Sept. 6, 1996

Off The Practice Field...Head Coach Lou Holtz

JOHN HEISLER: Good morning. Coach Holtz is here. He will make some opening remarks. Then he will take questions.

COACH HOLTZ: It was a weird game. I've never had 434 yards, 25 first downs to 126 yards and 5 first downs and ben worried about losing the football game. First of all, I thought defensively we played very well with the exception of the third-and-38 pass. It was just the jump ball -- Ivory was right, the guy went up and took the ball and made a nice catch on it. Other than that defense, we played very well. Renaldo Wynn was exceptional. I thought Bert Berry played very well. You would be hard-pressed to find somebody on defense that didn't play pretty well. I talked to Lamont Bryant. He came in and did a nice job. Melvin Dansby, Alton Maiden, Corey Bennett, Tatum and Cobbins played well. We dropped a couple of interceptions we should have had. Kory Minor. Just everybody on defense. I thought A'Jani Sanders played very well, strong safety and I thought that Covington and Rossum played very, very physically on the corners. It was just a good defensive effort.

Offensively, very disappointed with the film. Unlike last year, I came in here after last year's opening loss and I said we could win the next 10 or lose the next 10. We had 10 guys here do a job and one guy followed up next time -- I saw a lot more encouraging things last year on offense than I saw this year. The one gentleman who played very well in the offensive line was Mike Doughty. I felt Mike Doughty really played hard physically. He played very, very well. I thought that the encouraging thing is that we did have 434 yards and we did have 25 first downs, but, you know, the turnovers, we weren't very consistent. We couldn't control the line of scrimmage.

On the kicking game, I thought Jim Sanson did a very nice job place kicking. He kicked off very well. He hit the field goals with a great deal of confidence. He attacked it. Wasn't afraid to miss or anything else. Just went in there and really competed very well, so that was encouraging to see.

But there is a lot of work that has to be done on both sides of the football, predominantly on offense. Defensively, I am sure we will be tested much more so with the next six opponents, average 270 yards a game rushing. We did such a fine job against Vanderbilt last year, so we will find out more about us defensively, but basically on one game, it is really encouraging. Offensively, I just don't know, we just can't put the ball on the ground. Obviously some people did some real good things to have that kind of productivity, but I thought our receivers competed well. I thought Emmett Mosley played well, Michael Johnson made some critical catches, but I am greatly concerned offensively, more so than I ever thought I would be.

Q. Lou, it is too early to say anything about tailback, do you know any better idea of what Randi's status will be?

COACH HOLTZ: I don't know what Randi's status is. The thing you have to watch is that if you come back too early and you aggravate it, it calcifies. Once you get a calcification in your quadricep then you are looking at eight-, nine-, 10-week injury, but it is not that. So, we don't want to bring him back too early just to make sure we do avoid any calcification in it. Autry Denson will go to tailback exclusively. We have to do that. Autry Denson obviously hasn't played as much tailback. You would think of a sophomore jinx watching yesterday, but he did protect the football -- if you protect the football, you are automatically the starting tailback.

Q. Does that mean Malcolm Johnson will play split end and Emmett will go to flanker?

COACH HOLTZ: Yes. And Emmett Mosley will go to flanker. Cooper was supposed to play yesterday, but he didn't. He will be the No. 2 flanker and Nelson will be the No. 2 split end and Champion will learn both. Those will be the five that will basically try to go with this week.

Q. Are you looking at any other lineup changes?

COACH HOLTZ: I think that Jerry Wisne is going to get a good chance at guard. He didn't play a whole lot, but when Jerry did, he played very well. I think we are going to see Lou Petitgout alternate at left tackle in the game on Saturday. I think the only fair thing is Lou Petitgout should be given a chance to see whether he is one of our better tackles, and so Clevenger will still start, but Petitgout will play alternate, playing time next week.

Q. What is your practice schedule before you fallback into your routine Monday?

COACH HOLTZ: What we will do is give them off today. They had to go to class today to get the day off. They got back at 2 o'clock last night or something; went to class today. They are off today. We meet with them 10 o'clock tomorrow morning. Watch the film, talk to them, we will chain and thrash them. Then we will go out and practice without pads. Then they will be off Sunday; then back in the normal routine on Monday.

Q. Lou, as you alluded today, there were some obvious positives and negatives in the game last night. Do you feel that one outweighed the other? The positives outweighed the negatives or vice versa?

COACH HOLTZ: I think, you know, I just look at the team and say this is where we have to go and here is what some of the problems are and can they be corrected? Yeah, I think they can. That was Mike Rosenthal's first game ever at guard. Mike Rosenthal did some good things, but he is not as consistent as we need to be. The thing that I will say on behalf of this football team, that if you looked at the statistics and didn't look at turnovers or the punt bouncing, we got 25 first downs against their defense and 434 yards, which is equivalent to a 31-, 35-to-nothing victory. And had we achieved that, I don't think I would be sitting here saying we are going to be a pretty good football team. I learned more in the fourth quarter when we got behind. Not only we got behind, but how we got there. We get the ball on the one-yard line, drive it out to the 28 and fumble, and then the defense throws them back and you think, gee, they are going to have to punt the football and the next thing you know, you are behind 7 to 6. And then you kickoff and get on your 25-yard line, you hit a pass now. You are forced in 27. And yet this football team went on a 14-play drive that covered 92 yards. I guess the 17-yard punt on that and in 14 plays they covered 92 yards at critical times, and that showed me an awful lot. Because somewhere down the line, you are going to be behind in the fourth quarter. How are you going to react? What is the temperament? What is the attitude? So, I think there is some positive things about that. The last seven times we had the ball, just before the half and we went, I don't know, we went from our two-yard line down to about their 12 just before the half and kicked the field goal. The last seven times we had the ball, we scored three points. We fumbled twice to stop drives. We were stopped once and the game ended. And so, you know, there were some great consistencies, but we weren't real sharp. There is no doubt about it. As far as little things, steps, landmarks, being in a football position, just overall offensively and then again,it was not one of our better days. But does the positive outweigh the negative? I never look at it. If there are negatives, it is bad.

Q. I have a couple questions about Autry Denson. No. 1, will he -- now that he is a starting tailback -- will he continue to return punts? No. 2, so many of us thought he didn't look like the same guy in certain situations in terms of hitting up in the hole last night. Was that a result of there being nowhere to go; the guys in front of him not getting the job done or did some of it have to do with him practicing out at flanker so much earlier this summer?

COACH HOLTZ: I think you are right on both accounts. I think it was a combination of both of them. Sometimes there wasn't anywhere to go and sometimes he was looking maybe for a little bit more yardage than what the play was designed. A lot of times, indecision by a tailback looks like he isn't willing to hit it up in there and that is not the case. Sometimes indecision occurs because he sees where the hole is, but he sees somebody filling that hole and nobody is on him. In other words, where a guy comes free and he is in the hole and it looks like, boy, he ought to cut back. He has pretty good peripheral vision, so you get a little bit hesitant and consequently you don't make good decisions, but I don't question his courage. He did protect the football and to me that is absolutely critical.

Q. Catching punts?

COACH HOLTZ: I think Autry catches them. I think he runs well. Whoever is going to line up at the right depth and do those things would be the guy to run it back. Right now, I would say Emmett Mosley. I think Autry Denson catches punts as well as anybody that we ever had here.

Q. Part of the lack of being sharp, would you include the second half where there was one stretch you got a little upset -- more than a little upset, I'd say -- when two plays in a row, they drew a penalty for delay and then had to use a timeout. What was the problem, too much time in the huddle or what?

COACH HOLTZ: Jack, I didn't think I got upset. Everybody always talks about how upset I get. I thought I was exceptionally cool. I watched that film late last night; then watched ESPN. I had said something to the official and he didn't think that was the case, but he would look at it a little bit more. You try to fall into a rhythm there and a lot of it -- I thought this happened. I have had this happen to me before. The ball is marked for play sometimes a little bit more rapidly than we have ever seen it and, as Ron said, he said the guy wasn't even down, the ball wasn't marked for our guy to get in the huddle and the 25-second clock was underway. I have never had a problem getting the team in and out of the huddle and get plays called. You have followed me for several years and we called them exceptionally quickly yesterday, but it is just that Ron said that the clock was starting, you know, before the ball was marked, before we got in the huddle and consequently, it was 20 seconds. I looked up one time, and then it was 22 seconds, you know, we were just coming back from the punt and the clock was at 22 seconds. I mentioned it to the official. He was very nice about it. He said, well, he asked the other ones to take a look and see if maybe I am marking yours a little bit quicker than the other ones. I didn't accuse him of it and just seemed to be that way and the quarterback brought it up. For us to have to use a timeout is something I cannot accept and yeah, that would cause me to get upset.

Q. Lou, you talked about rhythm on offense. How much was that disrupted when you have Robert Farmer fumble on the first series and all of a sudden Autry Denson immediately goes back to tailback in the second series?

COACH HOLTZ: It doesn't help any. All I wanted to do was to be able to protect the football and to have the ball on the ground seven times, Farmer fumbled three and Edwards fumbled three. And the thing about Edwards, you look at it, you say, well, are we being fair? Edwards had a pretty good history of protecting the football over the years. But this is something that we cannot tolerate and it is unfair to the football team, but it should not happen. I mean, if they take you to the morgue, I mean, they should have to pry that football loose from your rib cage. But when you get holding penalties and you get seven fumbles, than it is just awfully difficult to maintain a rhythm. We never really went to the option which is probably what we should have done, should have run a little bit more option. We only ran the option twice. Once we didn't execute it properly. You know, all we had to do was pitch the ball and we didn't pitch it. The other one we got a first down, but we didn't run it particularly well, but we couldn't get outside on them. We had trouble running up inside on them and we became predominantly a right handed football team. We ran the overwhelming majority of our plays and I know our opposition knows it's behind Mike Doughty and Mike Rosenthal.

Q. With the fumbles and concerns and the penalties and everything, how much can you build on it with the character of this football team of what they showed on that final drive?

COACH HOLTZ: I don't question the players. You know, the early game always scares you. Injuries are such a problem. You are looking at Renaldo and you are looking at, you know, Kaczenski and Doughty, you look at Powlus, you think about Cobbins and Tatum, you don't want to get anybody injured because numbers and depth is a problem. I tell you what, I think that they have a lot of character and they want to be good. We will grow from it and we will benefit from it. We make no excuses. As I say, if you look at it statistically, those were some good games, statistically, but it didn't amount to points. We started off with very poor field position predominantly because we let the punt bounce or we got a clipping penalty or a holding penalty. I don't know. Three times we started inside our 10, didn't we? You know, that is a long way to go.

Q. Lou, a week ago you were real strong and had depth at tailback. Then Kinder strains a muscle and all of a sudden this problem with fumbles. What are your plans other than starting Denson, if you need help back there?

COACH HOLTZ: Well, I think we will get that thing resolved. I think what we have to do is we have to play Jamie Spencer a little bit more, but Jamie has not protected the ball as well as we would like, but he went in and played very well. He didn't play as much as he should have but he played well. I think we got to look at Good speed. We've got to look and keep searching. I will tell you this: Woody Hayes had a great tailback. Ran back the opening kickoff, I think it was against Baylor or somebody and he is running for a touchdown -- opening kickoff opening game -- fumbled the ball on the other team's five-yard line running into the end zone and Ohio State lost the game 17-14 -- and the guy was moved to defense immediately. These are not going to be tolerated. I mean, it is that simple. It is unfair to the football team, unfair to the defense, and it is just not going to be tolerated. I think the players understand that. They don't fumble because they want to, but nevertheless, you are the guardian of the football. Without it, you cannot play a game. You cannot play a game of football without a football, so, obviously, it is the most important thing in the game. Now, if you got the most important thing in the game, then I would expect you to protect it like you would your scholarship.

Q. When you say "Jamie Spencer more in the game," would that be then moving Edwards to tailback or would it be in place of Edwards at fullback because of the fumbles?

COACH HOLTZ: We are going to protect the football. That is No. 1. That is the only thing I am going to share. One thing I say about Ron Powlus, Ron made some bad throws, made more bad throws yesterday than I have seen him make, but the one thing that I talked to Ron about was protect the football. And Ron didn't try to make the great throw. If he erred, he is going to err on the side where it is going to be an incompletion and you know what? That isn't all bad, was it? Some people can say, I am going to make this great throw so everybody can see how great I am and yeah, they hit two of those and the third one is picked off, so I think you've got to make sure that you just protect the football regardless of whether you are a quarterback, runningback or fullback.

Q. If I can just follow it up one more time. You mentioned you don't know if it is fair given the way Edwards had protected the ball in his career at Notre Dame. Does that mean you might take a look at someone else starting at fullback?

COACH HOLTZ: No, we wouldn't start somebody at fullback. Give somebody else a chance to play. Let me tell you, we aren't going to jump around -- Edwards felt terrible. Robert Farmer felt terrible, but we are going to protect the football and we are going to get a message across. We will get a message across -- if you protect the football and you play without the ball and you block, you will play. Not how many yards you make; not how many tackles you break; if you protect the football and play without it.

Q. One other question -- is there a reason why Cooper didn't get into the game more yesterday?

COACH HOLTZ: Yeah, there was, but it wouldn't help me to go into it now. What happened on it, Coach Urban Meyer was upstairs and he didn't tell me, but he wanted Cooper to play more, but Mosley wanted to play. Mosley didn't tell Cooper he is supposed to go in. That will be taken care of. That is why I said I didn't really want to go into it, but.... (Laughter).

Q. (inaudible)

COACH HOLTZ: We knew that Evan Law lined up to the line of scrimmage. The thing that they did differently, they didn't play a shaded nose. They played a two-gap nose man. Using that type of defense where they play it -- consequently, he would -- where if you upset him sometimes he is not a factor in a play. Without being head up, he plays very, very well and makes some good plays so they pinched the ends much harder than they had and that we have seen. Other than that, I thought they played a little bit more zone than I had anticipated. But, no, they didn't do anything different. Didn't play as much double eagle as we anticipated, but basically other than two gap nose, they didn't do anything much different.

Q. (inaudible)

COACH HOLTZ: Well, I think the quarterback is certainly critical, his attitude and his confidence in the huddle. That is the same as it is with the coach. That is why I say I try not to get upset on the sideline because you send a message to the players, boy, we are in big trouble. They jump up and up and throw your hat, rant and rave and they say, boy, are we in trouble now. Same thing with the quarterback. Ron threw a couple of bad passes, but looking at it on film, there was a guy hitting him as he threw and he saw the guy coming and he erred on the side of conservatism and I appreciate that.

Q. (inaudible)

COACH HOLTZ: I think we can be a good solid offensive football team, but we are going to have to develop Cerasani. He is going to have to come as tight end. I think he gives us some things. We want play Chryplewicz as many plays he played. I think we have to solidify certain positions in the line. I think we got to protect the football and we got to play better without the football. Are we capable of doing it? Yeah, I think we are. Why didn't we do it? For a variety of reasons. Everybody is excited. Everybody just wants to win so badly and gets overanxious and overexcited and fires off the ball without a lot of technique. I think we are going to be limited because we don't have great speed at wide receiver, but we can get people open and we had them open yesterday. But we will just have to wait and see as we go along. I intend to become a very good offensive football team, I might add, but we aren't right now.

Q. (inaudible)

COACH HOLTZ: The defense carried us. That doesn't happen very often here, but they carried us and that was great. I think that we can get some things resolved. All I want to do is get through the first couple of weeks and see where we are and go from there. I am not as optimistic as I was a year ago because a year ago, it would be 10 guys really excellent and one guy not doing his job or not being successful and so consequently, it would be a three-yard gain. And yesterday it was a three-yard gain because of several people. I mean, it was not a case, oh, if this guy gets hit, he is gone -- it wasn't that at all. So I don't know how good we could be. We will have to see.

Q. (inaudible)

COACH HOLTZ: I really think that his struggling was to secure the ball and it would have been nice if the backs would have shared the same enthusiasm for that, just ball security. I cannot emphasize how important ball security is with the quarterback. He might have been a little overly cautious on the one option we ran that -- if he had pitched the ball, but I think that, you know, he wasn't as sharp as I have seen him. The field sometimes can be a little bit different. There was pretty good size crowd. They looked like Oklahoma. Ever been at Oklahoma Stadium? You stand on the one side and you can see their head and shoulders on the other side. They would be running that wishbone down -- they had a huge crowd, like Texas Field will be basically -- they had a huge crowd and sometimes that affects your throwing a little bit but I thought that, you know, he hit some big passes when he had to.

Q. (inaudible)

COACH HOLTZ: What he says was we would be okay last week if the official didn't have a jump ball. We did. We should have had a safety man back there with him. Can that happen on the jump ball? Yeah, that can happen. But I think that we have got to get a little bit better position; get a little bit more help out of the safety, but that is going to happen. I mean, but boy they tackled well and they are quick and they covered well and so, you know, we will live with the other one. But I thought the secondary played very well.

Q. (inaudible)

COACH HOLTZ: Well, I mentioned last week we tried eight field goals from the 20 and only made one and that greatly concerned me. I just like a kicker to be positive and to attack it. Just go attack the ball and to be positive. And Scott just didn't hit the opening kickoff at all and he didn't hit the field goal at all. And I felt, well, you just go by what is in your heart. If he said well what logic -- there is no logic for it, there is no explanation -- I just felt it in my heart I think that guy is going to kick the ball. And he did. First time he kicked it, I mean, boom, it exploded. Then he kicks off about eight yards deep in the end zone. I have never seen him do that before. But that was very encouraging what he did.

Q. (inaudible)

COACH HOLTZ: No, one thing I said was that one thing we have done, we have protected the ball well this fall than we had. And we hadn't fumbled the ball. Never fumbled. Something we haven't done.

Q. (inaudible)

COACH HOLTZ: I think that the main thing that I don't worry about is, you know, I thought he did what we asked him to do the entire game, protected the ball. He enabled us to move the football. I just, you know, all we want to do is win and I thought he showed an awful lot. It was first and 27. He just you know, he never -- just the way he handled himself and the team and was patient. You know, first we had Emmett Mosley for six; then we had Nelson for about nine; then he comes back and hits Malcolm Johnson for about 15. I mean, he didn't get impatient. He didn't panic and, you know, just took what was there and that was very encouraging. Well, I felt defensively we showed some signs and I understand we are going to face some real explosive offenses in the future. We didn't necessarily face one yesterday, but let us give Vanderbilt a lot of credit, you know, they took the Tennessee team at Knoxville last year and held them to 12 points. Every game is going to be a struggle as much as it was last year. We don't have the big play guy. We had 434 yards without a big play. There is got to be something positive in that. It wasn't like you got 60 on one play and then 40 on this one. We had it where we didn't move the ball very well but Rocket or somebody would make a couple of big plays. We didn't get any of those. So we are going to be a very plodding type offensive football team. But I do think that we have a chance right now, you know, to move forward and let us see what we do against Purdue and see if we get better each and every week. If we eliminate the turnovers, eliminate the penalties and poor field position, who knows what will happen. But we are not going to be an explosive offense. We don't have the overall speed, don't have the breakaway. We can't do those things. That doesn't mean we can't be good. Just means we aren't right now. Their isn't a lot of defensive coordinators that stayed up as late as I did last night. They probably slept very sound after watching ESPN.

Q. Not to stigmatize anybody, but if Edwards' history of protecting the ball kind of is a plus for him, Robert Farmer's history is kind of the opposite. Does that work against him?

COACH HOLTZ: Well, I think, you know, you just have to go with protecting the football and Edwards has a challenge and he has got to protect that football in the future and Farmer has that as well, but let us look at it and let us see what we can do to -- first of all, I think when mistakes happen it is always very easy and very convenient to blame players - well, he fumbled and he did this. I think before we start blaming players, I think we need, as coaches, need to look at it and myself included, have we prepared them adequately; have we spent enough time with the proper drills; have we emphasized it enough in practice; have we put him in situations - let us not put the blame on the players. Let us look at it as coaches first. This time, this is my mistake. It is not the players. Let us not put the blame on them. All I am saying is we fumbled the ball. It was catastrophic. We are lucky to get out with a win, but I am not going to put the blame on the players. I accept the blame and we will go from here.