program and for our players. They've been very frustrated all season. They've been through a lot, and it's well documented. To see the way our leadership has stepped up, this really started last January when our senior class really stepped up and said the non bowl participation is going to end now. We know it's going to be too late in August. It's going to start now, and our secondary and our defensive line really took over the attitude and the work ethic of our team, reestablished our values and what we believe in at the core, and then we just grinded through it every day and took every day as an opportunity to get better. We knew it was going to be important that we started fast. You come out of the gate and you're playing a Stanford team, a good team that's been as successful as they've been, we knew we had to get out of the gate fast. To do that I thought was great confidence for our squad, especially with a freshman quarterback, and to see the way that he's improved and handled it has been really fun to watch, and exciting not only for now but for the future. So to get 11 wins, that was all about the seniors, and our senior class, if we are fortunate to find a way to win, this will be their second bowl win, which will be the first time in our program's history, and 11 wins. I wish it was against my high school because it would be a lot easier, but that's not the case, so it's going to be a heck of a challenge on Friday, and we've just got to finish up the prep. Both teams, we're going to sound probably like broken records. It's kind of honing in right now and getting your mind right and getting ready to go compete. Q. How important is the success of special teams? BUTCH JONES: Well, you look at both programs, and again, a lot of similarities and philosophies, and a lot of times it starts with special teams. Special teams is a way to impact the game. It's a way to impact field position. They've been outstanding on special teams, as well. You know, we have to do a great job of defending all areas of kick wherever they're at. Again, it comes down to what makes special teams great. It's one on one match ups. It's one on one battles, and it's individuals owning their responsibilities. We put a lot of emphasis on it, but it's a way to impact games, a way to change field position, and we knew starting the season that special teams would help to impact the game for us, being young in a number of areas. Proud of our players the way they've bought in, but every week is a new challenge, and I think this will be the biggest challenge to date in terms of special teams from Northwestern. PAT FITZGERALD: Yeah, when I look at our opponent, not just now but every week, I'll start with their special teams tape. I give my big special teams talk in training camp. Butch alluded to it earlier, but the character of a team is revealed in their special teams. When I walked into every young man's living room that we recruited, I didn't say I want you to be the best right guard on the kickoff return team in the country until I got into the program, right, because they want to be the best running back, wide receiver, DB, whatever it may be, and then when you get them into the program, maybe that's their role as they start their careers off, and when you get young people to buy into that and understand the significance of those roles, you've got a chance, number one, I think, to execute. And then second of all when you can execute cleanly, you can be consistent fundamentally and technique wise, then you've got a chance to make some explosive plays, and when you watch Tennessee, that's what you see. You see outstanding fundamentals. As always, Solomon (Vault) for us or Miles (Shuler) as a punt returner, the return men get their name called when you score, but it's the other 10 guys that are the ones that made it happen. From the standpoint of watching Tennessee, you know, this is a compliment, they have tendencies. We'll see some teams that we both play that they're flavor of the week special teams. They have no tendencies, and you know you're going to play pretty well against them because I doubt their kids know what they're doing because their coaches are drawing it up on napkins throughout the week. When you watch probably our two teams it's probably pretty boring because we do what we do and we execute, and they're fundamentally sound and the kids play their tail off. It's going to be critically important it is in every game but I think the two teams are really good in that phase. It's going to be important. With the weather going to be the way that it is, it should be pretty clean. When you have weather being a factor, sometimes it really gets at you. On Hall of Famer Derrick Brooks coming to talk to his Volunteers squad BUTCH JONES: I think any time you can have a Hall of Famer come and talk to your football team, I will tell you this. I know he made a lasting impression on a number of our players, our coaches, and again, just his values for what he stands for, his character, his work ethic, you're talking about one of the greatest players to ever play the game. His competitiveness, just talked about the importance of team and really life lessons, and this is one of the opportunities, again, being postseason play, that it's more than football, it's about preparing your young men for life, life after football. And no matter what it is, whether it's football or the business world or what have you, special people have a different edge to themselves. They have a little something special about them, and that he could pour some of that out onto our football team was very, very special for us. It's a relationship that we've had with him and part of the days also with the Bucs and stuff like that, there's a lot of parallel. We have one of the greatest linebackers in college football here to be playing here, as well. That's part of the memorable generation, man. I couldn't play for that. Q. Who does each team remind you of that you have played this season? PAT FITZGERALD: That's a good question. Probably combined teams: The secondary of Michigan, probably the front of Michigan, Nebraska, Penn State that were very, very physical, the linebackers like the Michigans and the Penn States and the Iowas that are physical. On the perimeter, you know, we see great speed now in the Big Ten since kind of a change of the guard maybe sometimes after I left as a player where the speed obviously has been an emphasis, and so there's great skill on the perimeter everywhere in the Big Ten. Up front the Nebraska, Iowa, Michigan offensive lines that were really, really physical this year. I don't know if we've seen a back as big, and quarterback wise, probably a lot like Tommy Armstrong, but has really done a terrific job taking care of the ball, but just one that when he gets outside of the pocket, he can make big plays happen. A lot of similarities, but like I said, I've got to a la carte from a lot of different things, because there's a lot of similarities. BUTCH JONES: Exact same answer. That's a great question when you look at it. Arkansas, has a lot of similarities to Arkansas in terms of mentality, toughness, the ability to run the football, stop the run, a little bit of Oklahoma in terms of scheme wise offensively and some different things that way. Up tempo. And the thing when you watch Northwestern, again, they don't beat themselves. They force you into making mistakes, and they're very, very sound and very solid in what they do, and they force you to execute, and it gets back to that philosophy that we believe we're going to out execute you. We're going to do what we do and we're going to own what we do. We're not going to dibble and dabble. We'll have wrinkles but we're going to take great pride in the fundamentals and small details. I think in today's world, everyone says, oh, you made these miracle halftime adjustments, and that's the biggest question everyone says, what adjustments did you make at halftime. Usually your halftime adjustments are you executed. You fit your gaps, you caught the football, you took care of the football, and when you look at them, they're very, very disciplined. So again, Arkansas, Oklahoma, a little bit of flavor throughout the course of our schedule. Q. What is the status of the offensive line? PAT FITZGERALD: Yeah, we're probably as healthy as we've been. I released earlier that we lost Nick VanHoose, our corner. That was a freak deal. He was just covering a guy, and nothing, he didn't even go out on the play. He didn't even miss the rest of practice, then I get an injury update the next day that he might be out for the game. It was a non contact deal. So Nick will be out. He had surgery. He's been out running around and should be able to get it going. He's got an opportunity to play in a postseason all star game and I'm very happy for him because if he would have lost his last college experience because of a freak deal in practice, that would have been awful. So happy for him there, but I think we're going to have all the guys back. We've had, I think, eight or nine different combinations, but we also went into the season with that. A year ago at five wins walking off the field against our rival, we had 30 players out in that game that had started a game for us. You quality control your season and you get down and you can't ever use injuries as an excuse or a crutch source as to why you didn't get the job done. We looked, and the first time we talked about it as a staff was, all right, what would we do differently if we were to do the whole season over, and the one thing we talked about was playing more guys, forcing our team to consistently execute by giving them the opportunity to play, and so the best example I can give for you with that is when we went down to Duke, we took 70 guys and we played, I think, 66, and that started with the mentality that we were going to play more guys, but it's one thing to say it and it's another thing to do it. I reached out to Jim Tressel this summer, and Tressel had done a great job of that with his teams every year at Ohio State. You'd see them early, see all these different jersey number combinations that maybe you didn't see when you got to Big Ten play but you would see them play a lot of players early, and then he'd let the competition on Saturday really unfold, and then that would also determine who was going to play the next week or would be categorized as a starter. Adam Cushing and I had a long talk along with Mick McCall, our coordinator, Adam coaches our O line, about how really, how many guys we think can play that we can win with, and we felt like we had nine, maybe a 10th, but we weren't sure of six through nine or ten were going to take the necessary steps to earn the right to go out there and be with the ones. We forced them. They didn't have a choice. Those kids have stepped up. We've got a lot of guys filling those roles, and we're very thankful for them. We've got a couple guys I mean, Matt Frazier, with what he's been through, you've probably seen the article, but a young man who's been through three surgeries, we go get ready basically for in summer workouts and he's in ICU because he's got a staph infection that came out of the blue. To now again be out starting and starting most of the year has been pretty special, so a lot of cool storylines there. Q. How do coaches get the message across to your guys to enjoy the bowl but be smart while doing so? Have you ever had to send anyone home from a bowl game? BUTCH JONES: Well, when I speak for us, you know, last year was an unusual year because really everyone in our football program had never experienced a bowl game, and that's really hard to fathom at the University of Tennessee. I believe we're fourth in all time bowl appearances. And I think the experience that we had at that bowl game with the commitment level that our kids made in their preparation, you know, there was evidence behind it, and we had the success that we had. And we're hoping that that propels us into this bowl preparation. Every team is different and has different personalities, but they had a great experience. They had a great experience, and getting to Tampa to the Outback Bowl is something that drove our football team. I'll never forget it. We're playing at Missouri, and it's about 23 degrees, and before the kickoff Jalen Reeves Maybin gets everyone up, and he said, “If you don't like this weather let's win so we can go to Tampa,” and it kind of drove our football team. So you have to rely on your leadership, your message of consistency all the time, and you do, you want them to enjoy the bowl experience. You want them but it's a balancing act. You rely on your seniors. You rely on your individuals. For us I would say about half of our football team has never been to a bowl game, so again, it's new things that you have to re teach them. But our players have done a good job to date of managing, enjoying themselves, but also when it's time to work, get your work in and enjoy that part of it. PAT FITZGERALD: Yeah, a lot of similarities to the way we approach it. First of all, we get done with finals maybe a week earlier, I think, than the semester schools, so we had a week in Chicago that we had no school obligations, nothing on the back end. We do a bowl week up in Chicago, went to a Blackhawks game, Bulls game, went bowling, went down to downtown Chicago and had three quarters of the team there and went to a comedy club experience. And that was, especially for this year's team, our senior class is the only group that's been to a bowl game. For our underclassmen by Thursday, they were gassed. They were tired. They were worn out. So I got done after Friday's practice, I said, so think about how you feel right now, and if you feel this way on Thursday in Tampa, we're going to get our fannies whipped. So you have to understand what you can do and what you can't do based on what your role is, and some guys can go hoot with the owls and soar with the eagles, right? Other guys, they need to go and lay down and take a nap all afternoon to get prepared for the next day, and then you rely on your senior leadership, and our seniors were in the Gator Bowl and we were successful in that experience, and they've done a really good job leading down here. We have not, in my six bowl experiences, have not sent anyone home, and I would hope that we would never have that problem. We talk about teammates looking after teammates, and the first guy that's a great leader is a guy that can lead himself. If you can't lead yourself and make great choices with this experience and the responsibility that you have to represent our program, your family, our conference, the Outback Bowl here in this great community, then I question whether or not you should be in our program, let alone be here. I think it starts in recruiting. You recruit the right guys from the right families, they're going to make the best decisions. I was at Bahama Breeze last night with my boys for dinner and I don't know how many of our guys were there eating dinner. That's what it's about. It's about the camaraderie and the relationships that are built, a 20 year reunion for me with my Rose Bowl teammates and we're making fun of each other more now than we did back then. And it wasn't because of what happened on the field. It was what we did in the locker room, what we did at the bowl experience, and that's what makes this type of weekend and this type of experience special for the guys. BUTCH JONES: And to answer your question, I've never had to send anyone home, as well, and same exact philosophy that Pat just spoke about. You never want to do that as a coach, but also, it's about accountability, and it starts with leadership, and leading yourself just like he said, but also your seniors and your leadership taking accountability for their teammates, as well, so I've never had to do that. Q. How important is the running game to your success on offense? PAT FITZGERALD: Well I think the two opponents that we played had a lot to do with that, as well. We did not control the six inch rule against Michigan. They played outstanding up front, and we just couldn't get things going offensively at all. Against Iowa it's really a tale of two halves. We moved the ball pretty well in the first half. We needed to get things started the right way in the second half, and we didn't. We had a fumble, and I appreciate Butch's kind words earlier, but we had a fumble, a quarterback running back exchange, and we were down two scores and gave Iowa a short field and we went down three scores, especially us preparing for an Iowa year, that's a death sentence against that group and we just couldn't overcome it. And then we were patient I think in our other games. We didn't run it real well against Wisconsin every play, but we were patient. I think JJ (Justin Jackson) is a tough minded kid. He's a true sophomore that I think in high school if you go back and watch him, he wasn't real flashy and real sexy, but he was really efficient and really tough and real physical, and that's kind of what he's been. Warren Long was played really well back there for us, and so has Solomon Vault. I think we've taken series off of JJ's shoulders as the season has gone along by having three guys back there, and I believe it's helped his production. But he's been critically important, there's no doubt about that, in our success. Q. In your experience how often does it happen where a player like Josh Dobbs is different on the field than what you saw on tape? PAT FITZGERALD: Yeah, he won't be a surprise if they watched every game. He's just the real deal. Thinking back from my six bowl games as a coach, when you watch guys on tape that made plays, it makes you stay up late at night, and you try to create ways to make sure that you limit their ability to do that. Usually big time players step up in big time games, so they're going to make the plays. They're going to do the things that they do well, and they're going to be X amount of practices. But again, I don't want to speak for Butch, but you're usually pretty smart with your players or your veterans at this time of the year. You're going to get them the right reps, you're going to get them the right experiences, but then you're going to also rest them a little bit. You have to expect them to get his yards and make his plays, but at the same time you've got to worry more about yourself. If you don't do that, you're not going to execute and they'll expose you even more. Q. What are your thoughts on Brian Randolph’s bowling technique and his importance to the team? BUTCH JONES: First of all, not a lot of bowling skills, but that's kind of Brian's personality coming out, and he's been one of those seniors that's really played his best football, which has been very stable for us. He's provided stability for us, not just in the back end of our defense but in our football program. And very proud of him the way he's stepped up, and he's been vocal in his leadership, which he's kind of been a quiet leader, so to speak, and just maybe led the defensive backs or the defensive side of the ball, but he's really spoke up. He's been a member of our player staff, and the way his leadership has really grown and developed, I'm really proud of him. He's been a rock of stability for us. Q. Do you think the game is going to be won or lost in the trenches? BUTCH JONES: I think it's a line of scrimmage game. Pat just alluded to a six inch war. He's right. I don't want to speak for him, but I think I know him well enough and he knows me well enough to know that our philosophies parallel each other in terms of you win up front. It's a physical football game. That's what football is. Football still comes down to blocking and tackling and executing. Their front seven is outstanding. Their back end is outstanding. They're going to run the football at us, so again, it's going to be one of those games. There's so much that goes into it from a toughness standpoint, not just mentally but physically, as well. PAT FITZGERALD: Yeah, I definitely feel from the standpoint of watching the way they've been able to run the ball at everyone, it's been impressive, and it's not one of those where you're watching them play against opponents that aren't outstanding. You watch some teams, and that's why stats are for losers. You watch them play against teams and you watch the opponent, and you just wonder what the thought process was going into the game or how they thought they were going to stop the team. Again, maybe they didn't execute, and you watch the teams that Tennessee has played, they're outstanding across the board. They've been able to move the ball down the field, run the ball, great play action pass off of it, against everyone, and then you flip it over, I can't remember I know they are, but I can't remember seeing any reps where they didn't fit plays properly, and great effort to the ball and great tackling, physical when they show up in a bad mood defensively. Yeah, I think it obviously will be. I think both teams will be well prepared. Both teams I think know who they are, and it should be a very entertaining game. And when you think about the bowl season, you've just got to expect the unexpected. That's just what ends up happening. I go back to all the teams that I've coached, and being a head coach, you go in with a plan, you'd better be ready to adjust because that's just the way it's going to happen. You hope you do the right things and you hope you give your guys the best chance to go out and win and to go out and make plays. But it should be a heck of a game. Both teams are led the right way. Both teams play the game clean, play it the right way, and it should be very entertaining for fans, and for half the nation for an hour, when everybody wakes up on New Year's Day to have the entire country watching our game, it should be great football for our programs, not only for our fans, for our players, but also for recruits. So it should be a lot of fun. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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