Gopher Football
“¢ When you begin the season 1-3 there’s disappointment from the football team and coaches, you look at it closely and Minnesota could be 4-0. In the 3 losses, we, as much as the opponent, determine the outcome. We had opportunities to win each game. We could be sitting here and being excited about being 4-0. The reality is that we’re a 1-3 team, it’s very disappointing to me and our football team
“¢ The most important record is that we’re 0-0 in the Big Ten. We have a chance to play a homecoming game against Northwestern and begin 1-0
“¢ I knew that we were going to have bumps in the road, especially with 11 new starters on defense, there will be growing pains. We’ve got talent on the defensive side, we will improve because of that.
“¢ Northwestern, we’ve had great battles with them 3 years in a row. We played one of our better games of the season last year against them. Our kids will go into this with great confidence. We expect it to be a great battle.
“¢ What’s the mental state of the team? Our mental status of our team is excellent, they’re going to follow my lead. They know that some of the things we’ve done are unacceptable, in all three phases of the game. We’ve been in all for games, and have opportunities to win, but we haven’t. We’ve looked at the reasons why we haven’t. We’ve got a chance to win some Big 10 games and that’s awful exciting for us
“¢ What we need to do defensively, is eliminate the big play. We’ve had stretches of good play, but we’ve given up the explosive play.
“¢ We’re number #2 in the country in time of possession on offense, we’d done some nice things there.
“¢ When you’re 1-3 you get caught up in the negative, but it’s my job to make the team realize they’ve done some positive things.
“¢ It all starts with Persa as Northwestern’s quarterback, they’re more committed to the running game, they’ve got 4 runners that all play. He’s very quick to pull the ball and run, we’re going to have to eliminate his ability. In all of their 4 games, he’s been the key to them keeping the ball. He’s caused a lot of problems for opposing teams, he’s got some excellent receivers.
“¢ Defensively, NU is solid. They try and do a good job of eliminating the explosive play.
“¢ It’s going to be critical to do a good job of staying on the field, and continue to do the things that we’re doing.
“¢ Utilize Gray a little bit more, will be something we need to do
“¢ We expect everyone to play, no one will be ruled out with injury
“¢ Stodumire has been reinstated with the team. He will play Saturday. Troy has come back and he understands his situation last week was self inflicted, he’s been remorseful, and he’s expressed it properly to me and our football team. We have allowed him to come back and be part of our football team and be a good teammate.
“¢ Would I love to eliminate Facebook and Twitter? I don’t think you can do that, some teams have. You need to talk to kids about making good decisions when utilizing electronic media. Troy is very remorseful for how he used Facebook. It’s part of the world we live in, we need to do a good job of teaching the kids on how to use it.
“¢ Kim Royston is so frustrated, he wants to badly to be back and out there, but I just haven’t been able to put him fully padded into a scrimmage situation, because his mind isn’t fully there yet. I need to know he can protect himself, it’s close, but that last step is going to be critical. Today he is going to be out there in full pads.
“¢ Working hard this work to be disciplined in practice to do what good defenses do. Our kids work really hard, and that’s why we will improve on defense
“¢ When you’ve got young guys, they’re going to make mistakes. Experience is what is going to make you a good football players
“¢ We, as coaches, need to demand that they’re doing each and everything right
“¢ Part of the job is dealing with the negative criticism. I believe, with all my heart, that we could and should be 4-0, so it’s greatly disappointing to be 1-3. I understand our fans frustration, but compound that about 50 times and that’s me, that’s our players. No one hurts or cares more than our players and coaches. I do understand. Outside perception doesn’t control what we do, our preparation, our believe, and that on a daily basis we’re doing everything right.
“¢ Brewster has not worried about his job. That’s ludicrous, he only has time in his life to coach the players and prepare. Coaches coach. We do everything we can to help our players to win. At the end of the day, we’ll all be judged on wins and losses. At this point, we have 8 games left, and we’re 0-0 in the Big 10.
“¢ On Sunday we put up signs on the doors that we’re 0-0 in the Big 10 to help their mindset
“¢ We’ve had an opportunity in each game to win. It’s not good enough. Losing 2 games that there’s not a doubt in my mind that we should have won.
“¢ NU has a very well designed offense, they are running more option this year. We need to stay on the field offensively to limit their opportunities offensively.
“¢ Ellestad came back last week and hit 3-4 field goals, and his hang time on kick offs were really positive
“¢ With NU, you have to try to get to the quarterback, create problems with his field of vision, sacks are not the end all.
“¢ We’ve done some good things with the running game. We held the ball the other night for 36 minutes, weren’t able to convert some things.
“¢ Every possession is so vitally important, and when you have opportunities to score touchdowns vs. kick field goals, you have to. Our margin for error is small, we need to maximize everything we do.
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