Big Ten Football Media Day recap, Day 1

By Courtney Ratkowiak, written on Jul. 25, 2008

CHICAGO - After each coach had his turn at the podium, he went to the conference room next door for his television interview. During the ten-minute breaks between the print media and television interviews, the coaches were caught in the hallway and asked more questions. The impromptu interviewers ranged from two (Minnesota coach Tim Brewster) to I’m not sure how many, but the mob forced the coach into a corner and it was enough for him to exclaim, “Overtime!” (Ohio State coach Jim Tressel).

Here are some highlights from the hallway interviews, which also included ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit.

Michigan coach Rich  Rodriguez

“When coaches are upset sometimes there’s some salty language. But some of them don’t do it, use it at all. Some of them doing it occasionally, but it’s not like a tirade all the time.” 

“(Marques Slocum is off the team for) several issues. Academically and football-wise, he didn’t meet the requirements to play football at the University of Michigan.”

Rodriguez had a group of players called “the apostles,” or the team leaders over to his house for dinner last night. There are about 20 this year, up from a usual 10-to-12. 

Michigan not being ranked in the Big Ten’s top three teams makes sense at this point because the Wolverines lost so many talented players.

“What have I don’t wrong image-wise?”

Ohio State coach Jim Tressel

Tressel was initially vague about sophomore defensive back Eugene Clifford’s status with the team after facing assault charges for punching two bar employees this offseason, only offering the fact that his summer school grades were good. But when asked if Tressel expects Clifford to be at fall camp, Tressel said, “Well, I expect … probably not.

A fair number of the questions were predictably centered around freshman quarterback Terrelle Pryor.

On the dynamic between Pryor and senior quarterback Todd Boeckman:

“I think Todd has enjoyed his time with Terrelle. Terrelle is one of those guys where the first thing he wanted to do was be with Todd and learn from Todd. What (Pryor) said, if you recall, during the course of the recruiting, was, ‘I want to come and learn from this guy and be around him.’ I think it helps Todd grow in his leadership role even more.”

On if it’d be possible for the quarterbacks to share playing time:

“Certainly, it has to be demonstrated in practice that that’s the best thing for the team. But absolutely, especially in the early season, we’ve always tried to use multiple quarterbacks just because in the course of the season, you never know how health is going to go and so forth. It’s not unlike when you use some other receivers at different times and so forth. Absolutely, it can happen.”

Tressel said Pryor has an advantage coming into his freshman year because he played in 16 high school games for two years in a row with a coach that used a wide variety of plays:

“He’s played so many games and so many good games because so many of them were playoff games, so I don’t know if we do anything he hasn’t done. But now he’ll have to learn, what do we call it? Because we probably call it something different. I don’t think there’s going to be an unusual strain on him for that. In fact, he may have a bit of an advantage.”

When asked if the Ohio State/Michigan game in November will have bigger national implications than the Ohio State/Southern Cal game in September, which many have called the biggest regular-season game in the nation this year:

“Absolutely. … You play a big game in September, you might have some thoughts about what the future holds but it’s too early to worry about that, you just go back to work. There’s something about the last regular season game that you want to be playing your best and you also know you’re going to know the answer to a lot of questions.”

Illinois head coach Ron Zook

Zook talked a lot about how his team choked in the Rose Bowl last year, and offered more detail after his podium conference:

“I’ll be honest with you … when we went to the Rose Bowl the day before to take the picture and everything, I could see it was like, ‘Ahhh’, because it is an impressive stage. We stayed there probably an hour longer than we had scheduled to stay, and I just wanted to walk around. And I don’t think there’s any question, at the beginning of the game, we had our eyes wide open.”

Penn State head coach Joe Paterno

Paterno was first asked about this morning’s break-in at the Penn State football buildings. A student entered the buildings early this morning, the day of his 21st birthday. We talked to Paterno in the early afternoon, so he was still unsure of many of the details.

“My wife works out every morning up there so she gets up at 6:30. She said they vandalized the place. … My wife was all upset because the window was broken, I guess there was a sizable amount of damage. And the kid who did it was a little bit out of whack, I guess. I don’t know, but it’s unfortunate.”

Paterno addressed the team’s semi-recent string of disciplinary issues:

“You’re always going to have problems. It’s not just Penn State. We’re out there with kids … 16, 17 years old, and everybody’s chasing him, making him feel like he’s the greatest thing that’s happened since peanut butter. And then he gets into college and thinks it’ll go exactly right and you’re always going to have those kind of problems.”

His response to the ever-growing spread offense trend: “I ain’t gonna run a spread,” he said, laughing.

Herbstreit

“(Rodriguez is) one of my favorite coaches in the profession just because if you’ve gotten a chance to be around him, it’s hard not to love the guy.”

“When he signed on to go there, I knew that of all the universities in the entire country, the one that was the Gestapo all of a sudden got a whole different feel.”

“Lloyd’s like, ‘How’s Henne’s arm?’ ‘What arm?’ ”

“My recommendation to Michigan would be, ‘Don’t sleep on Brian Johnson and Utah.’ Don’t start thinking about Notre Dame because … Utah is a legitimate team, and they’re going to bring in that same style offense that’s always given Michigan’s defense fits — that spread look with an athletic quarterback who can run and throw.”

“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen in the history of mankind the hype that Terrelle Pryor received, ever in my life. And I almost feel bad for the guy because can he live up to it? He has to win like three national titles and two Heismans to live up to this hype.”

“Everything I’ve heard, he’s (Boren) been welcomed. I don’t think that’s an Ohio State thing. I think it’s more of a Michigan thing. I have a lot of friends of mine who are Michigan former players. This may be taken wrong from Ohio State fans or Michigan fans whatever, but this is how I feel. I think, to me, I worry for Michigan from that standpoint. It’s not like Adrian Arrington leaving to go to the pros or Mario Manningham. This guy was a legacy guy, and when he makes comments like ‘My dad played for Bo. It was an honor to wear the winged helmet, but the family atmosphere’s eroding, and I’m out of here.’ That’s not like ‘Hey, I’m going to another school.’ That’s like getting kicked square in the shorts. That is a painful thing if you’re Rich Rodriguez. With the all the other things that are kind of happening, when you get that comment made on the way out the door from a legacy guy, a guy who’s dad who started for three or four years for Bo, all of a sudden everybody’s tentacles kind of go up a little bit, like ‘What’s he talking about, family atmosphere eroding?’ So I didn’t think that was a very, it might have been truthful, but I don’t think it was the right way to leave, in my opinion, because he’s got friends who are on the team right now. He seems to care about the program. He could’ve just left. So I was surprised to see him make those comments, and I’m sure he did it out of emotion when he made those comments. But I’m a little concerned right now for Rich because there’s a lot of negative things adding up. They need to start the season and win some games to get some positive stuff going, some mojo going, because it’s not good right now.”

“(For the Utah game, I can picture) you can flip a coin and let it land in the grass or the turf, and you can probably here it land. It’s one of those atmospheres at Michigan Stadium. And if it’s not ruckus and crazy, that could be a four-quarter game. So the worst thing that could happen for my man Rich is to lose that opener to, in my mind, a very, very talented team.”

Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald

“I don’t think (Rodriguez) going to be looking to the youngest head coach in the country for a whole heck of a lot of advice. But he’s a humble person.”

“At the end, I think his sanctuary will be football.”

Rodriguez was the keynote speaker at a charity golf event in memory of Randy Walker.

“Great personality. Tremendously humble, I think, for the success he’s had.”

On his speech: “I think he knew there was a settlement about to happen, and he was talking about how he was going to be the biggest benefactor, the best booster, to West Virginia athletics, West Virginia University. To be able to laugh at yourself, I think, is the hallmark of a great person.”

“We beat him (Sutton) up in the spring. He was battered and bruised and hacked — a little bit by design on my part to get his confidence back.”

All five skill players can play anywhere anytime, players have to learn all the formations, all the plays

Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio

On Michigan… “Well, hopefully I’ve put that to bed. But I guess I spoke out of emotion. But I think rivalries are good for college football. We’re going to embrace the rivalry. I’ve said that all along.”

“All we have to do is remember 28-24. So our football team will be motivated.”

Brewster

“Rich Rodriguez is an outstanding football coach for a long time. He brings an energy to the conference. He brings a dynamic quality.”

“I like Rich. The little bit I’ve been around him, and I haven’t been around him a lot, I really enjoy him. I like confidence. I like guys that feel good about themselves, and I sense that about him, that he’s really got an air of confidence about him. He knows what he’s doing.”

“His teams through the years have just been extremely well-prepared, outstanding. Hell, we’d like to be the same kind of team at Minnesota. We’d like to play with that air of confidence, that we’re a spread team like they are. So I think there’s some similarities there. We don’t have his talent yet.”

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