Indiana University Athletics
Hoeppner Addresses Media
1/8/2005 12:00:00 AM | Football
"Thank you. I'll tell you what. It is really fantastic. The reception Jane, I, and our entire family have received has been phenomenal. It truly has. It is very humbling and it invigorates and energizes me even more while I am out recruiting. I've got a recruiting weekend going on. We have the national convention next week, so there is a moratorium on recruiting. We will hit it hard next weekend. We've been able to keep the guys who have committed. We have a couple of new ones in this weekend. We'll have some others. We are in Texas. We are in Florida and all over Indiana. So far, so good. I feel really good about things. I have my first team meeting Sunday evening at 8 p.m. I've seen a lot of the guys already. They are coming back. They are lifting. They want to get away from Mom and Dad and get here. It has been great so far. It is everything I would have thought and a lot more. As close as I was to Indiana, I came over here a lot. Coming back, I'll tell you what. I keep saying it because I really do hear it every time I come back across into Indiana. I hear Jim Nabors singing back home again. It is really meaningful to me. It is great."
On reaction from the verbal commitments:
"Excited. We have guys here that are re-committing to me. They committed to Indiana University and Director of Athletics Rick Greenspan sent out a letter saying we would honor that commitment from Indiana to them. That was absolutely the right thing to do. What they have done has got a chance to meet me and meet the coaches on the staff and re-commit. That is pretty cool because it was neat when I had a Mom say last night that she hadn't seen the sparkle in my son's eyes since the last time we were here. I feel really good about him."
On what positions he is looking for:
"We need a couple offensive linemen, yet. We need a quarterback. We have a returning quarterback that I have already spoken to and he is excited. We are looking for a quarterback. We've got some commitments from wide receivers. We have some commitments from tailbacks. It is kind of an across the board thing when we have, right now, 22 scholarship to give. We are looking for a couple d-linemen and linebackers. We've got a kicker coming in. He will be in next week. It is really that we are recruiting a football team. That is not bad to do. You want to have a balance where you are getting 22 guys that can all play football. I am really impressed with the quality of the students. We have one young man who is already enrolled. He was committed to the last staff and came for orientation. He is having his official weekend this weekend and is going to class on Monday. That's happening more and more. We did that a couple times at Miami."
On whether he saw some of the games last year:
" I saw some last year. We have it all and that is what I do in my spare time. I knew coming in that there was some great talent and that they were very close. As I said in the press conference, Joel Maturi, Randy Walker, Jim Tressel and Lloyd Carr...Randy probably said it best. I know him very well. I coached with him and we are very good friends. When I spoke with him, he was impressed with the improvement Indiana has had. They beat them in double overtime the last two years, but this year was a lot different than it was the year before. I know there is a core group. There is going to be a learning curve. There is inevitably a dip when they learn the new coaches and are adjusting. We have graduated some great players. We need to make that as flat as possible. With our strength coach, he is going to get them going here soon. I am really excited about him. We have met several times and our combined ideas mesh really well. That is going to be really important because he has the most contact with them in winter ball. Spring is going to be exciting. We have some good things planned for spring and we are going to be announcing those very shortly. We are bringing back. I have made this statement, and I think it is true. I guess I am borrowing from another school, but we need to wake up our echoes. We have some great echoes here and we need to wake them up and we are going to do that starting this spring."
On how the talent meshes with his offense:
"What you do as a coach is you have a plan. You have a basic scheme of offense and defense that you think is best. Then you have to, as we did for example - once we got Ben Roethlisberger and we saw what kind of quarterback he is, we quit running the quarterback as design as much. If the quarterback we have can run more, then we will do that by design. Defensively, if we have corners that can go up and press them right away like we want to do, then we will do that. We will mix it up and play Cover 2. We'll press and play man, but we are playing Cover 2. That is coaching talk a little bit, but you have a basic plan and then you start running in individuals. We may move personnel. There may be a guy playing on offense that ends up playing on defense. You know, we have some real needs. In talking with the old staff and talking with the guys that I retained, I have identified what our needs are. Now how we fix those, either through recruiting or by personnel moves. This defensive end goes to offensive tackle. This wide receiver goes to corner. Those are things you have to do. Putting people in the right place on the field is really what you do as a coach. The formula we have had for that, I keep using that. I have a basic plan for that and we will start working it here soon."
On where he stands in hiring the last assistant coach:
"Close. I think we are close to making that announcement. I am excited about the announcement we made this week with Harold Mauro. Wow, was that a good get for me. When Rick and I talked about that initially and talked about it with Harold, selfishly I said, are you kidding me? I would love to have someone with that experience who I can say I need you to this or this and he knows exactly who to go to and where to go to. That was one of my best recruiting moves so far. I recruited Harold Mauro with Rick's help. I think we will be able to make an announcement this week. It is important. I am really happy. Jane would agree. The coaches we have, their wives, we have met with them and everyone right now is walking around with a smile. We have meshed pretty well right now. The guys I brought over with the three I retained. Hopefully we can make an announcement later this week."
