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BIG TEN CONFERENCE MEDIA DAYSAugust 2, 2010Bill LynchCHICAGO, ILLINOIS THE MODERATOR: Next up is Bill Lynch. COACH LYNCH: Like the other guys, excited to be here. And we're ready to go. In fact, our freshmen come in Wednesday, and the veterans come Thursday. So we'll be practicing by Friday. So it's that time of year. Coming off the season, we thought we made great strides. We certainly didn't from a win-loss record, but we learned how to compete, particularly on the road, and I told our guys in January when we got back together we were really 12 plays away from having an outstanding season and playing in a pretty good Bowl game. And I think that's been the motivation throughout the off-season. Our theme has been to finish, because we have so many games last year where we were competing and had the lead in the fourth quarter in the Big Ten and didn't finish the job. So that certainly has been our theme. And I think our guys have responded well. One of the things that you certainly try to develop in the off-season, whether it's the winter program, spring practice, when they're on their own in the summer, is that chemistry, the leadership and what goes on in that locker room. And I don't think any of us know that until we get back and get together. But I know talking with our older kids, they certainly feel good, and I think we've had a great off-season. One of the things that we've done in our program, we've redshirted a lot of kids. In fact, in the last three years we're only played six true freshmen. And as a result we've been able to get them in the weight room and develop them and certainly get them ready to play at the Big Ten level. And I think it's starting to show itself. As we get started we have a lot of experience in our team, guys that have played a lot of football. They may not have started. But fourth- and fifth-year guys that we certainly feel good about. I have to start on offense. Ben Chappell, our quarterback, and Ben is one of the players we brought with us. Ben is everything you're looking for in a quarterback. He's a fifth-year senior. Already graduated from our Kelley School of Business. Working on his master's in accounting. He's the leader of our football team, particularly from the offensive side. He had a good year last year, threw for a lot of yards, has a chance to break a lot of our records. But more importantly, I think he knows what it takes to win. And guys respond to him. We've got a very good receiving group to go with him, guys with experience. Tandon Doss and Demarlo Belcher, big numbers last year. And Terrance Turner, who's the fifth-year senior, another young man we brought with us here to Chicago, is the leader of the group in terms of what a great kid. He's an interesting story. He's a theater and drama major. He spends as much time acting as he does getting ready to play football. He's a very, very talented young man that goes along with Demarlo and Tandon. We've got a redshirt freshman by the name of Duwyce Wilson that was a really good football player in the state of Indiana. He was a state long jump champion when he came out. We redshirted him last year, and he's ready to step in. We had enough experience at receiver we were able to move two quality receivers over to the defensive side of the ball to help us there. So I think certainly Ben at quarterback and our receivers give us a chance to be a pretty good passing football team. Our tailback is Darius Willis, and if we can keep Darius healthy, we think we have somebody special. When he played last year, we were pretty good offensive football team. He battled some injuries. But hopefully he's healthy and ready to go, because he's what we think is an outstanding guy with eye, strength, speed, and the kind of kid you want carrying the football for you. We've got a good group of tight ends. Max Dedmond is the one with the most experience. He's kind of been -- done a little bit of everything for us in terms of he's played split-out. He's been kind of a move guy as well as a guy with his hand on the ground. But he's bigger, stronger, and I certainly think he'll be a factor for us offensively. Our offensive line we've got three seniors, three juniors, a good group of sophomores, and some redshirt freshmen. So many of them have started. Probably the key guys, James Brewer, is a starting offensive tackle that has a great future. We return our starting center in Will Matte, starting guards in Cody Faulkner and Justin Pagan. So a good group of experience there. On defense, I can't wait to watch this defense play. We lost some guys from a year ago. Guys that have played a lot of football. And I think we feel as a staff that what we've done redshirting and developing kids is going to show, because we've got a lot of guys that are maybe no-name guys to our fans, to the media, but ones that we've seen practice. Not only in spring ball but in the past couple of falls that didn't get the playing game because of the older guys that played ahead of them. But I think we're going to have a different style of defense, a different personality, and some new faces that I think are going to be important. I think for the first time in a long time at Indiana we can say the strength of our defense is our defensive tackles. We've worked hard to get to that point. Adam Replogle, Nick Sliger, Larry Black, and Mick Mentzer all played a great deal of football last year, are all back. In fact, they're all just sophomores, because we redshirted a big group of them. So I think that's the strength. We've got some kind of hybrid guys at defensive end which are different than what we've had in the past. Darius Johnson, Kevin Bush, who is a really interesting story. Kevin is 25 or 26 years old. He went to the service out of high school. He spent a couple of tours of duty in Iraq. Came back, always dreamed of playing football at Indiana. He's had an impact at our program since he walked on last fall. Our linebackers, we brought Tyler Replogle with us, which I think is what you're looking for in a middle linebacker, Big Ten. Fourth year as a senior. Played as a true freshman. He's got -- I mentioned his brother Adam Replogle, defensive tackle. We've got two Replogles that will be important on our defense. Brought in a junior college transfer, Jeff Thomas, that joined us in January that will be the other guy inside, along with Leon Beckum who's been a backup. So we've got good experience, all of them fourth-year guys, other than Jeff Thomas who came as junior college transfer. Our secondary is the area we've really worked hard on throughout the off-season. We felt like the last couple of years as the season went on, we ran into some depth problems that we didn't have with a few injuries that came about, maybe the personnel we needed. So we went out and recruited two junior college corners and moved two outstanding offensive receivers in Mitch Evans, who was really not only a receiver but kind of a wildcat quarterback last year, and Matt Ernest, a wide receiver who was playing behind Belcher and Doss and Turner, over to defense. So we've got four new faces there to go along with really some returning starters from a year ago in Richard Council and Adrian Burks. Chris Adkins is a safety that's played a lot of football, just as Donnell Jones. So there's a lot of competition in the secondary, which we felt we needed to be a better football team on defense but also to have the depth once we go throughout the course of a 12-game season. Special teams we got our punter and kicker back. Chris Hagerup was our punter the last few years, and Nick Freeland was our place kicker. He'll have competition from a young man by the name of Mitch Ewald that we redshirted. So all in all we feel like the personnel is in place. We've had great consistency and continuity with our staff. And, again, looking forward to getting going here and finishing the games that we didn't quite get the job done last year. But I think it's going to be a really good 2010 season. So, with that, open it up for questions. THE MODERATOR: Questions? Q. Share some of the dynamics on how much easier it is to recruit with the new student-athlete physical development in center and all the dynamics that the renovations have changed the stadium infrastructure? COACH LYNCH: Well, really, we feel like Memorial Stadium is a different place than it's been in the past. And those of you that came last year, if your team was playing in Bloomington, you saw it. And Fred Glass and his staff have done a tremendous job of continuing that. But it is a different facility on game day. We're getting a brand-new scoreboard. The top of the line that's going in. They're building it right now. It will be ready for the season. Just a lot of things. The game-day experience in Bloomington is different. And Fred and his staff have done a tremendous job there. What has been built inside the north end-zone facilities, we call it, has really changed, though, in how we've been able to work on a daily basis as well as our recruiting. We've got a 25,000-square-foot weight room to put us up with anybody in the country. We're completing 22,000-square-foot academic resource center, which is under the east side of the stadium. Obviously new offices, meeting rooms and all that. So it showed a great commitment to football at Indiana, which has paid off with our current players. But certainly in our recruiting, they've seen that kind of commitment. So we're very proud of that as we move forward. Q. You guys fought really hard throughout the season. They just came up just inches short a lot of times. Do you think that was because of depth issues? Did they get tired? Or they just weren't quite good enough? What do you need to get them over the top? COACH LYNCH: You know, that's why what we've talked to our guys about is learning how to finish. When you go back and look at it, I really mean that. We were about 12 plays away from playing in a really good bowl game. From a football standpoint it came down to third down and there were a couple of fourth down plays in there. But it was a conversion where we didn't get a first down. There were a couple of those games where it's third and fourth, third and five, if we convert and keep the football, it changes the game. On the other side it's third and fourth and third and five and we don't get a stop. And therefore we let them -- whoever it was make a play and go down and score and eventually win the game. There were a couple of goal line plays where we had a chance if not put the game away certainly make it very difficult on our opponent. And we didn't get it done. When you look back at it, it wasn't we weren't good enough, it wasn't we didn't have good enough players, it was a matter of we didn't make those plays. So that's why the emphasis throughout the off-season has been to finish and to execute. And we haven't let our guys make any excuses about what happened and certainly have looked forward -- it's a new opportunity as we go into this season. But it was one of those years and hopefully we're going to look back at it and realize it was a learning year that maybe we had to learn how to win. That's certainly how we feel as a staff. Q. Bill, with the receiving corps as talented as anyone in the Big Ten, how will you utilize all of these guys, have enough balls for all four of these guys? And speaking about Demarlo, has he reached a point maturity-wise, consistency-wise, where he's going to bring it on every single down? COACH LYNCH: That's a good question. And it's not a problem. It's an opportunity for us to figure out how to get the ball in all those guys' hands. They each bring something different. Tandon Doss, he's a talented guy once he gets the ball in his hands. We'll try to find different ways so that he can run after the catch, he'll also be our punt return guy and probably kickoff return. Demarlo is a big rangy guy that can get down the field. We played he and Tandon as true freshmen. We've only played six in three years. And they were -- one we didn't have the depth and they were ahead when they came in. Demarlo has really grown. He really has. He's matured and worked very hard in the off-season. Certainly looks like he's had a good summer. And I think they play off one another. I mentioned Terrance Turner. He probably doesn't have the numbers as some of the other guys, but he's a fifth-year senior. He's kind of the leader. The one thing they've got going is they really respect one another. And I think that's really important with wide receivers who all want the ball. It's not one of those, well, I'm better than he is; I ought to be getting the ball. They really do have great respect for one another. And they also have a lot of respect for this Duwyce Wilson who is coming on. I think it's going to be a pleasant problem. The other thing that's good is having a fifth-year senior quarterback in Ben Chappell; that when he talks, they listen. And that's much better than having a really good receiving corps with the freshman quarterback where they're all in his ear. They're not going to get in Ben's ear because he's in control of the situation and they know it. So it's a good question. But we certainly think it's an opportunity that all those guys are going to have a chance to make plays. Q. You mentioned being so close last year. Do you do more situationally with the things that you mentioned, third down, goal line, and preseason? COACH LYNCH: We really felt like we did a lot of it last year. We're going to keep hammering away. We spent more time in spring practice than ever in third down situations, particularly, a lot of red zone situations, goal line situations. And we really are -- like everybody, all the coaches here have basically mapped out our camp all the way up to probably game week to make sure that we get all that work in. And there's a heavy dose of particularly third down in red zone situations that we're going to work on throughout the preseason. THE MODERATOR: Thank you so much. End of FastScripts |
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