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UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS MEDIA CONFERENCESeptember 9, 2014Charlie WeisCHARLIE WEIS: Let's get going on Duke. Obviously you saw the depth chart, very few changes on the depth chart. Before I get going talking about their football team, I'd be remiss if I didn't spend a couple minutes talking about their athletic director. Kevin White, their AD, who's also a vice president there, hired me at Notre Dame, probably one of the finest men that I've ever met in my entire life. He taught me a lot about college football. He taught me patience. When I went into Notre Dame, we talked about taking a five‑year cycle to really get us back to where we wanted to be, and it's funny when I sit there and look at what's happening with Coach Cutcliffe at Duke, it almost mirrors the conversation that I had had when I went into Notre Dame. Coach Cut has been there for now seven years. His first year they win five; second year they win four; third year they win three; fourth year they win three; finally in the fifth year they go 6‑6 and get to a bowl game, lose in the bowl game; but finally after five years it kind of got them back on the map, and in year six there they go, 10‑2 regular season. Last year, 10‑2 last year, have two tough opponents at the end, Florida State and the conference playoffs and Texas A&M in the bowl game. But you can see how Kevin showed patience and Coach Cutcliffe showed patience, and they took that program and definitely have it headed in the right direction. They're 2‑0 this year. They're averaging 43 points a game. They do a great job on offense. They have over 500 yards a game, 228 yards rushing, 281 yards passing. An interesting stat to show you that they self‑scout, they've run the ball 85 times and they've thrown the ball 84 times, so they're obviously trying to get a good blend. Boone, their quarterback, he's been in the system now for four years, and to show you the progress he's made, last year I think he had 13 touchdown passes and 13 interceptions. This year after two games he has five touchdown passes and no interceptions. Now you see where they're heading. Their wide receivers are loaded. I would have liked to have been a high school coach four or five years ago at Monroe High School. That job must have been an easy job because Crowder, who might be as good a receiver as we play all year, and Blakeney, were teammates. I think the guy who got it best was their high school basketball coach because they won a state championship game with them both being on the same basketball team. But Crowder is this smaller guy who's, like I said, as good as you're going to go against. Built like Tony I'd say, reminds me of Steve Smith who played for the Carolina Panthers for a bunch of years, polished routes, gets up and deep, tough. I really like him as a player. Whereas Blakeney is 6'6", 225; quite a complement. And Eddie McCaffrey's kid, I know Eddie because we drafted him to the Giants back a long, long time ago, but it's interesting to see his kid. I'm going to have to look him up before the game and tell him some stories about his dad. But he is their slot receiver. They've got two running backs, Powell and Snead, who split time. They're both good players. Reeves has taken over tight end due to the injury. He's 6'5", 255 pounds, and looks like what they're supposed to look like. And then on the offensive line, first of all, well coached, John Latina, their offensive line coach, associate head coach, worked for me for a few years when we were at Notre Dame. It doesn't surprise me that their offensive line plays well. He wouldn't want me to isolate any player, but if I had to call one out I'd call Tomlinson out, their right guard, because he looks like a man on tape. He's a big person, but he also plays pretty well. On defense they have a similar approach to a lot of teams we play in the Big 12, very conservative by nature, predominantly a four‑man front, 90 percent zone. We might see a little bit more man‑to‑man after last week's game, but a lot of cover‑four, a lot of press, some three‑deep zone. I mean, bend‑but‑don't‑break, don't give up the big play. That's their mentality. Now, obviously they took a blow when they lost their linebacker Brown who was an All‑American type of player, but Helton, who's been there just as long, seems like he's taken over that leadership responsibility. Not only did he have triple digits in tackles last year, but he's kind of taken those young guys under his wing at the linebacker position, and he gets a little help out there at nickel because Cash has been there for four years, too. So between the two of them, I think that they can cover for the young guys that they're rolling through at the Will position. At defensive end they've got DeWalt‑Ondijo and Johnson at the ends, and then inside they're playing both Bruce and Ray. The DBs, I could talk about all four of them individually. The one I like to stand out is because he's a pain in the butt as a kickoff returner, as well, is Edwards. He's a very physical boundary safety, loves to run and hit, likes to get into the mix, and he's dynamic as a kickoff returner. Singleton will be the field safety, and then they'll use Fields and Borders as the corners. Sometimes they play left and right, sometimes they play field and boundary, it all depends on the tempo of the game. They do have good specialists. Martin started off as their kickoff guy, but lately Willoughby has done more of the kickoffs than him because Martin is their field goal kicker. By the way, he's 11 for 11 on extra points and 3 for 3 on field goals with a long of 49. He just hasn't missed. Monday is their punter. He's also their holder. He stands kind of closer to the line of scrimmage than a lot of these other punters. They have a little different formation than a lot of other teams. They don't have that shield that everyone is talking about all the time. There's no one in front of him. He's standing at 12 yards, but he's taking one step and getting the ball off in a hurry. Hennessy handles both the long snapping and the short snapping. I talked about Edwards over there as the kickoff returner, and guess which pain in the butt you think is the punt returner: Crowder. So they put their best player back there on punt returns, and he's only got one opportunity in the area because both people try to do all they can to not have him have the ball in his hands, but the one time he touched it he went for 19 years. They have two dynamic returners, they're sound on defense, they're well‑coached across the board. On offense they've been on a roll now for over a year and doesn't look like they're going to slow down. Q. With the combination of Crowder and Blakeney, does that change your approach? You assign a guy to a guy or do you play the same coverages and just wherever they line up is where they line up? CHARLIE WEIS: Well, first of all, you usually know where they're going to line up because one guy usually lines up on one side and one guy usually lines up on the other side. I'd say when they're not lined up where they usually line up, usually something is up, okay, so Crowder usually is going to be on our right, and usually Blakeney is going to be on our left. So now you can design to cover everything. You do it based off of that premise. When they put Crowder somewhere other than our right, there's something going on. He's not there just for window dressing. There's something going on. Usually they put McCaffrey in the slot, and let's play. Q. It's not a situation where you put your best corner on one guy or the other or anything like that? CHARLIE WEIS: Well, he's playing on their right, and that means on our defensive left. I mean, you can bet that I'm going to be in Dexter's ear all week long. Now, that doesn't mean they can't move him to the other side. I'm just saying I watched the Indianapolis Colts for a bunch of years, and Marvin Harrison lined up as the right outside receiver on almost every play, and if it wasn't there, something was up. So it was a very good analogy. That's where he plays. Now, that doesn't mean they'll put him in a slot. If he puts him in a slot, count on him getting the ball somehow. Normally he's going to be outside receiver and they're going to do all they can to get him the ball as many times as they possibly can. Q. Is there a different style of coverage with‑‑ you've got a 6'6" guy and you've got a 5'9". CHARLIE WEIS: Yeah, they're different, but the thing is Blakeney is a really good receiver, but with Crowder, we're talking about one of the best receivers, so you have to respect both of them, and you can't forget about their slot receiver, either. It's a problem. You know, this is a legitimate good group of wide receivers. It's not like you say, well, let's just take Crowder out of the game and not worry about the other ones because you just can't do that. Q. How do you gear your players up to go to Duke? CHARLIE WEIS: I think that when our players have already spent time looking at this match‑up and they see their players and our players and they see how they play and how we play, I think that our players have visual evidence on tape that they have a legitimate chance of winning. Now, if you told me we're going to show up for a quarter and just be out there for the next three quarters, then we've got no chance, okay. So that can't happen. But there's visual evidence on tape based off of what they've seen last year and what they've seen these first two games where they should expect to go down there and‑‑ they should go down there with the anticipation of winning the game, not just hoping to win. That's what they should expect. Q. After watching film from Saturday, what was the biggest difference that you saw between first half and second half? CHARLIE WEIS: I used a word the other day, but I really think it's the appropriate word, it might sound like a coaching phrase, but it's really the right answer. We just didn't finish. And finish doesn't have to be just finish a game. It could be finish plays. I mean, finish is a kind of broad thing, but there are a lot of things, we're really close to a lot of plays, but guess what, really close isn't good enough. We're really close to some sacks, we're really close to another three or four touchdown passes. We're really close to a couple easy, big runs. We're really close to having them in dire straits, but that doesn't make a difference. It's what really happens, not what you're really close to, and we're going to have to play significantly better this week to win. Q. When you watched the film with Montell, were there any things that stood out, any key points of emphasis you wanted him to learn from that game? CHARLIE WEIS: Well, first of all, I saw no signs of the jitters that I saw last year, and that was the first thing that I was looking for, because let's face it, after the West Virginia game, it didn't look too pretty the next couple of games. So there's no evidence. The guy was playing with confidence. He handled the operation, okay, no problem with the signals, no problem with calling plays at the line of scrimmage. Basically threw to the right guy almost every time. He missed on some, so there were a couple close, and there were some times where he could have pulled the ball down and gotten a couple big chunks for himself, but he's doing what we're telling him to do, but sometimes you've got to let that athleticism, just turn it free and just let it go. I think as we're going forward, there will be more and more opportunities, but I think it was a really‑‑ I thought it was a really good start for him. That's what I thought it was. I didn't think it was great, I thought it was a good start. Q. You guys took a lot of shots down the field, obviously not a lot of success. Is that an area where he just needs to prove he can do it? CHARLIE WEIS: Oh, he doesn't need to‑‑ he can do it. We practice every single day. I know what people can do and what they can't do. He can do it. There's not a question in my mind whether he can do it or not. It's a combination of him doing it and us putting him in position to do it, too, so it's a combination of the two of them. We'll try to do better as coaches, and he'll try to do better as the quarterback and see if we can't get‑‑ we're really stressing pass efficiency. Now, the fact that he threw three touchdowns and no interceptions, that's a great thing, and none were in their hands, now. It wasn't like there were any close. So that's one stat that we're not talking about, the fact that he's three touchdowns, no interceptions. That's big. But we're not content with 50 percent completions. It's an improvement over last year, but it's just not what we're shooting for. Q. You mentioned a couple times this week this is a strength versus strength game for you guys, and specifically their receivers against your secondary or‑‑ CHARLIE WEIS: I'd say it's probably a pretty good place to start. I mean, I think on their team‑‑ I can talk about just about every position, okay, but if you look at their team, they're a team, the people most dynamic on their team are the wide receivers. That also happens to be the position that we feel the best about on our defense, so something is going to have to give here. I'm rooting for the good guys. Q. You mentioned JaCorey. Do you expect him to see a bunch of action this week after what Dexter did? CHARLIE WEIS: Well, he's going to get a bunch of action from me, that I can promise you, and then when the game comes around, I think all those DBs are going to get tested. I don't think they're going to shy away from Dexter, either. I mean, that's not‑‑ they have a lot of confidence in their passing game. I think that they'll all get tested. I don't think you have to question whether or not they're going to test you in the passing game because they're going to. Q. You might have been somewhat kidding, but you said you might just show your team the first quarter. CHARLIE WEIS: Yeah, I was a liar. No, what we did do is we showed them a good play tape and a bad play tape, okay, and what we did is we showed them the bad plays first, so we came in‑‑ they're all feeling okay, and then you just show bad play after bad play. You want to know why this game wasn't buried? You want to know why you didn't win by 50? Here's why you didn't win by 50, and then you just go and show them play after play that they look and say‑‑ and then, now that you've just driven them to a new low after a win, now you flip the switch and say, okay, now here's all the good things we did in the game, and you show them play after play after play. Trust me, there's a whole psyche involved with Sundays. People don't understand how important Sundays are. Sundays are one of the most important psychological days of the week. By the time they left on Sunday, I think that they all saw missed opportunities but they all saw positives, too, and saw that there's a chance for us to do some good things. Q. You said it was your message that they could feel sorry for themselves or enjoy the win and go on. Were you pleased with their choice in that decision? CHARLIE WEIS: I don't know what they did Saturday night. I could care less‑‑ I didn't get any calls from the police, that's all I know. But the most important thing was when we left on Saturday, I was content that we were on to Duke. We need to play a much more complete game to have a chance to win against a good team like Duke. Q. How did the offensive line grade out? CHARLIE WEIS: Well, let's see. Rush curve, what did we rush for in the game? 250 at least, right? 250 with two running backs that no one ever heard of before, right? So that's probably a good place to start. That's probably decent, right, so in the run game they probably graded out pretty decent. Pass game they really didn't have a dynamic rusher, all right, so there's a little pressure, a little pressure occasionally, so I'd say that they probably didn't grade out as high in pass protection as they did in the run game, but in the run game they probably graded out pretty well. Q. I didn't get to ask you this on Saturday, but the first female Big 12 referee to officiate a Big 12 game, how would you assess her officiating? CHARLIE WEIS: I just walked up to her before the game and I congratulated her and said, Make everybody proud of you. That's all I said to her. Q. You said before that you would watch your language around her. CHARLIE WEIS: It doesn't make any difference what I said before. I just said to her before the game, congratulations, and make everyone proud of you. Q. Do you think this will open doors for more female referees? CHARLIE WEIS: That's irrelevant to me. What difference does it make to me? The refs are the refs. They're the bad guys anyway. It doesn't make a difference who they are. But I could care less. I mean, did you notice her in the game? Okay, then she obviously did okay, because when you notice a ref, okay, when I notice a ref it's because it's something you disagree with. I didn't notice her other than when I looked her up before the game and congratulated her and told her to make everyone proud. Q. How did the defensive line grade out? CHARLIE WEIS: Well, I think that they're a little disappointed that we didn't bring the quarterback to the ground as far as sacks go. I think that that was one area where our bucks were in position a bunch of times, and it just didn't happen. I think that we have to make sure that we can get pressure with four guys because if we can't‑‑ that was the point of emphasis actually on Sunday's practice. Sunday we actually practiced, and a point of emphasis is we can't just blitz every time we want to get pressure. We have to disrupt the passer. You don't have to necessarily just get sacks. We have to get pressure, so we were a little disappointed on that end. Other than that, they're pretty sound. They're pretty sound in what they were doing. Remember, until the fourth quarter, it's three‑and‑out city, just three‑and‑out, three‑and‑out, three‑and‑out, three‑and‑out, three‑and‑out, three‑and‑out. The one score they had was after the blocked field goal and the 15‑yard penalty where they get the ball down on the 20‑yard line. That's the one score they had. So until the fourth quarter the defense had played a pretty dominant performance. Q. Michael coming into the game for two of your biggest plays in the fourth quarter, what do you envision his role will be this year? CHARLIE WEIS: Probably expanded from that. He'll probably get more action that that, and he's not just going to come in the game to run the ball. He's not just like a wildcat quarterback because he can throw it. I think Michael can be utilized as a weapon because every time he comes in they all of a sudden go play the run, now you've really got something here. The intent was to use him more, but the game didn't play out like that. We'd like to‑‑ he was involved in the game plan, but there were a lot of things in the game plan that we never really got to, too in depth. I think those things will be exposed more and more as we go forward, but it'll be on a weekly basis. It won't be like every week we say, okay, how are we going to play Michael. Montell is the quarterback and Michael is the backup. We'll just have to wait and see how it goes. Q. You mentioned on Saturday sometimes success can come with shock. Is that something you have to address going forward? CHARLIE WEIS: No, it's just the first time it's happened here in three years. I mean, it was new to them. I mean, it was really new to them, like what do we do now. Now, what do good teams do when that happens? They keep on laying the wood to them. That's what they end up doing, so that's the teaching point was, okay, you got to this point, now just go bury them. That was the point. They're kind of like, okay, we're up 24‑0, what happens now. They've been down 24‑0, but up 24‑0, that is not something they've experienced. It was very easy to teach off of that because it was on tape very transparent, very easy to‑‑ very easy to see. Q. You often talk about quarterbacks from play to play having a short memory and all that. Did the fourth quarter do anything to the psyche of your secondary? CHARLIE WEIS: No, no. As a matter of fact we'll have a lot of fun with them here in the next couple days. You know, if nothing else, you take a position that you have a lot of confidence in that gives you a chance to get on them pretty good, which I've been doing for the last few days. I'm not waiting until today for that to happen in case you're wondering. But look, that's not the best passing team we're going to go against, and that No.1 had a big day, okay, he did. Now, going in, 4 was their guy who made the most plays, but No.1 had the big day, so going forward now, what are you going to stop No.3 and forget about 17 and 87? And while you're at it, you'd better keep an eye on this tight end or these backs that occasionally they run right down the chute. There's things that you can't fall asleep on, just like the quarterback. In our first game against Elon, he hardly runs the ball at all, so everyone watches it and says, okay, this guy isn't going to run, and then he goes against Troy and they're down 14‑3, and then the next two scores are him running the ball, one for 30 yards, another one for six yards. You just can't take anything for granted. Q. Probably going back a little bit to when you first got the job, Kansas and Duke obviously a minority of schools that basketball is the biggest game on campus. Do you think there's a stigma amongst football coaches about taking a job where basketball is undoubtedly No.1? CHARLIE WEIS: I don't know what David thinks‑‑ he's got Coach K and I've got Bill Self. Does it get any better than that? I mean, you're talking about arguably the two best‑‑ two of the best coaches in America. So from my standpoint, I hope basketball wins every game every year regardless of how we do, and I would just like to utilize‑‑ I appreciate the support I get from Coach Self and our basketball team, but most importantly, I can utilize their success to help use that as something to shoot for and definitely use as a recruiting tool. You can do one of two things: You can feel like a second‑class citizen or you can play into it, and I totally play into it. Totally. I don't look at it like that at all. I'm more than content with our basketball team competing for a National Championship every year. I just want to get our team to where we're winning more than we're losing on an annual basis. That's what I want to do. I want to be winning more than we're losing on an annual basis. When we get to that point, you can ship me out of here. I don't want to do it once. I want to make sure we've got that set. Once we get that set, you can pack me up and send me out if that's what you want to do. Q. There's probably a different set of circumstances, different geography, but have you looked at Cutcliffe's five years or six years at Duke and what's working for him? CHARLIE WEIS: I know that years three and four they won three games. Did you know that? I mean, so was he lighting the world on fire at that time? I mean, what he did was he put in a plan, he recruited, recruited, recruited, got guys he can get into Duke, which is not the easiest thing to do, okay, stuck to the plan, had support from the administration, okay, didn't waver. When people were saying, well, where is this heading, and all of a sudden year six they go and win 10. That's the way it happens a lot of times when you walk into a program, okay, that just hasn't done too well recently. I have a lot of respect for the job they've done, and hopefully we cannot only emulate that, but hopefully we can speed up that timetable just a tad. Q. You mentioned recently that you hired him at Notre Dame and obviously know him very well. Over those years, he's obviously known for working with Peyton and all that stuff, but over those years are there things that he does offensively that just remain constant, or does he kind of change with his personnel and whatever he has to do? CHARLIE WEIS: I don't follow him, not one bit. Q. But you've seen‑‑ when you watch this team, are you seeing stuff that rings familiar? CHARLIE WEIS: I mean, that wasn't the offense he was running. It's a different offense. I mean, just like everyone else, he's running a version of the spread. That's what's in vogue now. But it wasn't the same offense. It might be the same terminology, but it's not the same deal. Remember now five, 10 years ago, there's a lot more power football, especially in the SEC where he spent the majority of his time, both at Tennessee and Ole Miss. That's power football. That's what the game was. Deuce McAllister, those days right there. You knows Deuce, right? Q. The players were saying after the game Saturday that the lead went away because they lost focus on the sidelines. Were you aware of that, and if not, how do you get that this week? CHARLIE WEIS: The players should just shut up. That's what the players should do. They should be happy they won the game. They don't need to comment on focus. They don't need to comment on the crowd. They should comment on their play. That's what they should comment on, because I'm never big on people making excuses. You can reiterate that when you talk to them, too. Q. You mentioned after watching some tape that maybe there were a couple of chances that Montell could have run the football a little bit more. Do you encourage him to run more, or is that kind of a slippery slope for you? CHARLIE WEIS: We want him to throw the ball whenever he can throw the ball. That's what we're trying to do. You're trying to‑‑ as a quarterback when you bide time, you bide time, you still keep your eyes down the field looking to throw the ball. He's just such a dynamic runner when he does run with it. You see some opportunities and think, God, if he'd just pull this down and go. You don't encourage him to do that. You encourage him to throw the ball. That's what you encourage him to do. But I think as time goes on, there's going to be more times where you'll see him with the ball in his hands. Q. Now that you're not the coordinator, do you still meet with him Sunday night? CHARLIE WEIS: No. I leave that to Ron and John. Q. You talked about that head coach only role being nice, something you're looking forward to. Have you missed the Sunday night meetings or are you okay with not having that? CHARLIE WEIS: Nope. I went to 9:00 mass. I had something bigger to attend to. I'm trying not to end up in hell. (Laughter.) And that is definitely bigger. Q. What did you see Saturday that maybe you wouldn't have seen if you were involved in calling the offense? Did you notice anything different? CHARLIE WEIS: Well, I mean, I got to see the whole game. That's the one thing, when you're a play caller, you don't get to see the whole game, contrary to what everyone thinks, because there's things that you have to do to straighten out your side of the ball. Even if you're looking at the field, okay, at the time you're talking to assistant coaches. You're saying, okay, what was the front there; what was that pressure; what did they do on 3rd and 1; P and 10, what was that, 1st and down; okay, when are they bringing the pressure; field position; okay, tell me, go through that drive play by play, start over again. I mean, those are the conversations you're having. You might be looking at the field, but you're certainly not paying attention. In this game right here, I could totally pay attention to the entire game, so there's nothing you miss. I'll give you a perfect example, okay, late in the game, we called a time‑out with a minute and 40 seconds to go in the game. They had the ball in plus territory, and Clint needed a time‑out. He goes, Coach, I need a time‑out. I said, relax; and he goes, why; I said, because the clock is running. I said, I'm going to get you your time out, so I let the clock run, they're looking to the sideline to get their play called, he needs a time‑out to get everyone straight, and then the next thing, 23 seconds later I call a time‑out. Now, if I were involved with getting ready for the next drive right there, I wouldn't have the‑‑ I said, relax, we've got it. They would have had 23 more seconds left to go in the game, and the way that game was going, 23 seconds could have been important. It might not sound significant right now, but it was significant right then. Q. (Indiscernible) is he a likely red‑shirt guy now since he got here late? CHARLIE WEIS: Not necessarily. Q. How good of a barometer is Duke the second game of the season to kind of find out where your team is right now? CHARLIE WEIS: I think this would be a big win for our program. I think it would be a big win. First of all, as it was so nicely worded before, we haven't won on the road in an eternity, so to go ahead and get that out of the way the second game of the year, to get that one behind you, not only would it bring you back here at 2‑0 with two home games coming up, okay, not only would it do that, but on top of everything else, that one‑‑ that's one more thing that's put behind you that you're not worrying about anymore. So I think that‑‑ look, the season doesn't end with a win or a loss, but this would be a big win for our program. Q. You mentioned Coach Cutcliffe, obviously worked with Peyton Manning. Have you ever had any friendly conversations with him about Brady versus Manning? CHARLIE WEIS: I'm biased, so I wouldn't have that one because I would disagree with him. I have a lot of respect for Coach Cutcliffe, especially dealing with quarterbacks, but his quarterbacks were named Manning, and mine were named Brady. One first name, one last name, okay. It's a different style of offense that they were running versus what we were running, but all those guys had a lot of success. A lot of that has to do with they're good. That's why they had a lot of success. I'd like to sit there and take more credit, but there's a whole bus station full of people trying to take credit. Anything else the players said that I would like to know at this point? Okay, great. I will be addressing it again here shortly. All right, take care. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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