IU Football Spring Post-Practice Interviews - March 30

KALEN DEBOER

On the competitiveness of the scrimmage and how much he wants to beat the defense:
"That's the way it is. Offense, defense, you want to win. I loved the energy that we had down at the end on the goal line. What you are looking for is that energy all of the time. You have to manufacture it sometimes. Sometimes it happens because of explosive plays and big plays and momentum. If it isn't happening right away and you don't have that energy you have to somehow manufacture it. That's what we talked about, the energy, I thought everything was positive from the guys. I was excited about that. We've got a bunch of good guys on our team and they are all wanting to get better and every day they are bringing it."

On how the offense is grasping his system:
"Everything I ask of the guys they have come through with it. They are a great group of guys. The coaches are selling out to it. Love the way we are all coming together. It's a process. You want to focus on results. That's important. We've got to have production. Right now, we're just trying to get our install together. We've had about five installs. We've had nine practices and about five installs, so next week there's more to come. Next week there's more to come. There's the tempo stuff that we'll build on. There's the red zone, goal line, short yardage. We haven't even put anything like that in yet. We'll get to that. What we want to have is the guys understanding at the end of spring the pieces that we have in place with our system, then we'll figure out how to get the right guys in the right spots over the summer and into the fall, going into the season."

On the offensive line:
"I thought today we ran the ball better. We had our main group out there in the first part of the scrimmage. I thought we ran the ball better today than we did in the mini-scrimmage we had a week ago. We have to make some plays to make sure we are not in third-and-longs. Third-and-long is tough for everyone. I thought they did a pretty job and I thought they made progress and took a step in the right direction today."

On Stevie Scott:
"He's fun to watch. He's a combination of power and speed. From what I understand, he's gotten faster than he was a year ago. That's exciting to me because I watched the film from last year because he was very productive there and made a lot of plays. He's just been really consistent and becoming more of a student of the game as he matures as a player. I think you see that. I'm excited about what he brings to the table."

On Miles Marshall:
"He was one of the guys that stood out to me the first two practices. You watch the 1-on-1s, you watch some of the routes he caught in 7-on-7s, you are like 'Wow'. He's got some range, he's long, he goes up and gets it. He really played fearless the first couple of practices. What he's got to get used to is we will keep throwing stuff on you and grasping the concepts, grasping the verbiage and the system and understanding what he is seeing in front of him. There's a lot of things happening right now, so he's not playing quite as fast. The potential he has is exciting. I think the last couple of practices he is using every day as a teaching moment and getting better."

On the quarterbacks:
"I think Peyton is so well respected amongst the team. The offense, when he talks they listen. I think what he says always has some substance to it. He just knows what to say at the right time. No one is perfect, but he does a lot of things really well. There's a thought process and I don't think he thinks too much to where it slows down his play. He's just had a really consistent and solid (spring). He's picked up everything that has been thrown at him. I think Jack has done a great job. He hasn't seen some of the defensive looks that Peyton has seen. He's trying to learn the offense, plus understand how it matches up against the defense. He doesn't always get the first-stringers. The opportunities are fewer and far between. I think Mike has done a great job of staying in it even though his reps are considerably limited. He gets very few. I always look at him when we are scrimmaging and watch him. I know he is on the headset listening. I'm trying to use coaching, teaching moments to him as well even though he is not on the field so that he knows what I am thinking. Peyton is going through those situations. I'm talking to Mike to let him know what I am thinking in that situation, so there's learning moments for him as well."

On what he wants his offense to look like in the fall:
"We want to be multiple. We want to be able to play to our personnel. Right now, we're installing concepts. There needs to be a point where we know who our people are and what they are really good at and we get the right guys in the right spots to run the concepts we installed. Right now, we're running a concept and I would like to have this guy playing this spot and we have ways of systematically getting him there. Right now, we're not focused on that. We're just running the play, letting the quarterback go through the read and guys execute. And we have guys that we are holding out and it really throws things out of whack if you try to get your people in the right spots and all of sudden he is sitting out and all of sudden you are on to the next guy. We want to be diverse, multiple, balanced. Balanced doesn't mean we have to at the end of the game be 50-50. It means we need to have the ability to run the ball when people are forcing us to do that and pass the ball when they are loading the box and have some diversity."

On working as a staff:
"It's me that it ultimately falls on, everything that we do, and I get that, but I want it to be our offense. When everyone is invested in it, players and coaches, and has ownership in it, it becomes so much more. The X's and O's, everyone has good X's and O's. It's how much you buy into it. We have some really good coaches on staff and I want to use all of their knowledge as well to help make us better. They've seen a lot of different things done a lot of different ways. There's different ways that you can win and I want to use all of the information they have to make us the best we can be."

On divvying up the installs:
"You map it out. You map out the install that you would like and adjust from there. If we're slow on learning something and you aren't ready to take the next step, you push it back a little bit. What's really happened is because of the scheduling and how the weeks worked out - one, three, five, seven were big installs and two, four, six, eight were the days we were better. Install days are also a little bit rougher and the follow up days are usually cleaner and better execution."

On guys who have stood out:
"I think the older guys you kind of know. Nick Westbrook, when he's out there he's made a lot of plays. You find ways to use D. Hale's body. He has big size. Last practice he made some nice plays in the red zone. I think every guy has done a little something at different places. It was nice seeing Fryfogle out there this week in practice. He's kind of getting going with it now. Everyone's done just a really solid job. I knew based on the staff giving me the information and us watching the film, I kind of knew what to expect. It's probably the young guys that surprise you. I think some of the young offensive linemen are doing a good job getting their feet wet here. Guys like Miles and younger players, those are the ones that you don't really know about and when they surprise you, it's pretty cool."

GRANT HEARD

How has the transition to the new offense gone for the young receivers?
"It's gone good. It's a new system, so everybody is at ground zero. It's not ones here and ones there. Different verbiage. We're all still trying to learn, myself included. It's good that they're young. My older guys are at a little bit of a disadvantage because this is their third system for some of them. Stuff starts running together on them. They start putting old stuff with new stuff. The young guys are doing great. They just have to keep working, keep grinding."

How did WR Miles Marshall take advantage of his redshirt year?
"He got to travel and see and be in those game environments. Hopefully when he gets to the fall it's not a big shock to him being in those big stadiums. He understands how we prepare Friday nights for games. Hopefully, as he keeps progressing, that stuff will come in handy for him."

Donavan Hale looks a lot smoother. What has he done to improve?
"He lost weight. He probably needs to lose another five pounds. Not all the pounding on his legs, carrying all that heavy weight. He is an older guy, so there isn't anything I can throw at him defensively that he hasn't seen. He can play fast and not thinking. He's a smart kid. Him losing weight has helped him tremendously."

What's the key for this receiving corps to be the kind of group you want?
"Catch the ball and score a touchdown every time we touch it (he laughed). Just be consistent. When the play comes our way, make it. That's it. Just do our job consistently over and over again. If we do that, we'll be where we need to be and things will come our way when it's time to make a play."

What are some of the challenges of getting used to a new system and offense?
"Just thinking how Coach DeBoer thinks. I've been in a whole bunch more systems than (my receivers) have and my mind gets clouded up. He might use a term I used a long time ago and I have to think about it some. That's the hard thing. That and getting everybody on the same page as far as splits and depths. He did it one way. We did it another. Figure out which way is right, which way is wrong. Coach DeBoer is not a this is my way guy. He's open to new stuff. There are different ways to skin a cat. He's open to those ways. Trying to piece it together and make sure it's our offense and we can get the job done."

How is Coach DeBoer as a communicator?
"He's awesome as a communicator. He's not a dictator. He'll ask, can we get it here, and explain why. There are always reasons why. He's a great voice for the offense as a whole. He's always getting us together and talking to us, which I think is awesome. We're always on the same page."

How is the system different?
"The way we call it more than anything. Schematically there are a lot of similarities. The way we call it is different. We called it apples before. Now we're calling it oranges. It takes time to get used to it. This used to be called this, now I have to remember it's called that. That's the biggest difference.

DONAVAN HALE

During the scrimmage the offense thought it had scored a touchdown on a run. The officials ruled no. Did you think you'd scored the touchdown?
"To me, it doesn't matter. It's up to the refs. We go through adversity all the time. We can't dwell on it. We have to bounce back."

How competitive does it get between the offense and defense?
"We're cool off the field, we're teammates. But in practice, we don't like each other. At the end of the day, we're a team. When we're on the field, the defense is like a completely different team. When we go against each other, it's not like Indiana against Indiana. It's like two different teams competing. It's a game. We're against each other. They are not part of our team in practice. It is fun. After practice we're all brothers. We're just competing and trying to get better and go beat other teams."

How much of an impact will that have when you do go against other teams?
"Iron sharpens iron. When we get on the field we know what we have to do, and it's even worse when we go against other teams."

How are you getting a feel for the Coach DeBoer and the new offense?
"I like it. We just have to get a feel for it and get in the groove and put everything together and execute."

How is Coach DeBoer's offense different?
"It's not really different. It's mostly the same stuff. Just tweaks here and there."

Is it different terminology?
"No, everything is the same. It is different, but it's all football."

How has Coach DeBoer's college receiver background impacted you?
"Between and him and Coach Heard, they have a background at receiver. It's good for us."

What do you see from quarterback Jack Tuttle so far?
"All the quarterbacks look good. They're all competing. It's just going to come down to who wants it the most."

How much progress have you seen from the offense and what needs to get better?
"It's a new offense. We just have to get better at executing the plays. That's all."

IU Football Spring Post-Practice Interviews - March 30

Players Mentioned

Donavan Hale

Miles Marshall

Stevie Scott III

Jack Tuttle

Nick Westbrook