Jim Tressel Press Conference Recap- October 19th, 2010

After a disappointing loss to Wisconsin last Saturday, Coach Tressel met with the media today to discuss that loss and the upcoming game against the Purdue Boilermakers.

Coach Tressel's Opening Statement:

I think I would start by acknowledging the fact that Wisconsin played a heck of a football game and I don't want to discount that in any way, shape, or form. I reflect back a little bit between the last two contests we've had with Wisconsin and it really clarifies what's important in the game of football a year ago, they turned it over and we ran two of them back for a touchdown and we ran a kickoff back for a touchdown and all the rest, and then this particular year, we let a kickoff go for a touchdown. We didn't create the takeaways. I

think the one thing that isn't as glaring to the casual observer is that first down and your success on first down is so critical, and you look back a year ago, we did a really good job of putting them behind the count. We had some early down sacks on them and put them second and a mile, and this year I think 17 of the 27 first down plays that they had resulted in more than four yards, and then all of a sudden if you're ahead of the count, it's playing offensive football is a whole different thing. I think we were 14 out of 29 where we had four yards or more, which, you know, isn't dominant by any respect, but I think that first down situation, we talk about every play as being a different situation, how did you do on first down, how did you do on third down, how did you do kickoff cover versus kickoff cover, punt cover versus punt cover and so forth. But I thought a significant part of this game is that they did an excellent job on first down

Wisconsin's success in moving the ball was in direct relation to their first down rushing success. Wisconsin actually only attempted eight third down conversions (making half of those.) Ohio State's inability to win first down made it easy for Wisconsin to control the ball, and more importantly, move the ball.

How will the team react after losing a tough game on the road?

To me the key will be, what kind of students are we, because if you're being taught through adversity, how well are we learning from it, and that will be the fun of attacking the practice field. Because what's interesting is Purdue really doesn't care about the difficulty of the challenge or the adversity or the disappointment of maybe letting someone down. Purdue has had their own adversity. They lost their quarterback early. They lost a running back in preseason. They lost a great receiver. And to their credit, they just rolled up their sleeves and have gotten better and better and better and find themselves by doing so, sitting at the top of the Big Ten, 2-0, playing well, young quarterback coming in and the staff, I think, is doing a great job with that young quarterback. He's a very, very good runner and a very good passer. I think they're doing the things that conceptually he understands and keep adding a little bit as he goes and in terms of our situation, Purdue doesn't really care about our adversities, they've dealt with their own, they just care about getting better.

And what we have to make sure when we take the field this afternoon is that we're most concerned with getting better at what we need to do. Our players and coaches spent just as long on Sunday watching the film together as they normally do, and someone asked me on the Big Ten call, well, how were our guys this week. Well, Sunday they were tired. They were sore. They were disappointed, but they went to work and went to do what they had to do. Yesterday was their day off and there were lots of them roaming around the building, watching more film, lifting weights and doing all the things they do on an off day, but in my mind, the measure of how we confront that adversity and what kind of students we are of adversity will be determined by how we hit the practice field and how we take the field on Saturday and, you know, life is tough.

What's the state of the team, as far as injury and health goes?

Injury-wise, I was telling someone, Ken, I think, at lunch, the only guy that really concerns me, Ross Homan is going to be out. That concerns you. He'll be out for a couple weeks probably, but his thing will be fine. A little bit concerned about Christian Bryant. He had an infection last week and we thought we had it under control and he played a little bit in the game and then he had a not very good reaction to it on the plane ride back once we finally got on the plane, and he's been over at Ohio State Medical Center trying to get it under control and I don't know all the whys and the wherefores and whatnot, but it doesn't look like he'll be out of there until late this week and just want to make sure that we get that calmed down, you never know with infections and whatnot, so obviously he won't have a week of practice. I'm trying to think of who else was out of the game. Ross will be out for a couple weeks.

He also went on to mention that Orhian Johnson and J.B. Shugarts are banged up, but should be able to play on Saturday. Dorian Bell suffered a concussion against Indiana and his out this weekend again.

Injuries are really starting to affect this team in a negative manner. Jonathan Newsome made numerous mistakes against Wisconsin in place of Ross Homan, and losing Christian Bryant against Purdue further thins the secondary.

Who plays in Christian Bryant's place on Saturday?

You know, I don't know the answer to that question. I do know this, if we were playing Purdue of yesteryear, you would have had a nickel guy in the game every snap. Purdue of today is -- does more things, which everyone thought Purdue is this ingenious group, well, heck they lined up the same way every time, just threw it every down, but you had the same guys on the field. Now they do a lot of different things. So you're going to have your base people in the game a decent amount, but you're going to have your nickel situations as well.

Without having sat in the defensive room and talked about it with them, you have a couple different ways you can go, Jermale Hines has played a lot of nickel, which would probably put Gant in the game. Nate Oliver was your number two nickel all spring and all season until he got hurt, and he's back healthy. He played a little bit of special teams Saturday, so he's obviously an answer to that. Or you can do what Iowa does. Iowa plays nickel with their base people and that's what Miami Florida does. Miami plays their nickel looks with their base people, so I'm sure there's a number of things you can do.

Purdue has become a running and option team with redshirt freshman Rob Henry at quarterback, so Bryant's loss is not as perilous as it would have been against, say, Purdue last season.

Still, Ohio State is now on its third string "Star" position player, and this may force the coaches to get creative in the secondary.

Ohio State's lack of depth along the defensive line hurt them against Wisconsin, as well, and Coach Tressel expanded on that a bit:

I can remember many times we've talked since last February that one of the concerns was that five of our eight in our eight-man rotation were graduating or going out early, one of the two. So, yes, we were concerned about would we mature to the point where we could get into an eight-man rotation. Johnathan Hankins, I think, has been a guy that's come along. We think Adam Bellamy's coming along, Garrett Goebel's coming along. What you get into in a ball game like this is, you know, is it the right time and the right place to put someone in?

Obviously the conclusion that was drawn in that drive in particular or in that game was that certain guys played, certain guys didn't, but that's probably been something we've talked about as much as anything is that if we were going to progress to become the team we would like to be, we have to grow fast with some of the younger guys and that's still our goal and -- but are we as deep and can we rotate as much as when we had -- you know, you had Thaddeus and you had Lawrence Wilson, you had Doug Worthington, you had Todd Denlinger, you had Rob Rose. Those guys all were the rotators last year and, you know, they're rotating elsewhere right now. But that's where we are. Don't get me wrong, I don't think Jim would tell you that he's disappointed with the progression of Adam or Garrett or Solomon Thomas or anyone, but he just, at the moment, felt like that wasn't the best decision.

The loss of five rotation guys from the defensive line from last season has thinned the fresh legs, and against Wisconsin, it showed up for the first time all season.

After losing to Purdue last season, the Boilermakers should have the team's full attention, no?

Well, absolutely, and what you hope you have full attention of is what you have to do to get better, more so than it being Purdue, and that's who we have to have full attention as to what they do. But full attention really is, in my opinion, has always been what do we have to do to become the best we can be. Let's face it, in this day and age, the single hardest thing, I think, for anyone is to keep the focus on the task that's going on right this second. The world isn't built that -- we talk about how offenses and defenses are built. The world isn't built that way right now. The world is so -- even now you get -- someone said, oh, run the table. Run the table? Wait a minute, we've got to play this game, you know, and so that to me is your biggest challenge and our guys will have the full attention of Purdue.

What are the issues with kickoff and punt coverage?

Well, there aren't any other issues, other than being in your lane and taking on blockers and everyone being where they're supposed to be. So, yeah, they're the exact same. What can you do? You can try to grow to understand that it just takes one guy -- we always talk as a kickoff return team, make them be perfect because if there's only one guy off, you have a chance. If you have a guy that can find that seam. You know, we had -- we had probably two or three problems on that first kick. I don't know that our number 10 guy folded and hit the crease with the velocity he should have. Our Number -- I guess it would have been seven or eight guy went around the block. Our number five guy got grabbed and tackled.

I mean, there were a lot of things that were a part of that, but the bottom line is that when you're covering kicks, there's no excuses, they don't care if you get pushed in the back, grabbed, held, thought you should have gone around it, thought the ball was going here or there, you have to fit. And just like when you're playing defense, you have to fit. Kickoff, you have to fit from 70 yards away. Defense you have to fit from the line of scrimmage. We just didn't fit. But that's really nothing new as to when you err on kickoff return, it's because of poor fit, and when you fit it up right, you usually can get them on the ground normally in relation to the depth and height of your kick. Sometimes you may say, I've got the 29 yard line, that's too far. The kick landed on the 12, that's pretty good. The kick landed on the three, we want them right around the 21.

If you let some creases happen, I think the average start after we kicked off for them was the 44 yard line because they had one at the zero and then the other ones after that. But our consistency with our fits and our consistency with our kicks, I mean, you guys have been there, haven't been what we need.

How does it get fixed?

Well, with Coach Haynes who was in charge of the unit and the three or four coaches who assist him is they are constantly talking about you can't go around a blocker in that, you have to -- you have to take on blockers square and two gap and so forth. As soon as you go around them, you think, well, I can go around them, I'm going to catch him. Well, you're not going to catch him, not when you're going a million miles an hour that way and he's coming this way, it doesn't happen. So you're going to stress fundamentals, and I don't want to -- please don't paint the picture that us having the kickoff taken back lost the game, because we still had -- we still had 59 minutes and 48 seconds, so we had plenty of time to make up for that, but we've got to get better at that.

And the closing statement about the rest of the season moving forward:

I don't think so. I thought Illinois had a couple nice little wrinkles offensively. They had a week off and so forth. I thought Wisconsin had some good things and I thought defensively did some good things. They kind of shifted coverage-wise a little bit on some things that we hadn't seen, but still there's answers to everything and so I don't know, I mean, again, that reality of where we reside is that you're always going to face a team that looks better the day you play them than they did on the film. They're going to play better than they ever have.

We told our guys countless times that there are 10 teams that want one thing for sure and that's for Ohio State not to be the Big Ten champions and that's real. So that's what you signed up for. That's what you know. And now let's see how you can handle it and we'll get a little glimpse of that on this afternoon's practice, but the real look at it will be Saturday and then the following Saturday and the following and following. But, you know, that's the fun of it. That's the fun of the challenge.