|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCEOctober 21, 2013Mike VrabelQ. Coach, Coach Fickell talked about how things weren't going right in the second half, hit that big play, that you sat down everybody in the sidelines and stabilized things. What did you say to the guys, I presume it was in the second half. What were the things you said? MIKE VRABEL:  I think the thing we have to understand ask that as players and coaches it doesn't always go how you draw it up. You go out and work on something all week and you prepare. And I think as a player you go out there and it's not always roses. It's not always you dominating somebody. But then you look up and you have a chance to win a football game. At that point in time you have to clear everything and go on and find ways to make plays, like guys did late in the game. Certainly we don't want to play like that, but there's times during the course of a season or game where it's not going well. And you have to find the will to go and win a football game. Q. Could you talk about Penn State, have you had an opportunity to see much of the freshman quarterback? MIKE VRABEL:  He's shown a lot of poise there. Throws the ball well. Has a strong arm. Good skill. Good tight ends. Good backs. One physical back, two speed backs, guys that can slash and stretch and cut back. A veteran offensive line. Between last night and this morning, we're in there looking at them now and seeing how we're going to do it. They've got a bye week to prepare. You've got to put a bunch on the board and be sound in what we're doing and give our kids a chance to go out and play with some effort. Q. You're from the NFL, with Wes Welker, but Bernie always seemed to find him. Alton Robinson seems to be that kind of player. What makes those guys stand out, why can they get the ball in certain situations? MIKE VRABEL:  I think first thing it's a trust issue between a quarterback and a receiver. No different than a defensive line and a linebacker and really what we do is build around trust and gaining confidence and playing with confidence. And so I think when you talk about a quarterback and receiver, they have a lot of trust in each other that he's going to get open and catch the ball. And the quarter back does have to be perfect, if he throws the ball to them. He knows he can throw in an area and he's going to make a play. Q. Mike, you guys have faced a lot of quarterbacks that got rid of the ball quickly. Are you pleased with the pass rush, where are you out there? MIKE VRABEL:  I think it's a work‑in‑progress. I don't think you're ever satisfied. I think when we can get teams in a third long, we like our chances over the course of a ballgame or season, I think our percentages are going to be well. But when you are in third and two or third and one or third and three, you don't have a lot of opportunities to rush the passer, as we all saw on Saturday. But when you look at the second half and you have an opportunity to be third and seven, be up ten points, you can go with four guys that can rush the passer and get the quarterback to not be able to set his feet, to get rid of the ball, to hit him, let him get ready before the guys are open. It's predicated object getting them into those situations, and having the guys out there on the field that can go win. Q. How big of a game is this for Ohio State? Your freshman year was the first year they joined the conference. How big of a game is this for Ohio State? MIKE VRABEL:  I think they're all big. When you're in Ohio State, regardless of who you play, every game is big. Ohio State hasn't lost since Coach Meyer started coaching here. Every game we play gets bigger and bigger. Q. Is there a part of Joey Bosa's game that you think is advanced for a true freshman? MIKE VRABEL:  I think he's physically more advanced where a lot of kids coming out of high school would be the first year. I think his core strength, his balance, those type of things stand out to me. And he's going to continue to work. He's going to continue to work his technique, but physically he's ail to play at this level because of his natural strength, his natural core strength, and he's got great balance. Q. I know the policy about red shirting, you has he been ahead of schedule or surprising for you guys once you got in the season how much you could play him? MIKE VRABEL:  I think you get opportunities and you start out with five opportunities, ten opportunities, 15, whatever those opportunities are. He was a player that took advantage of those opportunities. And went from 20 or 25 snaps to 50, 55, 60. And now he's a starter for us. We've got to have him in there, he's a difference maker. And he's playing well. He didn't play great Saturday, but he certainly shows up and continues to do a lot of good things for us. Q. Iowa didn't have a lot of long run games, but they were consistent in the first half ‑‑ MIKE VRABEL:  Right. Call what it was. Beat the shit out of us, I agree. In our minds, I think they had four that were uncontested, were around the edge, we had no edge. One was to the boundary. Two was to the field. Easy yardage. Then there was some yardage that was pushed and washed, contacted two yards and they pushed the line, throw the line over to pile, block the linebackers, just soft. And we don't do a good job of playing physical with our hands, getting off blocks, shedding off blocks, walking away from blocks. When you do this against a good offensive line, they're going to continue to push you and move the pile. We had a punch of plays that were for two or three yards. I think the five or six yard ones are bothersome. And you've got to fix the ones be that are uncontested where they hand the ball and run around the edge and we're going to do that. Q. How hard is that to fix, is that something you're concerned about? MIKE VRABEL:  To me it's about coaching better and it's about playing better. And when you talk about the defensive line you talk about me being the coach and the guys that I have in the game. So I'm going to coach better and they're going to play better and that's ‑‑ the technique things. Effort and toughness has to be perfect for us. The technique ‑‑ you're not going to make every single play, we understand that. No one is going to grade a hundred percent. But we feel you should be able to grade a hundred percent in your toughness and effort. Q. When the offense is doing something you don't expect or they didn't show on film, when you're making those in‑game adjustments, and you and the other coaches are seeing what happens, do you throw everything at the players right away? How do you go about making the adjustments, not wanting to overwhelm the players? A.We understand we're not professional football players. I think the learning curve might not be as steep for them, but we've got to adjust. We've got to do it quicker. And we've got to get it to them and make them go out there and understand and play it with confidence and play at new looks with confidence. You're never going to be able to show them every single thing in practice. But you can give them confidence and fundamentals and go out and make adjustments. And that falls on us as coaches as well as ‑‑ we can't go out there and do it for them, but you've got to give them the confidence saying here's what they're going to do, let's do it and make them turn the page. Make them do something else that maybe we didn't prepare well enough during the week for it. Q. You seemed to be really sprinting up the ramp at halftime? MIKE VRABEL:  I was trying to get the guys up and settled, Everett and Luke and Kerry, try to handle whatever adjustments we're going to make. I just wanted to get up there and be ready for our defense when they got in there, try to talk to them and figure out what was going on and get guys to start playing with confidence, and not always understanding at five yards is the end of the world. It's a long game and you need to play and compete a little bit. Q. The defense right now is too reactionary. You can't impose your will with young kids, can you? MIKE VRABEL:  Well, I think we've got to do that a little bit with our call. I think sometimes we've got to do that. We've got to bring some pressure to allow them to do that. And then guys have to step up. Guys ‑‑ maybe it's Joey Bosa, who cares who it is, but the guys need to do that. This is a physical, violent sport that's competitive. And at some point in time you've got to have guys that aren't so nice and go out there and start playing football. Q. When Penn State got the sanction, everybody said they're crippled, done. They backed off those sanctions little bit. As somebody who recruits against them, do you see them surviving this and not falling off a cliff? MIKE VRABEL:  Well, I'm sure ‑‑ Bill O'Brien was a good friend, he was in New England when I was there. He's a good football coach. He's going to do everything he can to keep that program where it's been for the last 50 or 60 years. I don't see that changing. I don't know what's going on, and we've got plenty to worry about here in Columbus. Q. How tough is it to prepare in these games? You mentioned this earlier, when you've got 19 wins in a row and everyone wants to end that streak. And you have teams that have two weeks to get ready for you guys. How difficult is this stretch of games? MIKE VRABEL:  I think that's life in the big city. I think you've got to understand, whether they have a bye week or not, you're going to get a whole bunch of stuff. The stuff you've had trouble with is going to continue to show up until you stop it. The things that you do well, they're going to try to have answers for. We need to do a great job as a staff and we need to do a great job of getting that from our minds to our players minds and ultimately giving them an opportunity to play fast. Q. As someone who played the game, do you have any thoughts on trying to focus this targeting rule in the right way? MIKE VRABEL:  Obviously you better stay away from the head. If you hit them with anything, but it better not be on the head. Anything that looks close, that's what they're told to call. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|