Indiana University Athletics
Coach DiNardo's Press Conference Comments
10/15/2002 12:00:00 AM | Football
October 15, 2002
Opening Statement: Iowa's offensive line is one of the best in the country. You've got Fred Russell at running back. Banks gets better every game at quarterback and he is particularly dangerous because he can run and throw the football.
They are a tough defense to run against. They are pretty balanced. They may be playing better than anyone in the conference with many people picking them to win the conference.
Q: After the weekend, are you thinking of changing the rotation at running back at all?
"We haven't finalized it yet. What we've been doing is one guy goes the first two series and then the other guy goes the third series then after the third series we decide how we're going to do it. It's not always the way that it was Saturday where we put Brian in and Yamar never came back in. That was the exception more than the rule. One guy has been playing more than the other, but not to that extent. We just thought Brian had the hot hand and that was the way to go."
Q: From an injury standpoint it seems like you got out of that last game pretty injury-free. Are you pretty healthy now?
"I don't think we lost anyone. Guys got banged up, as you would expect. I want to say that everyone's practicing today that played in the game."
Q: Five-of-seven third-down conversions, is that something you've been harping on?
"Really the third down situation we worked on the most offensively for the two weeks was third-and-short, which we didn't have any. Defensively third-and-long I want to say we were six-of-eight and that was one of the points of emphasis. That five-of-seven statistic kept us in the game, from the beginning of the second half into the fourth quarter we had some critical third downs."
Q: You adjusted to the loss of Joe Gonzalez. Can you talk about that?
"Any time you lose a starter, a guy like Joe who has started three years and played three years it's tough. We're all replaceable. Sometimes it's harder than others to do that. Buster Larkins is coming on and that's helped us. Will Lumpkin has helped us. It's part of the game, you just keep replacing guys when they get hurt. It will help us down the road because we'll have them all back, but Joe was an integral part of our defense, no question. His misfortune gives Buster a chance to develop and Will Lumpkin a chance to develop."
Q: The tight end in this Midwest coast offense - is it a big part of the offense or not?
"It's a big part of the offense. If a defense can defend you without defending, throwing the ball to the tight end, then you become somewhat ineffective. The issue isn't necessarily if you throw the ball to him, because we may be calling passes to them and not throwing it because they're covered. If the defense doesn't have to cover the middle of the field, which is basically what you're talking about with the tight end, then there's an issue. Our tight ends haven't caught a lot of balls but that doesn't necessarily mean that we're not being defended at the tight end position. If they don't have to defend your tight end in the west coast offense it's a problem. If you're not throwing the ball to them it doesn't necessarily have to be a problem."
Q: When you started the comeback run midway through the third period was there any specific change that started the ball rolling, so to speak?
"Maybe offensively, just that we were going to throw it a lot more. When we scored, we got a little closer to the tempo, that if we can protect the passer then we have a chance. I don't know that we ever thought we could run the ball well enough to win the game. As I've said before in this program, at this time our defense has to see our offense have some success for the morale of the team. When we started throwing the ball more and our offense started moving, our defense was energized."
Q: Has (Gibran) Hamdan made significant progress from game to game? Are you surprised by it at all?
"He certainly has made progress. I said going in that I thought both quarterbacks - Gibran and Tommy (Jones) would make more progress than, say, a redshirt freshman would make. I use that as an example because neither one had played a lot. Typically a fifth-year senior is not in this position. Usually it's a young kid taking over first-time quarterbacking. Both guys were mature, more mature than a redshirt freshman. Gibran has played Big Ten baseball, he's graduated, he's in grad school, he's a pretty mature guy. His progress, I thought, would be faster than a typical guy who has not played. How fast I did not know and I had no expectations of how fast. I think that's what you are watching develop each week. You're watching a mature guy, with no experience, make some progress. You look out there, he's still making some rookie mistakes. This is not a hall of fame meeting, but it's a little faster than the redshirt freshmen."
Q: What did you see, when you look back at the tape, out of Gibran in the comeback?
"A guy who can throw the ball. He's got a good arm and can throw it. The receivers played well."
Q: Is there a position you see more improvement this year?
"You've got to play the year out. It's week to week with different group. It has something to do with the matchup you're playing against. To evaluate what group has improved the most, the wise thing to do is to see the season through. If you do it now, it might just be because of the matchup, how much we threw, how much we ran it, those sort of things."
Q: Can you talk about Courtney (Roby's) performance and the other wide receivers?
"I thought they played their best game Saturday. I think they can continue to play a lot better. There's a lot to wide receiver-play other than catching the football. You can't evaluate a wide receiver based on just catching the football. There's no question they made some plays, but they probably played 55-60 snaps, so there's room for improvement in those 55-60 snaps that perhaps most people wouldn't see."
Q: You said there's more to the wide receivers, what more is there?
"Well there's front side and back side blocking, which is two different type of things. There's running the complimentary route to the receiver that caught the ball. I would say those are the biggest things."
Q: How are they doing?
"They're okay, they're young, they're learning."
Q: Do you think Bryan Robertson is becoming more confident in his kicking game? How confident in him are you?
"I think he's improving. I have more confidence in him now than I did earlier in the year. I look at kickers perhaps a little differently than most people. They're so wide open and so open to criticism. A guy can miss a kick and everybody knows it and yet a guy can miss a block and nobody knows it. I don't want to say I'm easy on those guys, but I tend not to overreact to a mistake by a kicker any more than I overreact to a missed block or a missed tackle. When I put it in that framework it helps me deal with it better. I think they know how much pressure they're under, they don't need any more pressure from me."
Q: What's the most difficult thing for a coach coming off a weekend like this last one?
"The most difficult thing is the message that it's just business as usual. I think they'll understand that because we've come in after a loss and it's been business as usual. Regardless of the outcome of Saturday's game, they were going to get what they're going to get at 2:45 anyway. We're going to go through Iowa's personnel, we're going to do the punt, we're going to have offensive and defensive meetings and then we're going to go out and have a pretty physical practice and coach them up pretty hard. That's what we would do if we lost the Wisconsin game. Now how that message is received, we're going to have to go through that at quarter to three."
Q: How would compare Iowa's offensive line to Utah, Ohio State and Wisconsin with tough offensive lines?
"They are comparable. I'm not comfortable giving you one, two and three just because you play one of those teams every year, we could have the other one on our schedule. I don't want to say that one is better than the other. I'd say they are all very comparable. You're splitting hairs if you try to split them up one, two and three. And I do think that the opportunity to play a team, you go into the game thinking one thing you come out thinking another. Even if I had strong feelings who was one, two and three I don't think I'd say, but they're all close."
Q: Are we going to see more of Aaron Halterman on the defensive side of the ball?
"You might. It just depends on our health on defense, how much we're playing on offense, how we're playing at that position on defense. There are a couple things that make you substitute. Someone gets injured, somebody gets tired or you have someone that you feel is as good as the person playing the game but is a little fresher. It would fall under one of those three categories."
Q: Bobby Brandt, is he okay?
"He's going to practice today. He was one of the ones I thought may not, but I'm glad he is."
Q: Facing the solid running teams that you have week after week, how would you judge the progress of the defense? Are there areas you've seen improvement, areas you're still hoping to see improvement?
"I don't know that there's an area that we haven't improved in. Whether we've improved or not or as much as you'd like, that's not the issue. I don't know that there's any part of our football where we haven't gotten better, so I would say our run-defense would fall into that category. This would certainly be a challenge when you look at their offensive line. Three of their offensive linemen were tight ends at one time, they're really athletic. They've done a terrific job there (at Iowa), they really have. Absolutely terrific the way they've put it together, the way they've pieced it together. It's obviously the result of a system. It's obviously been put together very systematically. They've left nothing to chance."
Q: Have you coached two-sport athletes in the past, and if so do those guys bring qualities and experience that help them exceed in football as well.
"Yes, I have. I'll tell you one thing, it keeps you sharper. They are always in season. When we had Gibran in the spring he was playing a Big Ten baseball schedule and spring football practice. Especially for an older guy, spring practice can become pretty mundane. When he comes over from a Big Ten baseball game, his mindset is a little bit different from a guy who just walked out of his apartment to come over to practice. I do think they bring something."
Q: Are you setting as a goal a bowl game at the end of this or are you just taking it week by week?
"We're doing it week to week. This issue came up when I first got here, as far as how we were going to address our goals. We're going to address them the same way every year, and that's going to be week to week. Obviously you have to have a winning season before anything else, before any other goal is talked about. We're going to take these steps. I've asked them not to think that way, not that I don't want them to set goals, but one of the themes we have for this year is one step at a time. The theme was that if your eyes were on your feet as you were taking one step, you'd have less chance of tripping. If your eyes were just focused on the goal, then you would have a chance to trip because you wouldn't be looking where you were going. We're going to look at all those issues, we're going to deal with them. About the only thing they're going to see from me is the same thing they saw from me last Tuesday and the Tuesday before that and the Tuesday before that. If I deviate from my consistency and I get distracted, then they'll easily get distracted. I won't be distracted and what that also does, it gives me a license to correct someone who is distracted."
Q: You mentioned that this is going to be a physical practice. How challenging is that with only 55 scholarship players?
"You cut the length down. We're only going to be out there about two hours today. When we were at Vanderbilt we did similar things because our numbers were down. In the XFL we had an active roster of 39 and a practice roster of 45, so we're used to practicing with small rosters. The intensity can still be high - when I say physical, we're not going to tackle one another, we're not going to leave the ground - we're going to go full speed and stay on our feet. And we can do that, you just can't do it for a long period of time. You cut the length, you don't cut the intensity or the speed."
Q: Coming down in the fourth quarter, a lot of people said that was the loudest they've heard a crowd at Memorial Stadium - were you aware of that?
"I'm not usually aware of that. I've been in situations where it's so loud you can't communicate on the headsets. That's the only time I know it's going on. If it's moderate to loud, I don't notice it."
Q: Do you get the sense that there is growing excitement on campus?
"Yes, I do. I have always felt that, regardless of where you coach, winning brings excitement. People in this country want to see their team win and sometimes you don't become their team until you do win. I don't think IU is any different than any place else I've coached. Where it start might change -the level of original interest may be at different levels, but where it goes from there is about winning and losing. I think there is excitement here and it doesn't surprise me."
