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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 3, 2008

Rich Rodriguez

COACH RODRIGUEZ: Okay.

Q. Steve Threet, was he looked at after the game and what's his status?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: He took kind of a helmet-to-helmet shot to the head. This was in the fourth quarter. He continued to play. But I just saw him a few minutes ago. He's better. We don't practice today. But I think he'll be able to practice, to do everything tomorrow.
Obviously, won't be no contact. But he's not going to get hit anyway in practice. We anticipate no problems.

Q. Yesterday's practice?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: We didn't do much yesterday. A lot of special teams. Some walk-through stuff. But, I mean, he went through that stuff.

Q. So, did you do less yesterday?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: A little bit. We did more walking and teaching, more correction things than a true practice run around. I thought there were a lot of corrections on all units that we kind of wanted to take our time, walk and talk and teach. We did that last night. Had our normal meetings and stuff, too.

Q. What do you want to accomplish with the last three games?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Try and get a win. I mean, it's not fun to come after the game and not have that good feeling. Obviously to get a win. I want our guys to feel good after the ballgame, be able to sing the victors. Also I want to continue to make progress fundamentally, which is hard to do this late in the season, but we got to continue to do that. Even our upperclassmen. I think it cost us. We're so poor fundamentally in tackling and things like that. I think we had 21 missed tackles in the last game. Got to continue to do that.
Our guys, you know, people say, What do you got to play for? First we're playing for the Brown Jug in this game, which is kind of neat. They're playing for themselves, for their teammates, and most importantly they're playing for Michigan.
We talked about it last night. I would expect that everybody give great effort. If they're not willing to do so, then don't show up Tuesday for practice.

Q. Maybe it's not as clear in the games, but on film is it clear, some spots that you don't see that effort?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, I think they're playing with pretty good effort. But, again, what we're expecting as coaches, you know, the type of passion on each and every play, you know, they may think they're doing it all the time, but our opinion of it is maybe it could be a little better at times.
That's something that, again, you say it's in the eyes of the beholder. But I'm expecting and wanting to see all 11 players playing with extreme passion on every snap. Sometimes that's a process of teaching, just like it is teaching tackling and catching, all those things.

Q. When that 3-3-5 is being run and executed like you want it to, what do you like about it against a spread defense?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: You know, I'm not going to make the perception we changed our defense. We're going against some unique offenses, so we tried to put a package in to help us a little bit in the back end. We had some problems coverage-wise, so we try to do some things there.
You know, it wouldn't make sense for me to talk strategy for the next game. Each game, coaches come together on Sunday and we look at what we have in our package. Part of our defensive package, you know, our base is the four-man front, but part of our defensive package has an odd front. Last game we featured more of the odd front, not just the 3-3-5, but we did some of the 3-4 stuff too in the last game.
The next few games, who knows. It wouldn't make any sense for me to tell you now what we're going to do the next three ballgames.

Q. Was that kind of your initiation?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: We talked about it as a staff. I'm a head coach, so ultimately everything falls on me.

Q. How are Mike Williams?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: I think he's better. It's unfortunate because Mike would have played a great bit. Troy would have played a great deal. He got hurt in the first quarter. Both those guys are okay and Sam is ready to go.

Q. With the defense, the scheme might change, but what about the player position changes?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Carson Butler, the move to end, I think he'll stay there. Donovan will play both safety and corner. That was really the only position, I think. Maybe correct me if there's others. That was maybe the only major position changes we had.

Q. To clarify, Mike Williams, Sam and Troy should all play this Saturday?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: That's correct. Troy sprained an ankle. He tried to come back later in the game on some special teams. He was going to be involved quite a bit in the game, and he wasn't able to go.

Q. How do you feel Butler played Saturday?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: He did okay. He played the most. I think he played, I don't know, 23, 24 snaps. He's still learning the position. But, you know, he showed some things there. He has the body type and the athletic ability to help us at end, which we need some more pass-rushers. We're hoping that that will be a position that he can stay at and continue to grow in.

Q. Running the new scheme Saturday, Butler new at that position, do you think that was harder for him to come in or it didn't affect him because he hadn't really played before?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, the things that our ends were doing were the same in really both schemes. So wasn't a whole lot different for them.
The biggest thing is when you're playing a defensive end, it's not just rushing the pass, it's taking on the zone blocks, power blocks, recognizing double-teams, how to split the double-teams.
There's a combination of things. He had never played the position until, what, three weeks ago. So he's a work in progress. But we've been encouraged by what we've seen in the three weeks.

Q. Before the season when you moved John Ferrara, you said he had an aptitude for it, he could understand it, that's why you could move him. How has that developed?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: He played pretty well. I think, again, he's a freshman at the position. Technically he can take some work on that, getting better fundamentally. But he's a tough guy and he battles in there. He gave us a little bit of lift in there, in some of the run game. I thought he did okay. Wasn't great. But, you know, he'll keep getting better.

Q. Aside from the ball that Martavious dropped, was that maybe the best special teams effort of the year?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: That and we gave up the fake punt. Good wall on their part. At least our kickoff return got a couple returns, which we'd been struggling with all year. We got a couple returns with decent field position. As you all know, if we have a shorter field to go with, we would have been okay. But we had a long field. We really struggled trying to go 80, 90 yards, as most teams would. At least in this game we had a few drives, because of our field position we were able to start with shorter drives.

Q. From an outside perspective, Will Johnson and Terrance Taylor seem to be two of your best players defensively. With this 3-3-5, doesn't seem like they get to play much.
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Why are we making a big deal about this? We put in a scheme to try to win a ballgame. We watch every day what we think is best for us to try to win that ballgame. The odd part, playing an odd front, was what we thought would help us win that ballgame. It wasn't just 3-3-5. It was 3-4, a mixture of things.
If you think a 300-pounder can play 80 snaps against a spread offense and be effective, it ain't gonna happen. Those guys all rolled in there and did okay. We'll evaluate what we have to do each week to try to win the ballgame.

Q. What role do you envision Justin Feagin having?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: He was on some special teams. He'll continue to play in the slot receiver position. We obviously got him in the game so he's not going to be redshirted. But I think he's excited because his role is going to continue.
Now that we've played him, we're going to keep looking for roles for him in our offense, particularly the slot receiver position. I think he just played two special teams. He may play three or four of them this week.

Q. Now that a Bowl game isn't a possibility, do you change anything over the next three weeks to try to make up for those practices you won't have?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: No. We're just going to continue to work, try to win. Everybody wants to talk about the past. I mean, it's in the past. What are you going to do about it? Ain't no do-overs. Can't do the last game over. Can't do the game three weeks ago, eight weeks ago over, whatever. The future for us right now is Minnesota. That's what we're focusing on.

Q. What do you tell the team this week about the Brown Jug?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Upperclass may be able to understand a little bit. We'll talk about the pride in having the trophy, trying to hold the trophy. You know, it's a nice rivalry.
We've got a whole lot of things we're working on. I want to make sure we got all 115, 116 guys playing as hard as they can for Michigan every day, not just on Saturday, but every day.

Q. You said earlier in the season you have been through this before so you kind of know how to build the program. Are there things you learned in that first year at West Virginia that you're translating to now?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, there's some. Well, I mean, like I said, some of the problems. I think the first key to identify is the problems. The obvious problems are not winning the games. That's obvious. That's what everybody wants to talk about, winning games. You can still win games. There's still problems but they're masked because you won. When you lose, they're highlighted a little bit more.
The first key is highlighting the things that you have that are keeping you from winning ballgames. The second is, how do you solve those problems. We've identified them. It was easy for us to identify them because I've been through them before. Solving them is not as easy.
There's a list of things, but I don't need to go through that right now. At least we know what they are and we know how to fix it. Then how long that's going to take, what that is going to entail, is for another time.

Q. Since your offensive staff has continuity together, does that make it easier to deal with that?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: That's a good question. I don't think so. Our defensive staff has enough experience that we can fix. Everybody's involved in special teams. Again, as the head coach, I don't want to be a micromanager of everything, but I've got to at least have an idea what we're doing with everything.
Again, not to belabor the point on schemes, but schemes don't cause you to miss 21 tackles. Schemes don't cause you to not get off a block 25 different times or stuff like that. It's not like the players aren't trying hard.
But there's a lot of fundamentals we got to work as well as schemes. In a sense, when everybody's a freshman, you know, there's nothing you want to assume. And we're not assuming anything. We haven't since spring practice.

Q. Given all that, what you just said about the schemes don't cause you to miss 21 tackles, do you feel that defensive coordinator Scott Shafer has done a good job this year?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Again, you all are never going to ask me a question and want me to point a finger at anybody on our football program or football staff. To me it's unfair to ask that. If you would have any coach in America and say, Well, you know, point the finger, the O-line gave up five sacks, so you point at the line coach, or the punt team got a punt block, so who coaches the punt team?
I mean, it's a football team. To try to single out a player or a coach, to me that's not right. Now, if we didn't tackle well, it wasn't one guy, we just missed a few tackles. Our guys are pretty good tacklers. At times we missed tackles. We got to try to coach them better so we don't miss tackles.
I'm never going to point a finger. That's not a fair question.

Q. What do the coaches need to emphasize or do better?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Let me make this very clear. I am as pleased as I can be with our coaches and their effort. They're coaching as hard as they can. They're working as hard as they can. They're good people, they're good coaches, they know what they're doing. 'Cause we struggled at times in different units doesn't mean they're a bad coach.
I'm sure a lot of people are saying that I'm a bad coach. Everybody can have their opinion. But I've been here 10 months. I feel as good as I have as far as I know we can build this program to be one of the best in the country. It's not showing that right now, but we can do that. It may take us longer than what I thought.
One of y'all asked a question, Have you got more to do than you thought? Yes, I do. That's pretty obvious when you're sitting here with our record. You got more to do to get this program where you want to get it. Do I feel confident we can get it there with the staff I have? Yes, I do. But there's a lot of things we have to work on.
As coaches we'll sit down. There's not a guy on our staff that feels good right now, and they won't. We won't feel good. There's sometimes we won't feel good after a win if we don't think we're playing well.
But we'll get it right. We'll get it right. I mean, everybody wants to push the panic button. 10 months, geez.

Q. Did you speak specifically to the seniors after Saturday's game?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: I mentioned them. I didn't speak specifically to them, but I did kind of mention them separately for the seniors. I feel bad they weren't going to go to a Bowl game, but they're still laying the foundation for this program, hoped they would play as hard as they can.

Q. How much is the next three-week period kind of a test of mental toughness from top to bottom in the program? Will you find yourself watching people a little more closely to determine how they react?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: No question. I think the whole season, though. I think it's always a watch of their mental toughness. You know, I know I've called it into question a little bit, our mental and physical toughness. I think that's just my nature.
I think it's what we're trying to build, one of the foundations we're building our program off. At times I wish it would be at a higher level. And that is something we will watch closely.
You're right about the next three weeks. I told the team such yesterday. We're watching it very, very closely, not just the underclassmen, but the seniors as well, how they want to represent our program and our university the next three weeks. We'll be watching very, very closely. We talk about it every day as a staff.
I gave the guys yesterday an opportunity. I set kind of the guidelines I wanted for the next three weeks, what we're looking for starting on Tuesday: a full, passionate commitment to this football program. If you showed up Tuesday, I assume that you are ready to give that. If you didn't, then that's fine, you know, go on your way and do that, too.
They all seemed like they wanted to be there. We'll find out tomorrow.

Q. You gave them an opportunity to speak up?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Asked anybody if they had any questions, anybody want to bring up anything like that.
Y'all want to make everything so much drama. I mean, this is unbelievable. Every time there's something said, everybody wants to make a big deal out of something, make so much drama about everything. That's why I don't tell y'all too much. You think I tell you a lot. I think I've been pretty transparent. But sometimes I don't because I don't know what y'all are going to take and make a big deal out of a wee little thing. Seems like for nine, 10 months that's happened. Oh, he said this. I mean, let's psychoanalyze this, psychoanalyze that, whatever.
I just want guys to play hard, play with passion, play for the University of Michigan, play for their teammates, and hopefully win a few games along the way, enjoy the experience about being a student-athlete here, okay? If anybody's not willing to do that, they shouldn't have to come here, shouldn't come to practice or work.
Because we're not going to a Bowl game, do you think we're going to pack it in? You think the guys are a bunch of quitters? I don't think we've got any quitters. You think the coaches are going to pack it in, not show up for work? Golly.

Q. Question on Minnesota.
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Been here 20 minutes and finally got a question on Minnesota (laughter).

Q. What do you see from them?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: They had a great year. The key to them, again, I wasn't here last year, but I think they've gotten better defensively because they've got some junior college guy and some athleticism, and they're playing pretty fast. Offensively their quarterback has been the big key for them.
Decker is a tremendous receiver, but I think Weber is the key because he's a run-pass threat. Been watching them on film the last couple days, very impressed with him. It all starts with that position, particularly in the spread. I think he's a guy that kind of has carried them, so to speak, in what they're trying to do.
They had a tough one last week, too. They lost in the last few seconds. I'm sure they'll be fired up and ready for us to come to town.

Q. Do you talk to your kids at all about the election, voting?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, other than remind them last night that Tuesday's election day, go vote. I don't know how many are registered. I know a couple of them -- some of them lift on Tuesday, too. They're going to change when they lift because they need some time to vote. I said, By all means, you got to go and vote. That's being an American. You get an opportunity to vote, go vote.
I don't know how many have registered. I wish we could have reminded them way back when because they're all of age, if they are of age, most of them would have been to vote. I think it's a pretty neat deal.

Q. Do you have to vote absentee?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: I'm registered here in the state of Michigan. That's one of the first things I did when I moved. I'm not going to tell you who I'm voting for. That's personal.

Q. At the polls tomorrow, there's supposed to be ridiculous waits. Are you going to be able to make practice?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Me? Well, if I have to wait, I'll be at practice. The vote will be missed. Yeah, I don't know. Actually the wife and I talked about what we can do to get that done quickly 'cause I start at 6 in the morning. I don't know when they open or nothing like that. Polls open at 8? 7? Why don't they start them at 5 (laughter)? How late they open till? 7 or 8, okay.

Q. Indoor football, does that not matter?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: It is a little different. It really is. I think the noise is louder. It's a little bit different type of noise. Kind of confined. Then seeing the ball, adjusting to the ball, whether it's punts or long passes, is a little different. I played two whole years in it when I coached at Tulane, and played in the Georgia Dome for the Sugar Bowl one year, played in the Syracuse dome a few times.
It is just a little bit different. So we'll probably practice. I think the weather is supposed to be great this week. I think we'll probably practice portions of our practice, at least on Thursday, inside, even though you don't get the same feeling of it.
Talking to the guys that have been to Minnesota before, they'll tell you it's a little different, too. I think once you get adjusted in pregame, shouldn't be a big deal.

Q. This morning Toledo coach Tom Amstutz is going to announce he's resigning effective the end of the year. Do you know him at all?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: A little bit. This comes as a surprise to me. Is there something -- are there issues there? Does he feel good about it?

Q. They had the point shaving thing, but just haven't had a winning season.
COACH RODRIGUEZ: His health or anything? I just knew him a little bit. Met him before. He's a great guy. I know he's done a great job with their program. No, this is a surprise to me. I didn't hear that.

Q. What do you think are the most important steps you took from year one to year two at West Virginia?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Gosh, I hope we're already working on year two. I think that's natural. I think the biggest steps you take, being right in the middle of it, that's not just starting now because we're out of Bowl contention, all that, this started from the first day we started spring practice, then obviously from the games. I make notes of things, what do we got to do to improve our program. The obvious is schemes, players in the right position, all that. But it's really the whole program. I said that from day one.
I wish the progress that I feel that we're making weekly shows up on Saturdays. It's not right now. At times it does, but it's not for the fact that all the fans and you all would see. But I have seen progress Sunday through Friday, for whatever that's worth. So those steps are okay. But identifying where our problems are, whether it's personnel, whether it's adjustments in schemes, whether it's things we can do in the off-season to have our players develop better fundamentally, all that. I've identified a lot of those things we know we got to do. It just takes some time. Recruiting and development, all that.
Our coaches have two main jobs as assistant coaches, is to recruit quality student-athletes and develop them. The recruiting part takes a lot of time and that development is a pretty big umbrella. I think we've identified how we want to do that. There's not a lot of major changes we got to make to what we're doing, how we're building the program. It's just going to take a little more time than I thought.

Q. Did you feel like you had to make a lot of major changes after the 2001 season?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Not really. What do you consider major? I mean, we made some fundamentally, made a few adjustments in schemes. But our recruiting got better. Our off-season development program got better. Here it's already better, I mean, compared to back then. I have a lot of things already in place there, whereas there it was a constant process year one, year two, year three, year four to get things in place until when we left it was established. Here I think we got things established quicker. It's not showing up in the games with the results, but I think it will. It will.

Q. You made a major leap, your best scoring game of the year offensively. Was there that much of an improvement?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: I think there was a little bit. We scored the one time on the return. We got better field position. I think that was a big key. We got better field position on the return, so we were playing on a shorter field at times. Then we made a few big plays, a big pass play. I think Brandon had a big run. But that explosiveness is part of, you know, hopefully the scheme of the offense. But still it's a matter of execution.

Q. How good is Decker compared to the other receivers you played against or studied on film? How much of stopping Minnesota is taking him away?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Well, that's a big part of it. Again, you've got to start with your quarterback, not let him get comfortable. They move Decker around. He's a 215, 220 pound guy that can run. They'll put him in the slot. They'll put him outside. It's hard to say they'll put him right there, put this guy on him, double him. They know that so they're going to move him around. He's as good as anybody we played against. They list him at 6'2", 215. To me he's an NFL guy because he does everything. He's got great ball skills. He really catches the ball well. Like I said, he's a big, physical guy, too.

Q. I'm sure all coaches stress take-aways. I think they're leading the country.
COACH RODRIGUEZ: They've done a really good job in that. Obviously it starts with their defense raking the ball out. They've gotten some interceptions for touchdowns. They're breaking on the ball well. They're playing fast. I mean, that's what every coach wants, you want your guys playing faster. I know you're tired of me talking about it, but we keep telling our guys, we need to play fast, we need to play faster. We keep reminding them of that. We're going to keep working towards that.
But they are, they're playing fast. They do a great job of breaking on the ball. They're very athletic defensively. You can see that by some of the plays they've been making.

Q. In your experience, is there any added difficulty going into the second straight road game?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Not really. If you have a long bus ride or got back really late at night, Saturday night game, getting your legs back under you may be an issue. Our road trips are short. We got back at a reasonable time Saturday night. So I don't think it's an issue at all.

Q. I know we talked about this a little bit after the game past Saturdays, but the question that continues to keep coming up is, for those of us with some gray hair following this team for a lot of decades, a question about how could there have been such a seismic shift here in fortunes when the personnel didn't seem to be that much of a drop. I realize it's a complex question. To get to the point here, the word that I use a lot is 'bewildered'. Can you offer any insight, without selling the players down the river, that you'd be concerned about doing in that regard?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: I mentioned earlier, if people are expecting us to point fingers at each other in this program, it's not going to happen. You mentioned there was no change in the players. We lost an awful lot of experience offensively. You understand that, right? Are there 10 new starters on offense, maybe 11? No, 10, Steve Schilling started last year. There's a good bit there. Defensively we have a few guys back, which is good. But I think we did lose our four top tacklers from last year, okay?
Still you got to try to do -- hopefully the guys will grow up quickly and learn. If you combine inexperience with transition, learning some new schemes, you don't have a little luck along the way, maybe you can lose a few ball games. But there's a lot of reasons why. I don't want to go through it all now. Like I said earlier, we've identified the problems. Some of the problems we're already fixing, but it ain't showing up on Saturday. Some it will take a little bit more time to fix.

Q. Do you feel like your team has gotten closer to playing a complete game over the last few weeks?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: At times. For a complete game, I guess from a coach you'd say all three phases, offense, defense, special teams, really executed well for 60 minutes. That hasn't happened yet. Probably a lot of coaches would tell you, Hey, we haven't had that either. But that's the eventual goal and that's eventually going to happen. We're going to have all three phases that execute extremely well, play with great passion, and everybody will be happy at the end of the game.

Q. Now that you've had a chance to see it on film, take us through the hook and lateral, what happened.
COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, they executed really well. We were in a man coverage. Our technique was off a little bit on the first catch, so we gave up that inside. Then the guy that was training on the guy that came across gave up the inside, couldn't catch him. Perfectly timed, well thrown, well executed. They made the play. Good job by them. Good call. Well executed by them.
I've seen it before. I've seen it done. I hadn't seen them do it. We actually practiced it in our own offense against the defense. Didn't execute it as well.

Q. As poorly as the defense played, it still took two trick plays to beat you Saturday.
COACH RODRIGUEZ: I really don't look at it that way. I more looked at it we still had opportunities to win the game. We played poorly at times. I thought our defense in the first half played pretty well. I think giving up, what was it, 21 points, but seven of them were on a turnover inside the 10 yard line. We just needed a little spark, something defensively. We got the one turnover the first drive of the game, then we didn't get another turnover. For us we only had the one turnover on special teams. So we took care of the ball. Again, where we were at, we needed a few more turnovers and we just didn't get them. We had a couple chances. We had a fourth and two, a big play, had a chance to get them stopped. We just didn't wrap-up. Kind of fell forward. That was guys, they played hard, there was good call defensively and all that, but they made the play and we didn't.

Q. You have had a runningback of Brandon Minor's style in your offense before?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah. I've had bigger physical guys. I don't think he's still playing, but KJ Harris, he was about Brandon's size, a little bigger, 235 pounds. Powerful guy, had good speed. Brandon is a real physical runner and he runs with great passion. Again, he's healthy. He got knocked out a little bit in the last game when his wrist got sprained. He taped it up, went right back in there.
It will be good to have Sam back. With Sam, Mike Shaw, Brandon, we have three guys we can roll in there pretty good.

Q. Do you adjust what you want to do depending on the style of runningback?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: It's really the same thing. Brandon, there's certain plays that Brandon runs better. There's certain plays that Sam runs better than others, all that. We have that kind of in our mindset. If they play us a certain way, we've got to run our offense. Brandon can run it all, but there are a few different runs that he runs I think better than others.

Q. Do you like what you saw from Brandon on the couple direct snaps he took?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, you'd like to do more. The situation obviously, when he's in there, you know he's going to run it. Brandon can throw a little bit, but I haven't got that confidence yet to let him let it loose just yet. But he can throw a little bit.

Q. To be clear, are you going to start Ferrara this week? Is he still battling?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Still battling. I think right now we're still kind of 50/50 with that. He didn't play poorly. I mean, he played okay. Wasn't great. But we're still -- that position is an ongoing battle, I believe.

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