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ROSE BOWL GAME PRESENTED BY VIZIO: STANFORD v WISCONSINDecember 29, 2012David ShawPASADENA, CALIFORNIAS Q. Coach, (Indiscernible)? COACH SHAW: It was good. I like when we have those open practices. We of course don't run any of our tricky things. But at the same time, when people are watching, you get that extra energy from the guys. We got after it pretty good. We were pretty physical, which is just the way we practiced. Q. (Indiscernible)? COACH SHAW: We've got a pretty mature group. These things like that, things like this don't bother us. We enjoy our time here. My word for the guys before we came down here was to compartmentalize. Which when we're on the practice field, there is nothing but football. Nothing exists on the planet, except for our practice field. When we're not, let's enjoy this. When it's time to go back to football, we'll go back to football. Q. Do you expect this to be a grind‑it‑out game? COACH SHAW: Absolutely. Absolutely. We're two similar teams that like to run the football and play great defense. We don't know anything about that. Whatever people say about point spreads and those things, those things don't matter. Just about every game we play comes down to the last possession late in the fourth quarter. So our minds are geared up for that, and we know it's going to be a heck of a football game. Q. Do you expect anything on their part to change given that Barry Alvarez is coming over on an interim basis. COACH SHAW: Not at all. Not at all. They've got three great running backs. One as good as anybody that's come out of college in a while. They're going to run the ball. They've got a great defense, a good defensive front. The linebackers are very well trained, know what they're doing. Safeties are downhill hitters. So they're going to do what they've done all year. People talk about the five losses, but two overtime games and two of the really, really close games. Otherwise, these guys have the same record that we do. Q. Coach, what kind of opportunity is this for your program? Is this a chance to elevate on that next level? COACH SHAW: Well, for us, we think we're there. We've elevated ourselves based on how we've played. For us, this game is an opportunity to win a bowl game. We're 1‑1 the last two bowl games. We want to win this one. So for us, this is just an opportunity. Q. Is it interesting for you to be at a teleconference with Bielema, and now it's Coach Alvarez? COACH SHAW: It's just different. I had met Bret a year ago, and very talkative. Very fun loving guy. We had great conversations. And that was very quiet and very short, that interview. I understand why. Changing jobs is so hard, especially when you know it's coming and you can't say anything about it just yet. I wish him all the best. I'm excited for Barry. I had a chance to talk to his wife at Disneyland. It's a great opportunity for him to get back on the field and do what we've been trained to do, which is coach football. Q. (Indiscernible)? COACH SHAW: Absolutely. Absolutely. He's a Hall of Fame football coach. And being a coach's kid, I always looked at coaches and watched what he did. When he turned Wisconsin's program around, at the time it was just about unprecedented. The change in mentality, the toughness, the way those guys were able to play together as a unit, they're so well‑coached through the '90s, what he did there is impressive. He's always been one of my guys that I watched when I was growing up. Q. (Indiscernible) what makes Stanford what it is? COACH SHAW: To be honest, it's our mentality. We're going to run the ball. We're going to run the ball between the tackles. That's just what we do. We have some things off of that that we do, but that's our bread and butter. Defensively, we want to stop the run. We've got some tough kids, some physical kid that's love to play our style of football. Who we play doesn't change how we play. So that's what you're going to see from us, which is great, because that's what you're going to see from Wisconsin also. I think this is going to be a fun football game to watch. Q. Coach, with all the D commands on your time, can you describe how much different this week is in terms of getting ready? COACH SHAW: It's different. Our time gets stretched. We caution our guys a lot about staying off their legs when they don't have anything to do. I don't mind if they go do something, but it's go do something and sit down. But we were prepared for this. Went through a little bit of it last year, the last two years, actually. Big thing for us is we got a lot of our work done back in Palo Alto. On Stanford's campus, we got a lot of our work done, got the game plans in. So our meeting time now is fine tuning. We can be right to the point in our meeting times knowing we have things to do. Q. (Indiscernible)? COACH SHAW: We're enjoying it, but we also know what we're here for. So I've told them to take advantage of all that's offered. For something for them to go do, go do it and really enjoy it. But in the next few days we'll start dialing that down and get ready to play a football game. We're going to play our best football game this year. Q. Can you talk about you didn't suffer a loss, but (Indiscernible)? COACH SHAW: Part of it was it wasn't done cold turkey. Kevin had been playing. Kevin had gotten some time in the previous three games. He's so athletic, we were going to use his athletic ability as a complement to what Josh Nunes was doing. We got to the point where the offense had sputtered offensively, and he got some time against Colorado. He hasn't slowed down since. Every time we got the ball his first three drives, and we went down and scored. His ability to run, if nobody's open on the pass play is a game‑changer. Our ability now to call our gun run offense with him, I think is another game changer. It just gives defenses something else to account for. Q. A lot of focus on Montee Ball, but how important is Gordon, do you think, to Wisconsin's offense? Number 25? COACH SHAW: We liken him to our Kelsey Young, Anthony Wilkerson. They come in and give us a spark plug. They're not going to touch the ball 25, 30 times like Stepfan Taylor. But they have a chance to change field positions, and that's what he does for them. He's a special athlete. I think all three of their backs do something unique that we have to account for. Because, you know, if you're just paying attention to Montee Ball, one of those guys can rip off a 30‑yard run very quickly. Q. Can he impact the game without the ball? Because you've got to honor the fly sweep stuff, don't you? Even if he doesn't have the ball, can he impact the game? COACH SHAW: No question. He's going to make you account for them, because if you don't, he'll hurt you. So the best thing we have to do is play great team defense. That's our big deal. We don't want a whole bunch of one‑on‑one tackles. We want to make sure we're gang tackling. Q. Coach Shaw, the Josh Nunes scandal, how has he handled this year? COACH SHAW: It's been tough, but he's handled it unlike anybody I've ever been around. He understands why I made the decision I made. He's ready when called upon. He's practiced extremely well, which is what he and I talked about a bunch, which is you've got to keep razor sharp to a certain degree. So we still give him a lot of reps, because you have to have two quarterbacks ready at all times. In particular, with as much as Kevin runs, there might be two or three plays where Kevin has to come from the sidelines and Josh has to be ready to go in there and throw potentially a game‑wing touchdown. So his mentality is there. He's ready for that possibility, and he's handled it phenomenally. Q. Talking to some of the offensive guys like Zach, Ryan, he sounds like he's done a very good job of helping mentor Kevin along. How has he been in terms of helping bring him up to speed? COACH SHAW: He's been great. It's such a comfort for me. Sometimes when I'm looking for Kevin on the sideline, I see he and Josh over there talking about what they saw. Josh watches the game. Watches him like a coach. There's no mistake about it. Josh was the most prepared guy at the beginning of the year. He understands the offense inside and out. He understands defenses inside and out. So for them now, it's like having somebody who is on your level buts has more experience than you, but can come and be a sound board for. Kevin can say, here's what I saw. What did you see? And those guys can have those combinations. I felt good about that combination of those guys. Q. What is the plan going to be in spring ball? Will it be an open competition? Or is Kevin going to go in with the lead? How's that going? COACH SHAW: Yeah, Kevin will go in with the lead. Kevin's our starting quarterback from now on until something else happens, but Kevin's play in the last five games has secured his position. So we won't be competing for his job in spring. Q. (Indiscernible)? COACH SHAW: Well, the week prior to that, he showed us a lot. He showed us that he understood the protections. That was the biggest thing. We adjust our protection at the line of scrimmage. We change our running game at the line of scrimmage, and you have to do that to play quarterback for us. Until then, we had a small package for him to go in and be an athlete, running and throwing. But once he showed that he could demonstrate that, we were going to give them more opportunities to play against Colorado. His first three drives, he took us down for touchdowns. The big thing, when it's third down, and nobody's open, and he doesn't have to throw the ball away, he can pull the ball down and rip off a tackle. That's something we don't have to throw the ball. We can run the ball with one of our gun runs knowing the defense has to count for them. Now they have to count for them in the running game. Now when we drop back sometimes, there is one less guy in coverage, because they're spying on him. Q. What is it about that position that's going to be a good building block for what Coach Harbaugh had for you? COACH SHAW: Every west coast offense that's been any good at all has at least one outstanding tight end. It's been that way forever. You go back to the Jay Novacek's, to all of the guys that the 49ers have had over the years. With what they have now, they have a great combination of tight ends there. Tony Gonzalez, what he's done throughout his career in west coast type offenses, it's the X‑factor. When you have a big guy who is athletic and can block at the line of scrimmage and then goes out for a pass, who is going to cover him? The line backer? Some of those guys are too fast for linebackers. The safeties, those guys are too big for safeties. Zack's 6'6", 250. Levine Toilolo is 6'7", 255. Those guys are mismatches in college football and in the NFL. Q. You also have the offensive line move to outside linebacker. Do you just look for length? How do awe approach that? COACH SHAW: Big athletes. Big athletes, and all of them have basketball backgrounds. There is no mistaking about it. The combination, and the correlation of playing basketball is legitimate. It's the foot work, the running ability, the athleticism out in space. It's hard to teach those guys that. They either have it or they don't. If we can find as many guys as possible that can play that position well at any level and they don't make it at tight end, you can move them anyplace. You can look at Ryan Hewitt, the high school tight end. The fullback, H back, we can flex him out to run routes. There are so many things can he do, because his versatility is so special. We hope to continue to find guys just like that. Q. He's got a limited role, but he's obviously dynamic in there. How do you see his role? COACH SHAW: I think about David Palmer way back when at Alabama. Guys that have that kind of versatility that you just find ways to get them the ball. We screwed up a lot this year. We started with a small package, and it's grown. Hopefully next year will be even bigger. Nobody's going to work harder. He's going to be truly prepared for the role that we have for him next year. This year we still have some things that we have for him through this game, but I'm looking forward to a great off‑season for Kelsey, and him being a bigger part of our offense next year. Q. Talk about Stepfan Taylor and what he means to this team? COACH SHAW: Stepfan Taylor has set the tone for our offense from the beginning. It doesn't matter how many guys are in the box, we're going to hand the ball off to him. It doesn't matter sometimes if we don't block it perfectly. He's going to make a guy miss. He made a great run against SC with an unblocked guy in the hole. A great run against Cal at the end of the game, making a guy miss. His daily work habits are unmatched. He doesn't say a word. He comes in every single day and goes extremely hard, stays after it, does more. All of our young running backs, we just say, do what he does. We don't have to yell at him, scream at him, we say follow him. If you can keep up, you're going to be a good football player. Q. (Indiscernible)? COACH SHAW: His speed. His speed. He's fast. He's got really good vision. When you've got he and Montee Ball on the field at the same time, you have to account for both of them or they're going to hurt you. Q. What do you think led to that success? COACH SHAW: The thing is they make you account for so much. All you need is one guy out of position. If one guy is out of position, you give a guy like Montee Ball or Gordon an opportunity to get toward the end zone, they're going to hurt you. So for us, it's about playing team defense. Making sure everybody has the responsibilities. That we communicate through the shifts and motions that they have, and make sure we line back up again. We've played a lot of teams this year that have a lot of movement, and a lot of different moving parts. But these guys are unique. It's taken a lot of film study by our guys. Lot of communication from our defensive staff to make sure that we're all on the same page. Q. (Indiscernible)? COACH SHAW: No question. No question. In particular because they deserve to be here because they won their championship game. You look back and they've got two teams in the conference that are ineligible. Those two teams are also very, very good, and Wisconsin took them to the brink. They took them to the brink. One went to overtime. So for us, I think they deserve to be here. They played extremely well. For a couple of breaks here or there, you're looking at a ten win or 11‑win team. So for us, we give them all the respect in the world. The way they've run the ball, the way they stopped the run. The way they played on special teams. Watching the film, you earn a lot of respect for these guys. Q. How much do you think Coach Harbaugh is what this team is now? COACH SHAW: To be honest, I think it's a combination of things. When Jim got the job, he still tells the famous story about Bo Schembechler saying are you going to have a tight end, are you going to have a fullback, are they going to be on the field at the same time? And that was our mentality. We had a conversation before. I've told this story so many times. We had a conversation before we came up from San Diego, and he asked me about Denny Green. I said, well, my dad was defensive coordinator. We played great defense. We had great athletes on offense. We moved the defense to help us on the defensive side, and we had Tommy Vardell on the offensive side and Ed McCaffrey. So at the time we had the biggest offensive line in college football in the early '90s, and that was Jim's mentality. I told him, it has worked at Stanford before. We talked about how it came about with the recruiting, and it was like a perfect fit. When everybody else was running sideways in the conference, we started running north and south with really big guys and physical guys like Toby Gerhart, Jimmy Gray blocking on the right side. There were just so many things that fit perfectly, and we've been able to continue to recruit to what we do. Q. You see Jordan with a Rose Bowl cap at the Fiesta Bowl game. Is that a sign? COACH SHAW: I think we're way past that. He's had ups and downs since then. A big thing for him is he's matured a lot. He's matured a lot. He's been more consistent. He's so talented that all he need was consistency. As long as he can be consistent, he'll be one of the best kickers in the league. Q. Is there anything anybody can do for him? COACH SHAW: I think the big thing is being around a lot of coaches that have been with a lot of kickers. He's talked to a bunch of different guys. We're at the point now where he doesn't need to talk to a bun of other people. He just needs to focus on himself and what he does. He's had three really good weeks of practice. Hopefully another good week here, and keep bringing the game. Q. How has this group been able to reinvent itself every year? (Indiscernible)? COACH SHAW: You've got to give Mike Bloomgren a lot of credit for what he's done with those guys and the mentality they have in that room. Everything everybody gets in that room is earned. It's a tough room. It's a tough room. You walk in that room, and you better have thick skin. It's not just Mike that's going to get on you. Sammy's going to get on you. David Yankey's going to get on you. If you can handle that room and come out and perform, you deserve to play. So for us, we've played one true freshman on the offensive lineup until this year and the last five years, and this year we played three. Those guys have earned that. Andrus Peat, Kyle Murphy, Josh Garnett, those guys are going to be phenomenal. They've taken some beatings in that room. Some verbal assaults, if you will. But that mentality, and the fact that we're going to call plays for what they do well. Sometimes we put a play in and they get really excited and we'll remind them. If you don't execute it, we're not going to call it. That's the standard that we hold them to. They know. They put a lot of pride into what they do. It's a tight knit group. Excited about the future, we'll continue to get better in the next few years. Q. (Indiscernible)? COACH SHAW: There is no question, we're going to play guys. There are a lot of plays, lot of guys have had success, it will be great. They're going to play five starters and the rest of the guys watch. We'll play at least eight in the Rose Bowl, and we've been that way all year. We're going to play eight. So for a young guy to come in and know he's going to have a chance to play. He's not going to have to sit on the bench for three years. If he can survive in our room, he'll get a chance to play. So it's been a huge selling point. Q. Kevin started four games against four ranked opponents and four wins. Are you concerned with his youth or that it's going to slow down a little bit? COACH SHAW: Not at all. Kevin's very even keel. Kevin doesn't get really excited about anything. Kevin doesn't get overconfident. One of the things I love about Kevin is he's extremely hard on himself. He still sees this as Stepfan Taylor's team. He just happens to be playing quarterback on Stepfan's team. So it's his job to facilitate the offense. That is the way he looks at it. He doesn't get super high when he makes a game winning play. He doesn't get super low when he makes a mistake. So for us, our offense, our guys have relished his mentality which he's gotten a lot of publicity. But he tries to shy away from it as best as possible. Q. There are some very good coaches in the past. I don't know if you've coached against somebody who is currently in the Hall of Fame before. How strange is that with this match up? COACH SHAW: Not at all. Only two things I say about that. Their coordinators stayed on, which I think is commendable in this day and age of guys leaving and bailing on programs. I give those guys all the respect in the world, because these Wisconsin kids have earned the right to be here. And it's great that they have their coaching staff here to give them what they've needed all year. The scheme and the coaching, so I'm excited about that. The thing with Barry, I think Barry is awesome. I'll say it flat out. I had to grab him at Disneyland and take a picture with him. The success he started at Wisconsin was phenomenal. The way he turned that program around. Bill Callahan who worked for him has all the respect in the world for him. He's told me a million Barry stories about how hard that thing was to turn around, and what he did there was truly special. Q. You're in a situation where at some point you'll leave Stanford because every coach eventually leaves a program. Wisconsin's dealing with a situation where Bret Bielema, like every coach, tells recruits. I've got your back, you're my family. But it's a business type of thing. How do you do that? Not what Wisconsin did. But when you make a commitment to a player and you've made a commitment to a university, but you have to worry about yourself, your family and everything else. COACH SHAW: That is the hard part about this business. It's a harsh business. When you have a job, you have to pour yourself into it. And sometimes an opportunity comes up, and like in Bret's case, it's something he couldn't pass up. For me in my situation, I plan on being here for a long time. I've passed up multiple opportunities and continue to pass up opportunities, because for me, this is the place for me and my family. Q. How much has your offensive game plan changed since Hogan took over at quarterback? Are there things specifically that he can do? COACH SHAW: Yeah, his athletic ability is so special, and defenses have to account for it. So it's definitely augments our play calling. I think Ty Montgomery coming back has upped our play calling. I think Kelsey Young being a more consistent football player for us has helped our play calling. Zach Ertz' play in the last month and a half of the season, really. So the combination of all of those things has truly helped it. But as far as Kevin is concerned, his ability to escape the pocket, throw on the run, run down the field and get us first downs has been a good game changer for us. Q. Have you gotten a chance to talk to Andrew about Kevin's development? What does Andrew think Kevin can do in the future? COACH SHAW: Andrew is so excited right now. It's the one negative about making the playoffs is he can't come to the Rose Bowl. But he's so excited and so proud. Because when Kevin played his first game, he called Coach Pep Hamilton and said that looks like my sophomore year, you know? With the quarterback that can escape the pocket. You've got a great running back and a great running game. Now he's able to be very consistent in his mechanics. He doesn't have to force the ball because can he pull it down and run. It's very similar game plans to what we do with Andrew. Q. Do you ever see Zach Ertz like this? COACH SHAW: Absolutely. When Coby, right after the season last year, I grabbed Zach and said, are you ready? He said absolutely. I said I don't know if you're ready. Do you know what I'm talking about? All that we did to get Coby open, you're going to get those opportunities and more. He's such a different athlete than Coby. Coby is so fast and explosive. Zach has all the nuances of route running, and we've been able to put him in some positions. There are very few guys that are his size and his skill level. I still believe that we'd love to recount the Mackey Award. I don't know that I've been around a college tight end or a receiver playing the slot or playing in the back field the way Zach Ertz can and be effective. He's changed the way people play us on third downs. We've had teams that play their best cover corner on our tight end, which has helped other guys get open, but at the same time, those guys haven't been able to cover them one‑on‑one. We've had teams play high over the top of them to try to double team and we've been able to run the ball with two high safeties on third down. So the way that he's played for us this year has been as well as any tight end has played in college football in the last five years in my opinion. Q. (Indiscernible) you can go 14 deep with your front seven. How does that work? COACH SHAW: It's the way that we practice. For a guy like Chase Thomas who has been our defensive leader all year, for him to say you know what, Alex Debniak has worked extremely hard and deserves to play and knees to stay fresh. For him to say I can come off the field for 12, 15 plays a game and knowing that Alex is going to be effective and I can come back and be fresh. For him to be able to do that, the rest of our guys can do that. And Shayne Skov has been our emotional leader for three years. We're going to rotate guys, play a lot of guys, they're all held to a high standard, but they all trust each other. The next guy's going to do a great job so they can come on the bench for a few plays and come back out there. Q. (Indiscernible)? COACH SHAW: We haven't changed our plan because of it. I think it's great. I think it was great stabilizing the situation for Barry to come in and step in being a Hall of Fame football coach, being a very well‑respected coach by the kids on his team so that they felt good about who is going to be directing them. Knowing that they're going to get a new head coach soon. But Barry can come in and stabilize them. The coordinator is staying there so they can stay with their schemes and their techniques. I think those two things are huge, because those kids deserve that. It's nice to see that happen nowadays. Q. (Indiscernible)? COACH SHAW: Those of us around at Stanford were not surprised. There is nothing he hasn't been able to do. There is nothing on any level that he's not been able to be successful at. He's so driven. He's such a competitor and so athletic, and so strong and so accurate. They've been able to have such success without a consistent running game, without a dominating defense. Because you really look around and the kid at Seattle is phenomenal. I'm a huge fan. I'm a huge fan of Robert Griffin. Those guys have huge running games. Those guys have great defenses. And Andrew has been able to have the success he's had without those two big factors. The way their general manager and everybody on the same page, and the coaching staff and everything they're going to build there will be truly special. Q. (Indiscernible)? COACH SHAW: It's been big. Pep Hamilton and I have had multiple conversations about it during this month. The young guys, still not an experienced guy. But we want to continue to push his boundaries and see how much he can do. We've been able to do that. We've been able to add a couple things to the offense based on his performance in the last month. Q. When you look at this Wisconsin offense, how have they developed? COACH SHAW: The bottom line is I think it's been said pretty well. Early in the season they had some struggles and they got back to playing Wisconsin football. They started being Montee Ball and a lot of Montee Ball between the tackles. Our favorite play, the power play. Power plays, and counter plays, and he reads and is extremely patient. When he gets a head of steam going, it's hard to bring down. The way they do it also, give the ball to our big guys, and let's have some things off of that to keep people off balance, but to truly build that identity with a big, physical, offensive line. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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