Sounds like they did a lot more reflecting on Sunday, and digging into issues. Here are my notes, not verbatim, just typing as they spoke:
Jerry Kill:
• 1st Sidbit of the day – Sid yells to Dan O’Brien (one of the best guys, ever) “Get your ass out of here!!!”
• Kill thanked Sid for getting the press conference off to a good start
• We got a lot done on Sunday than we normally do. Right now, I think we’re in the process from an O-Line standpoint, with Jon being out and Joe only practicing once a week – trying to take the load off him. Young freshman that have been redshirted aren’t quite ready. We spent a lto of time talking personalle. You don’t add things, you simplify things with your guys when you’re struggling. We’ve got to get them feeling good. If you don’t feel good, you don’t play good. I’m not going to throw kids under the bus because we’re not a pro team. I get $2.2 million dollars, and they get books and tuition.
• Our issue isn’t the QB, it’s running the football, we’ve got to do better upfront, and to stay healthy. Those are excuses, we’ve got to get it done
• Everyone wants to pull OSU out of #1 because they didn’t score enough points. But they won.
• It goes back to not turning over the football for us, and running the ball better.
• If we beat Michigan 6-0, I don’t think anyone would care, just win.
• You can’t blame the kids or the players, I’ve coached for 32 years, I know a lot of different football stuff. We may be putting stuff on that board that they can’t do, we need to give them things they can do.
• The players, the kids on offense, they’re willing to do anything. If you tell kids they’re not worth anything, and they’re bad…do you think they’ll like that. If you tell your kids they’re terrible, they’ll think that. My job, as a HC, is to get them to believe – we’re going to be all right.
• Football is part of training you for life.
• There are a lot of things we talked about not football related, playing tight, unsure. You need to find out why he’s struggling, and we work together to fix it. I said all the things you felt, I agree with that. There is one thing I’ll tell ya, we’re supposed to be a tough, physical team…that’s a little what I’m disappointed in. There’s a time to yell at people and there’s a time to teach, now is the time to teach.
• Kill said he might have to play true freshman backup center Tyler Moore at another position and burn his redshirt.
• I think we did exactly what we needed to do to win the game, there’s always opinions .. on what you do
• Pete had a great day, our punter had a great day. Special teams can help us out a lot. We just need to execute and get better, our kids know that, and they’re embarrassed by that.
• I’m never going to apologize for a win, I felt like I was apologizing for a win. That’s what I tell our kids.
• (On if people are upset because expectations have been raised) This is the best problem you’ll ever have, you do better, and you want to continue to do better. I’d rather have someone care, than not cared. They bought a ticket, I would have booed…well, maybe not, I would have yelled. My wife asked me afterwards, you didn’t play very well. The only thing was getting asked about specific players, I’m not going to throw a player under the bus. We’ve got other issues other than one person.
Tracy Claeys:
• We’ve got a group that likes to play football, they’ve been solid on their assignments, which is why we’ve done a decent job.
• Ohio is very similar to Kent State in the running game, but they have receivers to keep you honest.
• On defense, you never know who’s going to make the plays, it all depends on how they block. Steve Richardson had a lot of one on one blocks that he won. According to how people block, you see guys that make plays. Alex Keith made the plays he needed to, very pleased with him. I think that, as coaches, it’s your job to put them in positions to make plays. It still comes down to the players. When you don’t play on D, you miss some of these plays, we didn’t miss a lot.
• We go against each other in practice 30 plays a day. We go good on good. Tuesday and Weds. In no huddle offense, we get between 24-30 plays.
Matt Limegrover:
• How do you fix your line? Go on to work every day. We used some time Sunday, we did a little more than we usually do, to see if there were some pieces we hadn’t tried yet. Today will be a big day as far as that goes. Maybe try some guys who didn’t play on Saturday and see if they can help us.
• On keeping kids confident? That’s coaching 101. You don’t want to wear a kid out, but you don’t want them leaving the complex feeling like it’s all rainbows and unicorns. We’re honest from them from day one. It’s a process, you don’t pull a kid in and it’s a complete shock to them. That’s what avoids a lot of the hard feelings. I don’t think there’s anything worse in football – than when a coach comes in and completely replaces you, and it’s the 1st you’ve heard.
Some things didn’t go our way – how are we, as a group going to respond to that in the future. It’s almost like self scouting yourself. Coach met with each group after practice and said “what went wrong from your perspective?”