Here are my live press conference notes. Will post the official transcripts when they come out.
Jerry Kill:
• Offensive line wise they’re very impressive. This team has the edge upfront. They execute well, and have a tough demeanor to them. They’ve gotten more and more confident on what they’re doing on the defensive side. It’s a football team that we’ve got to do a good job and great preparation this week. We had good film review on Sunday, the kids had great focus.
• On preparing when you’re winning – Though my years of experience, we just do what we do. Whether you lose of you win, you point out the things that weren’t so good that could get you beat. It’s a teaching process, it’s no difference then preparing in the classroom.
• We’d like to be a play action team, that’s been our background throughout the years. We have to continue to throw the ball better. We will continue to throw the play action pass, we think it’s important. It will help us run the ball better.
• Mitch is a young QB, and I think the last 2 games, the greatest thing about Mitch is he was relaxed. He just had a smile and went out and played. I think he’s feeling good, and they say if you feel you, you play good. We threw it a lot during training camp – I think people need to understand that when we recruited him, he threw it well that’s why we recruited him, but college is different. The #1 thing for a guy throwing the football is the O-line that’s protecting him. I don’t care who you are, if you’re getting hit, you get uncomfortable.
• Did anyone say “relax” to Mitch? Kill: I think every coach on our staff did, including defensive Coaches. We had confidence in him, we just told him to go have fun. When he threw a pick on Saturday, 3 weeks it would have eaten him alive, this time he just came back and played. We’re halfway through the season, we’ve got a whole lot more to do.
• We said we’re going to build our team on defense, and our 1st priority was to get defensive backs. These are the kind of kids we’ve got to get, and do a good job in the weight room. The teams that are winning championships, they’re playing defense.
• I’d like to redshirt a lot of people, to be honest, back in the day you could. It’s important to redshirt a QB and RB if you can. That gets your program where you’re recycling all the time. We pulled a redshirt off Connor, that hurts you depth wise, but we had to do it. What would have happened if we redshirted David Cobb? I just opened a can of worms, someone is going to write “he’s a dummy.”
• Flip has got a lot of pull, if he wants that suite, he deserves it. Good for him (on using his suite for the Vikings game).
• On 11am games – it’s one of those things where we’re controlled by the TV network, and we understand it. For our fans, they’re asking why we’re playing that early and why can’t I change that? I can’t. For us, we get up and start playing, done in the afternoon, and have time for recruits after that. Then we have more time to prepare for the next game. For our fans, it’s tough for them. The only big concern I have is for our fans, I tell our administrators to let them come in on Thursday nights and enjoy life.
• We need to continue to force feed that ball to Maxx a little bit. We’ve got to continue to get the ball in his hands, he’s a productive player and a good blocker.
Tracy Claeys:
• On 16 play drives that NU had – I was frustrated in the fact that in each drive, we had a chance to get out of it, we dropped a few interceptions, etc., as a D-Coordinator I never look at yardage, because they’re so much free yardage in no huddle offenses. It still all comes down to points. That’s as well as we’ve defended the, that’s the least amount of points we’ve given them. There was a chance of holding them under 10 with a few plays.
• At one time here, holding Northwestern to 17 points I probably could have run for mayor (laughing).
• Our goal is to hold everyone to 17 points or less, realistically, it could be more like 24.
• I don’t like to rely on turnovers. We’re playing pretty good D and getting TO’s. I think we could be really good. We’re built for a lot of the teams. You play OSU, WI, Iowa, NE – we haven’t played many teams that have come downhill on us, we’ve played spread teams.
• Now you see the no huddle spread all over, it’s the 2 backs, and they add a gap on ya. You don’t get a lot of work against that anymore. People are having trouble with Iowa this year, they’re scoring a lot of points.
• On Mitch Leidner – he never really lost his cool when he was the scout team QB, and you get pushed around. Mitch would take the ball and throw it back in their face. Really competitive kid that loves the game of football. I just look forward to him getting better and better all the time.
• You can make a kid a better tackler, but IMO, if a kid isn’t a very good tackler in HS, he won’t be in college. You need to recruit a good athlete that can tackle is a lot better than teaching a kid how to tackle. That’s why we don’t watch highlight tapes, we watch the whole game.
• We screwed up on some communication things, when you play a no huddle team, you’ve got to be ready to go. That was part of the issue, worrying about the crowd. You can’t really celebrate until you get to the sidelines. (On Myron)
Matt Limegrover:
• Having Chandler Harnish mentoring Mitch didn’t hurt. I had a chance to sit down and talk to Chandler (Harnish), there’s such a confidence with him, that seemed to rub off (on Mitch).
• On Connor Mayes: He’s exceeded what I thought he might be. Being a kid coming from a smaller level school, I didn’t know exactly what we were going to get. He’s been very great and a coachable kid. You’re going to see more and more of him.
• More play action? That’s a tough question. If you’ve been around, we’re a take what they give you type of group. We knew we had it, so we knew we wanted to throw it.
• One thing we don’t do is roll the dice and see what happens. We’re not big roll the dice people and put kids in peril.
• Target number of offense – we’d like to score in the 30’s. We’re not doing that, and we need to. In the 27/28 point range is ok. We try and score 4 offensive TD’s every ball game. Every week, we’re trying to find ways to get big plays.
• On Leidner – one of the biggest things that helped Mitch was not playing in the San Jose St. Game. There was a lot of pressure put on that kid, and he took it even further. I think not playing, and we still winning, there was an “a-ha” moment realizing he didn’t have to do it all himself. We were excited for him when we called pass plays.
• I couldn’t be more happy for Isaac Fruchte, it ain’t easy being a senior, WR and not get that many balls. It was Thursday and he was the guy in the huddle that was getting after guys, saying we need to pick up the intensity. I’m glad he’s had some success, he’s stayed in it 100%, a young man that deserves that and more.