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Two strong defenses here. I guess just looking at what Pat Narduzzi’s doing in East Lansing compared to what you want to do, what this team is capable of, how would you size up the two defenses and as a coordinator are you excited to see maybe those two units be the difference makers on Saturday?
“Well, the first question, how do you size up the two defenses; I mean, I don’t think you ever judge a defense until the season is over. I know you go game-to-game. I know we have goals each game that [are] how we want to play, the level we always want to have our kids play at. How do you judge a defense? Is it stats? Is it points? Is it points that your defense gave up? Is it points that the special teams gave up? Is it points that somebody else…I don’t think you judge it that way. I think you judge a defense by what they do game-to-game, do they do what they have to do to win the game, and how they finish a season, what they do at the end of the year, what it all looks like at the end of the year.
“As far as playing against…you know, I never play against a person. We’re playing- this is Michigan football playing their next game against an in-state rival and I’m excited about it and that’s really how I look at it.”
Michigan State’s been known for their defense in the past but the offense seems to have made great strides this year, putting up big numbers. How much better are they this year and how big of a challenge are they for your defense?
“Well, they’re a very good offense. They’ve done a great job first and foremost running the football. They’ve got some playmakers at wide receiver. They’ve got a very, very good tight end. They’ve got a good offensive line. They’ve done a good job, and it’s going to be a very, very good offense to go against and I think they’ve done a very good job on offense.”
Where have you seen Connor Cook improve?
“Well, Connor, he’s a very good quarterback. I think the biggest place you’ve seen him improve is he doesn’t get sacked. He seems like he gets the ball out quick. He seems like he knows where to go with it, and I think his maturity, his year-to-year, I think he’s a better quarterback. I think he’s a very, very good quarterback.”
[After THE JUMP: Mattison watches some football, makes fun of some things, and scouts the Spartans]
I didn’t look up the stat but you have one of the best run defenses in the Big Ten and average-wise in the entire country. Is that something you guys can hang your hat on? Langford’s rushed for 100 yards for the past four weeks. Is that something you guys are-
“No. We don’t- one thing is if you’ve known me since I’ve been here, and this is the way I’ve been brought up coaching with coach Moeller and coach Carr and the guys that I’ve been fortunate enough [to work with], John Harbaugh, the guys I’ve been fortunate enough to be with; I’ve never been a stat guy. There’s only one stat that matters to me and that’s whether you win or lose. Yeah, you can look at stats and say, ‘Boy, you’ve done a great job against the run.’ What have you done against the pass? There’s only one statistic that ever really, really ever, ever matters and that’s points given up. That’s all that matters. That’s the only one that anybody- and if it’s not zero it’s not good enough because your job is to do whatever you have to do on defense if you want to be a great defense to win the football game, and that’s really what you’ve got to judge your defense on.”
Brady was just in here and said that had he participated in that game a year ago last year it would bother the hell out of him the way the team played. Do you detect a different mindset among the guys that played in that game last year?
“Well, it’s an in-state rival. It’s an in-state rival, and that’s the biggest thing. I think you have to be up for that game. Our defense, and I’ll just speak for our defense, they come out every day to work. They come out every day to get better. Their attitude has been tremendous. They’ve played with toughness. They’ve played with aggressiveness. They’re working to improve every single game and this is the next one. This is the next one they judge us on and it’s a big one. It’s a big one. Why? Because we’re both from the state of Michigan. That’s why. And they’re the defending Big Ten Champions, so it’s our job now to see how good we are and play Michigan defense, and that’s really what I think our kids come out every day to do.”
Does playing against an in-state rival and previous Big Ten champion give you a chance to sort of erase some of the bad things that have happened over the last couple of months?
“I don’t look at that. I don’t look at that. The question’s been asked before, ‘What about that last week?’ I’m going to tell you what, we’ll make the corrections that we did wrong in the game previous and move on. And it’s only and always has been about the next game. It’s about what you do next. What are you doing. Us worrying about if we didn’t hold a team to zero points or gave up a big pass, that’s got to be corrected and then move on. That’s been our mindset and that’s what our kids are trying to do every day, and that’s what we as coaches are trying to do to make sure that’s what they do.”
Brady said during a bye week some coaches tinker a little too much and some need to revamp things. In what camp was your defense in needing to switch things up after self-scouting?
“Well, we were looking closely at what we had done so far this year, what our scheme was, what improvement- we self-scout ourselves, so we look at anything we can do to improve it. One thing I’ve always found you have to be careful of in an open date is you can become a mad professor and all of a sudden you bring out about 18 different defenses and you know them because you’ve had time to look at them but your kids that are running them have been in class or doing whatever they’re doing and they can’t run them, so you’ve got to be careful of that. We use this week- I think we’ve used this as much as any off week I’ve been around to try and improve this defense and do whatever we can to get better and I think our coaches did a great job with that and our kids did too, the way they practiced.”
You mentioned Connor Cook doesn’t get sacked. He has adequate foot speed. He’s not a burner like Golson or anybody like that. Talk about the things that go into him not getting sacked, the things he does.
“I think he gets a great pre-snap read. I think he’s done a great job, which a lot of quarterbacks do; they know what type of defense you are in prior to the snap and then when the ball’s snapped I think he sees it either verifies what he thought or didn’t verify what he thought, and then that being said there’s always a good play to go against that defense. A better play to go against that defense. For the most part what he’s done, and I don’t want to evaluate him that way, but just from watching him it seems like he makes great decisions and he’s done a very good job.”
Two years ago Michigan State could hardly even move the ball on offense when they came here to visit. Now Brady’s calling Tony Lippett one of the best if not the best receiver in the conference. How has the matchup changed as Michigan State has developed a more dynamic offense?
“That’s a great question. They have very good wide receivers. He’s not the only one. The tight end is a very good receiver. Burbridge is a great receiver. I think they’ve got very, very good wide receivers but don’t kid yourself; they pride themselves on running the football and they can run the football. They’ve shown that. They are not a passing team. They will pass if that’s what it’s supposed to be, but I just think they’re a good offense. They’ll run the football if you let them run the football and they’re going to take shots and they’re going to complete passes if you let them complete passes, and that’s I guess what a good offense does.”
In the past I’ve heard you say you’d rather be in singular looks than do different things out of singular looks, but it seems this year you’ve been in a lot of different looks. Is that a change in philosophy or personnel dictated or something else, or am I just wrong?
“Yeah, you know, I don’t think we’re in different looks than we’ve been in. We run a lot of the same things we’ve run when we first got here. I think the one thing you see more and more is offenses have gotten so explosive, and so personally I would love to go out there and say, ‘Guys, we’re going to run one defense every snap and we’re going to get after this team and we’re going to be really, really good.’ And there was a time you could do that, believe it or not. You can’t do that anymore.
“One thing that was great about Saturday [was] I sat and watched a bunch of football. Boy oh boy, there’s some bad defenses out there if you go by points given up. I’m being facetious when I tell you that, but the bottom line is that offenses are scoring so many points right now you have to be a step ahead. You can’t do like you’d have loved to do at one time where you’re sitting there saying, ‘Okay, I’m going to line up I’m just going to beat you and beat you and beat you.’ Everybody’s evened up so much more. Talent level has evened up so much more. That’s why we do that.”
To piggyback a little bit on the wide receiver question, is this a game where you stress to your secondary, like you said, there’s more than one guy that can beat you like Josiah Price, a pretty good tight end? Is this a game where you sit down with Blake and Ray and really dot the i’s and cross the t’s?
“I always trust our secondary. Our secondary has worked extremely hard. They understand what we want of them. They’re working hard to be as good as they can be. You don’t do anything different with your secondary. Your secondary goes out there and they play Michigan defense, and when they play Michigan defense then that’s fine. That’s what you need to do. So there’s nothing different that way with them.”
But do you stress to them and talk to them about how this is a rivalry game-
“Don’t have to. Don’t have to stress anything about this game with them. They know. It’s an in-state rivalry game.”
You mentioned watching a bunch of football Saturday. Did you see the end of the Notre Dame-Florida State [game]? Do you think it was a good call by the officials? The pick call.
“Boy, I better not answer that. I better not answer that. I tell you what, I’m going to be really political: I thought it was a great game. I thought it was a great game. I really did. How many points did Notre Dame score?”
27.
“Ah, that’s what I thought. Okay. I thought it was a good game. I really did. It was a great game. Next question, please.”
After watching the Penn State game, some of the young guys on defense; your thoughts on how they played, some of the younger guys you had to put in there.
“Well, I thought out kids- geez, it’s been a long time or it feels like a long time ago already, but I was really, really proud of the way our kids played. They played extremely hard. They played with a lot of passion. They believed. There were a couple big plays and I’ll tell you, they were on blitzes. You want to blitz, here we are. You know, they hit. Whenever you pressure a lot, and we did in that ball game, there’s times where all of a sudden that ball finds a hole in there and you’ve got to get it down. That’s what you’ve got to say. It’s hard for me to deal with but that’s what it is. All in all I was really pleased with our kids. I was pleased with their emotion. I was pleased with how they played and we got the W, and that’s really all that matters.”
What are your strongest memories of this rivalry, coaching in it?
“I mean, I don’t know if I have any one memory. I just know that this is a great football game and it’s fun and it’s great to be a part of this game because you have two programs that it means a great deal to and that’s really- I’m really happy to have the opportunity to play in this game.”
When you hear your players after the Michigan State game saying they got bullied and out-toughed and things like that what goes through your mind. Does that put a chip on your shoulder? Not you personally, but the defense going into this one.
“I haven’t heard our kids say that. You have I guess, I haven’t. I’m being honest with you. I haven’t heard them say that. I don’t know, looking back at last year’s game, that you’d say we got bullied. I think going into half it was 6-6. I don’t know what constitutes being bullied. If they said that they were bullied then that’s what whoever said it was. I don’t worry about that. I don’t think- that doesn’t happen to this group. When you practice hard, when you work as hard as this group has, when you have the togetherness, the belief that this team has then they’re going to go out and play football like they’re supposed to play. And that’s what I’m very, very confident about happening.”