Tressel Talk – Gopher Week
Right: Coach Tressel speaking to reporters and other bar patrons at John Cooper’s house in Upper Arlington, Tuesday afternoon.
(Photo via Crackberry)
It’s that time of the week during football season where I disguise myself as a sports reporter dressed up in a dorky golf shirt and Dockers to crash Jim Tressel’s weekly press conference at John Cooper’s house in Upper Arlington.
As always, Senator Sweater Vest talks about the past game, the upcoming game, though this week he does not mention the player of the week awards in his opening statements.
Some of Coach Tressel’s opening statements:
“Well, obviously it was a tough one for us to go drop a game on the road in the conference, but that’s exactly what happened. We didn’t do the things that you need to do to be successful and what we asked ourselves and our team to do was first and foremost as they studied the film and as they reflect and think about it and our guys think about it all day long, I’m sure, just like we do, is to first think about what is it that I could do better and I know from a coaching standpoint when young people decide to come to Ohio State and we convince them that this is a great institution and so forth that one of the things that we want to know for sure is what is it that you’re interested in doing individually, collectively as a team, obviously a million things outside of football, and then you go about trying to coach them, aid them, teach them and so forth in what it takes to accomplish that. And probably the first reflection that I have personally is that I’ve certainly got to do a better job of helping this group understand what it takes to do the things they would like to do. Haven’t done as good a job as you need to do.”
“Obviously you can have discussions on the things that are the obvious and that people know a little bit about, but we’ve got to make sure we understand that there are 11 guys on every defense, there are 11 guys on every offense, there are X number of coaches deciding what those 11 guys should do on every given time and we’ve got to do a good job of making sure we really, really know what it takes to win, in this case on the road in the Big Ten.”
“Turnover-wise, perhaps we talk about it so often that it becomes a little bit, “well, yeah, I know.” We’ve got to do a better job of making sure that we know, not that we know, but we really know. I looked back at our last 20 Big Ten road games and 16 of them we’ve won and four of them we’ve lost and in the 16 we’ve won we’ve had 20 turnovers. Which it’s about 1.25 per game. And in the four we’ve lost, we’ve had 14 turnovers, which is about three and a half a game. So we’ve got to do a better job of understanding the importance of what makes the difference in games. Those are some grand scale things.”
“Obviously every position individually, we have to know that the three-inch gap makes a difference, this gap makes a difference, this zone makes a difference, whatever it happens to be. So as you reflect as to what you can do better from a coaching standpoint, we’ve got to do a better job of making sure that, A, we understand what it takes, and I think too, I think we’ve got to do a good job of understanding the difficulty of the challenges that you’re taking on.”
“Minnesota, a week ago we were watching them on film spanking Purdue 35-20, so they’re a good football team. Maybe the best receiver that you can face in Decker. I love their quarterback. We had him in youth camp. He’s just a great person, great kid, great competitor, great passion. Defensively they’re really big up front. They might be the biggest front, do a great job with their pressure game. A lot of familiar faces. As you turn on the film you say oh, man, he played last year, he played last year, he played last year, he played last year.
“We’ve got a tremendous challenge. We always believe it’s Souhern Cal, Purdue or Minnesota or whomever, what’s going to be most impactful is what we do, but obviously we’ve got to become experts on what they do and how to attack them. And the fun begins this afternoon and we’ll go to work.”
The question and answer session:
REPORTER: Offensive line, a lot of problems last week, five sacks, five penalties against Wisconsin wasn’t all that much better, what can you do at the midpoint of the season, you’re getting Cordle back and maybe Miller back at some point to reenergize that unit and get those guys back where they need to be?
COACH TRESSEL: Andrew has practiced a little bit and I hope he can contribute. This will be an important week of practice to see if he can get some weight back on and get some strength back and so forth. Jimmy Cordle, we tried to get him into the game Saturday and he just isn’t quite ready. It’s one thing being able to be able to go through a practice tempo and it’s another thing to be able to do it on a Saturday. I like to think he’d be a lot healthier because we kind of took a step back with him. We didn’t leave him in so long that he got banged up. So what can you do? You can go to work. You can start working to become better. You start with what are you going to ask them to do? To me that’s critical. I’ve also believed that as much of a success of any unit is making sure they’re capable of doing the things you’re asking them to do against the people you’re playing against and hope that you learn lessons along the way. I have a lot of confidence that our young people will improve. I’m not worried about that much we just need to get better.
REPORTER: Jim, last year USC, Todd Boeckman had a real bad game turnover-wise and the next week you made the switch at quarterback. What is the difference between that scenario, and I think Terrelle had four turnovers he was responsible for on Saturday, a couple more could have gone the other way, what’s the difference there? And do you have any plans to maybe use Joe Bauserman a little bit just to spruce it up a little bit or give Terrelle a break or what are your plans there at quarterback?
COACH TRESSEL: I’m not sure that they’re comparable at all. They don’t feel to me as being similar situations. Do we have any immediate plans that we’ve sat down and said, okay, now we’re going to put Joe in at this point in time or we’re going to commit ourselves to putting him in the game, haven’t had that discussion. Don’t believe at this moment that that would be the best thing for the team and ultimately you make all your decisions based upon, okay, what does the group need and so at this moment, we’ve got a lot of practice and a lot of work to do, but at this moment, I wouldn’t say we would be.
REPORTER: You’re committed to Terrelle, obviously, we’re getting emails, ridiculous, what is it about him that you see upside that people aren’t seeing, you think, and from the standpoint a lot of people think he hasn’t progressed like maybe you thought he would this year, what do you see there?
COACH TRESSEL: From the film grade standpoint, he probably had less minus plays than he did in the past couple weeks. Now, that’s the good news. Here’s the bad news. The minuses that we had were those triple minuses, just so happens in our grading system that it’s one thing to get your job done and handed off or block one guy or whatever, but you have a missed assignment on the offensive line, that’s, like, worth three pluses, you get three minuses. Just the way we weigh it mathematically. So his total grade didn’t end up better, but the numbers of plays where he had positive grades were higher than they’ve been and that’s the reality and the beauty of what we do is that you can have 72 great plays at corner and you get beat over top and you probably didn’t have a very good game. You didn’t have a game good enough to win. So what is it that we see that maybe someone else doesn’t? We get to see him every day, so I guess my answer would be a lot. Are we committed to Terrelle? Yeah, just like we’re committed to Todd Denlinger or Rob Rose or Anderson Russell or whomever to do whatever it is we think is the best thing for the team.
REPORTER: You said the situation you think with last year at quarterback is not similar.
COACH TRESSEL: Right.
REPORTER: Why?
COACH TRESSEL: We felt at the time last year that the best thing for the team in order to be successful was to make the decision that we did.
REPORTER: But why is that not what’s best for the team right now when you have a quarterback who’s making turnovers like that?
COACH TRESSEL: Because I don’t know that it’s the similar situation. I don’t know that it — that you have the same data as you’ve watched practice and you’ve watched development and so forth. Again, you make decisions on what you decide to write about and because you think that’s the thing to do, which some people agree, some don’t, some read it, some don’t, we do the same thing when it comes to personnel. And there have been times when you say, you know what, so and so was just getting ready to come along and then it didn’t happen, maybe we should have made that change before and I don’t mean quarterback, but any position, but you have to take what you have to work with and make decisions and hopefully you make more good ones than not good ones.
REPORTER: How different has Terrelle looked in practice as opposed to in games?
COACH TRESSEL: Well, games and practice are a different world.
REPORTER: Obviously you use one to evaluate the other.
COACH TRESSEL: You use games to evaluate at the highest level, but everyone is playing in the same medium in practice and the games are a different medium. How has he looked differently? He hasn’t been perfect in practice, but he’s come along in practice. He hasn’t been perfect in games, but he’s come along in games. Now, did we have three or four moments that were impactful, there’s no question about it. Did any of those things rear up in practice that gave you the exact same scenario? Not really.
REPORTER: When you got together and evaluated the film from an offensive standpoint, anything different this week as opposed to other weeks when you look at it in terms of moving forward? I’m not saying scrapping everything, is there a sense of we’ve got to start over, we’ve really got to find what’s best from here on out?
COACH TRESSEL: I think the biggest thing and the most obvious thing is, you cannot be wonderful, but don’t turn it over and you can maybe survive, but if you turn it over, the impact that has on more than just you is tough to — take any level of football. You’re not going to be successful if you make errors like that. The question I think you ask, you have to ask yourself is, is it something we’re doing that all of a sudden one of the cardinal principles that you know is true about the game, there’s debate all the time, should we be doing what Georgia Tech’s doing, should we be doing what Florida’s doing, should we be doing what whoever’s doing, that’s a debate. There’s no right answer to that. There a right answer to whether or not you should be turning it over, regardless of what kind of system you’re using. So the question I think you have to ask yourself in the mirror, is there something we’re doing that is contributing toward not being good in a critical situation, just like if you had the ongoing discussion about the guys up front. Well, the cardinal principle there is, you can’t miss an assignment because what that can do to the rest of the world, well, then you know he didn’t want to miss an assignment, he didn’t go out there with the intention of missing an assignment, so what is it we had him thinking about or we didn’t work on enough that would have led to us missing an assignment. So I don’t know if that answered your question but I did my best.
REPORTER: But the turnovers, if that is your number one, I think, commandment and your –
COACH TRESSEL: Sure. It should be in anyone’s.
REPORTER: So needless to say it’s tried your patience, but I assume you see it more as an overall.
COACH TRESSEL: Sure.
REPORTER: Than just as Terrelle’s problem.
COACH TRESSEL: Oh, gosh, yeah.
REPORTER: I mean he gets saddled with the picks.
COACH TRESSEL: That’s okay, though, when great things happen, he gets saddled with the adulation, he’s not naive to the reality of you’re wonderful if it’s going wonderful and you’re the problem if it isn’t. It’s a very visible position. A very difficult position. And I heard one of the scouts or something that was in talking about, oh, so and so’s team is playing well, I said, yeah, this is such a quarterback-driven league, that when that quarterback is playing well, you’ve got a chance. Well, which league is it because he’s got his hands on the most valuable possession, the thing everyone came to watch, he’s got his hands on it most of the day, not that that left tackle isn’t important or that right tackle or the nose guard, but he’s not naive to knowing that that’s going to be the perception, what he’s got to be clear about is what is it I can do better. Can’t worry about what the kickoff team is doing better, because I’m going to assume they’re over there working on it, I can’t worry about what the tight end’s got to do better, I assume he’s working on it because I’m not the tight end coach, what is it that I can do better? To me that is what is the great challenge of coaching and the fun of coaching is how can I do a better job to make all of us focus in on what have I got to do better.
REPORTER: How do you get the point across to Terrelle, he’s talked about turnovers, he hates them too, but how do you get the point across about maybe sitting down if you do another one for a while, how do you approach that?
COACH TRESSEL: I’ve only done that once with a young guy because I didn’t think he really believed how important it was and that he — all he could remember was the couple passes he completed. He had amnesia about his turnovers. So only once have I really felt that that’s what was needed, and it worked because he didn’t throw another pick the rest of the year and it was a good deal. But that’s what I thought he needed. I don’t think that’s what Terrelle needs. As you just said, no one has a disdain for turnovers any more than Terrelle, and we’ve got to more deeply understand. And so Terrelle’s problems are no different than the whole team’s and I know you love to talk about it and that’s okay, but the whole team, the more deeply you understand what it takes at your particular role, the better chance we have to being successful and that’s something that you wish you could put in a computer chip or I hope that fantasy team’s not working, I’m going to go hire that one or this video game, I can’t beat that one, I’m going to get this one. The fun of working with people is just that.
REPORTER: With what you’re trying to do offensively, do you feel like you are keeping defenses off balance with what you want to do?
COACH TRESSEL: I’m sure they’ve got to be a little bit off balance because sometimes we go down and score in four plays and sometimes we look as if we aren’t doing so well. So they’ve got to wonder. I’m sure at times they’ve got to be sitting there saying, I hope that group that just scored in three plays doesn’t show up. But I don’t know the answer to your question. I know this, the few times we’ve talked to people after games or had people talk to people that were buddies and said, you know, they’re very concerned if number two has his hands on the ball and things are in good stead because I don’t know if anyone could question the explosive potential both running and passing that Terrelle brings and have we all done everything to make sure that we magnify that? Probably not. Has he done everything he needs to do to maximize that? Probably not. But it doesn’t mean we won’t stop working on it.
REPORTER: So is it more you need to do better what you’re already doing or do you need to change more of what you’re trying to do right now?
COACH TRESSEL: Do we need to do better of what we’re already — probably we need more of the first thing you said than the second thing.
REPORTER: Do you not feel like defenses are coming up and trying to stop Terrelle.
COACH TRESSEL: Oh, sure.
REPORTER: And making him throw.
COACH TRESSEL: Sure.
REPORTER: Do you feel like you’ve made.
COACH TRESSEL: A little bit like we did with Barkley. I mean, it’s what we do every week. Every week we make sure that there’s no way they can just run the ball, whether it’s their quarterback who happens to be a runner or their tailback or John Clay or whoever it happens to be, you better not let them trample you with a run because then you have no answers defensively, so, no, I think there’s no question about it. Minnesota does a great job of getting extra people in the box. They do a good job pressure-wise, so I’d be shocked if people didn’t know what you already know.
REPORTER: Are you making them pay for that enough, do you think?
COACH TRESSEL: Have we been successful enough doing that? Probably not. I mean, I’m sure if we were, we would have scored a lot more points. I mean, you know the answer to your question.
REPORTER: How big a focal point in practice this week will be eliminating pre-snap penalties? You guys have had a lot of them this year.
COACH TRESSEL: I’ll tell you what, that’s — things you can control, and I’ve always believed that turnovers are a thing you can control. If you really believe that that is a game difference-maker, then you have a chance of minimizing them. You can’t — hey, a ball bounces off, things happen, but if you’re a ball carrier and above all else, more important than how many yards you gain is at the end of the play, that ball’s still ours, and if you really believe that, then we’ve got a chance, and that is something that you ought to be able to do regardless of your talent level. Same thing with those penalties that you can control. Above all else, I know where the snap count is, where’s the ball heading and what’s my job, it’s not that difficult. And that’s why I say, have we made it too difficult? And so in answer to Doug’s question, whatever it was, yeah, we have to get better at what we’re doing and make sure we’re doing what we ought to be doing.
REPORTER: The deep pass interception, when you reviewed that on film, just off the TV it looked like he had plenty of running room in front of him, is it hesitancy of his to run the ball.
COACH TRESSEL: Which pass interception.
REPORTER: The one he threw deep to Duron, is he not seeing the field? Is he hesitant to run in your study? What did you come back with as a consensus on that play?
COACH TRESSEL: On that play I think he should have run. That’s my opinion. Based upon — you didn’t know for sure when you’re at the game. So many times coaches will be screaming through the headset someone should have done this or that and you’ll watch the film and you’ll say, oh, I know why he didn’t. That particular play, after I watched it on film, my evaluation was we would have been much better served running. Now, I don’t remember the down distance.
REPORTER: First and 15.
COACH TRESSEL: Yeah, so you may have gotten seven yards. But that’s part of — to me, the whole key to playing the position of quarterback and I suppose any position, is know what we need. If I’m an offensive lineman, the one thing we don’t need is we don’t need me offside. We don’t need me blocking the wrong guy. And then the hard part starts, that guy I’m blocking is pretty good so I’ve got to use my technique, and etc., etc.
So key to a quarterback, know what we need. Well, one thing we don’t need, I know for sure, is an interception and we don’t need a fumble, don’t need that, no need for it. Now, it’s first and 15, what do we need? Seven yards, eight yards? We’re back having a chance. Sometimes quarterbacks get a little bit, oh, it’s third and 14, I’ll never forget, we were playing — I think it was Illinois, over at Illinois and T-Zach (Tomczak) got hurt and Offenbecher went in and we had a corner route and a flat route and he threw the corner route, and it was intercepted. He came back, I said what were you thinking. He said, yeah, I saw the flat, but it was third and 17. Well, granted, we needed 17, but what we needed even more than that was to not throw an interception. So that’s all part of you know what you have to get better at. On that particular play, I’m sure he didn’t have a plus and in my opinion should have been a run.
REPORTER: You talked earlier about the three groups that you spoke with last week, was the implication that maybe the players didn’t necessarily look at Purdue as a viable upset?
COACH TRESSEL: The implication was I didn’t think I did a very good job of getting them to really understand the challenge we had, it’s hard for people to understand the depth of a challenge, but I didn’t think I did a very good job as I looked out, I didn’t see — there’s nothing you can put — I can’t give it an exact, well, this person did that, I didn’t have a good feel, maybe I just didn’t have a good feel that I was doing a good job, you know how that goes, but I didn’t sense that from anyone that, man, these guys are good or these guys, man, I can’t believe they’re not 5-1. There wasn’t any of that from any which way I looked and maybe that’s just my natural paranoia because I’m always looking at the film saying, oh, man, if they don’t turn it over — they had 20 turnovers in their first five games. Well, I mean, you are all schooled well enough to know by now that you’re not going to win with that, but if all of a sudden you create five takeaways and what did they have, two or three? Three. Yeah, you’ve got a chance. You’ve got a plus two in the game, you’ve got a chance. So that’s my implication that I’m not sure — and that’s my job, that’s not your job, it’s not someone else’s job, it’s my job to make sure we understand the difficulty of the challenge truly. I mean, honestly the difficulty of the challenge. What’s the percent chances of being the national champions I don’t know, what’s the percent chances of being the Big Ten Champion, what are we going to have to do to do that? And I’m not sure I’ve done as good a job as I need to do helping us understand that those aren’t just, oh, shoot, we’ll be the champions. You know, that’s — there’s been a lot of people come through here that have never been the champions and it’s a difficult thing and you’ve got to understand the difficulty of the challenge.
REPORTER: There’s always a lot of second-guessing. After you looked at the video of the game, did you second-guess any of your play calling.
COACH TRESSEL: Sure, absolutely.
REPORTER: Did you think that you put — Terrelle’s catching a lot of flack. Was he put in the best position with the plays that were sent in?
COACH TRESSEL: I think the combination of what we asked him to do and what the other people around him, that’s always the assessment, that everyone has a part in the way someone is portrayed and in the offensive quarterback’s situation, it’s the coaches and whoever else was on the field with them. In the free safety’s position, it’s the front seven have a huge impact on what he’s going to look like. So, absolutely. And what the coach asks, the defensive call and all the rest.
REPORTER: Are you concerned that if you did have to sit him down that he wouldn’t be able to handle it, are you worried about his state? I think the fans want to know is how long is the leash for Terrelle?
COACH TRESSEL: I think a good easy answer to that is as long as we think he’s the best guy doing the job for the team, that gives the team the best chance to be successful. So it’s as long or as short as one would want to make it.
REPORTER: That’s kind of what I.
COACH TRESSEL: I’ve got to get Lori, don’t want to forget, she was mad at me.
REPORTER: How much in your decision to stick with Terrelle through the game last week and then not to quote, unquote, put him on notice to jeopardize his status this week, how much of that is concern or is there concern over what effect that would have on him psychologically or confidence-wise, is there any thought process along those lines?
COACH TRESSEL: I think you always try to keep in mind people’s feelings, but not to the point where it will hurt the team. If you think something is the best thing to do for the team, I think you have to do a good job communicating with the person that might have their feelings hurt and all that, but you’ve got to do what you think is the best thing for the team. To me, that’s what our responsibility is. Our responsibility is to the group. Now, that doesn’t mean we don’t care about the individual. You do all you can do to help every individual. But not at the expense of the team. Lori? Real quick.
REPORTER: You said you see a lot of development in Terrelle. Can you give us some specific examples of things he’s doing better now other than he’s just a more experienced quarterback than at the beginning of the season?
COACH TRESSEL: I think that as you watch his footwork, it’s significantly better. I think if you watch his progression and understanding of what we need to do and where we need to go, whether it’s run check-offs or who I should be reading and so forth. Now, I think while we’re progressing in that area, where we need to progress more which is probably the most difficult area is when things aren’t just right, whether it’s protection breakdown or route breakdown or whatever. To me, the person that really is far along in their trade is that that’s where, whether they’re throwing it out of bounds or running up the field or whatever, those are hard to rehearse. How do you rehearse when you — this person had a missed assignment in their pass protection and here comes that guy running right at your nose, you know, we don’t rehearse those too much, but I think that’s a development in understanding, not that he hasn’t progressed in that area, but that’s the hardest one for a quarterback to progress in and usually the hardest ones, there’s the slowest progression. But I think he’s coming along just fine and as fine as I would like it to be? No. As fine as you would like it to be? No. But he’s progressing.
