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BUFFALO WILD WINGS BOWL: MICHIGAN v KANSAS STATEDecember 27, 2013Bill SnyderTEMPE, ARIZONA THE MODERATOR: we're joined by Coach Snyder. We'll ask for a few opening remarks and then go to questions. COACH SNYDER: I would replicate what was said yesterday: We're honored to be here, have been treated extremely well by the bowl committee and all the people involved. The people of Phoenix have been great to us, Scottsdale, Tempe. Have great admiration for the University of Michigan and certainly Coach Hoke. Got to spend some time with him last night. I was very, very impressed with the kind of person he is, the reasons that he's involved in coaching. Nevertheless, I enjoyed my time with him and appreciate his philosophy. THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach Snyder. Q. Coach, with all the years and all the accomplishments you've had coaching, this game is what it is, but anything you feel you have to accomplish before your career is over? Anything that is sticking in Bill Snyder that he hasn't accomplished in football? COACH SNYDER: The most significant thing to me is the development of young people in our program. Always has been, always will be, for however long I do this. Each day brings a new challenge, each year new challenges with young people. The ultimate goal for me is to be certain that I've done everything that I can to try to help lay the foundation for young people to move on to their chosen pattern of life and become successful at what they do, be quality people. As long as I'm capable of doing that, then I'll have achieved what I want to achieve. Q. Coach, just curious, your thoughts on wrapping up the final practice and how that went with the tempo, discipline, all the things you talk about. COACH SNYDER: Well, I thought it was better. I thought we practiced better yesterday. I thought the tempo, as you indicated, was good after we got started. I thought the spirit was good. I thought the effort was good. I was not unhappy about the improvement from the previous day. Q. Coach, in your years of coaching, have you come across some serious cases of turf toe in your day? Do you know exactly what it entails, especially for a mobile quarterback? COACH SNYDER: There's a variety of different levels. I don't know exactly how to phrase it. Some turf toes that we've experienced have been long‑lasting, and others, some of them, have been very brief issues, and all in between. I visit with our trainers about it. That's kind of the definition that they've provided for me. I can't tell you that we've had a lot of youngsters that have suffered that, but we have had some. The recovery time has been varied for all of them, I think. So I don't know that the doctors can put a timeframe on it. The seriousness of it I guess varies apparently. I can't tell you much more than that. Q. Same ballroom, same time of year, two different quarterbacks. Last year you talked with Collin. He had bowl experience. This year you have Jake Waters. He has no bowl experience. What are some things that you maybe shared with Jake in the last week about what all this entails? COACH SNYDER: Well, I think it's not just Jake, but Daniel will participate in the ballgame, as well. It's more about the preparation, not anything different than what we would normally do week in and week out. How to avoid the distractions ‑ hopefully how to avoid the distractions, how to stay attuned to discipline, concentration on the task at hand, be basically oblivious to all things that exist outside the white lines. Q. Can you talk about this Michigan defense, the challenge of trying to run the ball against them. They've been so effective against the run. COACH SNYDER: They truly have. They're coached extremely well. They have a strong understanding of the staff that is on the defensive side of the ball, the kind of successes they've had in their careers. Fundamentally I think they're a very sound football team in that respect, defensively‑ offensively, too, but defensively. The young people, they're a physical group of young guys. They move well for the size and physicality that they bring to the table. Their assignment sound, so it tells me there's a great deal of discipline involved, how they coach the young guys in the program, how the young guys respond to the coaching. Good, sound, quality defense is based on that kind of discipline. It's quite apparent that they possess it. Q. Obviously a huge change for Michigan at quarterback. Have you seen situations where someone who has not started can come into a game and step up and have a big game at that position? COACH SNYDER: Well, nothing comes to mind off the top of my head. But I'm quite confident that it exists on a frequent basis, would be my guess. There's great motivation for a young guy who has the opportunity to step up and do something that he hasn't been able to do ‑ not because he's not qualified, but just because he hasn't had the opportunity. You know, game of life, game of football, pretty much the same thing: opportunities are going to come, you just don't know when. It's how well we are prepared for the opportunities when they arise. I'm pretty confident that he's kept himself well‑prepared for the opportunity whenever it comes, and all of a sudden it's here. I'm sure he'll do quite well. Q. Along the same lines with Shane Morris, how do you go about preparing a quarterback that you have such limited film on? Have you had to go back into the vault to see his tendencies? COACH SNYDER: You know, I don't know that we could define 'tendencies' based on any of the information that we have. I think just the fact that he's left‑handed as opposed to being right‑handed, that alters some things for us to a certain degree. As I said before, there's no way that I could guess exactly how they would utilize the young man. But you have to prepare for their offense. He is a part of it, but there's 10 other guys that are pretty effective players that will certainly be actively involved in their offensive plan. You still have an awful lot of stuff to prepare for when you're trying to scrutinize 12 game films, some from previous years. There's an awful lot there, and it builds quite a large package to draw from. Just how much of it they're going to draw from no one really knows. Well, they do, but I don't. You have to try to prepare for all of it and do. That encompasses each player at each position, which includes Shane. Q. One of the your players mentioned yesterday, I can't remember which one it was, that you would ask everyone in the room to raise their hand if they won a bowl game. No one's hands went up. What would the feeling be like next year if you ask that question and all the hands go up? COACH SNYDER: It means they were paying attention, I guess. I haven't thought that far ahead (laughter). I'm thinking about what I'm going to do after this press conference right now. I'd be pleased, I guess, if that were the case. But who knows. Q. Just out of curiosity, you mentioned you talked to Brady Hoke last night. Any detail of the environment that was, the nature of the conversation, where you guys met? COACH SNYDER: It wasn't about football in any technical sense. It was probably about the direction of the game, the game of college football, more about young people, what the values of collegiate, intercollegiate athletics, happens to be, should be in our minds, not necessarily everybody's, but as we would view it, so... It was more philosophical than anything else. Q. Coach, the topic came up yesterday of Daniel Sams wanting to see the field whether at quarterback or somewhere else. When you have a guy like that and you also have a quarterback of the stature of Jake Waters, is it a challenge to try to carve out time for Daniel Sams to get his athleticism on the field? COACH SNYDER: To a certain degree it is, yes. It's the nature of where we are at this particular point in time. What happens after we conclude this season is something that will be assessed and evaluated during the next month or so. We'll move on from there. Daniel is a very athletic young guy. The reason he's playing is because he deserves to play. He's done well. He's made improvement during the course of the year. It's significant to have him on the field. I think it's important. That certainly would be a major topic of conversation for us. Q. There's so much attention on who is not playing for Michigan. Anything you can update on who might be limited or not playing for you? COACH SNYDER: Nothing you're not aware of right now. Q. Curious about the fact if Jake Waters, being a Michigan fan growing up, if he was forthcoming with that information to you throughout practices here? COACH SNYDER: He didn't campaign for Michigan, no. He didn't (smiling). Q. Coach, I know it's been a while since you were at Iowa, and since K State has never played Michigan till now, what was Michigan week like when you were with Hayden at Iowa and how much stock did he put into this game? COACH SNYDER: I get asked similar type questions, some surrounding Michigan, some not, just in general. And I think all coaches, we say, how much stock you put in a game. There isn't a game you have in your schedule you don't put all the stock you have, so to speak. You invest everything in every performance and opportunity that you have. This isn't any different. Wasn't any different. It was certainly a very significant game for us at the University of Iowa. Certainly, yes, there was a great deal of emphasis placed on it. When that game was over and you moved to the next one, there was a great deal of emphasis placed on that ballgame as well. It was always a well‑contested ballgame, most of them that I can remember. Bo Schembechler was there at the time. I always had great admiration for Bo. I do for Brady, as well. But Bo had a major history behind him. He used to get upset at Hayden all the time because Hayden would paint the visitor's locker room pink all the time. But Bo solved the problem. He was probably the only coach that did. Bo would bring brown wrapping paper on their trips to Manhattan, and he would have his student managers go in and cover the walls with brown wrapping paper so he wouldn't have to look at the calming effect of pink. That was Hayden's thought. Q. You mentioned conversations with Brady kind of about college football. How is the landscape going to change with the four‑team playoff? What is your opinion on that? COACH SNYDER: Well, it wasn't about whether you have a BCS or whether you have a four‑team playoff or a thousand‑team playoff. That wasn't the essence of the conversation. It's just what has college athletics become about. I think when I entered coaching, it was about young people, still about getting an education, learning a value system. You always hear the adage of how the game of football is so relative to 'the game of life.' To me those have always been significant values. The game has moved towards television, dollars and cents. That's really what it's all about right now. I've just always believed that it sent a bad message to young people, sent a bad message I think to a lot of people. I understand it. I mean, I understand why it is as it is right now. I can't tell you that I have the answers for it. It gives a young 18‑, 20‑year‑old a little different perspective on what life is really all about. That concerns me a great deal. Q. Ryan Mueller, I think he's the first K State defensive end to earn second team All‑American since 1970. Maybe one of those feel‑good stories. What have you seen from Ryan this season? What kind of impact has he made? COACH SNYDER: Well, as you've heard me say so many times, I'm proud of Ryan. Ryan was a walk‑on in our program and earned his way into receiving the scholarship, earned his way to many of the honors that he's received. The thing that sets Ryan apart from most is the fact that he probably practices as hard as anybody anywhere. What you see on game day is what I see every single day. I've said it so many times. If you had 120 of those guys, life would be a lot easier. I think that's his foundation for achieving the individual success that he achieves, it's centered strictly around his practice effort. That's what has allowed him to make the kind of improvement that he has made. That's what you try to get all young people in your program to do. All coaches do. He's living proof of it. I appreciate it because it sets a standard. It's an excellent example for the other young people in our program of what you can achieve when you really invest yourself in your preparation and how hard you work at it. Q. Your thoughts on Ty Zimmerman, what he's gone through the last two years, being injured, fighting back to get healthy enough to play in the bowl games. COACH SNYDER: Well, Ty, first and foremost, is a splendid person. He has the values that we're interested in. He's a very team‑oriented young guy. He's a good leader by example. Quiet young person. Very fine player. Committed to his teammates and his team. Works diligently to overcome the injuries that he's had in order to get back on the field. He just has everything in the right place. Q. Brady Hoke said running the ball is something that he just absolutely must do, then with a freshman quarterback back there, do you expect an added importance on stopping the run for you guys? COACH SNYDER: Well, I don't think that has changed, regardless of who the quarterback was. I think everybody feels the same way, or at least you hear people talk about it that way. You've got to be able to stop the run to have success on defense. You can't stop the run, then you're probably going to have a hard time stopping the pass, too. It can snowball on you. But, yes, our approach has never changed day in and day out, week in and week out. You have an extreme focus on trying to be successful against the running game on defense. THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you. COACH SNYDER: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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