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ROSE BOWL GAME PRESENTED BY VIZIO: STANFORD v WISCONSINDecember 28, 2012Chris AshPASADENA, CALIFORNIAS Q. (Indiscernible)? CHRIS ASH: Haven't done any. Our focus here will be these players, and when the Rose Bowl is over, we'll move on to new opportunities and new challenges at the University of Arkansas. But right now I've had an unbelievable three years at the University of Wisconsin. I'm going to finish it the right way, and then I'm excited about moving on and going down to the SEC and the University of Arkansas. Q. Are you guys going to be trying to suppress your (Indiscernible)? CHRIS ASH: No, very similar. I'm the defensive coordinator, and Charlie will coach the defensive line, and the set‑up won't be any different than what we're doing now. Q. (Indiscernible) what are the challenges? CHRIS ASH: They're very multiple, like you said. They can line up in a power I formation and run down hill power. They can spread you out in run zone read and quarterback run games. A lot of people can't do that. They have the personnel to do that. Then you have multiple tight ends that can stretch you down the field and hurt you in the play‑action pass game too. But they're very multiple. Both by formations, with play selections, what they can do going from a pro style to a spread offense. Those are challenging things. They can do it out of the same personnel grouping. So they can put two tight ends in there. Lineup in a power formation, put two tight ends in there, and lineup in a spread formation, and you have to be able to do all of that. Q. (Indiscernible)? CHRIS ASH: Well, no different than anybody else. When you talk about him with their quarterback run game, you've got to make sure you have a player in the dive. You have to make sure you have a player on the quarterback, and always have somebody accountable for him. When you don't, you don't think they're going to do those things. That's when you get beat. In the pass game, you have to make sure you can contain them, keep them in the pocket, and not let them get out and run. Those are the challenges we face every week when we face athletic quarterbacks, and this is going to be no different. Q. Have you been fully healthy? CHRIS ASH: So, so. We've got good depth in certain spots. If somebody's gone down in a starting position, we've been lucky enough to put somebody else in there. But certain games we've been banged up. Chris Borland, our middle linebacker missed some games down the stretch. He missed the Ohio State game, one in particular. I know Shelton Johnson, our starting safety missed four games. He broke his arm against Oregon State early in the season, and he missed some time. We've had defensive linemen in and out, but, again, we've had good depth, and we've been able to basically have the next‑man‑in theory and guys have played well to fill in for the guys that have been out. Q. (Indiscernible)? CHRIS ASH: Yeah, what we do is we play to our strengths right now. What we do is play with good fundamentals, good technique. We run to the ball. Last year we blitzed a lot more and were a lot more aggressive. Tried to this season. Didn't have a lot of luck. What we do is what fits our personnel, and we've been successful with it. Q. (Indiscernible) having a great trip? CHRIS ASH: Having a great trip. You can't have a bad trip to the Rose Bowl. The weather has been good. Everything has been good. So nothing to complain about. Q. How about practices? CHRIS ASH: Practices have been great. Q. (Indiscernible) anything you learned from the Nebraska game? CHRIS ASH: Each game will have some special things that we'll present to an offense. Q. (Indiscernible)? CHRIS ASH: Hopefully we do here next week too. Appreciate it. We're looking forward to it. Q. Has it been difficult knowing that this is your last game here at Wisconsin or has it made things easier in terms of preparation? CHRIS ASH: Well, it's been full of mixed emotions throughout the whole time. I really have enjoyed my time here at the University of Wisconsin. I've met a lot of great people and been around a lot of great players. It's a great opportunity. The fans have been unbelievable. So it's hard to leave a situation like that. But at the end of the day, we can only control what we can control. And we have to go. I'm excited to go to Arkansas. The SEC speaks for itself, so if I've got to leave Madison, I'm very excited about leaving Madison to go to Arkansas. Q. Is it pretty easy because of what's at stake? CHRIS ASH: Yeah, well, regardless of the bowl game or whatever it may be, the Rose Bowl, it doesn't matter. We owe it to these players to give them our complete focus and be able to finish this the right way. That's our plan. It's been our plan all along. Once the thing flipped upside down, we're going to finish it out the best way we can. Q. Is it sort of the rally cries? CHRIS ASH: You know, as a coach, you're always trying to find ways to motivate people in your program. I've been around it for years. Different coaches use it for different reasons. I've used them in other programs. Coach Bielema's used them in the past. Coach Alvarez has used them in the past, and he's using them now. It's not a hokie thing if everybody buys into it. If it's a strong message and strong belief and everybody buys into it. It can be a great thing. If they don't, it's not. It's the same case with any motivational technique you try to use. Q. (Indiscernible) what stands out? CHRIS ASH: He's obviously shown great leadership. Players have bought into him as the new quarterback. Just as an outsider looking in, he's leading the offense well. They're not beating themselves. They're very productive. Their pass game has probably improved with him. He's more efficient in the throw game. They've been more multiple with what they've been able to do because he's more athletic and can run the ball. So he's brought several different challenges to their offense that they might not have had before. Q. Is Taylor similar? CHRIS ASH: I can't say that anybody's similar minded. Montee's a special player. He really is. We have not faced another running back as good as Montee Ball. Taylor is an outstanding running back, and it's going to be a huge challenge. He's a physical, down hill runner. But Montee Ball is in a league of his own in my opinion. We face him every day, and it's tough. I see him every Saturday for the last few years, so he's in a class by himself. But Taylor is also an outstanding running back, and will be a great NFL running back. It's going to be a challenge on next Tuesday to defend him. Q. This is your last game at Wisconsin? CHRIS ASH: This is all of our last game. Q. Where are you going? CHRIS ASH: Going to the University of Arkansas. Yeah, so we're all kind of going different directions when the game is over. Q. So your senior year? CHRIS ASH: Yeah, it is, yeah. Yeah. It's on to new challenges. Q. I'm sure Arkansas‑‑ where is your colleague going? CHRIS ASH: He's going with me. Q. (Indiscernible)? CHRIS ASH: There's been a new head coach hired. He'll start as soon as the Rose Bowl is over. He'll be in place, and basically take over the team from there. Yeah, it's a great way to finish it. Q. Barry dropping in any new wrinkles? CHRIS ASH: No, you don't go through a season like you've had and have success and then all of a sudden think you're going to change things and be successful doing it. So Wisconsin is what it is. Whether it's Barry Alvarez or Bret Bielema that's been the coach and been successful for 22 years, we're not going to change. We're not going to veer too far off from what we've done to make us successful. Q. Gnaw? CHRIS ASH: I think it's a great game. I think it's a great game for our defense versus our offense, and our offense versus our defense. It's going to be a highly competitive game. Q. You talked about the old‑fashioned‑‑ CHRIS ASH: Yeah, it should be fun. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, that's even better. Q. Some of the guys are talking about kind of a renewed focus. Do you feel that? CHRIS ASH: Yeah, I mean, especially from the older guys. There are still some younger guys that may not understand what this is all about and how special this is. But the older guys are a veteran group, especially on defense. They've been here, done that, and they know what it's going to take and how to work the process. I think it's been really outstanding preparation up to this point. Q. (Indiscernible)? CHRIS ASH: No, I have not at all. My commitment from day one has been to this program and to these players, and just a consistent coaching staff. That's not going to change. Different players and the community, and the fans and everybody has been outstanding. I'm going to make sure I do my job to leave here the right way. Q. Coach Partridge said he's been proud of the way you guys have handled things. You've been extremely professional in trying circumstances? CHRIS ASH: Well, there is no other way to do it. You are who you are, and we've talked to players all the time about character. If we don't have character, the players aren't going to have it. There is a right way and wrong way to handle yourself in these situations. I told the players up front at the start, we can only control one thing, and that is how we show up to work every day. We can't control who is the new coach. We can't control where we're going to go. We can't control anything but how we work with you guys on a daily basis, and I can guarantee you, we'll give you our all. At the end of the day, that's all we can do. Q. Stanford said this game comes under adjustments, and you had so much time to prepare. Would you agree with that? CHRIS ASH: Yeah, when you've had this much time to practice and game plan for an opponent, there are probably more wrinkles and things that come up in a bowl game. When you look at our two teams, yes, there are going to be new wrinkles and adjustment that's you're going to have to make. But for the most part they're going to run the ball and run the power and run some play action passes. They will do the same thing. They'll have some new tricks and gadgets as most people do. We will adjust accordingly. Every week there are probably four or five things in the game that you have to adjust that you haven't seen before. Q. (Indiscernible)? Are you seeing more of that this year. CHRIS ASH: Well, I can't say necessarily it's similar. But just in the past the way college football is in my opinion right now, it's an offensive game. Offensive coaches want to be gurus every week. They want to show how smart they are. So they put in new things. Our offense is no different. I wish I could be an offensive coach right now, because you can draw some stuff up in the dirt. Throw it out there. See if it works. If it doesn't work, you go back to things that have. If they work and catch the defense off guard, then great. That's just to me the way college football is right now. It's a challenge to be a defensive coach, and the way we've tried to combat that is we've tried to stay simple with what we do in those four or five new things that come up in a game, our goal is to not allow those plays to beat us. And we can make the necessary adjustments. The more you do on defense and the more you see from an offense the less reps you get, and you're not prepared when those things come up. Our philosophy is we'd rather do one thing a thousand times than a thousand things one time and get our players really good to where there are not a lot of things that are thrown at you that you'll be surprised with or thrown off guard with. That's where we are with our guys right now. We've thrown so much at them in our base stuff that they can handle and adjust to whatever a team throws at them. Q. Your colleagues on the defensive staff just marvelling your ability to see this transpiring and making the necessary adjustments? Would they call it a gift? CHRIS ASH: I don't know about that. Q. I mean, there are a lot of moving parts. 11 guys, and you're going to make snap judgments about it. How do you do that? CHRIS ASH: I think at the end of the day, it comes down to knowing yourself. I know who we are. I know what we do. We don't do a lot, and that helps us on game day. There are only certain ways that people can block us because of the way we align. When a certain play is run, I know exactly how it's going to be blocked. If there is a breakdown, I can identify where the break down was. We have great kids that communicate with us on the sideline. So if they don't see something, they say this happened because they know how teams are going to attack us, and that is half the battle. You know how teams are going to attack you. Things come up, problems occur, and you know how to get it fixed faster. When new things come up, you know your strengths and weaknesses and you know how to adjust for the next game too. That's where it begins. If you don't have a philosophy and you don't understand who you are, like we do, it makes it harder to adjust and identify problems. Q. Without too much jargon, maybe you saw something that you had to do as far as adjustments? CHRIS ASH: Well, in this day and age, like you said, offenses come out with new things. I'm trying to think of anything in particular. Teams will come out with four guys on the side or like our offense did, they came out with a bunch of big people, and those things have happened to us throughout the course of the season. When it happens, I'm up in the press box and I see it, and I'm crossing my fingers and toes that we can get to that play. We get them on the sideline and make adjustments and roll from there. But those are the type of things that we do. There are times in games that we've actually called timeout if a new thing shows up and we're not aligned right. I'm worried that our missed alignment will give up a big play or something, and we'll call timeout. We talk about it in the timeout, and what usually happens is the offense can change the play and they get out of what they originally called, so that helps also. Q. Where do you go from here? CHRIS ASH: We go back. We've got position meetings. We've got position meetings, and then we'll head out to practice. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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