johnnd05
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(Via the Roundup.)
The transcript is now up from Charlie Weis's press conference on Sunday, Sept. 23. Here are some of the key points.
<hr>
On Justin Brown's injury: "Justin is going to be able to go today [i.e., in Sunday's practice]. That was a game time decision where we just didn't feel -- he had rolled his ankle a little bit earlier in practice, earlier in the week, and it was a day to day type of thing where we weren't really sure whether or not he could go or not. But even right to game day, he just didn't feel that he could just push off enough on that day. It was close. It was close to him being able to go on Saturday, but according to both Justin and Jim (Russ, head trainer), he'll be back and ready to go. That's the answer to Justin."
On Geoff Price's struggles: "It was a tough day at the office. He's not bothered by an injury."
On freshmen linebackers Kerry Neal and Brian Smith, who played a lot in passing situations, and whether they'll see the field more on run downs: "[They're] spotty on run downs. I see them being in the two deep on run downs. I don't think that right now they're ready to be prime time every down players, but I think their progress has grown at a much higher pace than a lot of other people. One thing they've both shown is they can get after the passer. We definitely needed some edge pressure, which both those guys provide. And then different roles, I think they not only played themselves into the two deep on regular defense but put themselves close to being on the field on a more regular basis."
On problems with kick coverage: "The first thing that's got to happen is we've got to kick it better. That helps. Once you kick it better, the guys that are in one on one situations, which when you go back and watch it, you're going to see some guys unblocked at the point right there to make a tackle that are unblocked. I mean, when you have an opportunity to make a play, you've got to make a play."
On Jimmy Clausen: "Well, the two things that he does the best is he can read coverages and he can make every throw. They're the two things he can do, okay. Now, at this point, for example, and we had this conversation this week, at this point in his career what he's doing is calling plays in the huddle more than running the offense. ... And this is part of the evolution of a quarterback. When they first start playing early in their career, they relay the plays from the sideline to the guys in the huddle and then go to the line of scrimmage and run the play. That will grow while he's here, okay, from calling the plays to running the offense, and that is a natural transition that takes place over time. With any quarterback that's when everything changes."
On Matt Carufel, who made his first career start: "... he was decent. We were pretty good at the point of attack with the straight on physical stuff. Where we had a little bit more problem is with movement, you know, and I know you'll go back and watch it the way I do, but you'll see movement creating some more problems than just lining up. When we were just lining up smacking people in the mouth, I thought he held up fine."
<hr>
Another topic that figured prominently in the discussion today was the level of emotion that the team showed in the locker room after the loss. This was a big area of concern for many fans, given the rumors that started to circulate after the loss to Michigan that the ND players may have given up caring. But according to Coach Weis, this is far from the case. Here are some of the highlights of what he said:
<hr>
So where do the Irish go from here? One thing Weis made clear is that he has no plans to abandon the "simple is better" strategy that the offense employed this past week:
Sounds about right to me.
The transcript is now up from Charlie Weis's press conference on Sunday, Sept. 23. Here are some of the key points.
<hr>
On Justin Brown's injury: "Justin is going to be able to go today [i.e., in Sunday's practice]. That was a game time decision where we just didn't feel -- he had rolled his ankle a little bit earlier in practice, earlier in the week, and it was a day to day type of thing where we weren't really sure whether or not he could go or not. But even right to game day, he just didn't feel that he could just push off enough on that day. It was close. It was close to him being able to go on Saturday, but according to both Justin and Jim (Russ, head trainer), he'll be back and ready to go. That's the answer to Justin."
On Geoff Price's struggles: "It was a tough day at the office. He's not bothered by an injury."
On freshmen linebackers Kerry Neal and Brian Smith, who played a lot in passing situations, and whether they'll see the field more on run downs: "[They're] spotty on run downs. I see them being in the two deep on run downs. I don't think that right now they're ready to be prime time every down players, but I think their progress has grown at a much higher pace than a lot of other people. One thing they've both shown is they can get after the passer. We definitely needed some edge pressure, which both those guys provide. And then different roles, I think they not only played themselves into the two deep on regular defense but put themselves close to being on the field on a more regular basis."
On problems with kick coverage: "The first thing that's got to happen is we've got to kick it better. That helps. Once you kick it better, the guys that are in one on one situations, which when you go back and watch it, you're going to see some guys unblocked at the point right there to make a tackle that are unblocked. I mean, when you have an opportunity to make a play, you've got to make a play."
On Jimmy Clausen: "Well, the two things that he does the best is he can read coverages and he can make every throw. They're the two things he can do, okay. Now, at this point, for example, and we had this conversation this week, at this point in his career what he's doing is calling plays in the huddle more than running the offense. ... And this is part of the evolution of a quarterback. When they first start playing early in their career, they relay the plays from the sideline to the guys in the huddle and then go to the line of scrimmage and run the play. That will grow while he's here, okay, from calling the plays to running the offense, and that is a natural transition that takes place over time. With any quarterback that's when everything changes."
On Matt Carufel, who made his first career start: "... he was decent. We were pretty good at the point of attack with the straight on physical stuff. Where we had a little bit more problem is with movement, you know, and I know you'll go back and watch it the way I do, but you'll see movement creating some more problems than just lining up. When we were just lining up smacking people in the mouth, I thought he held up fine."
<hr>
Another topic that figured prominently in the discussion today was the level of emotion that the team showed in the locker room after the loss. This was a big area of concern for many fans, given the rumors that started to circulate after the loss to Michigan that the ND players may have given up caring. But according to Coach Weis, this is far from the case. Here are some of the highlights of what he said:
I think probably the thing that encouraged me the most of anything was how many people in the locker room after the game showed obvious emotion on the outcome of the game. It's probably the first time this year that I saw so many players that were moved by the game, and that is, more than anything else, the one thing that people don't get a chance to see, and it's probably the greatest reason for optimism -- how much they really care.
When asked to give an example of what he meant by this, Weis replied:Well, when you go in there and you're talking to the team after game time, I think one of the things you have to do is make sure that you don't tear them down because you already know they're feeling bad. But when you look in guys' -- look in some of their faces and you see them to the point where -- not losing it but like where it's that important to them, where you look in their face and it's that important to them, that's when you know they're the type of players you want playing on your team. And sometimes it's one guy, sometimes it was two guys, but there was a bunch of them yesterday that looked like that. That is a very, very strong positive when it's that important to that many people.
And again:As I said to them in the locker room after the game, I said, "fellows, you're either all in or all out, it's one or the other. The boat is going to sail with or without you. It's okay if you want to be out, but you're either all in or all out." And I'd say for the majority of the people, the majority of the people were all in.
When asked whether this last remark meant that there was also a minority that was "all out," Weis replied:Those people I don't know yet. You don't know the answer to that question yet because when you're looking at 100 guys, you can't read everybody. I mean, you're trying to, but I'm not a mind reader, I can't read everybody. But you can see -- what you can see, you can see the guys that are undeniably all in.
Weis also said that it seemed to be specifically the "older guys" who were showing the most emotion. There's no question in my mind that this is a good sign.<hr>
So where do the Irish go from here? One thing Weis made clear is that he has no plans to abandon the "simple is better" strategy that the offense employed this past week:
Q. You talked last week about creating a niche. At least in the running game it looked like you made some good progress in that. Have you made enough where you feel like you can start getting creative and throwing in some more stuff?
COACH WEIS: Oh, I think that you -- let's not get to that creative (and) throw in too much more stuff. I think you have to put in breakers now. In other words, you can't just say, "okay, here's the handful of plays you ran last week. Let's run the exact same plays the exact same way the next week." Those coaches, they get the tape. They are not going to say "let's run the exact same plays the exact same way." I think you have to add on to it.
But I'm not trying to go overboard in anything we're doing. I'm trying to grow this. I say we're going to start with a core and go from there, and that's what we're doing. We established a core and we're going to kind of grow from there.
Weis also said that while he didn't think that this week's extra-physical, "back to training camp" practices led to fatigue in the second half, he planned to cut things back a bit this week:COACH WEIS: Oh, I think that you -- let's not get to that creative (and) throw in too much more stuff. I think you have to put in breakers now. In other words, you can't just say, "okay, here's the handful of plays you ran last week. Let's run the exact same plays the exact same way the next week." Those coaches, they get the tape. They are not going to say "let's run the exact same plays the exact same way." I think you have to add on to it.
But I'm not trying to go overboard in anything we're doing. I'm trying to grow this. I say we're going to start with a core and go from there, and that's what we're doing. We established a core and we're going to kind of grow from there.
I think it's important to make sure we work on being physical on both sides of the ball. The only way we can do that is ones against ones, which we'll be doing elements of that this week. Now, we will not do as drastic as it was last week because you also don't want to physically beat up your team. So there's the fine line in there of working on being physical and tackling and taking to the ground, which we will do, and at the same time protecting your team and getting them ready to play Purdue.
He also said that this week, unlike last week, the coaching staff and players will sit down at watch game tape:One of the things we're going to do different than last week -- last week we didn't watch the tape. So this week we are going to watch the tape because there's plenty of -- unlike last week, especially on offense, there wasn't anything good to say. Now we can sit here and say, "hey, this is good, this is good, this is good, this is good. Okay, now, this is bad, this is bad, this is bad." So you can differentiate the two.
And then we go out to practice and we'll go ahead and work and clean up all the things that were bad, make sure we -- not only do we see them visually but we go out and try to rectify them and then you can move on. Where last week when you went right into training camp, you weren't even worrying about Michigan. You weren't really worrying about Michigan State. We were just worried about ourselves.
But now this week is a little different because we get a chance to go back and correct -- correct both visually and on the field what our problems were yesterday and then move on from there.
All in all, Weis said it was the "first time in a while" where a game left him with "several things I can walk out ... feeling good about." But at this point, all eyes are fixed on the future: "right now," said Weis, "we're trying to beat Purdue."And then we go out to practice and we'll go ahead and work and clean up all the things that were bad, make sure we -- not only do we see them visually but we go out and try to rectify them and then you can move on. Where last week when you went right into training camp, you weren't even worrying about Michigan. You weren't really worrying about Michigan State. We were just worried about ourselves.
But now this week is a little different because we get a chance to go back and correct -- correct both visually and on the field what our problems were yesterday and then move on from there.
Sounds about right to me.