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ROSE BOWL GAME PRESENTED BY VIZIO: STANFORD v WISCONSINDecember 28, 2012Pep HamiltonPASADENA, CALIFORNIA Q. How is it to adjust into the starting role? PEP HAMILTON: I think it's helped him a lot. Like you said, just to have an opportunity to get those additional reps. I tell you, it's been amazing to watch his evolution and development over a short time. Just the one thing that I think is his best attribute is his poise. Nothing is too big for him. He's very much even keeled. You never get too high with the highs, or too low with the lows. That's allowed him to make some big plays in big games and lead the Stanford football team to victory. Q. Did he catch a break or was it easier for him after Andrew Luck because he was sort of the guy? And I feel bad for Josh because he was the first guy after Andrew. Did that maybe take some of the pressure off? PEP HAMILTON: I don't know that that really took any pressure off of him, because the bottom line was there was going to come a point in time where you had to make plays in big games. And Josh made a ton of big plays for us in the SC game, as well as the Arizona game. But I even ask myself at times, man, if we had the ability to run more boot legs or really open up the offense against a team like Notre Dame, would the result have been different? But Kevin, I think it was best case scenario for the young quarterback to sit back and watch Josh and get a sense of what our identity was as an offense before he became a starter, and understand how important it is for our quarterback to be able to manage the offense. Q. What are one of the thing that's struck you about Wisconsin's defense? PEP HAMILTON: Well, I tell you, they're a lot like our defense. They're tough. They're physical. They take the bend‑but‑don't‑break approach. But thank goodness they're more conservative schematically. That seems to be the overriding theme in Big Ten football, defensively, anyway. But they're sound. You're not going to catch guys out of position a whole bunch. They really force you to be patient with the play calling, and execute methodically getting the ball down the field, which is what we like to do. On base downs, there are not a lot of pressures. A lot of their pressures show up on third down. But even so, with that being said, it's a new regime in a sense, as far as the coaching staff. I have no clue of what the dynamics are like when you have a coaching staff that they don't have any accountability to the program. They all have their offices packed and they're probably recruiting for other schools in their free time and prepping for the bowl game. I can't imagine what that's like. I even called Husak here in the past couple of days and said, Todd, tell me about your game plan against Barry Alvarez back in 1999. And he said‑‑ I mean, just because there are some unknowns and I understand why. But for whatever reason the teams have a bye week. They're a little different. They come out and have a little more funk. They have a couple of pressures that we haven't seen. They have some extreme alignments to some of our extreme formations that we hadn't seen on film. So we'll be prepared for the worst‑case scenario. Q. So what did Todd tell you how to play against Barry? PEP HAMILTON: He said they were fast, physical, and played a lot of combo coverages. Not a lot of pressure, and they played extremely hard. And I said, well, that is a lot of same attributes that this unit had today. Q. Knowing that kind of conservative defense? PEP HAMILTON: Well, I think the University of Washington. They don't blitz a whole bunch. But they have guys up front that are physical enough to stop the run game without pressure, you know? And that's what you see with this Wisconsin group. They're big, they're strong. They have pretty good gap integrity. We're going to have to execute if we're going to be able to run the football successfully against these guys. Q. (Indiscernible)? PEP HAMILTON: Our guys will tell you that for us, we just look at jersey numbers. They're name less, faceless guys. But I would say that their inside linebacker, No. 44. He's very tough and active. He does a really good job of finding the football. No. 11, their backside defensive end is a really good player. He's a guy that we've got to count for in our pass protections. Their entire secondary, you've got a veteran group of guys that are really physical and active and they're ball hogs. They have a really good defensive unit. We're going to have our work cut out to get a first down against these guys. Q. (Indiscernible)? PEP HAMILTON: I think when your guy is responsible for one specific guy, and if you don't zone it up in a lot of cases it will create uncertainty and confusion in your protection schemes. But of course we spent quite a bit of time preparing for all the different looks and pressures and the different things that they've shown on film as well as some additional time preparing for some of the thing that's gave us problems over the course of the season. Because when you have a month to prepare for a game, you've got to believe they're going to go back and watch the entire season and then come up with things that they feel may give us problems. Q. You mentioned new wrinkles. Does that make adjustments important in a game like this? PEP HAMILTON: Well, I think so. I think our approach of not wasting plays, the check with me system helps us to deal with the unknowns. So that will be a big part of our game plan especially early in the game to see what their plan is for some of our different packages. Q. (Indiscernible)? PEP HAMILTON: My biggest challenge, replacing Andrew Luck. Yeah, I think it's working out pretty good though. Yeah, but I think realistically speaking though, replacing Andrew Luck was tough, but replacing David DeCastro and Jonathan Martin and Coby Fleener and those guys up front, it's always a lot tougher than just replacing the skill players but just thinking about being back in the green room. Andrew is on one side of the room. You have Coby on the other side. And David DeCastro and Jonathan Martin sitting by the phones, and all of those guys are offensive guys. So that was a tremendous challenge for us as an offensive staff to come up with a way to not screw it up for our defense early in the year until we found out who we were as an offense. Q. What did you change philosophically? PEP HAMILTON: I don't know that we changed much philosophically. But it took time for our guys to develop that continuity. But once they got grounded, we were able to run the football, and we felt good about being able to run the football. Q. Can you talk about the pressure that Josh faced when he came in and took over for Andrew? PEP HAMILTON: Well, I would imagine that he was under a ton of pressure, but it was my job to take some of the pressure off the quarterback position and allow our best player, our best offensive skill player, Stepfan Taylor to control games running the football. It almost backfired in our first game, because San Jose State, we had 13 third‑down situations, and we had 8 of those situations where we ran the football. I looked up late in the game, and it was a tie ballgame. We were able to make some plays at the end that ultimately gave us a chance to win that game. For any young quarterback, replacing a legend, you're going to have to deal with the pressure of the expectations. Q. (Indiscernible)? PEP HAMILTON: A lot. Absolutely a lot. We're a run‑first team. I feel like and I think about it all the time that I probably caused Andrew Luck the Heisman when it's all said and done, just because it's important for us to control the line of scrimmage and kind of wear on our opponents. You've heard me say this a ton: We're like the old heavyweight fighters. We want the 15‑round fight. We want to wear them down early in the fight. Throw throwing the body punches and ultimately it will give us a chance to hit the big play. So it's tough. It's tough for young quarterbacks. It's tough for a young offensive unit to know exactly who you are early in the season, and what we can do well. But we found our way, I would say, after three or four games. We felt good about being able to run the football and throw it to Zach Ertz, and run behind David Yankey, so... Q. Can I ask you about your offensive philosophy with the tight ends? At a time so many schools are doing away with the tight end, what is appealing to you about that position as the coordinator? PEP HAMILTON: They're the quarterback's best friend. I had the good fortune of working at the 49ers as a quarterbacks coach when we drafted Vernon Davis with the sixth pick in the draft. It's not just a coincidence that Alex Smith and Brandon kind of grew closer and he became kind of Alex's go‑to guy over time. But once I left San Francisco I ended up in Chicago, and we drafted Greg Olsen with the 27th or 24th pick in the first round. Then even before that, when I was at the New York Jets, we drafted Anthony Beck with the maybe 18th pick in the first round. So I had been around and been a part of systems and programs where the tight end played an integral part in the offense. For us, we've got to find ways to get our play makers to the ball. On third down in the red zone, we've got to find ways to create match‑ups that are in our favor. Our tight ends give us that opportunity to create a match‑up that's in our favor. Q. Why is that? PEP HAMILTON: 6'5", 250 pounds, and he can come out of his break as well as any receiver in the country. Q. (Indiscernible)? PEP HAMILTON: Stepfan is really the model of consistency for us. The one attribute that I think is really taken for granted when you look at good running backs is their ability to play without the ball. We can leave Stepfan on the field at all times, first, second, and third down. He's not a situational player. I had the good fortune again of working with Curtis Martin. With Curtis's temperament, permit, and his approach to the game in my opinion is a lot like Stepfan's. I think Stepfan right now is probably a poor man's Ray Rice. Just a utility back that's physical and can do it all. But he's an every down back to say the least. Q. Lot of people are making comparisons to Montee Ball and Stepfan Taylor. PEP HAMILTON: I don't know. I haven't studied Montee Ball. I know just really watching the highlights that Montee is very productive. I had a chance to meet him at the Heisman ceremony two years ago, and he's a very nice kid. He's done well. He's done well at the University of Wisconsin. Q. (Indiscernible)? PEP HAMILTON: Well, I don't know. I think it's always a trickle‑down effect. I think what happens in the NFL kind of works its way back to college football. I think that trend has changed. Now you've got some NFL teams that are integrating some pistol offense and spread offensive principles into their systems. I had a chance when I was recruiting back in DC a couple weeks ago to go and watch the Redskins play against the Ravens, and it was like I sent Kevin and some of the guys from the DC area a text and said, hey, this is like the big game. You know, the intensity, how fired up everybody was. But just watching RG3 and the thing that's they were doing, I was surprised that you would exposure quarterback, your franchise quarterback to taking those hits in the NFL game. But it's been effective for them, but the position has changed. The NFL is truly a passing league. I think the consistency of the great quarterbacks is what makes them great. The Peyton Mannings, the Tom Bradys, and now Andrew Luck. I talk to Andrew every week after his games, and I'm typically complaining about him not sliding or managing bad plays, throw the ball away. Don't take those hits. But he's done well for himself. That position is all about having a play maker. Having a play maker at that position that can extend plays with his legs, unless you're like Peyton Manning and you have ultimate control over the offense. Q. (Indiscernible) now you see pretty much everybody throwing it? PEP HAMILTON: Yeah, you almost have to now because of the different zone blitzes. A lot of teams are attacking the A gaps. With their pressures, especially on third down, and a few quarterbacks under center, it makes it extremely hard for the quarterback to get the snap and drop back with guys running right up the middle of the formation. So the shotgun is a big part of offensive football these days. Q. A lot of people are going to be wondering what Stanford is going to be like without Taylor. First it was Andrew Luck, and now it's going to be without Taylor. PEP HAMILTON: Right now I would say that it would be more of the running back by committee approach, similar to the 2010 season. If you think back to 2010, Stepfan was splitting reps with Tyler Gaffney, a young Anthony Wilkerson and Stewart. Patch, we call him Patch. Jeremy Stewart who is playing for the Oakland Raiders right now. But we'll get back to the running back by committee approach until somebody establishes themselves as our work horse. Q. What about center? PEP HAMILTON: That's tough. That's a tough question. Especially now. It's always tough to replace your center. Just that continuity and trust that the quarterbacks develop in center. And our offense in particular would put so much on the center to make the calls when we check our plays at the line of scrimmage. So replacing sammy would be a tall task for us. The center is really an extension of the quarterback and our coaches. The center has to make a number of calls on any given play. So training our next center will be just as tough as training our next quarterback. Wow, I would say right now we have Khalil Wilkes that's played some center. He's giving snaps or snapping to our quarterbacks during the QBs. Center.  He's changed in practice. We have Kevin Reihner, another offensive lineman that hasn't played a bunch, but another smart kid that we're training to possibly play center at some point. Graham Shuler, a young kid from Tennessee that we brought in to play the center position. So we'll see. If Kevin Danser had to possibly move to that position, I think he would be able to. So we'll see, but that's a tough question. Q. It seems that the line has been able to reinvent itself every year. It seems that every year they mesh. Is that the way the system is run? Is that a credit to them? Coach Bloomgren? PEP HAMILTON: I think it starts with Coach Bloomgren and Ron Crook and their ability to really just have a plan in place to get those guys to kind of gel and come together. I think it also helps that we play a lot of offensive linemen, you know? We have personnel groupings, as well, and we'll have seven offensive linemen. And there are times we have eight offensive linemen on the field for any given play. So, you know, when you're a young offensive lineman, and you're playing some tight end or you're playing fullback, and you have an opportunity to play early in your career when it's time for you to become an every‑down player, the game is not too big for you. So that really helps us. Q. Is that a selling point? PEP HAMILTON: Absolutely. Q. You're going to say they're going to run plays with eight offensive linemen? PEP HAMILTON: Oh, yeah. We had to employ that sales point of strategy in recruiting Kyle Murphy and Andrus Peat, two five‑star tackles. Well, hey, both of you guys are going to play, and both of you guys are going to play early. Now if you win 98 as opposed to 78, it shouldn't matter much. But you're going to play. And I think it really helps our guys to gain that experience early in their career and become productive players for us. Q. Have you seen enough of Wisconsin's offense to compare how they use their tight ends? Is there any similarity there? PEP HAMILTON: I really haven't studied it a bunch. Q. (Indiscernible)? PEP HAMILTON: Absolutely. I think he just said it over in the other room, his red shirt year he had one job, and that was to watch Andrew. Sit in the back of the room, be seen and not heard and emulate everything that Andrew Luck is doing, okay? And how he managed his time, how we interacted in the meeting room, how he studied the game plan, his mannerisms on game day, and I think it really helped Kevin to have that year of experience and being around Andrew. Q. (Indiscernible)? PEP HAMILTON: He's still got a ways to go. He's played four games, but he's still got a ways to go. But even so, his poise is what makes him a special player in my opinion. Obviously, the instincts and the talent is what prevails when it's all said and done. But he's still a work in progress. But I think our offensive line and the fact that we have a great running back that really helps any young quarterback to establish himself as a starter and a good player for us. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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