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PACIFIC-12 CONFERENCE MEDIA DAYJuly 24, 2012Jake FischerRich RodriguezMatt ScottUNIVERSAL CITY, CALIFORNIA COACH RODRIGUEZ: It's great to be here representing the University of Arizona, particularly speaking on behalf of the new coaching staff and I, we're excited to be part of the U of A, excited to be part of the Pac‑12, exciting times for us, excited to be working with our guys and it's an exciting time for the Pac‑12 as many of you know. The coaches in the league are some of the best in the country, some of the best players in the country. I think the league has done a fantastic job of raising the profile of Pac‑12 and we'll see that over the next several years and I've been appreciative of the U of A folks that have welcomed myself, my family and all the coaches and their families to Tucson. Q. Rich, do you believe your offensive scheme will fit better in the Pac‑12 than it did at Michigan for you? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Of course I'm biased, I think it can fit anywhere, and I think schemes are sometimes overrated from the standpoint of does a scheme win you ballgames or lose you ballgames, I think you have to have good players executing and I think what we do is a good fit in this league and I think it does, but I think it's a good fit in any league. All of my experience and before somebody asks the question all of my experiences in coaching is Michigan and West Virginia, Clemson, all the places I've been I think I've tried to learn from offensively them and learn from the good and the bad. I think the coaching staff is the same way. I want our players to get better every year and learn from everything they do and I think the coaching staff and myself included have tried to do that as well. Going forward spending the past year in TV, thoroughly enjoyed that, it was a great experience but I'm ready to get back on the sidelines. Q. Coach, what influenced you to join the Pac‑12 coming from the Big 10? COACH RODRIGUEZ: I think for myself it was a great opportunity and I wanted to get back on the sidelines, but I didn't want to just jump into anyplace, I wanted to jump into someplace that I thought could be special and you could build a championship program, raise your family and have a great environment to be there and I think all of that was met at the U of A. I've known the athletic director for years and the first time I visited Tucson was the day of my press conference, and I have known Mike Stoops for quite sometime and Greg did a great job of complaining it and everything we have going on with our new football facility that's going to be done next year, I think the players are hungry, the town is hungry, the University and hungry for success and we have been close before, one guy who reached out to me earlier was Dick Toepman and he did a great job in the 90s and he was close and I think the facilities other things may have kept him from getting over the top but now we have that and I think we have to do our job as coaches and the players have to do their jobs and I think it's going to be great to compete for championships each and every year and we can do that at U of A. Q. Coach, we have a couple of questions for you. We have been collecting these from Facebook and Twitter for the fans. What is the one change you have made within the Arizona football program that will be the most noticeable for the fans? COACH RODRIGUEZ: Gosh, anytime a new coaching staff comes in there is going to be transitional changes that the players will learn and the staff will learn as well. I think maybe the biggest difference is how fast we like to play and there is a lot of success here and with teams throughout the country, we like to prize ourselves in that and we have been doing it for a long time in the system. So it's really the only way we know how to coach for the past 20 years and we talked at spring practice that our tempo has picked up a little bit, we're trying to play faster and I think also I would like to think our fans that watch our teams each and every Saturday they will see guys that play as hard as they can on each and every snap. Conditioning is a big part of what we talk about and try to do each and every day. Q. Coach, from Twitter, looking back on the Arizona quarterbacks, like (Indiscernible). It was hard for them to shine, how with you step up and make yourself known nationally? MATT SCOTT: A big part of the quarterback position is being prepared mentally and physically, like Coach talking about we have been doing condition and go getting in shape, my endurance has gotten better and, you know, I'm excited for the opportunity and can't wait to get started. Q. Coach, as a person who has coached against Penn State I was curious what you felt about the sanctions that were announced yesterday. The first time a school has received that kind of punishment for criminal behavior from NCAA. Do you think the sanctions were fair, and what lessons do you think other schools could learn from the wrongdoings of Penn State? COACH RODRIGUEZ: I think anybody involved in intercollegiate athletics and beyond that has looked at that case ask tried to learn and I think Penn State is trying to go through that now there is no question, when you get hit with a scholarship production and the loss of the bowls and the monetary fine it's going to be tough for that school to recover but nothing nearly as tough as what those victims went through. As tough as the situation is, they will recover. It may take time, but they've got a great coaching staff, a terrific university, and terrific program around them, I've been there many times. They will be able to rally, will it take some years after that hit? Probably will, but at the same time I think there is a lot of lessons to be learned and I think the lessons go beyond athletics and it's more than an athletic issue, and hopefully everybody can learn from that and be better going forward. Q. Matt, what was last year like for you and what was that process like just going through the whole red shirt process? MATT SCOTT: It was a humbling experience for me, in high school you come out to college as that guy that has always started and it was tough for me to sit on the sideline and I felt like I wasn't contributing to the team's success, the little success we had, I was hungry, and I never want to be in that position again. COACH RODRIGUEZ: Best decision the coaching staff made, red shirt Matt Scott last year. We're happy he's here with us. MATT SCOTT: Thanks, Coach. Q. Coach, you have talked about the importance of the conditioning with your offense especially, what has the staff done to prepare these guys going into the season and Jake if you can talk about what the players have done to implement what the staff has done. JAKE FISCHER: There is a new attitude surrounding the football program, everyone is working as hard as I've seen them work, the work ethic of the coaches and everyone is giving it their all and I believe it's going to show itself. COACH RODRIGUEZ: I will speak on behalf of the coaches. We will make it clear, Coach Stoops and his staff have terrific coaches and they have a lot of experienced coaches on that staff and they work with kids very hard. What we do is simply different. What we ask our players to do from a conditioning standpoint is different and no matter what coaching staff was here before us and they had a very good coaching staff before I got there, it was going to be different because of what we require our players to do in our system, whether it's offense, defense, special teams, we do things differently. So the conditioning level has to be created and our players have to make a commitment to it and if you ask our players when it was evident we weren't going to be in a bowl game last year, toward the end of October, November, even though they played hard in the games during the season, they probably didn't train like an elite athlete is supposed to train over Novemberand Decemberand I hope it was a lesson that our guys learned and elite athletes which I consider Division I football players to be, you never take more than two weeks off if you want to excel at the highest level and hopefully our players learned from that lesson and they can be better going forward. Q. Jake, having played against Oregon's spread option over the past few years, can you compare and contrast to the offense that Coach is installing? JAKE FISCHER: Every offense felt like we were playing against Oregon. They go very fast, they try to get in as many snaps as possible and you're running back to the huddle, and they're snapping the ball. You've got to think on your feet, and you've got to be quick with, you know, the judgment and everything and I believe that's going to get us prepared to play Oregon. There are so many similarities and everything, so it's going to be good preparation and also it's just the speed of it getting you thinking on your feet a little more and you're able to conjure things in your head a lot faster and it's great preparation for the season. Q. Jake, talk about the 3‑3‑5 defense and what you have learned from it so far. How is that unique in terms of stopping the spread as prevalent as that is, especially in the Pac‑12. JAKE FISCHER: At first you think it's a little different. But I mean all defenses are basically the same, we have more ways to dial in blitzes, we don't have a fourth down lineman so you've got to go downhill extremely hard. Stopping the spread it's hard to do that, but I mean, any defense really can‑‑ you can low down these teams but I don't think you can stop them. We're going to run the ball and play as hard as we can and hopefully it turns out in our favor. Q. Matt, what's it like for you to be able to run the spread offense again a system in which you thrived on in high school? MATT SCOTT: It's like a dream come true. Had a lot of fun with this offense in high school, put up big numbers and ready to do the same here. Q. Rich, is Jonathan McKnight ready to go and is Matt as much of a running option as you would like him to be? COACH RODRIGUEZ: I'll answer the last question first. Matt can run, he can throw, obviously, and Matt is a very competitive guy. Will we run him as much as other guys in the past, I don't know. I hope we don't have to. We will do what it takes to win ballgames and I know Matt is willing to do that. We will protect him more because he's the only guy that has experience and at the same time we've got to run our system and Matt has to be smart about it when certain hits are coming at him, I don't know if he will slide but he will do what he needs to do. We've got to let Matt be Matt and run our system. What was the first question? Oh, McKnight, I'm starting to age! Jonathan went through full spring and we will probably limit him a little bit from contact but he should be good to go Septemberfirst in our opening game against Toledo. Q. A lot of people criticize the system that it doesn't prepare a quarterback for the NFL, what is your comment about that? COACH RODRIGUEZ: I always find that comical because people use it against you in recruit that go they want to play the "pro‑style offense" and the last I watched the NFL games 90% of the time they're in the shotgun. My quarterback is learning how to go under center and do a three‑step drop, my son Rhett here, he learned at 9 years old how to do a three‑step drop, he's 14. I think college quarterbacks, particularly guys coming out of the spread are more prepared in a lot of ways than the so‑called pro quarterbacks, because in a spread offense they learn to get rid of the ball quickly, they have to see the whole field and they learn offense. If you look at who is having success, Cam Newton had great success, and quarterbacks are drafted because they can play not because of what system you come out of, and Drew and Tom Brady and Peyton Manning are all doing well, maybe the new pro style is the spread maybe that should be considered the style now and the other isn't. If you can play you can play, Matt Barkley is a tremendous player and he can play regardless of what system you're going to be in. Q. Jake, with the loss of Brian Wagner this summer how has the line backing core adapted to that and what are the challenges you guys are facing with the fitness issues on the roster? JAKE FISCHER: Him leaving, we were disappear pointed in that, but, you know, it's going to be hard to replace that because he was such a smart player and he can play. At that middle linebacker position you need somebody who is smart and capable of directing plays and directing the "D" line and where people need to go. We have a lot of young guys hungry to learn and hungry to play and they're in there watching film all the time. I like what we've got now, they just need to step up. A couple of freshmen last year who had to step in and play the role and they have good experience and we're looking forward to them doing big things. Q. Coach, looking forward to carrying your game nationally September8th against Oklahoma state. How important are those match‑ups like that to make the case for Pac‑12 prestige? COACH RODRIGUEZ: I think our league is making the case already but this year and the next several years there are a the lot of intersectional match‑ups against other big schools and big leagues and I think our league will do very well in those. They have done well but I think‑‑ not just the new TV deals and the exposure our league is getting going forward, but I think the success of our teams that they are going to have in those match‑ups will bode well for our national respect. I think our league has been very good but not as highlighted and featured, because only one league has won the national championship for the last six years. You're going to see going forward more than just three or four teams in our league finishing in the top‑25.  I don't know where we're at yet and we have to do our part but our game against Oklahoma State, other teams are playing Ohio State and LSU, and that's going to be exciting and go it's going to show the talent and the ability of our programs in the Pac‑12 this year and going forward. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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