University of Minnesota Athletics
10/21/2003 12:00:00 AM | Football
"This week we've got the University of Illinois, the Fighting Illini, they've had a tough start to the 2003 season, however I can just tell you, you watch them on film, they still have talent, they've recruited very well over the last couple years, and I have a lot of respect for Ron Turner and the job that he's done there. I guess in some ways they are a very young football team, which typically when you play a lot of young players, you pay the price, and they've got good schemes, offensively, defensively, and in the kicking game, and the way I look at it, it will be a tough contest for my team in Champaign-Urbana."
Question: Did you learn anything from your defense, or the way they responded after a tough loss vs. Michigan, to come back and play ball against a difficult offense?
"Well, I mentioned, literally minutes after that game on Saturday afternoon, that I thought we got better as the game went on. Why do I say that? How many times have I had to answer the question about how do I think my ball club will respond to a very tough loss to Michigan the week before? Nobody asked me the question, well how do you think your team's going to respond against that tough loss against Michigan if you start off and fumble the ball on the opening kickoff and get down 17 points to begin the game. I mean that really would have been a tough question to answer. But, I though they handled it well, probably more poised, more seasoned, than the years experience that we have, and we dug ourselves in a hole, and we almost dug ourselves out, and then we fell back in, and almost dug ourselves out again. Those were positive signs for me. So, hopefully we can build on it."
Question: Overall, in what ways do you think the defense is better than it was last year?
"It's hard for me to compare year-to-year, game-to-game, that's the reference I was making to the type of team we were playing after how we ended with 31 points in the fourth quarter against Michigan, that's what I would say."
Question: What has been more improved that you have seen game-to-game this year, from those guys?
"Well, I think I already answered that, we give up 31 points in the fourth quarter and couldn't stop a pass at all, and then against a team that came in where a guy (Jeff Smoker) was completing over 72% of his passes and throwing the ball all over the lot, you'd think we'd have a real rough time of it, and like I said, if you would have told me that we'd hold him to 252 yards passing, I thought we'd probably had been okay."
Question: It's been said that there's a 90% chance that Beutjer and Halsey are not going to play this weekend, do you still worry about that extra 10% or do you kind of prepare differently?
"We don't prepare any differently; you prepare for the scheme - what they do. I can't imagine that they're going to do much differently than what they've done to date - maybe they will, I don't know. I don't have a crystal ball, so I couldn't guess what they would do differently."
Question: I think most Big Ten teams have had a bye by now, how difficult is that to play without a bye, both mentally and physically?
"That's what we used to do all the time. I think this bye became a product of 11 games in the Big Ten, which is still hard to explain to a lot of people who don't understand athletics. I don't know, I got mixed feelings on so-called bye weeks. They say we have our bye week the last game of the season, that's another one that's hard to explain. I don't know. I've got mixed opinions on when it's good and when it's not good. I've always liked it when I've had a bye week, if I have some injured players back because of the bye week. I don't like having a bye real late in the year though."
Question: What impressions do you have of Pazan, the redshirt quarterback that played last week, in case Beutjer doesn't play?
"Well, Pazan was a very highly-recruited guy coming out of high school, I think he had a choice of a lot of places to go. That's a tough straw to draw to get your first action against the Michigan Wolverines in the Big House. That would be tough for anyone, let's face it. And then Dustin Ward came on late in the game and was five-for-five, so they had to be impressed with the way he played there, so I don't know what we'll get. They're talented quarterbacks, I told you that, they've recruited very well at Illinois."
Question: Tony Patterson, you mentioned that you were sort of teasing him Saturday whether he was going to have a big game, is he one of your better blocking guys in more of what you ask of him, and then he comes back with 6 catches and over 100 yards?
" I wasn't teasing Tony at all. Obviously, you got a lot of players in football and if you don't touch base with them each and every day it's awfully, awfully difficult. I just happened to be saying to Tony last week, you know he's had some nagging injuries and you could sense a little frustration on his part. Wide receivers do block, every play if we're running the ball, and if we're running the ball effectively, they have to block effectively. But, the thing about it is, when you're receiving, you think of yourself as a receiver, just like when you throw the ball and you're a running back, you need someone to block for the quarterback, and a lot of times they're doing that, but they seem to judge how they're doing by how they carry the ball and the yards that they're gaining, and that's not selfish, that's just the way it is. I could sense a little frustration in Tony, and Tony said, `Hey, I haven't touched the ball.' He wasn't criticizing anybody, I think he was stating that he hadn't touched the ball in three weeks. I had no idea that he'd have the type of game that he had, or that the ball would go to him. But he's healthy now, he's healthier than he's been, and there are some things that he can really help us with. He's got a lot of experience at a position where we need some more experience."
Question: Are you guys thinking of maybe at least experimenting, taking a look at Terry Jackson at wide receiver, or something where you could use him a little bit?
"We've done that stuff already with a lot of our running backs, without actually putting him at wide receiver. Terry's a good football player, he showed that last year. You still have to play the best players, that's the thing you're always looking at, and we've got some good running backs, I'm stating the obvious again, everybody sees that."
Question: Because Michigan St. started off so well against the run, you expect other teams to do the same things against the run, does that at all change the way you approach your offensive schemes, do you prepare to use the pass more?
"You tell me how the games going to go, I'm going to tell you what we do. We didn't draw up new schemes on the sideline just because the run wasn't working. We've had them in there, we did basically the same thing, pretty much moved the ball a few inches against Northwestern a few inches to begin the game, and then the pass loosened things up and then we got with it, so I don't know."
