Indiana University Athletics
Coach DiNardo Press Conference (11-05-02)
11/5/2002 12:00:00 AM | Football
Bloomington, Ind. -
Opening Statement
"We've lost three in a row. The most important thing to me is that we stay on course with the program and stay on course with the standard. Sunday when I came into a team meeting, I felt like it was a little too easy to lose and it was a little bit business as usual. We scrimmaged 65 plays Sunday night. Some guys played 73 plays on Saturday and still scrimmaged Sunday. So, it wasn't just your Sunday scrimmage after a game for the guys that didn't play. I've also dismissed two guys since the game. One because he missed a morning workout. I told them Sunday that this week would be a difficult week to be part of this program if you didn't do everything right. I dismissed another one today because he's missed too much class. That's more important than any one game that we play. You start sliding and the last thing we're going to do is slide our standard. We're going to come in here every morning and swing away. If it means more guys leave, more guys leave. If it means we have more contact than I would like to have, so that it's harder to lose and harder to accept, that's what we're going to do. We have two opponents this week - Michigan State and ourselves. We've started the game plan against ourselves Sunday and we'll start the game plan against Michigan State today. Michigan State, big time offensive line. Big, physical, they're all back, all five of them and they actually have six guys that play. (William) Whitticker from here in Indiana plays, he's one of the guys that plays. They've obviously had a change in quarterback and that's changed a little bit what they do, although Morris' package is fairly extensive. He didn't have to change anything, he just emphasized some things within their offense. They've had a change in tailback, obviously. The other obvious thing is Charles Rogers at wide receiver, one of the better players in the country. Defensively, they've played a lot of guys up front. (Greg) Taplin didn't play against Michigan, we suspect he'll play against us. It's pretty typical of Michigan State's defense, physical, flying around the football. Kick game - they lost their punter and they signed this freshman guy who's done really well and he's performed better than any other freshman I've seen punt the ball. That's where they are with their group and our group."
Q: How do you slow down a wide out like Charles Rogers?
"Double him. That's pretty much what everybody's done. Everybody's done that, and I suspect by game time we'll be in the same mode."
Q: You said you had two opponents - which is the tougher opponent?
"Long term, we're the tougher opponent. Short term, Michigan State is the tougher opponent. It's just how you want to address it. We have made a decision here that we're never going to sacrifice the long term for the short term. In other words, numbers aren't an issue to us. If they're down, that's going to serve us well long term, although it may not serve us well short term. So, the answer is both. State is going to be the most immediate - the short-term opponent and we are our own long-term opponent."
Q: What about facing Morris Watts and what do you know about him? Was he on your staff at LSU?
"Morris and I worked together for four years. He's a terrific guy, a fabulous guy, terrific coach. He's been an assistant coach for 43 years, he's 64 years old. I want to say most of the time, it's been offense, most of that time it's been as an offensive coordinator. He's a total loyal guy. I never went into a game not thinking that the game plan was well thought out. He calls a good game. He's called it from up (in the press box), he's called it from down (on the field). Most recently, he's been up. My guess is he'll come down. He's coached in the NFL - Tampa Bay. I know quite a bit about him. He's terrific."
"He's a total loyal guy. I take him for his word that this was difficult because he was loyal to Bobby (Williams) and they asked him to do it and he's doing this out of loyalty to the rest of the staff, to the players and the university. He's been there three times. When he left us I think he had nine years in at State, so he's close to 15 years. He'll do the best job possible under these circumstances."
Q: How difficult is it to change hats midstream like that?
"I've never done it. I would imagine it's difficult because as the offensive coordinator, you direct the other offensive coaches, but you don't direct the other defensive coaches, so there's a dynamic there that's a little bit different. I would imagine that's different. The players look at you one way on Sunday and another way on Monday. Someone has to manage the game and the offensive coordinator usually doesn't do it, nor does a defensive coordinator. My guess is he'll continue to coordinate the offense but now he'll have to manage the defense, the kick game and the offense. I would imagine he's got to do this (press conference), the Big Ten teleconference. I don't think anyone in his situation is any more prepared than Morris is because he's a veteran guy, but it does change."
Q: It seems like you're back in the mode of trying to establish your mentality to these kids, do you view it that way?
"I view it this way - you take a couple steps forward, a couple steps back, couple steps forward, couple steps back. For every time you step back, you're still further than where you were when you stepped forward. I'm sure by this time the seniors are saying, `Once this gig's over...' but the underclassmen, they're making progress. All I know is that one of the things that makes all these type of situations difficult is how much energy it takes because you have to be relentless in not lowering the bar when it's natural to lower the bar. Who makes an issue of these things going into the 10th game of the year, but yet you have to."
Q: Scrimmaging on Sunday - are you happy with that? How did it go and how did the team respond? Have you ever scrimmaged Sunday before?
"They responded fine. The guys that didn't play. Some guys didn't play - Gibran (Hamdan) didn't play, Kris Dielman didn't play. And yet, some guys that played 73 snaps on Saturday played. I'd say the guys that didn't play Saturday responded favorably. They were hootin' and hollerin'. Of course, none of them knew if they were going to scrimmage or not. I never told them they weren't. There was always a possibility I would put them in. Some of the young guys generally looked at it as an opportunity to play. Some played just special teams against Northwestern and didn't play any snaps from the line of scrimmage. They probably looked at it pretty well. All three of our quarterbacks that haven't played, played. My guess is they were all pretty excited about a chance to play. We played one offensive lineman at tackle who hadn't played there before. It was good for him and it was good for us to see him do that. I'd say, overall positively. I don't recall doing it before like this. There have been times when we've taken guys who have not played in the game, prearranged you usually tell them on Thursday night when you go over the weekend itinerary that Friday we're going to do this, Saturday we're going to do this, Sunday we're going to lift and we're going to have this kind of game on Sunday night. But never like this, never spur of the moment out of a gut feeling that we needed to draw the line once again. That our expectations are no different than anyone else's expectations in the league."
Q: You mentioned spur of the moment? Have you ever thought of scrimmaging Saturday night?
"I thought about doing it on a Saturday night on Sunday night when we were doing it. I was saying, okay I've done it now Sunday and I was saying okay the next thing will be to do it Saturday after everyone's left the stadium."
Q: You said you thought the team maybe accepted the loss a little more after the Northwestern loss...
"I think the difference is that it's three in a row. I don't think that it's necessarily Northwestern, Iowa, Illinois. I don't mean to separate the opponent. I think that it's the fact that it's three in a row and at this point the attitude is 'we've been through this before,' 'this is it,' and 'what's for dinner?' and it was just like it was Sunday. It wasn't like it was Sunday after our third loss, it was just Sunday and it can't just be Sunday. It's got to be Sunday after our third loss. Before you know it will be Sunday after our fourth loss and it will be no big deal."
Q: You've talked in the past that you want them to come in business as usual...
"Right, this was a little louder. You're exactly. This wasn't business as usual, this was much more relaxed than business as usual. It's like I tell them, they don't have to walk around with their game face, throwing up. I'll do that. They have to take this thing serious and they have to be business-like about it. I don't want to be on either extreme and I felt like we were headed towards the 'too-easy-to-accept' extreme. I don't want to be at the extreme where you're so tight that you can't before where you're so worried about making mistakes. There's a happy medium and a professionalism in there that needs to be taught."
Q: Can you talk a little about the performance of Herana-Daze Jones?
"He's made a lot of tackles, obviously, which is a major contribution. He's got a lot of growth yet. He's a young player. We still, in this league and on this level, people can move you out of position by formations, by stemming, by different things. A young player typically struggles with those kinds of things. I would say Herana-Daze is a typical young linebacker as John Kerr is, as the rest of them are. The more they see things, the better. When you look at a young guy two or three years down the road, there's nothing that automatically makes him better. He has to make an effort to learn things and not think that he's just learning by activity. Herana-Daze is very typical of that."
Q: Through the first six or seven games, there was a lot of steady improvement. Over the last three games it looks like there have been some steps backwards. I wonder what you attribute that to.
"You control half of it. Some of it I attribute to the opponent playing well. I really couldn't tell you any one thing that I would contribute it to us. I do think that a typical college football season is an emotional September, an October that is based on who plays the game at the highest level with much less emotion than you had in September and in November, if you have anything that you're playing for, the emotion goes back to the September level and maybe exceeds it if you're in a race for a championship. Now the technical part will also manifest itself because you're usually playing better teams because your non-conference schedule is over and it's intensified. I agree with your question, we didn't play the game very well in October. I think it was based more on technical things than anything else. I think we were pretty emotional in September and we matched up a little bit better in September."
Opening Statement
"We've lost three in a row. The most important thing to me is that we stay on course with the program and stay on course with the standard. Sunday when I came into a team meeting, I felt like it was a little too easy to lose and it was a little bit business as usual. We scrimmaged 65 plays Sunday night. Some guys played 73 plays on Saturday and still scrimmaged Sunday. So, it wasn't just your Sunday scrimmage after a game for the guys that didn't play. I've also dismissed two guys since the game. One because he missed a morning workout. I told them Sunday that this week would be a difficult week to be part of this program if you didn't do everything right. I dismissed another one today because he's missed too much class. That's more important than any one game that we play. You start sliding and the last thing we're going to do is slide our standard. We're going to come in here every morning and swing away. If it means more guys leave, more guys leave. If it means we have more contact than I would like to have, so that it's harder to lose and harder to accept, that's what we're going to do. We have two opponents this week - Michigan State and ourselves. We've started the game plan against ourselves Sunday and we'll start the game plan against Michigan State today. Michigan State, big time offensive line. Big, physical, they're all back, all five of them and they actually have six guys that play. (William) Whitticker from here in Indiana plays, he's one of the guys that plays. They've obviously had a change in quarterback and that's changed a little bit what they do, although Morris' package is fairly extensive. He didn't have to change anything, he just emphasized some things within their offense. They've had a change in tailback, obviously. The other obvious thing is Charles Rogers at wide receiver, one of the better players in the country. Defensively, they've played a lot of guys up front. (Greg) Taplin didn't play against Michigan, we suspect he'll play against us. It's pretty typical of Michigan State's defense, physical, flying around the football. Kick game - they lost their punter and they signed this freshman guy who's done really well and he's performed better than any other freshman I've seen punt the ball. That's where they are with their group and our group."
Q: How do you slow down a wide out like Charles Rogers?
"Double him. That's pretty much what everybody's done. Everybody's done that, and I suspect by game time we'll be in the same mode."
Q: You said you had two opponents - which is the tougher opponent?
"Long term, we're the tougher opponent. Short term, Michigan State is the tougher opponent. It's just how you want to address it. We have made a decision here that we're never going to sacrifice the long term for the short term. In other words, numbers aren't an issue to us. If they're down, that's going to serve us well long term, although it may not serve us well short term. So, the answer is both. State is going to be the most immediate - the short-term opponent and we are our own long-term opponent."
Q: What about facing Morris Watts and what do you know about him? Was he on your staff at LSU?
"Morris and I worked together for four years. He's a terrific guy, a fabulous guy, terrific coach. He's been an assistant coach for 43 years, he's 64 years old. I want to say most of the time, it's been offense, most of that time it's been as an offensive coordinator. He's a total loyal guy. I never went into a game not thinking that the game plan was well thought out. He calls a good game. He's called it from up (in the press box), he's called it from down (on the field). Most recently, he's been up. My guess is he'll come down. He's coached in the NFL - Tampa Bay. I know quite a bit about him. He's terrific."
"He's a total loyal guy. I take him for his word that this was difficult because he was loyal to Bobby (Williams) and they asked him to do it and he's doing this out of loyalty to the rest of the staff, to the players and the university. He's been there three times. When he left us I think he had nine years in at State, so he's close to 15 years. He'll do the best job possible under these circumstances."
Q: How difficult is it to change hats midstream like that?
"I've never done it. I would imagine it's difficult because as the offensive coordinator, you direct the other offensive coaches, but you don't direct the other defensive coaches, so there's a dynamic there that's a little bit different. I would imagine that's different. The players look at you one way on Sunday and another way on Monday. Someone has to manage the game and the offensive coordinator usually doesn't do it, nor does a defensive coordinator. My guess is he'll continue to coordinate the offense but now he'll have to manage the defense, the kick game and the offense. I would imagine he's got to do this (press conference), the Big Ten teleconference. I don't think anyone in his situation is any more prepared than Morris is because he's a veteran guy, but it does change."
Q: It seems like you're back in the mode of trying to establish your mentality to these kids, do you view it that way?
"I view it this way - you take a couple steps forward, a couple steps back, couple steps forward, couple steps back. For every time you step back, you're still further than where you were when you stepped forward. I'm sure by this time the seniors are saying, `Once this gig's over...' but the underclassmen, they're making progress. All I know is that one of the things that makes all these type of situations difficult is how much energy it takes because you have to be relentless in not lowering the bar when it's natural to lower the bar. Who makes an issue of these things going into the 10th game of the year, but yet you have to."
Q: Scrimmaging on Sunday - are you happy with that? How did it go and how did the team respond? Have you ever scrimmaged Sunday before?
"They responded fine. The guys that didn't play. Some guys didn't play - Gibran (Hamdan) didn't play, Kris Dielman didn't play. And yet, some guys that played 73 snaps on Saturday played. I'd say the guys that didn't play Saturday responded favorably. They were hootin' and hollerin'. Of course, none of them knew if they were going to scrimmage or not. I never told them they weren't. There was always a possibility I would put them in. Some of the young guys generally looked at it as an opportunity to play. Some played just special teams against Northwestern and didn't play any snaps from the line of scrimmage. They probably looked at it pretty well. All three of our quarterbacks that haven't played, played. My guess is they were all pretty excited about a chance to play. We played one offensive lineman at tackle who hadn't played there before. It was good for him and it was good for us to see him do that. I'd say, overall positively. I don't recall doing it before like this. There have been times when we've taken guys who have not played in the game, prearranged you usually tell them on Thursday night when you go over the weekend itinerary that Friday we're going to do this, Saturday we're going to do this, Sunday we're going to lift and we're going to have this kind of game on Sunday night. But never like this, never spur of the moment out of a gut feeling that we needed to draw the line once again. That our expectations are no different than anyone else's expectations in the league."
Q: You mentioned spur of the moment? Have you ever thought of scrimmaging Saturday night?
"I thought about doing it on a Saturday night on Sunday night when we were doing it. I was saying, okay I've done it now Sunday and I was saying okay the next thing will be to do it Saturday after everyone's left the stadium."
Q: You said you thought the team maybe accepted the loss a little more after the Northwestern loss...
"I think the difference is that it's three in a row. I don't think that it's necessarily Northwestern, Iowa, Illinois. I don't mean to separate the opponent. I think that it's the fact that it's three in a row and at this point the attitude is 'we've been through this before,' 'this is it,' and 'what's for dinner?' and it was just like it was Sunday. It wasn't like it was Sunday after our third loss, it was just Sunday and it can't just be Sunday. It's got to be Sunday after our third loss. Before you know it will be Sunday after our fourth loss and it will be no big deal."
Q: You've talked in the past that you want them to come in business as usual...
"Right, this was a little louder. You're exactly. This wasn't business as usual, this was much more relaxed than business as usual. It's like I tell them, they don't have to walk around with their game face, throwing up. I'll do that. They have to take this thing serious and they have to be business-like about it. I don't want to be on either extreme and I felt like we were headed towards the 'too-easy-to-accept' extreme. I don't want to be at the extreme where you're so tight that you can't before where you're so worried about making mistakes. There's a happy medium and a professionalism in there that needs to be taught."
Q: Can you talk a little about the performance of Herana-Daze Jones?
"He's made a lot of tackles, obviously, which is a major contribution. He's got a lot of growth yet. He's a young player. We still, in this league and on this level, people can move you out of position by formations, by stemming, by different things. A young player typically struggles with those kinds of things. I would say Herana-Daze is a typical young linebacker as John Kerr is, as the rest of them are. The more they see things, the better. When you look at a young guy two or three years down the road, there's nothing that automatically makes him better. He has to make an effort to learn things and not think that he's just learning by activity. Herana-Daze is very typical of that."
Q: Through the first six or seven games, there was a lot of steady improvement. Over the last three games it looks like there have been some steps backwards. I wonder what you attribute that to.
"You control half of it. Some of it I attribute to the opponent playing well. I really couldn't tell you any one thing that I would contribute it to us. I do think that a typical college football season is an emotional September, an October that is based on who plays the game at the highest level with much less emotion than you had in September and in November, if you have anything that you're playing for, the emotion goes back to the September level and maybe exceeds it if you're in a race for a championship. Now the technical part will also manifest itself because you're usually playing better teams because your non-conference schedule is over and it's intensified. I agree with your question, we didn't play the game very well in October. I think it was based more on technical things than anything else. I think we were pretty emotional in September and we matched up a little bit better in September."
Tuesday, August 11
Tuesday, August 11
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