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What’s it like seeing this rivalry from the other side? Obviously you’ve coached at Michigan State. What’s the view when you had never been a part of it before [at Michigan]?
“Well, it’s one of the classic rivalries in all of college football and I’m very excited to get the opportunity to be a part of it and I know our kids are very, very excited about the opportunity.”
When you were at Michigan State what was it like?
“Any time you play in a game, whether it be an in-state rivalry game or a conference rivalry game and some of them are out-of-conference rivalry games, the important thing is the focus on the game itself and you can get caught up and lost in the things that surround the game. Any time you’re on either side it’s about the players preparing. It’s about preparing them the best you possibly can and giving them the opportunity to be in the right situations to play well.”
Any of those games stick out to you from when you were there?
“I think any time you’re a part of these games they all stick out to you. Obviously probably the one that was played right here [Ed.- he’s referring to Braylonfest] was one that goes down as a great, great football game. Really was.”
They obviously play pretty good defense. Without giving away what you want to do, what are the key things that they do that you have to combat?
“Well, I think when you look at them they’re an outstanding defensive football team. They do a really good job of stopping the run and they get guys and they commit to the box and they do a really good job of tackling. They tackle well. You don’t see a lot of missed tackles. And then when you do have a play you see their ability to make an adjustment and take that play away, so I think that the biggest thing about the game is we have to understand the plan very well. We have to understand how they’re going to line up in the different blitzes and things that they’re going to try and approach us with, and then we have to execute.”
In the past Michigan has had a problem with Michigan State bringing linebackers through the A gap. I wonder if there’s a standard way of dealing with that or is that a pre-snap read the quarterback has to make or-
“Well, when you look at their base defense that’s one of their base blitzes that they run against everybody that they play against. One of the things it does [is] it creates obviously pressure on the interior of your line and pressure within the quarterback’s line of vision. A lot of people that run that- I don’t know their exact philosophy but it’s to create problems and pressure in the quarterback’s lap so he doesn’t feel like he has a real pocket to step up into so obviously it’s a blitz that’s part of their base package and something that we’ll prepare for.”
[After THE JUMP: Why were the MSU coaches covered in glass after the ‘04 game and some strategy talk]
Reviewing last year’s Michigan-Michigan State game: have you done that?
“Yes.”
When you watch that from an offensive standpoint, especially up front, in how that game went down?
“You look at it from the standpoint of how did they approach the game. What plays did they run, what was effective, what wasn’t effective, and obviously they did a very good job on defense. The biggest thing is when you look at games like that is is there any carry-over? What may carry over from last year to this year? What did they do well? What did they think they could do well again? Obviously they did a good job on defense against us. They stopped the run and did a nice job.”
Can you talk a little about what it’s like working with Devin Gardner in preparation? Not just how he plays football, but what kind of kid he is and the work ethic you feel you get from him week in and week out.
“I’ve said it all year long, Devin’s preparation has been outstanding and week in and week out he’s done the extra things to prepare himself to play well. Very, very intelligent guy. Really has spent extra time studying the game, and I think it’s important to him not only to understand what we’re trying to do but to understand what the defense is trying to do to take it away. Like I said all year, been very, very pleased with the way he’s prepared week in and week out.”
Especially among the offensive linemen, do you notice and increased sense of purpose heading into this game after what happened last year?
“I think there’s always a desire to get better and improve each and every week, and if you’re not improving- we always say ‘If you’re not getting better you’re getting worse. You never stay the same.’ So every time we go out on the practice field we’re trying to get better, and I’ve kind of hit on that throughout the year. We’ve had individual strides and progress and the struggle has been consistency with everybody doing it right at the same time.”
Brady mentioned wanting more explosive, big chunk plays out of the offense. I imagine during the bye week that’s been a focus. What does this offense have to do differently to create those kinds of plays?
“Well, you’re always looking at how do you create them and what schemes give you the ability to do it; where are your strong points, where are the places where you may be able to create a matchup? Where are your weaknesses where your weakness may get exposed when you’re trying to create an explosive play? We’re always looking for ways to do that and without giving away too much scheme stuff obviously we evaluated that very hard during the bye week and looked at ways to do that and do it better.”
Is that harder to do without Derrick [Green]?
“Well, any time you lose a caliber of player like Derrick…when you lose playmakers it hinders your ability to make as many big plays, so obviously when you look at it it’s what players can make them when we get them in those positions and then how schematically does that work against the opponent you’re seeing.”
How much does that fall on both Devins, Gardner and Funchess, to be those guys?
“I think it falls on everybody. It falls on, when you start talking about the passing game, the receivers have to be right at the right depths and making the right moves and the line has to protect for X amount of time, the quarterback has to throw the ball on time. When you talk about the running game you have to secure the line of scrimmage, the back has to hit the right hole. A lot of times on explosive runs your receiver may have to get an extra block on the backside of a run to create that extra space so there’s- once again, it goes back to you’ve got to have 11 guys doing it on every play. It’s not just one guy here or one guy there.”
The offensive line: when Erik [Magnuson] is health again, whether that’s now or whenever that is, are you going to try and get him back in there? Obviously he was a part of the line until the injury.
“You go through the process of evaluating each and every week, and we’re going to play the best five available linemen to us that we feel [we have] each Saturday.”
Is cohesion important?
“I think cohesion is important. When you get injuries and you take guys out you go through another growth process with somebody else playing a different position and obviously I’ve hit on this before, but you look at the best lines are usually lines that play together for an extended period of time, so obviously cohesion is a part of the factor.”
You talked about how pleased you are with Devin’s preparation. Where have you seen him make progress?
“I think the biggest thing he’s made progress [with] is his understanding of defense. It’s simple on paper to identify the plays offensively and what you want to do. The next step of that is, ‘Okay, what defense am I getting and how is that defense built? Where are the strong points of that defense and where are the weaknesses of defenses?’ Now how does that relate to the play that we’re running, and then you talk about repetitions within system and that’s why a lot of times you see quarterbacks in new systems [and] it takes them a while because they get it, they know what they want to do but it’s the process of getting it done. A lot of that’s repetition and tying your feet and eyes together and getting to the right place at the right time because there’s so much timing involved with everything.”
Without Derrick you’re obviously looking for more from Justice [Hayes]. Can you talk about what you saw from him against Penn State and how much more you can get from him in this game?
“Sure. Justice is a guy I think when you look across our offense may be the one player who’s improved the most throughout the season from where he was at the start of training camp to where he is today. Really been pleased with his day in and day out progress that he’s made, so obviously he’s a guy who’s been a big third-down part of what we do. [He’s] our best protector, understanding our protections and what we want to do there and obviously he does have some speed and some quickness, some things he gives us in the running game so the more we can get him involved the better we’re going to be.”
Can you share some of your memories from that ‘04 game?
“Is that what year it was? That seems like a long time ago.
“I’ll tell you guys a funny story. Now this is pretty good. I don’t know, but…DeAndra Cobb was our running back and DeAndra broke a- we were on a sprint draw and DeAndra broke a big run. I think we went up 17 with I think there was just over eight minutes left and we’re sitting in the box and one of our coaches got really excited, and it was back when those glass windows rolled up, and he jumps up and goes, ‘Yeah!’ And the next thing you know we’re sitting there and glass just ‘psssh’ everywhere, across everything. So we spent the rest of the fourth quarter and overtime just draped in glass so it was pretty interesting.
“So then the next story was that people thought we were upset because we lost [and] that was why the glass got broken but it wasn’t really the story. That’s one thing I’ll never forget about that game.”
Who was that?
“I can’t tell you who that is.” /laughs
What was it like to be so high in that game and then suddenly [have it] crash onto you?
“I don’t know that I remember. I just remember that it was a great football game. It really was. And two teams that left everything they had out there on the field.”
MGoQuestion: In the past Michigan State’s relied almost exclusively on zone blitzes. I know you can’t give away too much, but in general what can you do to counter some of the things in their blitz package?
“Well, obviously any time you’re getting pressured the biggest thing is protection. And then in the running game you’ve got to make sure you’re identified so you don’t have free hats, as we call them, in the backfield. You’ve got to secure the line of scrimmage, make sure you have a hat on a hat, and then in the passing game protect and the ball’s got to come out.”
Kind of to piggyback on that, when you know that a team wants to force your hand early is it more important to execute the quick stuff well or find ways to protect so that you can have those longer developing plays?
“Well, there’s a fine line there and you say how long can you protect for when you talk about creating explosive plays. When we design every play we design we talk to the quarterbacks about understanding is this play designed to be an efficient play or an explosive play? Your efficient plays are usually your quicker type passes where you should see a higher completion percentage, the ball should come out quicker. Now, can you get the ball to a player underneath coverage that can either break a tackle or find space underneath coverage to create an explosive play versus a play where you may block up eight offensive players and block it up and send two guys down the field and try to create an explosive that way, which in turn it can become an efficient play if you get really soft defensive coverage and the ball let’s say gets checked down to a running back or a tight end that’s leaking out that was in protection.”