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ROSE BOWL GAME PRESENTED BY VIZIO: OREGON v WISCONSINDecember 29, 2011Patrick ButrymAntonio FenelusAaron HenryPASADENA, CALIFORNIA THE MODERATOR: Final session of the day, we'd like to welcome defensive tackle Pat Butrym, safety Aaron Henry, and cornerback Antonio Fenelus. Q. Patrick, talk about Oregon's offensive tempo and what you look for during the game because at any given moment they'll step on the gas and just pick up the pace and all of a sudden sort of try to catch the defense off guard. PAT BUTRYM: I guess when that happens, you'll hear their quarterback and offensive linemen start screaming, let's go, let's go, let's go. That's when you check to the sideline and tell them to get us the call a little faster and get lined up a little faster. Q. Aaron, are you the type of guy when you sleep at night that you think about plays in confidence, or are you more motivated by fear and you have nightmares about the opposing offense? AARON HENRY: I think for me personally, my head coach, he always talks about visualizing going out there and having success, and I think for me, especially in a game like this with this caliber, being in the Rose Bowl and playing in the granddaddy of them all, I'm one of those guys, every night I lay my head down, I'm thinking about going out there and making plays, I'm thinking about how can I put my team in a better position to go out there and be successful, something that we wasn't last year, you know. And losing last year's game, I mean, it has gave us that much more juice and pump to go out there and do something that we didn't do a year ago. So for me, man, every time I lay down, I'm just anxious and excited to go out there and make plays. Q. For all three of you guys, getting back to the tempo, are you guys confident that you can keep up with Oregon's tempo, that you're in good enough shape, and have you been doing anything in practice, anything different in practice to help deal with the tempo? ANTONIO FENELUS: You know, this week and prior to the beginning of Bowl prep Coach Ash has done a good job of having the scout team do hurry‑up tempo and make sure we're ready to go. We've been doing that all week, so I think we're going to be pretty good on that part. PAT BUTRYM: I think we've been pretty efficient. The way that they're running the scout team offense, you have probably four coaches running each different position group and telling them what to do, and they've been snapping the ball in six, seven, eight seconds, which sounds pretty ridiculous, but they've making it happen. So I think that's the best possible way that we can prepare. Q. Patrick and Aaron, it seems that most of the talk is about the offenses and this is going to be a shootout. That's what you hear and see written. As defensive players how does that make you feel? Do you resent it? It makes you angry, makes you motivated? How do you react when you hear that maybe just one defensive stop is all that's going to be the difference in this game? AARON HENRY: Well, I think for me personally when I go out there and hear something like that, I think it gives us that much more motivation. People aren't talking about us before the game, but hopefully when the game is over, they're talking about us in a positive manner when the game does end, you know, and I think this is a great challenge for our defense. We're considered to be a slow team, a team that can't really run too well, and so I think this is a great opportunity for us to go out there and silence all of those critics and just go out there and play football. At the end of the day it's going to boil down to tackling in open field and making turnovers. I think as a defense if we can go out there and do that, we can put ourselves in a great position to go out there and win. Q. Aaron and Patrick, you talked about last year's game against TCU. Any similarities in pace between maybe Oregon and TCU, and did you learn anything from last year's game that you can take into this game? PAT BUTRYM: I don't think there's any similarities in pace. Oregon really moves faster than anyone that I've ever seen. But as far as the experience goes, I think we've learned from it last year, taking the most out of it, and I think this year we have so much more urgency in our approach, which is important, I think, after the game. AARON HENRY: I know for me personally one thing that I did learn, being that I had a dropped interception in that game, a turnover can definitely change the dynamic of the game. A turnover can put your offense in a great position to go out there and score a touchdown, and who knows, you know what I'm saying. If we can capitalize on Oregon's mistakes and generate some turnovers, it'll be a good day. Q. Aaron, can you just kind of go back to where you were after that game last year, and I remember you kind of‑‑ some very emotional words saying that you would not let this happen again. Can you kind of talk about maybe how that has motivated you to come back this year and get back to this point? AARON HENRY: Well, from the time the game ended, believe it or not, you know, I just had this‑‑ I mean, this fire and desire to want to get back here, not only for myself but for my teammates. Yeah, we had a great time, but walking off of that field and being devastated, you know, being that we were so close, but we missed it, I mean, I wanted to push myself during the off‑season and get back here, and I'm sure the guys did, as well. I wanted to take it upon myself to make sure that we did have that same opportunity this year. And going into this year, man, we did a great job in preparing for all of our games. I was just‑‑ to go that far and go through the season that we went through and to fall short by two points, I mean, it was heartbreaking. But I think this year with a chance to go out there and make right all of those wrongs that we had last year, it's going to be something special. Q. Antonio and Patrick, some of your teammates have talked about the leadership that your team showed after going through back‑to‑back losses and the fashion that you lost those games earlier this season. Can you guys speak to what that was like on the defensive side of the ball and what that was like and how you kept the train on the tracks? ANTONIO FENELUS: I think I talked a lot with Aaron going through those two losses, and we knew we had to get our team back on the map. Coach Ash tells us all the time in the secondary it's going to come down to us. If they break out from the line of scrimmage you know it's up to the secondary to knock the ball down. And being that those Michigan State and Ohio State losses came off that last‑second passes, we knew we didn't want to put ourselves in those positions again. Every Thursday Coach Ash will have us doing Hail Mary drills where we knock the ball down and make sure we didn't give the receivers a chance to get the ball. It was all about finishing, not just playing for the first, the second quarter, playing four quarters. So that's what we did the rest of the season. PAT BUTRYM: And coming out of‑‑ facing that adversity mid season, especially in the fashion that we lost, it was difficult, but we knew our season could be salvaged. We could have went in the opposite direction and just kind of considered it a lost season, but we didn't. Definitely got some help from other teams in the Big Ten, made it to the Big Ten Championship game and now we're here. Q. For Patrick and Aaron, do you guys have any strategy going into today's Beef Bowl? PAT BUTRYM: I'm just going to eat. I'm not planning on trying to beat anybody. I'll stop when I'm full. AARON HENRY: Me personally, man, I'm not really a big fan of the meat that they serve. I'm more of a chicken guy. Growing up in South Florida I'm a chicken guy. I'm going to eat the food, of course; it's free. (Laughter.) Q. Patrick, I was going the same direction with this, Travis put down six plates last year from what I understand. Anybody on the defensive side of the ball that's going for the record or is he the odds‑on favorite tonight? PAT BUTRYM: No, we've got to be light for this one. How fast they move, I don't think we can afford to eat six, seven plates of meat. Q. Aaron, another non‑football related question. Last year at this press conference someone asked if you'd seen any celebrities out here in LA and I think you saw Meagan Good, the actress. Have you seen her again? Have you seen anybody else? AARON HENRY: I kind of knew that was coming. We did see a couple of celebrities this year, man. We saw Wiz Khalifa, Amber Rose. But I think when I seen them last year, last year, and seeing Meagan Good, I was so in awe. She is a beautiful woman, but I was so in awe that I seen her, it was kind of overwhelming. But this year I felt like, okay, I see the celebrities, and now I hope they kind of see me. So it was definitely great seeing them, but I think the first time was that much more special, you know. Q. Picking up on the celebrity scene, your offense, you've got Wilson and Ball who get a lot of headlines and national attention. There's even something called the no‑name type defense. Do you relish that, take pride in that? Do you guys see yourselves as celebrity stars on the defense of this group? ANTONIO FENELUS: You know, Coach Ash always talked to us about that, especially before big games. He said they talk a lot about our offense but they don't know much about our defense. But that's what we go out there to do every game. You know, we held teams to 17 or less points, and the offense was able to put up 45 points. I mean, we don't have to be talked about. We know that we were a part of that, as well. Q. Aaron and Patrick, could you guys just talk about legacy and Rose Bowl legacy at the University of Wisconsin? Peter Konz said yesterday it was so important to him to walk off as a Rose Bowl champion and be part of something special for the state of Wisconsin. Have you guys thought about that, leaving your mark on this program? PAT BUTRYM: I think the parallel, the heights that have only been done once in the program or the history of the program. To leave a legacy like that, to win a Rose Bowl, back‑to‑back Big Ten champions. I remember growing up, that's what I was familiar with as a kid was the '94 Rose Bowl, the '99 and 2000 Rose Bowl, and now to be a part of this, and some kid watching in Wisconsin will one day grow up and play here and talk about our teams, and to leave a legacy like that would be very special. AARON HENRY: He definitely hit it on the head. I think Coach Alvarez did a tremendous job in kind of setting the stage for us. He went out there and won three, and unfortunately Coach B got his first one last year and we didn't win it. Now going out as seniors, I think it is our job and our duty to go out there and get the job done this year. As Pat said, Wisconsin is a crazy, crazy state of football. People love football down there. I mean, growing up in Wisconsin, being that kid that watches this game, if we can bring home a Rose Bowl and be champions, it's going to be vital to our legacy. Q. Going back to the Beef Bowl, did you see the news last night about offensive lineman Mark Asper doing the Heimlich on a choking man last night? Do any of you, being the protectors on the defense, have any ideas about that or any thoughts about that and what happened? ANTONIO FENELUS: You mean to tell me somebody saved somebody else last night? Q. You didn't see that? ANTONIO FENELUS: I had no idea. I think I heard he was a boy scout. PAT BUTRYM: Eagle scout. ANTONIO FENELUS:  Eagle scout, my fault. But I think that's incredible. I don't know if any one of our guys could do that if we were put in that position. But I think that that's why we all have phones, to dial 911, get some help out there. We have a lot of media around. Somebody will make it work. Q. Just wondering if you guys have seen the new Oregon helmet or anything, and if you're worried about maybe the sun reflecting into your eyes during plays when you're trying to make a play on the ball. Have you seen those new shiny helmets? PAT BUTRYM: Yeah. AARON HENRY: Me personally, no, man. I mean, I think it's going to be‑‑ I think it gives us a better target, you know. It gives us the ability to see them a little better and go out there and make tackles or have the opportunity to make plays on the ball. A lot of our guys, to get rid of the reflection, a lot of our guys wear eye black, so I don't think we're going to have that problem. Q. Patrick, last year it seemed like there was much more time between your final game and the Bowl game. This year obviously because of the Big Ten Championship game, has it seemed different for you? PAT BUTRYM: I think it was valuable to play an extra game and just to get the experience and to get better with one extra opportunity. That just minimizes the window of time, and then the time off in between your last game and your Bowl game. We both have that this year, which will probably be valuable, instead of the old Big Ten schedule when you were done before Thanksgiving. You'd have six weeks off leading up to your January 1st Bowl game. That will definitely help, but I think we're both on an even field when it comes to that this year. Q. Patrick, you sounded I don't know if bitter is the right word, but just about the helmet two seconds ago when you were asked about it. What do you think about Oregon's jerseys and all their flash and all the new jerseys that they get for every game? PAT BUTRYM: I think Nike does a good job uniforming them. I think their uniforms are awesome, but I'm really not worried about it. I think we'll have cool jerseys, too. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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