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ROSE BOWL GAME PRESENTED BY VIZIO: OREGON v WISCONSINDecember 29, 2011Charlie PartridgePASADENA, CALIFORNIA Q. What is the benefit of having more than a week to prepare for this team? Is it a benefit? CHARLIE PARTRIDGE: Yeah, they're a tremendous challenge in not just their tempo, but the combination of plays and what they present. We've all commented on how challenging of a one‑week prep it would be. It really took us a week and a half to two weeks with practices spread out because of recruiting, it took us that much time to get our scout team up to a tempo that somewhat resembles what Oregon does. We've faced no huddle teams already this year. But Oregon, you give them all the credit in the world, they're a great football team, but they've got the fast no‑huddle down to an art. That to me has been as big an advantage as anything getting our scout team up to par, truly. Then talking to our kids about all the formations and things they do with window dressing, because they have a lot more window dressing than they do actual plays. A lot of the plays are similar, but they get you out of position. That's been a tremendous help for us, having the time to help our guys. Q. What are the challenges playing nickel? Obviously, they run it so well you've got to do something. CHARLIE PARTRIDGE: They're a spread offense. You do get a guy out there, out of the box in a coverage situation, and you can still get your safeties from behind involved in the run, help your nickel more removed away from the run support, but still involved. It is what it is. You've got a smaller guy, but with their speed, you have a more athletic guy in space. As we know, the spread offense is going to create one‑on‑one tackles in space. The more athletic guys you can put into position, the better you can actually feel. Q. With LaMichael James, what kind of problems does he present (Inaudible)? CHARLIE PARTRIDGE: He's as good as anybody in the country. We have the good fortune of having guys like Montee Ball on our roster, so we at least get the opportunity to tackle someone that is in his league. He's special. He's fast. He's got great vision. He's got great patience, which some guys with his kind of speed don't necessarily have that. He's really as good of a back as you'll see. We're going to need to swarm to the ball, because the reality is there is going to be a missed tackle here or there, and then that's where the next guy will have to show up to be more successful defensively. Q. Is the pace more difficult to prepare for? CHARLIE PARTRIDGE: I think it's a combination of both. That's where Coach Kelly is so good. You combine all the things they do and different formations they present. It's the combination of the two. The combination of the different pictures they show you with the tempo. If it were that tempo and, the picture were always the same, it would be fine. If they come up and present an unbalanced picture, then you have adjustments to do. So it's the combination of the two. Q. You look at the teams that have beaten them over the last couple of years, number one, they're good teams. But number two, Ohio State a couple years ago seemed so disciplined and the extra time gave them the chance to not fall for some of the stuff that other teams seem to fall for as they get off balance and out of alignment. They just seem to stay in the lanes. CHARLIE PARTRIDGE: I think that's part of it. I think you hit on the other thing too. You look at that game, we've studied the Ohio State game, and the LSU game. Those are three outstanding football teams, but there is truth to what you said as well. Those guys played very well on those days from a discipline standpoint. And the reality is, Oregon still put up good points, so it's a credit to those defenses, but still a credit to Oregon because they still put some points up against good defenses as well. Q. Do you feel like you have the underdog role? CHARLIE PARTRIDGE: I think we thrive in it. I really do. We have all the respect in the world for Oregon. We've always, since I've been at Wisconsin, we've always felt like we've had to prove ourselves, and I think we relish this role. I think we're excited to have this opportunity to play a great team like Oregon. Q. In the Rose Bowl you were the underdog, but your fans expected you to win because they didn't know how good TCU was. CHARLIE PARTRIDGE: Yeah, it was tough. We as coaches knew. We knew what we were going into. We knew that TCU was a great team, and they were one of two undefeated teams in college football. We knew the challenge they had a year ago, and the only difference this year is everybody else knows. Q. As a defensive guy, can you talk about this kind of challenge? Is it fun? CHARLIE PARTRIDGE: Oh, yeah. Q. As opposed to preparing for a team that plays a fullback and two tight ends, in terms of the challenge. CHARLIE PARTRIDGE: All of us in this business are competitors. With the first time you put the film on it's what we all feel as coaches. The butterflies at your stomach, because it is striking how quick their tempo is. Then the competitive part sinks in, and you do relish the challenge and you're thankful that you have the extra time also. Q. Do you think being a head coach and having no BCS win under his belt (Inaudible) or does it speak for itself? CHARLIE PARTRIDGE: You know what's been fun for me is I came in here on the 7‑6 year. So you look at the history of Coach B., of Bret. 12‑1 his first year. To 9‑4, to 7‑6, we all understand the world of college football. It's not Barry's team anymore and all of those things. To watch Bret grow as a head football coach, not from the sidelines, because I'm right there with him, but to be able to watch him grow and develop and quite honestly honor what barry built and come back to those roots of what Wisconsin is, has been a tremendous thing to see. We're going to do everything we can to win this game. It would obviously be a great achievement, and you'd love to have Coach B. Accomplish one of the things that Coach Alvarez accomplished and get a Rose Bowl Championship I couldn't be prouder of what he's done and the way he's developed. Hopefully all Badger fans nationwide feel the same because it's very real. Q. Do you think the record for the last four years speaks for itself? There is a lot of change going on in this program. Are you worried about the future and being able to keep this going? CHARLIE PARTRIDGE: I think the reality of college football right now is great players and great coaches, opportunities are going to come their way. Some of it might be, you know, of course we missed J.J. Watt this year, but look what he's doing in the NFL? He just found out he's a Pro Bowl alternate. You always get those questions every year. How are you going to replace, from my vantage point, how are you going to replace Brian Schofield? How are you going to replace such and such? How are you going to replace Dave Dorn? College football is what it is. Thankfully we go back to what we talked about before. Coach Bielema's development as a head coach puts him in better position to handle these things, and I have the utmost confidence in how he will handle it. Q. Have you talked to different guys to say, hey, how do you guys prepare for it? CHARLIE PARTRIDGE: Sure. You guys know the fraternity of college football is very tight. It's going to be the same thing. The fastest tempo you've seen. You have to prepare your guys to be able to not substitute in and out during the course of a drive, which is something that's very real. Those are the things that we share with each other. You're really going to decide your own philosophy in terms of schematics and those kind of things. It's more what you don't see on film, because there is a start and stop to the film, and all the things in between, you don't get to see and that's what you're really trying to help. Q. Mike said one of the things is he had the defense on the scout team have their backs turned. Have you done anything like that (Inaudible) or have you heard some whacky ways? CHARLIE PARTRIDGE: Lot of different things that guys have tried. From running play, and having a group of other players be aligned in formation and run over to get a line to them. We feel like we've settled on a good system of having multiple scouts involved getting to the next play as fast as we can. We feel we're averaging a good time from whistle to snap. That's really what we're trying to do. From the time the ball is whistled, how fast can we get the ball snapped? And we're at a good pace. Q. Can you describe the program (Inaudible)? CHARLIE PARTRIDGE: Yeah, he's such a special human being. From his experiences from when ‑‑ I think a lot of you heard the story when he couldn't read in third grade. His family life was as tough as it gets, to such a spiritual young man. You read interviews here at the end. A perfect example. His mom gave him the choice. Do you want me to come up for your senior game or do you want me to come up for graduation? Aaron Henry chooses graduation. He is just so grounded. Then all of those qualities bleed over into the field, and then you add in his ability and you have a special human being to have on your team. You can't put it into words. He'll be missed dearly all the way across. Q. How important is it to get to the ball carriers right away rather than relying on your secondary? These guys make a living off getting into the secondary. CHARLIE PARTRIDGE: To be honest with you, their scheme, the spread scheme presents where you have to be disciplined. All it is is modern day triple option. If you take Navy in their formation and spread them out and move guys around, it's not much different. Then you add in some bubble throws and things like that. So you're going to have to have a guy on dive. You're going to have to have a guy on quarterback. You're going to have to have a guy on pitch. The only difference is the dive is a zone re‑cutback. The quarterback is what it is and the pitch is actually a bubble out there. So it creates those things where it's a little less about that and more about you have to have every guy in the right place. Hopefully you have a guy or two up front‑‑ there is a phrase we talk about, change in the math. Everybody has to be in their spot, but if you have a guy that defeats the block and changes the math so it's not the way they drew it up on the white board, now you get the advantage on your side. So hopefully we can have some guys up front changing the math. Q. They've won games with an efficient run game. (Inaudible) because they dominate the run so well. CHARLIE PARTRIDGE: Yeah, 295 yards a game. You better believe it. Q. For lack of better words in the passing game, (Inaudible) what do they have? CHARLIE PARTRIDGE: Their tight ends are excellent. They've got several receivers, and really, they've made huge chunks in this green game, and a 41‑yard touchdown against Stanford. I think it was 15‑9 if memory serves me right. So it was not back breaking because it was early in the game. But you start to get a little separation. Little doubt bleeds into their minds and next thing you know the game could potentially get out of hand. So if you listen to Coach Kelly talk, a lot of their‑‑ I think they call it super sonic, we've read that. When their tempo shows it's when you've declared defensively what you're going to do. Chip Kelly is very Paul Johnson like. I refer to the Navy thing. He's going to see your thoughts and then he's going to go supersonic on you and try to take advantage of you there. The throw game, he's going to play based on what you give him. It may be bubbles all day. He's a very good coach. Or he's going to go down field if you've overstacked the box. He's a good coach. He's an excellent coach. Q. One of the problems Stanford had is Stanford had 10% (Inaudible). How important is it to get some kind of field position? CHARLIE PARTRIDGE: Yeah, I think that our guys, we're taking condition quite honestly, cardiovascular standpoint to another level right now. I feel good about the shape that we'll be in where our offenses are great coaches, great players, hopefully they have success Saturday and Oregon has a great defense. Where it could help us is we know Oregon's going to have something new. They're going to have a new series of plays. Our offense can give us time early to get the adjustments to our players before we're saying get back on the field. That could help us as the course of the game moves on. Q. How confident are you guys now with all this prep time that you can be successful against the Oregon offense? CHARLIE PARTRIDGE: The bottom line is we have a tremendous amount of respect for Oregon. We feel that our scout team has done a great job. To give you a scale of 1 to 10 how confident we are, that's really hard to do. All we can do is tell you we have a tremendous amount of respect, and thankfully like I said earlier, we get our scout team up to a tempo that we need them to have to present the picture to us. That's helped and hopefully it will pay off on the second. Q. How challenging will it be (Inaudible)? CHARLIE PARTRIDGE: Really challenging. There are those games that are unique preps that you will actually ‑‑ when I've played against triple option teams‑‑ I know I keep referring to that, but they're unique in ways‑‑ what you have to do against a team like that, midseason you have to take time during two‑a‑days in camp and say this is an Oregon period. It's really the only chance. That way when you get to October, you have a reference point. That's what I think you have to do to give yourself a decent chance. Q. How do you simulate the speed? CHARLIE PARTRIDGE: The actual speed or speed of their plays? Q. Their actual speed. CHARLIE PARTRIDGE: You can't. You don't.  You put the fastest players in the best positions you can. You take a couple guys. We've all got guys that are tweeners, scout team guys where they could end up playing. You pull as many of those guys down to the scout team as you can to give you the best possible speed you can present. Q. What are you saying about the running backs over there? CHARLIE PARTRIDGE: Can't say enough about their perseverance, and quite honestly, their abilities. Chris came in and did a great job as a freshman and did some amazing things. But he was kind of turned loose a little bit. Now we move them to Mike linebacker, and that's where credit goes to him, as well as Dave Huxtable. Our linebacker coach, guys, is as good as there is in the country. Look at the jump those two guys made. You have to give credit to Dave as well. But their perseverance, their character, their constant work ethic. A lot of the kids with the things they've faced from the injury standpoint may or may not make it back. So it's a big testament to their character. Q. (Inaudible)? CHARLIE PARTRIDGE: Yeah, physically, he's good. We're doing some things combined with nickel and base personnel, and that's where it comes into play quite honestly. He's got a couple nagging end‑of‑season things, but nothing that's restricting him from being able to play. Q. Can you describe what you said before about how you guys have simulated not through actual speed, but the speed of the tempo? CHARLIE PARTRIDGE: We're just trying to get as many scout guys involved. We're not doing it every play. We're doing what we call supersonic periods. And at that point what we're doing is getting as many scout guys involved as we can and one group is getting the next play as the play is being run, and the scout offense comes back, the other one steps up to the ball. You don't have a full 11 on call, but you get as many on call for the next play as you can. Our goal is to get from the whistle to the snap to reduce that time down to as short a time as we can.  We've been anywhere from the 7 to 9 second range, so it's been very fast. And thankfully we've had the time to get all of that organized. It's a massive operation to be able to get that done and get true plays executed. Q. How much did that loss last season stick with you? CHARLIE PARTRIDGE: The TCU loss? It's still with us. I promise you. It is very much so. Q. In what way? CHARLIE PARTRIDGE: I just think that history means a lot to our kids, a lot. They're very cognizant of what Coach Alvarez accomplished here in Pasadena, and it meant a lot to them. Not to prove anything to Coach Alvarez, but to honor him. It was on the heels of him getting inducted into the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame. Our kids are aware of that. I don't know how many places that's an accurate statement. It meant a lot to them. Yeah, it's still with us all. Q. If things don't work out this time, do you think the perception of this season and the way you got here again will be seen? CHARLIE PARTRIDGE: The perception of the season, initially maybe from outsiders all competitors are disappointed when things don't go your way. We all understand that. But the bottom line is there is a heck of a legacy right now for the group that's been here the last few years. Couple Big Ten titles in a row, one of them outright, the other one shared. There is a lot to be very proud of. But I will say that we are here to do everything we can to try and win against an outstanding football team that could be right in the middle of the National Championship hunt as well. Q. (Inaudible)? CHARLIE PARTRIDGE: That's funny. That's a pretty mature statement. The wins are very quick celebrations, and the losses are gut wrenching. That is the reality of the world that we live in. I think if you don't get the reward of each day, I mean this experience for me right now sitting where I am this exact second is special to me. If you don't take a breath and look around, then you can get lost in what Mike said. I hope these guys are embracing what we're experiencing as well. Q. Really, physically and emotionally Chris was saying that Mike was the same way (Inaudible). Are they as good as they were? CHARLIE PARTRIDGE: I think they are. Honestly, I think they're better. They're better football players now. So they look every bit as fast if not faster because they see their keys quicker. And the job that Coach Huxtable has done with them speaks for itself. Coach Hux is a pretty special coach. You know what I mean? Proud of him, proud of those guys. It's been fun to see them grow. Q. You guys have been in a National Championship. Is there any frustration left over from those two plays? CHARLIE PARTRIDGE: I don't know if you can call any play a fluke. There are things that were not executed as well. There were those plays that we were very honest about ourselves and very real about that. Gut wrenching losses are hard to get over. But the thing about us and what's allowed us to get back to Pasadena is right now I'm doing everything I can to answer your guys' questions the best I can. And I think you understand my point. When I leave here at 10:15, I'm going to do everything I can to have the best punt meeting that I can, followed by the best D‑line meeting. We really, as coaches and players do everything we can to take things one at a time. If we let that linger, we have no chance of beating Oregon. Q. Do you feel confident if it's a close game and they're driving that your guys will be confident and not have that in the back of their mind? CHARLIE PARTRIDGE: Like anything that goes poorly, that doesn't go your way, you have to learn from it and make adjustments. Our kids have been great at adjustments this year. You look at our stats. Third quarter is where we've been best. There is a testament to that. And we've made adjustments through the course of the year that have gotten us better. So if we get that opportunity again, hopefully we prove that we're better. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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