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University of Minnesota Athletics
Brewster Press Conference Transcript
9/1/2009 12:00:00 AM | Football
Opening Statement
“We are very excited about the 2009 football season. Everybody is excited this week. It’s game week and we are really looking forward to take our team on the road to Syracuse, to play on Saturday. In thinking about Syracuse, a number of people have asked me about a situation, where one of the coaches at Syracuse said that we’re in for a rude awaking going to Syracuse. I don’t think that is the case at all. We have a lot of respect for Syracuse, I know Doug Marrone extremely well. I have known him for a long time and also a lot staff members at Syracuse. There is tremendous tradition and history at Syracuse. I have played at the Carrier Dome as a player, coached at the Carrier Dome as a coach. I certainly understand the tremendous challenge that awaits our football team as we go into Syracuse.
On Syracuse’s fans
There is a great deal of excitement at Syracuse. They have hired an alum in Doug Marrone to come home to Syracuse to rebuild their football program. They have tremendous tradition and history. I think it’s a very similar school to Minnesota with the tradition and history, all the great players that have played there. To go on the road and open up there is a tremendous challenge. The crowd is loud. I don’t know exactly how many people (the Carrier Dome) holds, but their fans are an asset for their football team. They are going to be very excited. From what I understand, it is going to be an Orange Out for them. So we’ll see a lot of orange. Again we have done our due diligence in studying Syracuse and they have outstanding players. They have a great coaching staff. They have fans that are going to be very excited about them playing their first game at home. It all adds up to be a tremendous challenge for our football team and one that we are excited about. I think it is a great opener for our football team to go on the road into such an environment like we’re going to see at Syracuse and see whether or not we’ll be up to the challenge.
On Syracuse’s offense
As you look at Syracuse’s football team, offensively everybody wants to talk about Greg Paulus. Greg Paulus was a Gatorade National Player of the Year as a high school senior. He’s a very outstanding football player, very athletic, throws the ball extremely well. I have watched the video tape and evaluated the kid coming out of high school. He could have played football at any university in America and you would have been very excited to have him on your team. He did not forget all that he knows about football. He is going to be an excellent football player Saturday. Rob Spencer their offensive coordinator will do a nice job taking the pressure off him. They’ve got an outstanding tailback in (Delone) Carter. They’ve got very strong, complementary personnel around him, a strong offensive line and an outstanding tight end in (Nick) Provo. I think Mike Williams, along with our guy Eric Decker, are going to be two of the better wide receivers in the country. Mike Williams is kid who sat out last year but had an outstanding year two years ago and now is back on their football team. He is going to be a tremendous asset for them. Getting back to (Greg) Paulus, he so gifted athletically. When you think about the pressure he’s been under playing basketball at Duke and all the situations he’s been in, he’s not going to be phased by playing in the Carrier Dome. I fully anticiapate for him to play well. It’s going to be up to us to do a great job stopping the run, getting after the run and see how Greg (Paulus) responds to some other things that we give him. Their running back is a really good player. They have really strong offensive personnel.
On Syracuse’s defense
"Defensively, the same deal. They have a nose guard,Arthur Jones, that I think that is as good as there is anywhere in the country. They have two safeties that are very athletic, big, strong, fast guys who cover a lot of ground. They’ve got an outstanding coaching staff. Scott Shafer came from Michigan. Obviously, we are aware of the things that he has done accomplished, both Michigan and previously at Stanford."
More on Syracuse’s coaching staff and the game
"Again Rob Spence -- last year he was at Clemson. Doug Marrone has a lot of NFL flavor ... New Orleans Saints and doing some different things there. I feel pretty good about our preparation and what I think they’re going to try to do with us. Bobby Casullo, their Special Teams coach, is a guy that I have known forever. He has been in the NFL and is an outstanding football coach. Their special teams will be very well-prepared. It’s just a tremendous challenge for us. They’ve got a first-year head coach who is extremely excited to be home at his alma mater. I think they’ve got outstanding personnel, a strong coaching staff and a home game with their fans being awfully excited about the Orangemen being at home. It’s a great challenge for us. We have prepared extremely hard. I’m excited about the way we’ve prepared. I’m excited about our football team and the improvements we’ve made as a football team and we’ll be ready to go.”
On Ray Henderson
“It will be a nice thing for our football team to have Ray Henderson perform well for us. He has battled some injuries and had a physical illness last year in training camp. It is great to see him back running around. Obviously, you see him playing behind Cedric McKinley and I am pulling hard for him to play well. He’s worked extremely hard to get back.”
On Minnesota’s running backs
“I would like to play all three of those backs. We’ve got a plan for how we’re going to utilize all three, specific plays, that type of thing. Then we’ll see who is feeling it, who is playing the best as we move into the third and fourth quarter, seeing whether or not a guy is really picking up some steam and some confidence and playing well. All three of those guys are certainly going to get their touches in the game. I feel really good about the depth we have at tailback. Those three guys are excellent football players. They have worked extremely hard at getting bigger and stronger. They all have All three of them, throughout the course of the season, are going to be very useful for us.”
On Minnesota’s depth
“I feel good about the depth on our football team across the board. Tailback is a position of strength for us, but there are other positions we feel strongly about with our depth. For the first time in our three years here, we’ve got, I think, what you could call some quality depth. Obviously it is highlighted at the running back spot.”
On Troy Stoudermire’s preparation for so many roles
“He works really hard at it. We really preach to our kids that they need to be students of the game. His due diligence allows him to assimilate what it is that we want to accomplish with him. We’re not going to overload anybody. We’re not overloading him. He’s done great. He’s has as good a training camp as good as any kid on our football team. He has really improved as a route runner, as a receiver in general, blocking as a receiver. Everybody understands how dyanmic he is with the ball in his hands. I’m really excited about his improvements as a wide receiver.”
On Minnesota’s receivers
“We’re much more athletic. We’re much faster. You’ve got an experienced guy like (Eric) Decker, who mentors the group and leads the group. Nick Tow Arnett has just been outstanding as our tight end. I think tight end is a real position of strength. That group is really progressing nicely. We’ve added to the group. When you add to the group a guy like Bryant Allen, those type of guys that bring that type of athletic ability to the position, it’s a good thing.”
On the kicking game
“I feel pretty good about it. Danny Orseske, a true freshman from Chicago, has come in and his first punt at TCF Bank Stadium in front of 15,000 fans, he hit the ball 70 yards with over a 4.0 hang time. That’s pretty good stuff and he’s been very consistent. (Eric) Ellestad has done a nice job too. He’s kicked the ball this well this spring. He’s carried that into the summer. I think he’s going to be a very solid guy. I’m not going to ask him to hit 50-yard field goals. I’m just going to ask him to be very competent inside 40 yards. Again I think Orseske is going to take up where Kucek left off. I thought Kucek had an outstanding year last year, particularly on the punts getting downed on the short end of the field, inside the ten. Danny’s done a nice job mastering the flop punt. I think our athletic ability, our ability to run, is really going to help us on our coverage units. I think our kickoff cover, our punt teams, are going to have a chance to be good groups because of the athletic ability, because of the depth that we have on our football team.”
On Dan Orseske
“He hasn’t been perfect, obviously. He’s been pretty darn consistent. He’s a very strong-legged kid. He was the No. 1 ranked punter in the country coming out of high school and he hasn’t disappointed us in any way. He’s a big long kid. The thing with him too is he is outstanding getting the ball out. His times getting the ball punted are excellent. He’s a two-step punter and he understands the urgency of getting the ball off.”
On Eric Ellestad
“Ellestad is a quiet kid. He’s a local kid. He’s got his opportunity. He’s got his chance to shine and I really hope he takes advantage of it. Mentally, make-up wise, he’s a very calm guy. Sometimes I wonder does he get excited at all and I think it’s probably a pretty good thing for a guy in his position to have kind of a low demeanor in that way. He doesn’t seem to get ruffled too much.”
On Minnesota’s nickel package
“It will be interesting. We’ve got a number of guys that we’re playing back there. Obviously, Michael Carter is a kid that’s going to get on the field and could possibly fit that bill. There are a number of other guys that we’re looking at there.”
On Greg Paulus
“I’ve looked at the stuff from high school. There’s a lot of YouTube video out there on the kid. You look at every opportunity you can. But you know what? I don’t need to look at a lot of film on Greg. I know exactly who he is, he’s is a very athletic, very smart, ultra-competitive football player. That’s why I was so excited about him when he came out of high school and from what I understand he’s had a great camp. They’ve named him a captain on their football team. Doug wouldn’t have done that unless he deserved it. For him to win the starting job in such a short period of time says a lot about the kid. I admire him. I admire his competitiveness. I admire what he did on the basketball court at Duke. It’s fu for Syracuse. It’s fun for college football to have a kid like that playing college football.”
On playing teams from BCS conferences
“I think it just inspires your football team, inspires your fan base, inspires your recruits. It’s all good. In my mind, there is no negative there. We want to take the next step. We want to create a championship-caliber program here, year in and year out. To do that, I think you’ve got to to recruit at a high level and you’re not going to recruit at a high level playing four non-conference games that recruits aren’t excited about playing. I’m excited about the fact that our fans are excited about who we’re playing. Our fans do what? They inspire us. Obviously I don’t want to play four non-conference games against USC. I want to balance it out somewhat. But I want our team to be in marquee games where we have an opportunity to put the Minnesota Golden Gophers on a national stage and show off our program.”
On the irony of starting this season in a dome
“I find it really ironic that that Carrier Dome, which (Carrier) is the largest air conditioning manufacturer in the world today, doesn’t have A.C. That’s ironic too. To me it’s not going to be that big of a deal. We practice in our indoor facility and we’ve been playing in the Metrodome, so we understand the confinement of playing in a dome. Their dome is a little different, because it’s smaller and they really do a great job of being loud and being the 12th man for their football team.”
On keeping Minnesota’s home opener and the first game at TCF Bank Stadium on the backburner
“You have to. You’ve got no other choice. Syracuse is an outstanding football team and it’s going to be a tremendous challenge for us to go in there. If we look, for a second, past Syracuse that would not be a good idea. Obviously there is a tremendous amount of excitement around the opening TCF Bank Stadium, and rightfully so. It’s a historic time in Gopher football, but we’ve got to make sure we handle our business and play a great football game this Saturday. Our whole goal from the time we got together after the Insight Bowl was to be 1-0 on Sept. 5.”
On Minnesota’s depth
“We’ve had a great camp and I think anyone who has watched us practice has seen our great energy. I like the evolvement and development of our football team from a depth movement and from an athletic standpoint. Are we 100 percent where we need to be? Absolutely not. This year we’ll sign another full recruiting class. This recruiting class, in my mind, will be the key class to put us over the top as far as depth on our team is concerned.”
On preparing Minnesota players mentally for big games
“It’s my responsibility to see that we’re ready from a mental standpoint, making sure we’re doing everything we can from a preparation standpoint that’s going to allow us to have confidence going into the game. It remains to be seen. We’ve got to go out and play the scheule out. We’ve got to go out and play the teams. But I’m excited. I’m genuinely excited about the improvements we’ve made and where we’re at as a footall team. I think we’ve got a chance to be a very good football team.
On non-conference games preparing the team for big games later in the year
“You want to play your best in big games. Obviously, the biggest, most meaningful games for us are our Big Ten football games. What we want to do is, through our non-conference schedule, do a great job of preparing ourselves for the season, for the tough teams we’re going to play. We learned a lot last year. We come out of the gate 7-1 and we’re doing a lot of successful things. We did not have the staying power to finish the season out in a very positive manner. We learned a lot from that. I think we’ve made some adjustments and we’ve done some things to help ourselves. I think the schedule is one of those things that will help us.”
On the coverage Eric Decker will receive
“I think the biggest thing we’ve got to do with Eric Decker is not allow the defense to identify him from an alignment standpoint. We’ve got to move him around, we’ve got to make him a moving target. What we want to be able to do with Eric is, by formation, motion and shift, create space for him. That’s what we’ll do. We’re going to move him around. We are going to ask a lot of Eric Decker. He’s had a great camp and he’s ready to go play football.”
On Big Ten teams that can make a push for the top of the standings
“I think, from top to bottom, it’s a good conference, it’s a solid conference. I know right now, kind of the cute thing to do is say the Big Ten is not on par with other conferences, but I don’t necessarily agree with that. From top to bottom, we have an extremely strong conference. I like where we sit in the conference. We’re not a team that is favored to be an upper echelon team. We are still in the developmental stage as we move forward. But again I really like our team. I like the mental make-up of our team.”
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