3yardsandacloud
Administrator Emeritus
Transcript From The November 9th Ohio State Football Press Luncheon - Ohio State Buckeyes
Nov. 9, 2004
TRESSEL: As all of you know that went out there, Michigan State wasn't struggling because they'd come off a tough loss to Michigan. I thought they came out and played hard. As we mentioned in last week's press conference, the indication of their character, in my mind, was marked after their Rutgers loss and opening the season, having a little bit of a disappointment at the beginning and then bouncing back and having a disappointment there against Notre Dame and playing well in the Big Ten, that tells you a little bit of the character of the team. I thought Michigan State fought to the very end. We did the things that we talk about that you need to do when you're on the road to win a tough road game. I thought our special teams were excellent. There was, in our opinion, a number of candidates for the special teams player of the week. I think fairly obvious to most of us, Ted Ginn was given that distinction. Teddy had the excellent punt return for a touchdown and maybe equally as important when he made the great catch on the long punt, it was kind of hit into the wind and kept it from going very far, plus returned it another 11 yards was huge, we thought, from a field position standpoint.
Mike Nugent hitting another 50-plus, 52, 53-yard field goal was huge, hitting five of his six kickoffs into and out of the end zone, that had been a tough thing for many people to cope with. Cobb's kickoff return ability and Mike Nugent neutralized that. Outside of the 68-yard punt that Kyle Turano had that was brought back 32 yards, really our punt was well done there and Santonio Holmes had a punt return that was significant, I think we had 92 yards in punt returns. So we thought that the special teams, which we felt we had to win in order to win the game came in and took care of what they needed to. Obviously the same will be needed as we head to Purdue. We always talk about the fact that you better play relentless defense when you're at someone's house. They're going to keep coming at you, letting it loose, letting it fly, doing whatever they need to do to move the football in their own stadium and I thought our defense, despite having some guys banged up along the way, we lost Mike Kudla, Tyler Everett, we were without Nate Salley, obviously we've been without Mike D'Andrea and I thought the guys just kept playing and playing and playing, and to their credit held Michigan State to five field goal attempts, and when you can do that against an offense, I think Michigan State was averaging over 225 yards rushing and our guys held them to 140 some. So I thought we played hard, relentless defense. There were moments where we could have tackled better and some moments where we could have done some things better, but I thought we played relentless and that's what it's all about when you're on the road.
We did not play mistake-free offense. We did have a fumble right at the beginning of the third quarter, which I thought was crucial. Fortunately our defense held them to a 52-yard field goal at that moment and didn't allow them to go down and really seize the momentum of the game, but we cannot have fumbles, obviously, and after a nine-yard run, which we're going to be out close to mid field and establishing a drive or field position and so forth, we've got to stay away from that. It was good that we didn't have any interceptions. I thought probably the finest thing that our offense did was in the fourth quarter, number one when we started down on our own half yard line, which at that moment, you could see and feel the emotion of the stadium, that Michigan State had seized the emotion and our guys had an 11-play drive from our own half yard line, which did not result in points, but it resulted in them taking the ball over back beyond their 20 yard line and I thought changed a little bit of the momentum of the football game. They did respond and go down and kick a field goal after that drive, but then our guys taking it back over and getting a first down and then hitting a big play that you need to win the game showed me that they had an excellent response and then when we needed to run the clock out, not only did we do that, but thought it was poetic justice that a guy like Mo Hall who just does what you ask, does the best he can possibly do, is there to do whatever the team needs, broke it out and had the touchdown that put it somewhat out of reach. It still moved the ball down there a little bit with a couple deep throws.
The offensive player of the game was Teddy Ginn. He did a good job running the ball and catching the ball and making the plays. Had another reverse call back and another thing we have to work on, told Coach Hazell, your wide receivers can't lead the team in holding, and we've got to do a little bit better job when we get the ball out there in the open field. Our defensive player of the game was A.J. Hawk, if you saw the game, were at the game, he played an extraordinary game. In fact, I talked to a few of the Big Ten coaches this week because we happened to have some calls regarding All-American teams and so forth and they marvel at how good a football player A.J. Hawk is, and he was the defensive player of the game.
Offensive lineman of the game was Nick Mangold, who graded a winning performance. The attack force player of the game was Simon Fraser, who we think had the best game he's had in 2004. He was disruptive. He had some quarterback hurries and hits. He had a key third-down breakup of a pass, which was huge for us, which forced them to punt and did an excellent job leading a group that needed to be relentless, and they were, and Simon did a great job there.
The Jack Tatum hit of the game was also put on by Simon Fraser against the Michigan quarterback. As always, Derek Harden was our scout team player of the week. John Kerr continues to do a great job on our scout defense, and Mike DeMaria, special teams player, just an ultimate team guy, was the scout offensive player of the week. So we did those things we needed to do to come away with a hard fought victory. We need to improve. We know Purdue is a team coming off of four tough weeks. I think the difference in scoring, there in the last four weeks is, 10 points. You can see their defense was young at the beginning of the year. They're relentless. They come after you. They attack you. They put pressure on you. They blitz you. You can see their offense is typical Purdue fashion.
On Defense, not only is Stubblefield the guy you better make sure you know who he is or they'll pop the big play, they've got a couple of guys, number nine, Ingraham, a couple of guys that are explosive. I don't know, we don't know what their status is at quarterback. Orton did miss last week, but the other guy, Kirsch, has been there and adds a little bit of a threat. When Orton is playing his finest, he really adds an excellent run threat, but Kirsch does a great job with that as well.
With that, questions?
REPORTER: Jim, in light of what is on espn.com, one of your former players alleges that you made improper benefits and your brother made also improper benefits, and yet you'll say you have no response to this?
TRESSEL: Well, as Steve mentioned, this is a two-part scenario today and Mr. Geiger is going to speak to those situations. I have not seen or read anything, and as Steve mentioned, my task today is to take care of discussing the Michigan State game and the Purdue game.
REPORTER: You don't feel that you need to say anything, though, to refute this?
TRESSEL: No.
REPORTER: What has happened to Purdue to go from fifth in the country to losing four games in a row? What do you see that has been the difference here in the last month?
TRESSEL: They've had some awfully tight football games against good teams. When you get in our league, a play or two is going to make the difference in the game and they've had some battles. I think our league is pretty darn solid this year. They had a 17-7 lead on Wisconsin who I think is one of the best teams in the country, and Wisconsin did some things they do, they came up with a scoring drive and then they came up with a turnover for a touchdown. The Northwestern game was a three-point game, was a tough one. The Michigan game, this's going down to get themselves in place for the winning field goal and have a turnover. Then the Iowa game, Purdue struggled with turnovers and had a couple field goals blocked. So, I mean, it was a thin margin there against good teams, things are going to hinge on a play or two.
REPORTER: Are you going to try and put the ball in Ginn's hands more?
TRESSEL: We'd like to, certainly, yeah. Exactly how, I won't address, but --
REPORTER: Just as a follow-up to that, that's all everybody can say after Saturday certainly --
TRESSEL: Sure.
REPORTER: -- can you talk a little bit about how you approached that whole thing, what you've been doing and how you've come up with ways to do that?
TRESSEL: I think as you look at the growth that Ted has had, he started the preseason on defense and did individual drills with the offense and all of a sudden game weeks came and he moved over on the offense, and you're into game plans and trying to design some things to bring guys along. He's obviously making an impact on the special teams and more and more and more as time goes on the offensive side. I just think it's a progression. It's an evolution. You could see he had it in his hands a little bit more last week and we'd like to do some things to use all your weapons and it's not like a tailback where you can just line them up and say let me hand it to you X number of times, but he's a good one and he's got that gear. I ran into a guy today who's here getting some treatment at Ohio State's hospital, a guy named Nick Wasylik, which most of you guys I'm sure know. He was an all American here, he's in the Hall of Fame. He reminded me he was 4-0 against Michigan. He said, you know, the thing I like about Ginn is he runs straight, he runs straight for the goal line. I've got some plays from Francis Schmidt that you could use to get Ted the ball so we might use a couple of those that Wasylik suggested, but Ted's a threat and you better keep an eye on him.
REPORTER: Jim, you said it's not as simple as just handing it to a tailback. I guess, why isn't it? If an end around is essentially a handoff, you can have Troy drop back a step and hand it to the edge if Ted's standing there. Can you explain why it took nine games for him to factor in so heavily in the game plan and in retrospect is that something you feel like -- some buttons you guys could have pressed earlier when your offense was struggling?
TRESSEL: I don't know if it was nine games that he wasn't a factor at all. Could we have used him more? Perhaps. I think Santonio Holmes has done some pretty good things out there and, yes, you can stand up and just throw it out there. In fact, I'd say four of the first nine plays in the Michigan versus Purdue game, that's just what they did to Braylon Edwards and I think they had a total of three yards on those. Our secondary talks about they can break one/third of the distance the ball's thrown. So if you throw the ball way out this and they can break one/third of the distance and make a play, I don't know that it's quite that simple. You might see some receivers leading the nation in rushing, but you've got to work on those things.
REPORTER: Jim, what's Justin's situation and you never -- I guess coaches say you don't want to see a guy lose his spot, because as soon as a quarterback comes in, leads the team, what's the story on Justin?
TRESSEL: Justin threw more on Sunday than he's thrown. He was a little sore according to the trainers yesterday, but feels really good and was throwing the ball, I thought, full force and I would expect him to be probable, to be able to help us this week, unless we would take a step backwards. It looks like his progression is that he'd be ready to help us and that's a good thing.
REPORTER: What about down the road with Justin, I guess that's what Joe was asking, barring an injury to Troy, what is Justin's future, bowl game, in the next year, that kind of --
TRESSEL: Boy, that's hard to say because you don't really know exactly what's going to transpire. I guess some of the same things were being asked six weeks ago about what's Troy's future and all that kind of thing and all of a sudden, you've got an injury and a guy has an opportunity and I don't know who was the guy that Lou Gerhig took over for, but those things happen. And I don't know, but again, let's go all the way back to the beginning when we talked about getting young quarterbacks ready, focus more on becoming good enough to become a good quarterback and then worry about if and when opportunities, and usually if you prepare and prepare and prepare, good things happen typically.
REPORTER: Coach, Tony Pittman didn't make the trip up to Michigan State, it seemed unclear as to why that is; what's his status this week? Is he injured? Exactly what's going on there?
TRESSEL: We didn't feel after we sat down after the day was over Thursday that he was going to give us enough full speed, you know, full impact to warrant being on the trip. We were going on the road with -- at home you dress everybody and if a guy can help you, he helps you, and on the road you're dressing 70 guys and we had a bunch of injuries on that secondary and we were taking a couple guys, we had some injuries at tight end so we were taking some guys, it just came down to that 70 number, you know, that we just didn't think realistically, based -- as we got done and talked it over after Thursday, that he could be in that 70. Do I hope he can be in that 70 this week? Absolutely. I thought he ran fairly well Sunday, although if we had a game Sunday, I don't think he would have helped us at that moment, but we would like Antonio Pittman, as we've said all along, to be a part of this.
REPORTER: Jim, what is your status at quarterback? Is Troy your starter and will --
TRESSEL: Oh, yeah.
REPORTER: -- he play no matter what or is this a thing where you'd like to get Justin in the game and you're committed to get Justin in the game?
TRESSEL: That was like three different questions. Troy is our starting quarterback, what was the second question?
REPORTER: Basically do you plan to play Justin no matter what?
TRESSEL: No, I don't think I would say that. There was a third question in there.
REPORTER: No, that was -- I wanted you to answer one of the three.
TRESSEL: Okay, I got you two.
REPORTER: What is your health status up front? Rob Sims didn't play, where is he at and --
TRESSEL: We would be hopeful kind of like we are with Antonio Pittman that Rob would be able to move back into the rotation. I think we played about eight guys. It could have been nine, I can't remember exactly. But we would hope that he would be in that this week.
REPORTER: What do you see from Purdue defensively?
TRESSEL: You know, Purdue is who they are. Their system is solid. If you're in a -- what you would call a typical two-back, two-wide receiver look, they're going to have at least eight and sneak in that ninth guy near the box and maybe play a little bit of man, but disguise enough that you don't know for sure. When you're in your one back stuff they're always going to have an extra guy, a seventh guy up in the box, yet they're going to mix up things and they're going to attack you. They are going to blitz you. They're going to come after you. They're going to make you execute under pressure. They do a great job, in my estimation, of showing you vanilla, and then coming after you. And I think what they want is for you to get into a guessing game, and especially when you're playing at their place which is nice and loud. They'd like you to get into changing things around and so forth. They do a great job of putting pressure. I don't see anything new that they're doing that they haven't done in the past, which makes a lot of sense because that group last year, they had four or five of those guys that were fifth year senior starters, so I haven't seen their package necessarily expand, but they just -- they come after you.
REPORTER: Jim, there's a clear division in their schedule, obviously, they win five and they lose four, is there anything -- is there any good reason why they've lost four in a row? They were four close games. Is there anything they're unable to do or able to do that they were unable to do before?
TRESSEL: If you take those first five and add up the turnovers, you might get to two, and if you take the next four and add up the turnovers, I bet you you're double digits. That's not the only thing, I think they played against good teams and there were some things that hedged on one play or the other. If you take their Notre Dame game, it was a pretty good battle, then all of a sudden Purdue had a 100-yard kickoff return that really turned that thing around. So I would say that if you made me just pick one difference in the first five and next four, I would say it would be in the number of turnovers, I don't know the exact figures, but I think it's somewhere around 2 to 11 or something like that.
REPORTER: Would you agree that this might be the first week that an opposing defense game plans for Ted Ginn off his game Saturday against Michigan State and if that's true, what changes for him and talk about what a young athlete goes through as defenses begin to make him more of a guy they look at as opposed to some of the other players?
TRESSEL: It will be interesting. I'm sure that Ted had done enough to catch a lot of attention even going into last week's game. But I think Santonio had to and we were transitioning a little bit at quarterback and I'm sure they were trying to figure out, okay, where are they heading. Now I think -- I don't know how many games exactly Troy's had. Was it three? And, Ted has been a little more involved in all three of those, but Purdue is Purdue, and I didn't see them do anything out of this world against Braylon Edwards, for instance, other than hold them to, I don't know, three catches for 20 yards or 18 yards or something. They're going to come after you, and I think they're going to make you prove that you can handle their pressure. So I don't look for a huge thing and it just doesn't seem to be their nature, but I'm sure they'll have something that we'll have to find out and figure out on Saturday.
REPORTER: Jim, with the punting, with two deep, does it make it harder to punt to the sideline or do you anticipate teams just punting it out of bounds in the future with Ginn?
TRESSEL: Well, I'll bet that that first rugby punt, you know, that they did, that they were trying to get out of bounds, because it was only a yard inside, it just took such a true hop and it had 2.8 hang time. When I say hang time, I mean from the time he punted it to the time it was in Teddy's hands, it was 2.8 seconds. Well, no one can cover that. Yeah, I think people will punt out of bounds a little bit, but that's a little bit easier said than done. When you start getting pressure from a rush team, you're just happy to punt it. And it doesn't always -- I mean, we've had -- you guys remember the last punt of the National Championship game, I don't care if you hit it over the 12th row, get that thing out of bounds. Shoot, all of a sudden they've got 10 guys rushing and we were just happy he got it off type of thing. So that may happen, but it's easier said than done.
REPORTER: Coach, is it safe to say that he's got some intangibles that make other guys better out on the field, that obviously lets you do some different things offensively? Can you speak to maybe what a luxury it is to have somebody like that that you can do some things differently and if he brings those intangibles?
TRESSEL: Someone like Teddy?
REPORTER: Yeah.
TRESSEL: Absolutely. When you put speed on the field, it doesn't matter what position you're at, if you put speed at defensive end or speed in the secondary or speed in who might get their hands on the ball, shoot, that -- everyone will pay attention to someone over here, everyone will pay attention to where seven is, as they should, and we've got to make sure we do a good job with that.
REPORTER: Jim, without addressing the story directly, does it even at all concern you over the possibility of the ramifications for you personally or the program over a former player alleging improper benefits that you specifically provided?
TRESSEL: Well, let me go back to the beginning. We said this was going to be a two-part situation and Mr. Geiger is going to visit with you.
REPORTER: But it affects you personally, your name is specifically in the story.
TRESSEL: Again, I haven't seen the story.
REPORTER: We have a copy on the table if you want it.
TRESSEL: What I want to do right now is get ready for Purdue and take care of things as they need to be.
REPORTER: Jim, though, can you categorically deny that any improper benefits or -- or that you were involved in any type situation with Maurice*Clarett of an improper nature? I guess he was asked about that during an investigation and denied it, and now he's saying otherwise.
TRESSEL: Well, let me go back to the beginning. Mr. Geiger's going to take care of discussing that and we're going to take care of doing what we need to do and obviously there's a time sequence in everything and we'll take care of that.
REPORTER: Jim, if Kyle Orton was well enough, they wouldn't hesitate to put him in against Ohio State. When you see him, what's the thing that concerns you the most of what he does?
TRESSEL: Kyle Orton?
REPORTER: Yeah.
TRESSEL: Great quick release. You've seen it all, he's got his guys spread out so well that he knows what you're going to do, he knows who to go to. He and Stubblefield have done some extraordinary things from just even a visual cue standpoint and I think where Orton is at his best is like any quarterback whether it's Craig*Krenzel or Troy Smith or Justin Zwick, if it isn't there, they do great job of putting pressure on you stepping up. When Purdue went to the Rose Bowl four or five years ago, Drew Brees rushed for 185 yards. And Kyle, I think, has the ability to put that kind of pressure on you as well as does the next guy.
REPORTER: Even before Orton got hurt, their offense seemed to be going downhill a little bit. What have you noticed as defenses were getting at them with, even Penn State had a good day against them.
TRESSEL: Penn State has got a good defense. Penn State's playing at home and when you're playing Penn State at home with the noise factor and the inability to check sometimes and the energy that a game at home in a Big Ten stadium brings you, I think that has an effect. Exactly what, I'll be honest with you, I have not studied Purdue's offense from game one to today to intelligently respond to that. All set, thank you much.
Nov. 9, 2004
TRESSEL: As all of you know that went out there, Michigan State wasn't struggling because they'd come off a tough loss to Michigan. I thought they came out and played hard. As we mentioned in last week's press conference, the indication of their character, in my mind, was marked after their Rutgers loss and opening the season, having a little bit of a disappointment at the beginning and then bouncing back and having a disappointment there against Notre Dame and playing well in the Big Ten, that tells you a little bit of the character of the team. I thought Michigan State fought to the very end. We did the things that we talk about that you need to do when you're on the road to win a tough road game. I thought our special teams were excellent. There was, in our opinion, a number of candidates for the special teams player of the week. I think fairly obvious to most of us, Ted Ginn was given that distinction. Teddy had the excellent punt return for a touchdown and maybe equally as important when he made the great catch on the long punt, it was kind of hit into the wind and kept it from going very far, plus returned it another 11 yards was huge, we thought, from a field position standpoint.
Mike Nugent hitting another 50-plus, 52, 53-yard field goal was huge, hitting five of his six kickoffs into and out of the end zone, that had been a tough thing for many people to cope with. Cobb's kickoff return ability and Mike Nugent neutralized that. Outside of the 68-yard punt that Kyle Turano had that was brought back 32 yards, really our punt was well done there and Santonio Holmes had a punt return that was significant, I think we had 92 yards in punt returns. So we thought that the special teams, which we felt we had to win in order to win the game came in and took care of what they needed to. Obviously the same will be needed as we head to Purdue. We always talk about the fact that you better play relentless defense when you're at someone's house. They're going to keep coming at you, letting it loose, letting it fly, doing whatever they need to do to move the football in their own stadium and I thought our defense, despite having some guys banged up along the way, we lost Mike Kudla, Tyler Everett, we were without Nate Salley, obviously we've been without Mike D'Andrea and I thought the guys just kept playing and playing and playing, and to their credit held Michigan State to five field goal attempts, and when you can do that against an offense, I think Michigan State was averaging over 225 yards rushing and our guys held them to 140 some. So I thought we played hard, relentless defense. There were moments where we could have tackled better and some moments where we could have done some things better, but I thought we played relentless and that's what it's all about when you're on the road.
We did not play mistake-free offense. We did have a fumble right at the beginning of the third quarter, which I thought was crucial. Fortunately our defense held them to a 52-yard field goal at that moment and didn't allow them to go down and really seize the momentum of the game, but we cannot have fumbles, obviously, and after a nine-yard run, which we're going to be out close to mid field and establishing a drive or field position and so forth, we've got to stay away from that. It was good that we didn't have any interceptions. I thought probably the finest thing that our offense did was in the fourth quarter, number one when we started down on our own half yard line, which at that moment, you could see and feel the emotion of the stadium, that Michigan State had seized the emotion and our guys had an 11-play drive from our own half yard line, which did not result in points, but it resulted in them taking the ball over back beyond their 20 yard line and I thought changed a little bit of the momentum of the football game. They did respond and go down and kick a field goal after that drive, but then our guys taking it back over and getting a first down and then hitting a big play that you need to win the game showed me that they had an excellent response and then when we needed to run the clock out, not only did we do that, but thought it was poetic justice that a guy like Mo Hall who just does what you ask, does the best he can possibly do, is there to do whatever the team needs, broke it out and had the touchdown that put it somewhat out of reach. It still moved the ball down there a little bit with a couple deep throws.
The offensive player of the game was Teddy Ginn. He did a good job running the ball and catching the ball and making the plays. Had another reverse call back and another thing we have to work on, told Coach Hazell, your wide receivers can't lead the team in holding, and we've got to do a little bit better job when we get the ball out there in the open field. Our defensive player of the game was A.J. Hawk, if you saw the game, were at the game, he played an extraordinary game. In fact, I talked to a few of the Big Ten coaches this week because we happened to have some calls regarding All-American teams and so forth and they marvel at how good a football player A.J. Hawk is, and he was the defensive player of the game.
Offensive lineman of the game was Nick Mangold, who graded a winning performance. The attack force player of the game was Simon Fraser, who we think had the best game he's had in 2004. He was disruptive. He had some quarterback hurries and hits. He had a key third-down breakup of a pass, which was huge for us, which forced them to punt and did an excellent job leading a group that needed to be relentless, and they were, and Simon did a great job there.
The Jack Tatum hit of the game was also put on by Simon Fraser against the Michigan quarterback. As always, Derek Harden was our scout team player of the week. John Kerr continues to do a great job on our scout defense, and Mike DeMaria, special teams player, just an ultimate team guy, was the scout offensive player of the week. So we did those things we needed to do to come away with a hard fought victory. We need to improve. We know Purdue is a team coming off of four tough weeks. I think the difference in scoring, there in the last four weeks is, 10 points. You can see their defense was young at the beginning of the year. They're relentless. They come after you. They attack you. They put pressure on you. They blitz you. You can see their offense is typical Purdue fashion.
On Defense, not only is Stubblefield the guy you better make sure you know who he is or they'll pop the big play, they've got a couple of guys, number nine, Ingraham, a couple of guys that are explosive. I don't know, we don't know what their status is at quarterback. Orton did miss last week, but the other guy, Kirsch, has been there and adds a little bit of a threat. When Orton is playing his finest, he really adds an excellent run threat, but Kirsch does a great job with that as well.
With that, questions?
REPORTER: Jim, in light of what is on espn.com, one of your former players alleges that you made improper benefits and your brother made also improper benefits, and yet you'll say you have no response to this?
TRESSEL: Well, as Steve mentioned, this is a two-part scenario today and Mr. Geiger is going to speak to those situations. I have not seen or read anything, and as Steve mentioned, my task today is to take care of discussing the Michigan State game and the Purdue game.
REPORTER: You don't feel that you need to say anything, though, to refute this?
TRESSEL: No.
REPORTER: What has happened to Purdue to go from fifth in the country to losing four games in a row? What do you see that has been the difference here in the last month?
TRESSEL: They've had some awfully tight football games against good teams. When you get in our league, a play or two is going to make the difference in the game and they've had some battles. I think our league is pretty darn solid this year. They had a 17-7 lead on Wisconsin who I think is one of the best teams in the country, and Wisconsin did some things they do, they came up with a scoring drive and then they came up with a turnover for a touchdown. The Northwestern game was a three-point game, was a tough one. The Michigan game, this's going down to get themselves in place for the winning field goal and have a turnover. Then the Iowa game, Purdue struggled with turnovers and had a couple field goals blocked. So, I mean, it was a thin margin there against good teams, things are going to hinge on a play or two.
REPORTER: Are you going to try and put the ball in Ginn's hands more?
TRESSEL: We'd like to, certainly, yeah. Exactly how, I won't address, but --
REPORTER: Just as a follow-up to that, that's all everybody can say after Saturday certainly --
TRESSEL: Sure.
REPORTER: -- can you talk a little bit about how you approached that whole thing, what you've been doing and how you've come up with ways to do that?
TRESSEL: I think as you look at the growth that Ted has had, he started the preseason on defense and did individual drills with the offense and all of a sudden game weeks came and he moved over on the offense, and you're into game plans and trying to design some things to bring guys along. He's obviously making an impact on the special teams and more and more and more as time goes on the offensive side. I just think it's a progression. It's an evolution. You could see he had it in his hands a little bit more last week and we'd like to do some things to use all your weapons and it's not like a tailback where you can just line them up and say let me hand it to you X number of times, but he's a good one and he's got that gear. I ran into a guy today who's here getting some treatment at Ohio State's hospital, a guy named Nick Wasylik, which most of you guys I'm sure know. He was an all American here, he's in the Hall of Fame. He reminded me he was 4-0 against Michigan. He said, you know, the thing I like about Ginn is he runs straight, he runs straight for the goal line. I've got some plays from Francis Schmidt that you could use to get Ted the ball so we might use a couple of those that Wasylik suggested, but Ted's a threat and you better keep an eye on him.
REPORTER: Jim, you said it's not as simple as just handing it to a tailback. I guess, why isn't it? If an end around is essentially a handoff, you can have Troy drop back a step and hand it to the edge if Ted's standing there. Can you explain why it took nine games for him to factor in so heavily in the game plan and in retrospect is that something you feel like -- some buttons you guys could have pressed earlier when your offense was struggling?
TRESSEL: I don't know if it was nine games that he wasn't a factor at all. Could we have used him more? Perhaps. I think Santonio Holmes has done some pretty good things out there and, yes, you can stand up and just throw it out there. In fact, I'd say four of the first nine plays in the Michigan versus Purdue game, that's just what they did to Braylon Edwards and I think they had a total of three yards on those. Our secondary talks about they can break one/third of the distance the ball's thrown. So if you throw the ball way out this and they can break one/third of the distance and make a play, I don't know that it's quite that simple. You might see some receivers leading the nation in rushing, but you've got to work on those things.
REPORTER: Jim, what's Justin's situation and you never -- I guess coaches say you don't want to see a guy lose his spot, because as soon as a quarterback comes in, leads the team, what's the story on Justin?
TRESSEL: Justin threw more on Sunday than he's thrown. He was a little sore according to the trainers yesterday, but feels really good and was throwing the ball, I thought, full force and I would expect him to be probable, to be able to help us this week, unless we would take a step backwards. It looks like his progression is that he'd be ready to help us and that's a good thing.
REPORTER: What about down the road with Justin, I guess that's what Joe was asking, barring an injury to Troy, what is Justin's future, bowl game, in the next year, that kind of --
TRESSEL: Boy, that's hard to say because you don't really know exactly what's going to transpire. I guess some of the same things were being asked six weeks ago about what's Troy's future and all that kind of thing and all of a sudden, you've got an injury and a guy has an opportunity and I don't know who was the guy that Lou Gerhig took over for, but those things happen. And I don't know, but again, let's go all the way back to the beginning when we talked about getting young quarterbacks ready, focus more on becoming good enough to become a good quarterback and then worry about if and when opportunities, and usually if you prepare and prepare and prepare, good things happen typically.
REPORTER: Coach, Tony Pittman didn't make the trip up to Michigan State, it seemed unclear as to why that is; what's his status this week? Is he injured? Exactly what's going on there?
TRESSEL: We didn't feel after we sat down after the day was over Thursday that he was going to give us enough full speed, you know, full impact to warrant being on the trip. We were going on the road with -- at home you dress everybody and if a guy can help you, he helps you, and on the road you're dressing 70 guys and we had a bunch of injuries on that secondary and we were taking a couple guys, we had some injuries at tight end so we were taking some guys, it just came down to that 70 number, you know, that we just didn't think realistically, based -- as we got done and talked it over after Thursday, that he could be in that 70. Do I hope he can be in that 70 this week? Absolutely. I thought he ran fairly well Sunday, although if we had a game Sunday, I don't think he would have helped us at that moment, but we would like Antonio Pittman, as we've said all along, to be a part of this.
REPORTER: Jim, what is your status at quarterback? Is Troy your starter and will --
TRESSEL: Oh, yeah.
REPORTER: -- he play no matter what or is this a thing where you'd like to get Justin in the game and you're committed to get Justin in the game?
TRESSEL: That was like three different questions. Troy is our starting quarterback, what was the second question?
REPORTER: Basically do you plan to play Justin no matter what?
TRESSEL: No, I don't think I would say that. There was a third question in there.
REPORTER: No, that was -- I wanted you to answer one of the three.
TRESSEL: Okay, I got you two.
REPORTER: What is your health status up front? Rob Sims didn't play, where is he at and --
TRESSEL: We would be hopeful kind of like we are with Antonio Pittman that Rob would be able to move back into the rotation. I think we played about eight guys. It could have been nine, I can't remember exactly. But we would hope that he would be in that this week.
REPORTER: What do you see from Purdue defensively?
TRESSEL: You know, Purdue is who they are. Their system is solid. If you're in a -- what you would call a typical two-back, two-wide receiver look, they're going to have at least eight and sneak in that ninth guy near the box and maybe play a little bit of man, but disguise enough that you don't know for sure. When you're in your one back stuff they're always going to have an extra guy, a seventh guy up in the box, yet they're going to mix up things and they're going to attack you. They are going to blitz you. They're going to come after you. They're going to make you execute under pressure. They do a great job, in my estimation, of showing you vanilla, and then coming after you. And I think what they want is for you to get into a guessing game, and especially when you're playing at their place which is nice and loud. They'd like you to get into changing things around and so forth. They do a great job of putting pressure. I don't see anything new that they're doing that they haven't done in the past, which makes a lot of sense because that group last year, they had four or five of those guys that were fifth year senior starters, so I haven't seen their package necessarily expand, but they just -- they come after you.
REPORTER: Jim, there's a clear division in their schedule, obviously, they win five and they lose four, is there anything -- is there any good reason why they've lost four in a row? They were four close games. Is there anything they're unable to do or able to do that they were unable to do before?
TRESSEL: If you take those first five and add up the turnovers, you might get to two, and if you take the next four and add up the turnovers, I bet you you're double digits. That's not the only thing, I think they played against good teams and there were some things that hedged on one play or the other. If you take their Notre Dame game, it was a pretty good battle, then all of a sudden Purdue had a 100-yard kickoff return that really turned that thing around. So I would say that if you made me just pick one difference in the first five and next four, I would say it would be in the number of turnovers, I don't know the exact figures, but I think it's somewhere around 2 to 11 or something like that.
REPORTER: Would you agree that this might be the first week that an opposing defense game plans for Ted Ginn off his game Saturday against Michigan State and if that's true, what changes for him and talk about what a young athlete goes through as defenses begin to make him more of a guy they look at as opposed to some of the other players?
TRESSEL: It will be interesting. I'm sure that Ted had done enough to catch a lot of attention even going into last week's game. But I think Santonio had to and we were transitioning a little bit at quarterback and I'm sure they were trying to figure out, okay, where are they heading. Now I think -- I don't know how many games exactly Troy's had. Was it three? And, Ted has been a little more involved in all three of those, but Purdue is Purdue, and I didn't see them do anything out of this world against Braylon Edwards, for instance, other than hold them to, I don't know, three catches for 20 yards or 18 yards or something. They're going to come after you, and I think they're going to make you prove that you can handle their pressure. So I don't look for a huge thing and it just doesn't seem to be their nature, but I'm sure they'll have something that we'll have to find out and figure out on Saturday.
REPORTER: Jim, with the punting, with two deep, does it make it harder to punt to the sideline or do you anticipate teams just punting it out of bounds in the future with Ginn?
TRESSEL: Well, I'll bet that that first rugby punt, you know, that they did, that they were trying to get out of bounds, because it was only a yard inside, it just took such a true hop and it had 2.8 hang time. When I say hang time, I mean from the time he punted it to the time it was in Teddy's hands, it was 2.8 seconds. Well, no one can cover that. Yeah, I think people will punt out of bounds a little bit, but that's a little bit easier said than done. When you start getting pressure from a rush team, you're just happy to punt it. And it doesn't always -- I mean, we've had -- you guys remember the last punt of the National Championship game, I don't care if you hit it over the 12th row, get that thing out of bounds. Shoot, all of a sudden they've got 10 guys rushing and we were just happy he got it off type of thing. So that may happen, but it's easier said than done.
REPORTER: Coach, is it safe to say that he's got some intangibles that make other guys better out on the field, that obviously lets you do some different things offensively? Can you speak to maybe what a luxury it is to have somebody like that that you can do some things differently and if he brings those intangibles?
TRESSEL: Someone like Teddy?
REPORTER: Yeah.
TRESSEL: Absolutely. When you put speed on the field, it doesn't matter what position you're at, if you put speed at defensive end or speed in the secondary or speed in who might get their hands on the ball, shoot, that -- everyone will pay attention to someone over here, everyone will pay attention to where seven is, as they should, and we've got to make sure we do a good job with that.
REPORTER: Jim, without addressing the story directly, does it even at all concern you over the possibility of the ramifications for you personally or the program over a former player alleging improper benefits that you specifically provided?
TRESSEL: Well, let me go back to the beginning. We said this was going to be a two-part situation and Mr. Geiger is going to visit with you.
REPORTER: But it affects you personally, your name is specifically in the story.
TRESSEL: Again, I haven't seen the story.
REPORTER: We have a copy on the table if you want it.
TRESSEL: What I want to do right now is get ready for Purdue and take care of things as they need to be.
REPORTER: Jim, though, can you categorically deny that any improper benefits or -- or that you were involved in any type situation with Maurice*Clarett of an improper nature? I guess he was asked about that during an investigation and denied it, and now he's saying otherwise.
TRESSEL: Well, let me go back to the beginning. Mr. Geiger's going to take care of discussing that and we're going to take care of doing what we need to do and obviously there's a time sequence in everything and we'll take care of that.
REPORTER: Jim, if Kyle Orton was well enough, they wouldn't hesitate to put him in against Ohio State. When you see him, what's the thing that concerns you the most of what he does?
TRESSEL: Kyle Orton?
REPORTER: Yeah.
TRESSEL: Great quick release. You've seen it all, he's got his guys spread out so well that he knows what you're going to do, he knows who to go to. He and Stubblefield have done some extraordinary things from just even a visual cue standpoint and I think where Orton is at his best is like any quarterback whether it's Craig*Krenzel or Troy Smith or Justin Zwick, if it isn't there, they do great job of putting pressure on you stepping up. When Purdue went to the Rose Bowl four or five years ago, Drew Brees rushed for 185 yards. And Kyle, I think, has the ability to put that kind of pressure on you as well as does the next guy.
REPORTER: Even before Orton got hurt, their offense seemed to be going downhill a little bit. What have you noticed as defenses were getting at them with, even Penn State had a good day against them.
TRESSEL: Penn State has got a good defense. Penn State's playing at home and when you're playing Penn State at home with the noise factor and the inability to check sometimes and the energy that a game at home in a Big Ten stadium brings you, I think that has an effect. Exactly what, I'll be honest with you, I have not studied Purdue's offense from game one to today to intelligently respond to that. All set, thank you much.