Indiana University Athletics
Head Coach Terry Hoeppner's Weekly Press Conference
10/18/2005 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 18, 2005
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - Indiana head coach Terry Hoeppner met with the media Tuesday, Oct. 18, for his weekly press conference.
On his early impressions of Ohio State:
"I heard John L. Smith on his teleconference today that they might be as talented of a defense he has coached against. I would echo that. They have a lot of talent, but they really play hard. That is a compliment. Everyone plays hard, but they seem to have been able to take that effort to another level. They continue to do it play after play after play. That is why they are ranked where they are and have had the success they have had.
I personally know two of their players. I have been in A.J. Hawk's home when I was recruiting his brother. Ryan played at Miami, but was playing behind Ben Roethlisberger. He transferred to Ohio University, where I coached against him. I was trying to get A.J. as well. I think it turned out pretty well. A.J. has had a pretty good career of work with the Buckeyes. Bobby Carpenter's dad Rob played at Miami. He was a great player. Bobby was at our camp. I think he gave us some serious consideration, or else he was just being nice to me. Watching them mature and grow into the players they have become has been interesting. They lead the group. They really do play with great effort, and are very talented.
On the other side of the ball, they have a lot of speed and skill. For sure, they are our greatest challenge to date."
On whether Ohio State is as quick defensively as Iowa:
"You don't know until you get between the lines with them. Because of the effort they play with, I am not short-changing anyone we have played or will play, but I am going to have our team see them. We have given good effort and played hard, especially at home. We need to match their level of intensity for 60 minutes. That is what it is going to take."
On Ohio State's aggressive defensive play calling:
"We have to be prepared. They might blitz us in warm up. They blitz 58 percent of the time. It is dial a blitz from all directions and position. It is a blitz-o-rama. That is the intrigue and fun of playing against them. It becomes a mental exercise. You have to identify their personnel. Then, you have to physically execute and pick up the blitz. They didn't sack Michigan State 12 times just with their line rush."
On whether Blake Powers has spent additional time on film due to Ohio State's aggressive defensive play calling:
"I know he was in there late last night. Not only Blake, but also all of us. Our game plan changes every week. We anticipated the defense we were going to get last week. They did not blitz as much. We think we will see the flipside this week. A lot of it is zone blitzing, where you may only end up with five guys coming, but you have to determine which five guys are coming and from where. They do a good job of disguising it. They are very active before the snap. You will see them moving around and showing a blitz on one side and they will come from the other. It will be a big challenge."
On whether Blake Powers is better at reading defenses since the beginning of the year:
"Obviously, as you become more experienced, you get a feel for it. Part of it is the film study and the effort you put into it, regardless of how experienced you are. If there are certain cues that you can pick up on, then it is to your advantage. Part of what we do is that we don't ask Blake to read the entire field. Even though we force teams to force teams to defend the width, and hopefully the depth of the field, he is not reading the whole thing. Knowing where the blitz is coming and knowing how it effects the side we are going to is part of what we do. The read will start out and then progress from what he sees. I time all of his throws during practice. That is to give him a sense of when there is pressure. I challenge him to tell me how long his throw was. When you are a quarterback, you are reading the play and then having to think about the time to tell the coach. He has a sense of getting rid of the ball in 2.75 seconds or less."
On whether Ohio State can force teams into being one-dimensional:
"That is what all teams want to get you to do. If you are a defense, you want to get teams to be in third-and-long. That means you have been effective on those first two downs. On third down, you better make the right call on both sides of the ball. When we go nickel, bad things are going to happen for the other team. It is advantage us in those cases. You want to slow down the run. If it is a team like us that likes to be balanced, to get us in third-and-long that is advantage them. Conversely, we are going to do things to be more successful on the first two downs."
On what Ohio State does to force teams into third-and-long situations:
"Sometimes it is the front four. Sometimes it is the zone blitz. Sometimes they hit it just right. If you are playing an aggressive, attacking defense like theirs, there are going to be some times you want to avoid. We want to avoid negative plays. We don't want to take 12 sacks. We don't want to take one sack. We know that is part of what they are going to try. We did a great job of protecting the passer last week. We only had two sacks. They were both coverage sacks, where Blake got greedy. We want to avoid those plays. Those are hard to overcome. At least with a penalty, you get the down over. Gary Blackney at Bowling Green convinced me of that. His teams would never take a sack. He would just throw the ball away. He said you lose the yardage and the down. We aren't going to take sacks. That is pretty good. We are still going to be aggressive, but we have to do a great job in preparation to get our offense in the right plays. I talked to Shane (Montgomery - Head Coach of Miami) today, they already played them. There is a team that I know that is similar to our team. That is a good game for us to study."
On how much of Indiana's difficulties in running the football are due to IU or due to the defense:
"It is not a judged contest. You always have to factor in those other guys across the line. I thought, early on, it was more us. Saturday was as much them, but we were able to pass protect very well. It is about how you match up with that team on that particular day on that field inside those lines. You can watch tape all you want. Sometimes you think you are going to match up pretty well with your personnel. When I coached defensive backs and they came off the field after the first series, I wanted to see what they thought. If they said they could run with those guys, it was pretty good. Other times, they would come off and not want to admit. That effected how I called things. I wanted the truth from them. How do we match up against their personnel? Certain games you match up better. Also, there are times we called the right running play at the right time. Early on, Chris Taylor needed to shoot it. Against Kentucky and Illinois, Taylor was shooting it. That is the beauty of our game. The other guys are always a factor."
On whether 60 pass attempts against Iowa was an aberration:
"No. I don't predict that very often, but I predicted it Friday night and it was already too late for anyone to do anything about it. I said we might throw it 60 times. Blake's arm didn't get that tired. We didn't have to put a reliever in. It is whatever it takes. Our balance will be at the end of the year. I remember having 35 touchdowns in both passing and running in 2003. That is a good number, because it worked. You heard me say it. Just the fact that they were exactly the same and it was going into the bowl game. Those are words I like to put together. We had 35 touchdowns on both sides going into the bowl game. I have never been hung up on it. I learned that from Coach Faught. The old coaching axioms came up. Why not just throw it every down if it works? I want to run the ball, because it compliments the pass. I want to pass the ball, because it helps the running game work. I want to do what the other team doesn't think we are going to do. Run when they think you are going to throw it. Throw it when they think you are going to run it. Use your trick early. Have fun."
On the defense continuing to give up big plays:
"By nature, our attitude is to be very aggressive. The seven plays that got us last week, six of them were aggression plays. One of them was simply their wide receivers crossed and we messed up the coverage. I saw it happen. We almost sacked Drew Tate and then he spun out. Then, you start playing Hope coverage. I hope he doesn't see that guy, and I hope he doesn't throw it to him. If he does, I hope he doesn't catch it. That coverage doesn't work very well. The others are aggression things where you have to have the safeties be there for the tackle. I don't need my safeties to tackle them two yards behind the line of scrimmage and in turn give them a 35-yard run. We need to be more aware of containing at certain points. That is our job as coaches. We talked strategy and tactics before the game last weekend. The world's greatest strategy can fall apart with bad tactics. The world's worst strategy can be overcome by great tactics. I said that as a defensive coordinator. I might make the perfect call at the right time, but if they don't execute it, it won't happen. I may also make a horrible call, but they can make it happen. I am not pointing fingers, but we need to play. It all starts with us having our strategy be appropriate. Our coaching throughout the week needs to teach them to be smarter players."
On how you keep a team aggressive, and yet disciplined at the same time:
"I don't want to say it is a lack of discipline. I think it is a lack of awareness of the big picture of the defense. I went to the Atlanta Falcons camp and saw it in action. The team tackling they did, where defenders knew where they needed to be. They would communicate. The outermost defender would holler 'Out, out, out, out,' to let everyone else know that as they were pursuing, they don't have to also get to the outside. You'll see young guys do that. They think they are the only player on the field. You have two guys over-run the play, and then the guy cuts back. As opposed to having one guy contain it, and the other guy bracket the play. It is that awareness and experience that defenses that have been playing for a long time play aware. I don't want to hear that you didn't know or didn't see that. We need to become more aware. The guy might be in the right place initially, but he can take himself out of it and not make the play. That is different than a guy not being disciplined and not hitting the right gap. That last touchdown of the game, we blitzed and didn't fill all the gaps. That is part of our learning process."
On what it takes to forget about the past history with Ohio State:
"I think that is more for the media to think about and study and chronicle. We don't think about that, especially this year. I had never coached against Illinois. We just studied and coached against them. I played Kentucky a long time ago, but if you haven't played them recently, there isn't a history for us. I think when you play them a few years in a row; you start to develop a history. Recent history is all that affects us. My challenge to the team is to compose ourselves when we are in games. When we got to 24-21, everyone had this heightened sense of awareness. We needed to execute, and we didn't. I talked about that part with them. We were there. That is good. That is where we wanted to be. I anticipated it would be a tight game. Be responsible and self-critical to analyze why we didn't finish the game. He is what could happen. Cowards will find easy ways out. A man will step up and be tough about it. They will learn from it. I wasn't going to allow self-pity, but I also wasn't going to allow people to not be accountable."
On teams knowing how to win:
"That is not something that I can read a book and wish on them. It has to be something that grows and becomes a confidence in yourself and your team. When it is critical, you know the guy beside you is going to do the right thing and the coach is going to make the right call. There is no doubt in your mind. You have convinced yourself, because it has happened before. In those early games, you would like to have a game where you have to finish a game and run out the clock. That happened against Central Michigan. That is good. I can't give that to them. It has to happen. It has to be a situation where you find yourself in and are successful. Now, when that situation arises, you know you can be successful. Hopefully, as a team, you develop confidence in each other. In 2003, the team had tremendous trust. Everyone trusted each other. Our preparation worked because the coaches had done it before and it was working. There was no question about what we were doing. There was a harmony about it. We aren't there yet. The learning curve is going to take place throughout the entire season. We had to go on the road in the Big Ten for the first time and not be a deer in the headlights. Against Iowa, we weren't nervous or uptight. We just didn't make as many plays as we would have liked. There are hurdles you have to clear to learn how to do it."
On the potential of a large amount of Ohio State fans to be in Memorial Stadium on Saturday:
"I think there will be less than I have heard there will be in the past. I think the ones that are will be shocked at the enthusiasm and the vociferousness of the Hoosiers. Where did these guys come from? They are crazy. They must have stayed up all night again getting ready for this game. That is going to happen and needs to be. We rise to the emotion our fans have provided for us. They need their A game on. I am not cutting any corners, we need our A game. We can't have any negative players. If we are going to go toe-to-toe with them, we need to play with a ferocity and an intensity that with match theirs. Then, our fans need to be just as focused. That is the challenge. I am confident it is going to happen."
On players being focused on overall record or Big Ten record:
"I only want them concerned with the game this week. The big picture takes care of itself. We want the banquet on January 15 to be a big ticket. You let us know how we do at the end. This is the biggest game of the week against the Buckeyes."
On whether Coach Hoeppner has done anything specifically this week to enhance the crowd this week:
"It is a sell-out, so there isn't much else we can do beyond getting as many people in there as we can. The record is 56,223. Unless we bring in some roll and tilts, I don't know how we can get more people in here. The process started back in January at the Wisconsin basketball game. It has been a daily quest ever since. We recruit them every day. We pointed to this game for our program. I knew the history and that Buckeye Nation is unbelievable. We are working towards that. This was the challenge, that as a program, they would test us most at home. We'll see where we are. It will be a good barometer."
On how many tickets were sent to Ohio State this year after 25,000 were sent two years ago:
"15,000. As of yesterday, they had sold most of them. That means they are in the minority. We need to make sure that our majority takes charge. I think it is important for us. It will be important to our players that our students and fans let them know where they are playing. There can be no doubt. I am confident that the work we have done will pay off, and that it will be a big and enthusiastic, pro-Hoosier crowd on Saturday."
On whether being a program-builder or a game-day coach is more important for a college football coach:
"I don't think you can have one without the other. Once you set the tone throughout the week and everything you do in terms of developing the program, then at some point I am going to have 10 seconds to make a decision on Saturday. Hopefully, it will be the right decision. I am going against a master. Jim Tressel is not only a great program-builder, but is a great on the field coach. They go hand in hand. I am sure some guys are better at one area. I don't think you can be a complete coach without being both."
On James Hardy playing basketball and football:
"It is not difficult for me. I enjoy watching him play basketball. I think it is a challenge to play football and basketball. They overlap. Basketball started last Friday. He was in Iowa with us. That part becomes a challenge. I think it will work itself out. We haven't even talked about it. Right now, he is doing what I want him to do on the football field and that is all I am concerned about. Mike and I will probably sit down with James at some point to talk about his future and our future."
