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INSIGHT BOWL: MINNESOTA v KANSAS

December 30, 2008

TEMPE, ARIZONA

THE MODERATOR: We have been joined with head coach Mark Mangino from Kansas and Todd Reesing and Darrell Stuckey.
COACH MANGINO: Well, first of all, thank you very much to the Insight committee for inviting us to participate in this game. We consider it an honor and we are going to come down here and play really hard and really well. That's something that our players always do.
The hospitality has been great here. Just so many wonderful people. Every time you turn around there is somebody here to wait on you hand and foot. They kind of spoil you. I hate to go back to Kansas. Actually have to do things for yourself when you get back there.
But we're looking forward to the Bowl game with Minnesota. Minnesota is a very good football team, doing some wonderful things there under Tim Brewster. We feel good about our program. We have participated this year against some of the best teams in America. And we are proud of it. We are proud to be a member of the Big 12 conference. We are biased, but we think the Big 12 conference is the best conference in America for football.
You just look at the rankings and three-way tie in the South. I'm not a proponent of the play-off system, but if I was -- and there was a play-off, there is a pretty good chance that maybe Oklahoma and Texas would be playing for a national championship out of our league.
But we're looking forward to playing Minnesota. They have some fine players, they do some great things on the defensive side of the ball and the offensive side of the ball. They have an exciting receiver that can play in any league. The quarterback is a big, strong guy that will throw but actually has the size to run the ball and he is real a big guy. He looks like a linebacker playing quarterback.
But our players are well-prepared. We've had a good week here and we look forward to it.

Q. Darrell, can you talk about what their offense brings to the table and what are some of the key things that you see that you guys are going to have to defend against?
DARRELL STUCKEY: First of all, any time you get as much time as they had to prepare for a Bowl game, you have to be ready for almost anything. They have a lot of great assets to their offense, starting with their quarterback who makes good decisions. He is one of those guys that will do all it takes to win the game. Then they have a pretty decent receiver core too and one player that makes a lot of plays and is a work horse for their offense.
Our defense is ready. You when they have had that much time to prepare for a Bowl game, you have to go in there with your eyes open.

Q. With this perspective on the Missouri game, can you give us some of your thoughts about what happened in that fourth quarter there and what that last game can do for you guys going ahead here?
TODD REESING: I think the big thing is coming out of that game we have a lot of confidence on offense. Any time you can end your season with a win like that, you have a lot of momentum going into the Bowl game. We use that to propel us into our practice and preparation.
We feel that we have a lot on the line in this game. We have a chance to get an eighth win and 20 in two seasons. We know what's at stake and kept in the back of our mind while we have been preparing for this game.

Q. Coach, when you watch their last game against Iowa, which was a real drubbing that they took, do you throw that out and look at the other games or is that beneficial to you at all?
COACH MANGINO: We've studied all the games they've played. You have to take from each game what you think is a strength or a weakness of theirs. You can't really worry about the body of the game, the whole game.
You look at it, and then you look at the pieces that may be relevant to our preparation.

Q. Todd, can you just talk about, Coach Warinner has talked about when you won the job two years ago it kind of tailored the offense to you and your strengths. Can you talk about the ways that you guys did that and just how that's played out over the last two years with somewhat success?
TODD REESING: Well, we did things a little bit different than things might have been done with Kerry. Obviously with my size and height, obviously I am not going to get under the center and do a lot of five-step drops because I wouldn't be able to see a whole lot.
We are doing the things I do well. Throw a lot of quick passes and get the ball on the outside and I can see better and move around and use my footwork to my advantage.
Mainly just working with things and trying different things out, if they don't work, then we toss them out and try something else. It is an ever-evolving offense. The spread ever since it started has been changing every week.
With the new things that defenses are doing, you have to continue to change and whoever can change the fastest and the most efficiently is going to win.

Q. Darrell, since that Iowa game, Minnesota hired a new running game coordinator and they have tweaked some things, so is it hard to prepare for a fast-moving offense that you don't see on film?
DARRELL STUCKEY: Not really, run games typically tend to be similar. They all go through the same gaps. It is one of those things that as a defense you got to be prepared to stop the run. If you can force a team to pass and play from behind, it is always the best opportunity you get.

Q. Todd, some of their defensive players said Coach Brewster has been comparing you to Brett Favre with your skills. What would you say to that?
TODD REESING: I don't know about that comparison. Any time someone is compared to someone like Brett Favre, one of the best, if not the best in the history of the game, all I can say is "wow."
But I don't know what to say to that. I guess it is a compliment of the highest level. So I guess thanks to him.

Q. Mark, can you take me back to that first phone call you and Ed Warinner had when you were looking at him to be the offensive coordinator and what were some of the main things you guys talked about when you came to a common ground about what you thought this offense could be and how much now, two years in, do you feel like you guys have gotten to where you thought you could.
COACH MANGINO: Well, Ed asked me if I was interested. He had called me and asked me if I would be interested in talking to him. Of course Ed did a very good job as the offensive line coach at our place prior to going to Illinois.
I said of course. I said this is the criteria. This is what I am looking for. First of all, I still believe that there were nuts and bolts, principles of our offense that we had that was good and we wanted to maintain it. We wanted to keep it.
But I wanted to go in a different direction in several areas, formation-wise, the way we actually throw the football and what our approach is to it. The run game, I didn't want to just get into just throwing the football. I still believe our offense is really at its best when we are able to establish some type of run game and it takes pressure off the pass game and we throw the ball very well. That doesn't happen all the time. Sometimes we have to depend on the pass.
I wanted an offense that would attack the entire field. And what I meant by the entire field, sideline to sideline and vertically. And there was certain ways I wanted to do it and primarily work out of the shotgun and be able to develop a good running game out of the shotgun because everybody knows in the spread offense that the whole -- the whole run game changes because the quarterback is not on their center. The running backs do not have momentum downhill when they are taking the handoffs.
So we have a little bit of extra spacing on our line which means you need to work extra hard on the time with combo blocks and second-level blocks.
But Ed had a background in that and I felt like I was comfortable with Ed. Ed is an intellectual. He is a smart guy. And the things that we weren't on the same page with, we could work it out and I felt good about hiring Ed back. He wanted to come back. He made it perfectly clear to me that he would have -- he missed being at Kansas. He enjoyed our program, our players. He felt our program was on the right track and he wanted to get back. So it worked out very well.

Q. What did you guys decide in the huddle?
COACH MANGINO: That was something I told Ed that was nonnegotiable. We were going to be a no-huddle offense. He was prepared for that. He understood the mechanics of having a no-huddle offense, the signal system, the little nuances to try to keep the defense from playing their hand last. It is kind of a stand-off. They are waiting for you to get your last play in so they can get their last defense in. But there are little nuances in there that they really don't know what is the final look to the bench and the final snap going to be.
That's not easy to do. You got to get the kids all on the same page and it takes a lot of repetition in practice and communication in practice. But it has worked out well.

Q. Coach, yesterday you told us Jake was under the weather with the flu. Do you have any comment on that today? Also, has the quarantine, as you called it, worked to keep it from spreading?
COACH MANGINO: It hasn't spread so far. We have some time before game time. But Murphy Grant has been working diligently to make sure that Jake is well-taken care of. We had him come down a little bit last night. They looked at him in the training room and got him out of his room a little bit. He will be around a little bit more today. We think he is over the hump. He just needs to get some energy back. As I said yesterday, he'll play. You would need a Bazooka to keep him out of Sun Devil Stadium tomorrow. He will be there.

Q. Coach talked a little bit about Big 12 pride. How much does that enter in? Obviously, you are looking to win a football game for yourselves. But in the bigger picture, do you think about conference affiliations and playing for the Big 12?
TODD REESING: Absolutely. I think any time you have a chance to play in your conference against another good conference, the Big Ten, and go out there and try to get a win in the Bowl games is big. Like Coach said, we think we play in the best conference in America. Any time you have a chance to go out there and prove that, the Bowl records are looked at and people analyze that kind of stuff. With the teams we played this year, we feel we want to go out and prove that. Just because we were 7-5, we might have been a lot better in other conferences just because of how we play.
DARRELL STUCKEY: When you play the games, you want to be the best at what you do. You have to play against the best teams. We believe we play against the best teams in the South and in the North.

Q. Darrell, can you talk about Decker a little bit and the fact that he is such a good wide receiver but also a very good baseball player. You played baseball growing up and I was wondering if you can put in perspective how hard it must be to be that talented at two sports at the Division I level and how he must obviously be really athletic and very good.
DARRELL STUCKEY: Coming from a football-baseball perspective, it is one of those things where if you can feel field a football, you can feel the pass coming over your shoulder. He is athletic and does a lot for his team. You got to keep coming after him. He will come after you.
As a defense, you have to stay on track and read your keys and contain the beast and not let him go anywhere you don't want him to go.

Q. Coach, with 30 days to play, does your game plan change any? Do you have any new tricks you pull out of the bag there for a Bowl game?
COACH MANGINO: Well, everybody has a different philosophy about how to handle the lay-off before a Bowl game. Ours has been -- it has been business-like. In the beginning we have had our young players in practice exclusively with them, try to get them better, prepare them for next season.
And then we got right into the game plan about five days out from the time we departed to Phoenix. And it was all Minnesota. Does everybody have a wrinkle or two for a Bowl game? Yes. Is that how we expect to win the game? No. We expect to win the game by lining up and playing fundamental football, good, hard-nosed football.
Tricks? Sometimes it works, sometimes they don't. We've run trick plays here. Sometimes they work. Sometimes they don't. But we don't rely on it. We rely on execution, playing very well.

Q. Todd, you mentioned -- you talked about last year winning the job over Kerry. Can you both please comment on Kerry Meier, his reaction to not winning the job last year I think helped define your team last year. His leadership, his play-making ability, I would be interested to hear what both of you think about Kerry, what he has done the last couple years since not winning the starting job.
TODD REESING: Well, I think Kerry's attitude really characterizes and sums up our team as a whole. His approach to last year after losing the job, he never let his head get down. He kept his chin up and did whatever was asked of him. That's the kind of guy he is.
He will never complain or whine about what he did or did not get. He is going to keep fighting and keep working. When he was asked to play receiver last year, I think he surprised everyone. Coming this year I think he blew away everybody's expectations. Breaking the record for season single catches, making huge catches, especially one against Missouri.
His play and his mind-set about being a team player and doing whatever asked of him sums up what we were looking for in this program, what Coach wants to have; guys that want to play for the team and not for themselves. And that's what Kerry is all about.
DARRELL STUCKEY: I agree a lot with what Todd said. He will go out there every day and give it the best he has regardless of how the shape his body is in. He will do whatever it takes to keep his team afloat.
Before every game he gives everybody on the team a high-five before the game starts while we are in the locker room. He will root on anyone in the team and put the body on the line for anybody on the team. I respect him as a player and friend.
We came in the same year together and we were both out there running our first day. And we were running side-by-side ahead of everybody else. We knew he would be a player that would work and do whatever it took. It is good to see a quarterback do that, but even better to see a quarterback that doesn't get the job still comes in and does whatever he can to help the team.

Q. You guys have obviously enjoyed a pretty good turnaround over the past six or so years and Minnesota is on pace for a similar turnaround. How gratifying is it to turn that corner after some early struggles from a coaching standpoint?
COACH MANGINO: The biggest joy that I get is seeing the players become confident, unselfish, happy, student-athletes. What I mean by that is winning the game, winning is important to us. We have never deviated from that thought. Winning is extremely important to us.
But watching these kids develop, become men, become confident guys, become good teammates, develop an unselfishness that usually equates into success has been a real joy for me. It real has. It truly has.
We have a lot of wonderful players on our team, talented guys, players that will leave a mark here in the history of Kansas football.
But we talked a minute ago -- you asked a question about Kerry Meier. I think -- Kerry Meier. I think in some ways, Kerry Meier, he is going to be remembered as a great football player here. I see him a little differently than everybody else does. I think when you talk about turning the program around here, he probably will be recognized as one of the most important people to be associated or to be a player at Kansas.
And what I mean by that is we took a highly recruited quarterback on the national scene as a high school player. He loses a very public competition for the quarterback position.
Nine out of ten guys are in the head coach's office the next day wanting to transfer. He didn't say a word. He showed up on the practice field the next day like he did the 30 days prior to it. The next day I talked to Ed Warinner and I said, Ed, I want to try something that's going to be a little controversial, a little risky, but he is too good an athlete to be standing next to me on game day. I would like to move Kerry to wide receiver, see if he is willing to do it.
Ed calls him in. He says whatever it takes to help the team. He goes out and he becomes not just an average receiver, a great receiver, one of the smartest guys on the team and all those other young players that are looking at him say, look at this guy, instead of pouting, instead of complaining about his spot in life, he had lemons, he made lemonade. If he can make a sacrifice like, that why can't I?
He has been a catalyst for us in our program for unselfishness. He not only is a talented player, he is a great human being. He will play on Sundays. He has done everything you can possibly ask in terms of sacrificing for this football program.
And I believe it was the middle of last season, one of guys, d -- one of you beat guys back in Kansas brought up the subject of him transferring. I think his answer was "I came here to be a Jayhawk, I'm always going to be a Jayhawk, I'm leaving here a Jayhawk." He squelched those manufactured rumors right in the press room.
That's because he was going to make it perfectly clear that he is not just like anybody else. He is not the run-of-the-mill -- run-of-the-mill student-athlete. He is a guy that is special because he has some class about him, some determination about him, but more importantly he is not selfish. He is more giving than he is taking.

Q. Coach, how much has Daymond Patterson improved in the last month?
DARRELL STUCKEY: Daymond is getting better. He has practiced well in the Bowl preparation. He is confident and feeling better. I like his progress. He is coming around.

Q. Just want to follow up on the question a couple of questions ago, Todd and Darrell, what does it mean to you guys and your teammates personally that people look at Kansas University football a lot differently now than they did in the past? And for Mark, how does this Bowl game fit into that reputation-building process?
COACH MANGINO: Well, it is another step. A lot of people get tired of hearing me say this, but the fact of the matter is, we're a work in progress. We haven't arrived. Believe me, we have to work at it every day and I think the fact that we've played a rugged schedule, that we're not complaining about it. As our players here said, you got to beat those teams. You got to beat the Texases and the Oklahomas and the Techs if you want to be the best in the Big 12. We understand that.
But the fact that back-to-back Bowls, four years of Bowl eligibility, we've brought respectability to Kansas' program.
Now, the next step is win a Bowl game and continue to build and climb and compete for championships.

Q. Question is for Todd and Darrell. I would imagine you guys get into a routine as the season goes, playing every week and doing the same types of things every day in practice leading up to those games. Then you get into a situation like this with a Bowl with a long lay-off. Does that throw off the routine a little bit? And a second part to that question, how nice is it to get back on the field tomorrow?
TODD REESING: Well, it is easy for people to get sidetracked when it gets to Bowl time because you have some time off at the end of the school year. You got to finish up finals.
It is easy to lose track of the game and kind of your focus. But unfortunately for us, Coach hasn't let that happened. He stays on us and let's us know exactly what is at hand and what we have to do. As soon as we finished up school, it was right back to football.
And that same routine we got back into, maybe not with class or the same practice time, but it was the same focus and we brought that same focus down here and we knew that's what it took to win the Orange Bowl last year. That's the reason we won. We prepared hard and knew what was at hand. We brought that same attitude down here to Phoenix because we are here to play and win a game. We are not here to have fun, although we have had a great time.
DARRELL STUCKEY: It is one of those things where you realize it is a long break, but being able to actually have finals week and focus on school and Coach makes sure we focus on school too. We are able to turn off the football caps and focus on education. It makes you eager, it makes you anxious and excited to get another game and it makes you able to channel your energy into trying to win a Bowl game. It gets you excited.
Since we have been down here, we are nothing but Minnesota and getting ready for a Bowl game. It is one of those things where we are anxious and excited to play in a Bowl game.

Q. Darrell, having played high-powered offenses like OU, Texas, Texas Tech, a lot of people are saying the Kansas defense may be susceptible to the pass. Do you guys as defensive backs take that as a challenge heading into the game?
DARRELL STUCKEY: Of course we do. We feel like as a secondary we played against the top quarterbacks in the nation. You understand that three of our quarterbacks we played against this year were up for the top quarterbacks -- and the Heisman.
It is one of those things we have to realize we did play against the best of the best and it is one of the things we do take it as a challenge. It is one of those things as secondaries we like challenges and playing against the best in the nation because it is a great benchmark to get better and let us know we are not as good as we can be.

Q. Todd, can you just assess the offense' performance this year, maybe compared to last year, where did you improve? Where did you digress? And can you just look at the potential that you guys have with so many skilled guys coming back next year?
TODD REESING: I think we improved a lot over the year. The running game was slow to get going. But as the year progressed and we started playing better defenses, our running game improved even more. Jake came on strong at the end of the year and started to perform a lot. And I think we have improved a lot in the pass game. From top to bottom as far as throwing a different combination of routes and really utilizing every body and seeing Kerry and Dezmon's progress they have made is unbelievable. I think they have improved in -- we have improved in a lot of areas.
We are far from a finished product. We have two young tackles that have worked hard and fought all year and they will keep getting up and getting after it. Coming into next year with having so many guys back at the receiver spot and Jake back and having those young guys attack with a year under their belts, we are looking for big things. I think we have a chance to be one of the top offenses out there.
That's a long way away. We are not worried about it now. I am looking forward to this last game and getting out there and slinging it around a little bit.

End of FastScripts

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