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FEDEX ORANGE BOWL: VIRGINIA TECH v CINCINNATIDecember 28, 2008Joe TreseyMIAMI GARDENS, FLORIDA JASON ALPERT: Coach, you've now been here for a couple days in South Florida. Talk about how your preparations are going getting ready for the FedEx Orange Bowl. JOE TRESEY: Going very well. Our young men have done a great job. They're enjoying South Florida. The Orange Bowl Committee has just been unbelievable. This is the first time we've been to a BCS Bowl, so we're enjoying every minute of it. But we practiced yesterday for the first time. Our kids did a nice job. They know what's at stake. This is a group that likes to play. They really love to play. Coach Kelly will tell you I'm sure when you interview him that they enjoy what they do, and when we hit the practice field, they're ready to roll. It's been a good start. Q. When you look at film of Virginia Tech, can you tell a noticeable difference in their quarterback and sort of his progression over the course of the season, the early games you've seen him in and then these last two or three games that you've seen him in, and what do you see maybe that looks different about him? JOE TRESEY: Well, I think he's making better decisions. We're very cautious with him. He can beat you with his feet, and he's gotten better at throwing the football. You know, you can just tell he's more comfortable with his route reads and his progression reads and just running the offense in general. Obviously they've settled in on him it looks like. They won their last two and then the ACC Championship with him. You know, he's a guy that we're very concerned about. Q. In situations with coaching changes, there's usually a period of transition, but with this coaching staff and this team, it's seemed to go pretty smoothly. What has happened specifically? JOE TRESEY: Well, I think -- have you had a chance to deal with Brian Kelly yet? JASON ALPERT: He hasn't been in here yet, no. JOE TRESEY: Well, when you meet Brian Kelly, Brian Kelly has done a great job of just leading this program. He has a vision, he has a path, and he knows how to lead people down that path. He knows how to paint that vision. You know, I've been with him three years. He's won a lot of championships, especially at the Division II level, in his conference and at Grand Valley, a National Championship, and from the first day we walked into Cincinnati, we were going to win a Big East Championship. Did we expect it to happen in two years? Maybe, maybe not, but coaches are eternal optimists. So we felt the foundation we had and the kids we had coming back, that if we kept healthy, which we didn't at quarterback, but we were able to maneuver that, and he'll talk about that, but if we can stay healthy and continue to develop the kids that we have, we have a chance to win a Big East Championship here. He just does a great job of leading our football team and our coaches. Q. As a quick follow-up to that, the defense in particular, juniors, seniors, what did you say when you got there for that Bowl game two years ago to those guys? JOE TRESEY: That was quite an experience. You know, it was one of those deals that it is what it is. I mean, they knew we were the new staff, they were our players, and we just had to get to know each other really quick and really fast. You know, they did a really good job of accepting us, and they just kind of went with it. We worked hard at it, and we grew together. We had to grow fast in two weeks. Bill will tell you, it's a tough thing to do coming in and coaching a Bowl game and trying to get a team ready to play in two weeks. But again, I attribute that to Brian Kelly and his leadership and what he's been able to -- what he was able to accomplish in that short period of time. Q. How would you describe Brian Kelly's personality? JOE TRESEY: Boy, you're putting me on the spot, aren't you? You know, he's a very dynamic guy. When he portrays a message, it's direct. He does it with a lot of energy and a lot of passion. If you watch his practice, and Bill can attest to that, we're very high tempo. It's go, man, go, and it's a lot of -- you've got to coach on the run, you've got to coach a lot off of video, and it kind of portrays his personality. I mean, he is a pedal-to-the-metal guy, and it's rock and roll, let's go, and hey, let's get it done. We're here, we have a two-hour practice, and this is a goal. This is what we set out to do today, and we're going to do it, and he makes sure it gets done. Q. Do you think he acts like a big-time college football coach, or does he seem more like just your next-door neighbor? He seems like an interesting guy. He was making a lot of jokes yesterday. JOE TRESEY: You know, I don't know what you mean by big-time, but I work with him every day, so he's a great guy to work for. Our kids love him. He's who he is. He's a very down-to-earth person. I don't know what else to say. Q. How has Connor Barwin been able to transition so well in his senior year from tight end to the defense? I know it's a general question, but how did the guy do it? JOE TRESEY: I think if you look at Connor, and I get this question a lot, the kid has a relentless motor. He really loves to play. He has a passion for the game, and I don't care where you play and what position you play, when you have that type of demeanor and that type of attitude, you're going to be successful. We could have put him at quarterback probably and had a chance to win a bunch of games with him. It's just the kind of kid he is. He loves to play. His demeanor is just go, man, go, and his motor is relentless, and he's a football player. Q. How much of the defensive end position did you have to teach him? How much did he really know how to play? JOE TRESEY: You know, he claims he played a few snaps in high school, but you know, his position and where we played him at, he's not over a tight end very often. He's basically on air. So there's a little less teaching as far as initial technique was concerned. You know, it was a progression. It was nice having him in the spring. Those 15 days were big for him. And then of course all summer those kids work out. They work on staying stars, they work on punching the sled, they work on fitting each other during the summer, and he just -- again, it comes down to it was so important to him to be successful and to want to be good that he was able to progress his learning curve because of his attitude, if that makes sense. Q. You guys have I think it was ten seniors and a junior starting on defense. Virginia Tech offense, thanks to a hiccup, they've got now two freshmen on the right side of the line, two freshmen receivers starting and a freshmen tailback and a true sophomore quarterback. Can you talk about the potential advantage in terms of experience there that you guys have in that match-up? JOE TRESEY: Well, there's no question the kids we're playing with, the ten seniors that we have, they've been through a lot of starts over the last two years. But, you know, hey, you've got to show up, you've got to play, and we're counting on our kids. They've been in a lot of wars, probably more wars than Virginia Tech has. You've got to hope that carries over when we get to this football game. But you know as well as I do, on any given night, you've got to be able to play at the top of your game, and we're going to have to do that to win this football game. Q. Think back, it's been almost ten years ago, and now you're here in the Orange Bowl. Did you ever figure that you might ever be in a position on this stage, you yourself professionally? Everybody hopes to, but it's a long ways. JOE TRESEY: I think if you talk to any football coach and he loves what he does and he's passionate about what he wants to do, and everybody has different paths in life and different goals, and I think when we set goals out, we try to achieve them, and a goal of mine was to always get to a BCS school and to be a coordinator, and I was able to do that, and here I am. I think if you put 100 coaches up here, 98 of them will answer that the same way. There might be one or two that would say, hey, I'm happy where I'm at, I'm a Division II guy, I'm a Division III guy, but for the most part I think we all get to this spot because we're driven. Q. Do you still check out what VMI is doing? JOE TRESEY: Absolutely. I've got a good friend that's the offensive coordinator there, Brent Davis, who I worked with at Georgia Southern, and I know Donny White is still the AD. Yeah, I check them out all the time. Cal McCombs is a great guy that I worked for. He's now a scout four the Broncos. He does Cincinnati. As a matter of fact, he was here probably a month ago. We had a long probably half hour chat just about the kids that we coached there. I'll tell you, these guys, we'd love to take them on a tour there, wouldn't we? They'd be like, wow, sleeping on wooden beds that you've got to put up against the wall, got to roll the mattress up every day. They'd be like, what? You're kidding me. But I'll tell you, it's a special place, and we had a great time there. In fact, Danny Cole is great friends with my son. Patrick and he went to middle school together, and they text all the time and they've talked over all these years, and his dad Jimmy I know well. It's going to be interesting. Q. One of the things that in the last week there's been some developments on Tech's offensive line, switching -- JOE TRESEY: With Marshman being in -- Q. Right, exactly, and they've put a kid in that has four snaps. I mean, obviously your veteran defense is going to have to try to exploit that I would think. JOE TRESEY: Well, yeah, we hope that we can create match-ups where that can happen. But you know, once the game starts, you've got to get a feel for it. You know, it's a funny thing, you never know, this kid may be lights-out. You don't know that until you get in the game and you get a feel of the game and you watch the game progress. But like all coaches, we have our plans. Q. You've had kind of an unusual collection of guys on your defense. You have a converted tight end, you have a former basketball player as a linebacker, you have a former walk-on middle linebacker, a transfer from Ohio State. How unusual of a collection is it, and how did you put all that together? JOE TRESEY: You know, it is quite unusual. And everybody says you have ten seniors, which we do, but if you go across the list, they almost didn't really start until this year as you know. Hoppel started last year as a junior finally. Terrill of course has been playing forever. Connor didn't play any defense for us. That's our front four. And then our linebacker group, Torry Cornett was a scholarship basketball player out of high school, went to Prairie View in Texas, and ended up coming back to UC because he plays with DeAngelo Smith and walked on to play football. He's now a starter. Manalac is a walk-on who started last year as a junior finally. Corey Smith is a veteran. So Corey and Terrill Byrd and Mike Mickens are our three veterans. DeAngelo Smith is a two-year starter, and then Aaron Webster stepped in at rookie this year, and it's been a new experience for him. Then you have Cedric Tolbert who's been in and out, and then Underwood, of course, who's played safety and corner for us as a transfer from Ohio State. It's quite a collection, as you say. They've taken a lot of pride in themselves, especially walk-ons. When they're able to earn a scholarship and to start, they have a demeanor about them that they want challenged and they're going to climb and get to the top of the mountain. So we have four or five kids like that that have not been noticed that have just blended in with Corey Smith and Mickens and Terrill, and these guys really respect these kids because of -- they had to earn a walk-on. They didn't start until they were juniors. So there's a lot of respect for each other. And the Underwood kid, he was a local kid from Hamilton, so I think him being a local kid, he knew some of these kids playing against him in high school. I think it was kind of easy for him to come into the fold just because he was a local kid. Q. So is it easier to coach when you have that kind of mix? Is it easier to put that together or harder? JOE TRESEY: You know, I don't know. You just go out and you coach and you build relationships with your players, and you just hope it meshes. It meshes. Q. To what degree did you see this senior leadership take over in that Marshall and Rutgers game with the red-shirt freshmen starting? Was there kind of a desire to take as much pressure off of him as they could? JOE TRESEY: You know, it really happened, I think, in the Akron game. We had our backs against the wall against Akron, and that's when Tony Pike went down with a broken arm and we had to bring Zach Collaros in as a red-shirt freshman, and we made some key stops in the fourth quarter, especially on 4th and 1 on their 4 -- on our 4 going in. We made a couple big red zone stops, also. I think the Akron game you kind of saw it happen, and then because that game was so doggone close, I think they were up 17-15, we know going into Marshall now, we're playing with a red-shirt freshman because we lost Grutza, we lost Pike. So I think that second half of the Akron game and then going into Marshall and knowing that we had a red-shirt freshman quarterback, because once we got to Rutgers we knew what we were playing with. But it was that Akron game that I think really kind of made these kids say, hey, we may have to carry this thing for a while. Q. This wasn't always a very desirable program to be with I don't think. At what point did Cincinnati really pop up on your radar as a legitimate football school? JOE TRESEY: You know, I'm an Ohio guy, so it's kind of been an up-and-down -- they've kind of been an up-and-down program. But when Brian Kelly interviewed me at Central Michigan, he came back and he was extremely excited about the vision that the president and the athletic director had for the program since they'd been in the Big East -- I think it was their second or third year, and the facility was brand new. It was a beautiful facility, and he just felt there was a lot of upside to it, especially playing in a conference where you don't have a Conference Championship, which is a plus. And demographically, him having all that success in Michigan and being in the Midwest, he felt with the coaches he had on the staff and a few that he was planning on hiring that we could tie the Ohio and the Midwest -- the Michigan-Ohio-Indiana-Western PA, we could kind of tie that from a recruiting aspect and have a lot of success. He was very excited about it, and if he was excited about it, we were excited about it. Q. Has that happened? Are you able to compete with more of the schools in that area since you've been in the Big East? JOE TRESEY: I think winning takes care of that. I think when you win and you win a Big East Championship, I think a lot of kids become much more receptive to your program. We've just broken ground on a new practice facility. We're going to have a bubble, we're going to have a 100-yard field, a 60-yard field, and they're talking about staying expansion out, so they're doing a lot of things right now that really is showing that they are committed to being a BCS school. JASON ALPERT: Coach Tresey, thanks so much for your time. That concludes today's press conference schedule at the Marriott Harbor Beach. End of FastScripts |
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