[Barron/MGoBlog]
How does game 7 look for you tonight?
“Oh, I don’t want to talk about—I don’t want to jinx ‘em. I just know last night in the seventh inning my wife tried to talk to me and I wouldn’t speak to her. I said, ‘Let me concentrate on this.’ Great move by the manager, by the way, to get the win you have to get.”
How about game 7 for you guys, Michigan State. They moved the ball on you guys a little bit. What happened there?
“I think they had some good runs. We didn’t tackle as well as we should’ve. I think our guys up front would say that at times we got a little high, and we haven’t been doing that. They saw it themselves. That’s the kind of group it is, and we addressed it and you keep moving forward.”
Was that more on the D-line?
“Yeah. I mean, I think I’m the kind of person, and our players, I think the D-linemen would say if a team runs the ball, it’s the D-line. We take great pride in that. We don’t want anybody to be able to run the football and when they do, we look at ourselves first. That’s the way it is.”
When you see Jabrill do all the things he did in that game and yet be able to move as quick as he did on that fumble, what are your thoughts?
“That’s Jabrill. I mean, he’s a special player. You see him practice like that. You’ll see him in practice—a lot of guys don’t see that. He’s in practice and he’ll do something like that, intercept the ball or something like that, and you’ll see him take off running and you’ll go whoa, where did that come from? That’s just the way he plays.”
[After THE JUMP: “So, some people when people gain a few yards every once in a while, they’d say, ‘Ah, no big deal.’ This group takes it to heart, and that’s what I think separates them.”]
Bryan [Mone] still seems like he’s working through some stuff?
“Yeah, he’s back. He’s practicing really hard and I think if anything it’s probably rust. He had so many great reps during camp and leading into the first game or the second game and then when you take three weeks off and you’re rotating in there, you’re not playing every snap, and so I think he just needs to get more playing time. He’s doing very well.”
With the health of your defensive line overall, how is that holding up going into the November grind?
“It’s as well as can be expected. These kids are very, very physical football players and they’ve gone against some big offensive linemen, some physical offensive linemen. Having the ability to rotate them has allowed us for them not to have 60 or 70 reps. Getting off on third down has allowed us not to have to play 10, 12 extra reps. They’re doing well. I think their health is very good.”
Is this as fresh of a defensive line as you’ve had at this point in a season?
“Yeah. I think mentally and physically. They both come to meetings every day ready to go. They both—er, they all practice with the kind of intensity that you want, the alertness you want. It’s a special group. I mentioned that the first time we talked. It’s a special group. They love playing together. They have respect for each other. They know that the bar is very high for them. So, some people when people gain a few yards every once in a while, they’d say, ‘Ah, no big deal.’ This group takes it to heart, and that’s what I think separates them.”
Thoughts about seeing DJ across the field on Saturday?
“Yeah, you know, I’m proud of him. I’ve always been proud of him ever since he was a graduate assistant for me when I was at Notre Dame. He’s done a great job. We always knew that. Jim wouldn’t have hired him here—Jim wouldn’t have hired him at Stanford—if he wasn’t a great coach. DJ’s doing a great job with that program.”
Did you have any advice for him? What did you tell him as he left to take over a program?
“We didn’t talk about it much. He’s a grown man. He’s been very successful at every stop he’s been at. I just wished them luck. You like to see good people do well and he and his wife Sarah and their family, they’re great people. He’s just showing what I think everybody that’s ever been around him would know he’s gonna do a good job wherever he’s at.”
He talked about he importance of making sure he was being himself and not trying to be Jim Harbaugh Jr. or Urban Meyer Jr. or whatever it might be. Do you think that’s a lesson he picked up at some point in his coaching career or has he always been very much himself?
“I think people who have confidence, people that know what they want to do, don’t have to emulate anybody else. I think they just do be themselves and that’s him. I don’t think he’s ever been anybody but himself.”
Besides his intensity, besides his work ethic, what else stood out about DJ Durkin?
“Great character. He’s the kind of person that when he said something, I think the players would probably agree that if he would tell them something they would believe that their best interest was at heart. You know, he’s not a—he’s never been a climber, a guy who says I gotta do this so I can go here or do that. He’s always tried to do the best job that he could do with what he has and do it.
“I think that’s what great coaches do. They always look at the team first and they look at the players first and what can they do to help them be successful. That’s why you coach, and DJ’s done that.”
Is Mo Hurst playing his best ball right now?
“Yeah, Mo Hurst is playing well. He’s playing well, and I think it’s the first time he’s been healthy for a stretch. Mo’s been kind of plagued throughout his career with small injuries, and this is the first time that if you asked him he’d tell you yeah, it’s the best he’s felt.”
When you go back to that first drive Saturday, what went wrong for you guys up front?
“I think the biggest thing was probably just not getting off on that third down. You know, throughout games there’s a lot of plays where all of a sudden if they get the third down, well, what’s happening, why are they moving the ball on you, that kind of thing. That shows how impressive it is what Don’s done and what this defense has done on third down. That makes a lot of things right when you get off the field on third down.”
You guys had been so good on third down. Did the wind get tested there up front, conditioning or anything?
“No, no. We were good. In fact, I think if you look we were 4-for-11 or something like that. Still pretty darn good. I think a lot of people would love for that. Our bar just seems to be higher than that. You never know. You get off on third down on that first one and all of a sudden it’s like it was in the middle where we were three and out almost every time. You never know. You never know what that is. All of a sudden people say, boy, they’re moving the football. Well, that’s why you stop ‘em on third down.”
What’s the key to November after guys have been grinding really for three months including training camp?
“It’s really not November, it’s the next game. I think maybe that’s the answer is it isn’t look at November and saying, ‘Boy, we got November now.’ No, the next game coming up is the most important game that we play, and it’s the most important game on our schedule and I think our players look at it that way. No matter who it is, whenever it is, that next game, you’ve got to play at your ability and that’s what our guys are working to do.”
Are there things that they have to do to take care of themselves physically after you’ve put in this much time?
“Yeah, I think—yeah, there starts to become a wear-and-tear, maybe, throughout that long stretch. But our head coach is pretty smart. This isn’t his first trip. He knows how to set up practice and how to do things and Coach Brown knows exactly what this defense needs and you as a position coach know how much better is this guy going to get if I give him five extra reps. Maybe I can get the guy behind him better by giving him those five extra reps. I think maybe that’s what you have to do when you get to this point.”
What does Lawrence Marshall have to do to see more time?
“Well, he’s working hard. He’s doing some good things. It’s just that we’re blessed to have a two-deep across the board, and that two-deep is pretty good. He just needs to keep working.”
You’ve been in that situation where you’ve coached against a team for which you’ve coached before. What is that dynamic like when you come back to that stadium?
“I mean, I think…I think you forget it. I don’t even think it comes into play. Maybe you think about it in the week leading up to it, but once you get to that game and once you gameplan, you don’t look at maybe what you think somebody is gonna do, you look at the tape and what the team does. You go by that and make adjustments on anything that happens throughout the course of the game. But I think all those are kind of maybe overplayed. I think you just—it’s the next game for the team we’re playing.”
Looked like they ran a lot of read option against Michigan State. Talk about what you’ve seen from them on film.
“Yeah, they’re a spread team. They’re a spread team all the way and they do a good job with it. I mean, there’s nothing different than other really good spread teams. They do a nice job with the spread.”
What’s your assessment of how Rashan Gary has grown over this eight-game stretch?
“I think he’s really grown. It’s things that maybe other people don’t see, but Rashan now has become a lot more accountable to make sure he does what he’s supposed to do and knowing what he’s supposed to do instead of relying on somebody to say make sure you do this, make sure you do that.
“He’s always been really reliable as far as being in meetings on time, being accountable in the classroom and things like that. But you never realize—I mean, he might have played in a scheme where he had two defenses the entire year, and here he might have 102. He’s done a tremendous job of picking those up and he’s very intelligent, and he has a lot of pride.
“Whenever he makes a mistake you can see it really, really eats at him because he knows he’s intelligent enough to do it and he knows he should do it. He’s really cut down on that. He’s really done a nice job on that.”
[SID says there’s time for one or two more questions]
“You gotta get with Coach Drevno, anyhow. I mean, that offense and the way they were moving the ball. You need to have Coach Drevno talk.”
Do you remember your immediate first impressions of DJ twenty-some years ago?
“I do remember the one thing. We hired a guy by the name of DJ Durkin from Bowling Green and I went, ‘Who’s that?’ They said, ‘Well, he was a really good player at Bowling Green.’ I said, ‘Who’s that?’ I think he was there for about a week and you knew you got a real one. He did a really good job. That was my first impression.
“Usually when you bring a coach in you kind of know everybody almost, and he came walking in and I’ve never met this guy before, I don’t know anything about this guy. But he did a really good job.”