Oct. 31, 2006

COACH TRESSEL: That group that just visited with you from our turf science have been working like crazy. It's been a difficult battle and the weather has not been the greatest and they have worked like crazy and we certainly appreciate their efforts and they're going to get us the best possible surface to play on that we can get in these situations and we appreciate their work. So it's been tough on them because they're out there night and day and I feel for them.

Our guys were pretty solid on Saturday. I think we had about 21 guys with a winning performance. Minnesota, I felt, was a little banged up, and that's tough when you go on the road to start with, and when you're banged up, to take the next step is even more difficult. And we had a chance to get out there and get some guys playing and we did have some outstanding performances.

Our special units player was Drew Norman who has been a solid snapper all along. He had seven field goal snaps on Saturday, which every single one of them was in the perfect window, which is a little unusual. Occasionally you'll get one in or outside or whatever, and he just had an extraordinary week and was the special units player.

The defensive player was Antonio Smith who continues to grow and be a great leader and a great production guy from his position. He plays various positions, and just does an excellent job. Antonio Pittman was the offensive player of the week. Did a good job receiving the ball. Did a good job running the ball. Did a good job pass protecting. And I just think he's one of the best backs in the country and we're awfully happy to have Antonio Pittman.

Our Jim Parker offensive lineman was T.J. Downing, and he had the highest grade on the offensive front. The attack force player was Marcus Freeman, who had a very productive day, was flying around the field and continues to grow in the various roles that we have for him.

We didn't have a Jack Tatum hit of the week. They might have had one, but we didn't have one, and Ray will be fine. He probably won't play this week, but he seems to be getting along just fine. It was just one of those things that happens, but he's just doing fine.

The scout team players that did a good job preparing for us on the special units, Will Crall, a youngster from Bexley, Walter Dublin was our defensive scout player from Sarasota, Florida, and Ryan Franzinger was our offensive scout player, a senior from Cleveland St. Ignatius and just a great kid. I marvel sometimes at the time and effort that those scout team kids put in to make sure they give our guys a great look and I know our coaches appreciate it and they do an excellent job there.

The most important task at hand as we flip the calendar over to November is to make sure we're playing our best football in this month. You do a lot of work prior to November, but the month of November really is the legacy that you leave. There have been a lot of good teams at Ohio State over the years, the ones that are considered great teams are the ones that played great in November and that's just the way football is. And I suppose in the NFL, it's December. So we have to make sure that as we take the practice field today, one last time in October, that we're preparing ourselves to have great performance in November.

We have a tremendous challenge as we travel over to Champaign-Urbana, because I think Illinois is a good football team. They've had some tough situations occur. They're ahead of Wisconsin, very well could have beat them. They played Penn State right off their feet and was nose to nose and I think the score ended up one thing, but it was 17-12 game, was really what it was, and an on-side kick was returned for a touchdown. I think Penn State rushed the ball for 40 yards and Illinois rushed it for over 200. If you really watch the film, you can see that conceptually they're starting to understand what a new coaching staff a year ago was establishing, and you can see the culture they're trying to create, a very aggressive defense that puts a lot of pressure on you, and has to have guys in right position so that things work properly.

Offensively, they spread you out all over the field. They're a big play team. I think the freshmen quarterback, Isiah Williams has got over 60 yards throwing. He does a great job with his feet as well. He's a guy we recruited very hard and he's a student of the game, he's a good football player, he can make things happen. I think they have a good stable of runningbacks, they have a couple good old guys and a young one there. Their receivers are solid. Lenny Willis' son, if you remember Lenny who played here and was on our staff here, his son has just done a tremendous job and I think, too, their field goal kicker may be one of the one or two best in the conference.

So I think they've got all the pieces and I think they're trying to put all those pieces together and things don't happen overnight, but you can see the progress, for sure. And our guys know when you go on the road, it's difficult. They know the importance that November has in the course of a college football season, so I think they'll go to work this afternoon pretty darn hard. Questions?

REPORTER: Jim, you mentioned Ray (Small). How about some of the other guys, I guess Gonzalez, Mo Hall, Pitcock?

COACH TRESSEL: Mo Hall.

REPORTER: No, Wells, sorry.

COACH TRESSEL: Mo Hall will be our honorary captain, he's fine as far as I know.

REPORTER: Too many Halls and Wells.

COACH TRESSEL: Mo Wells, Gonzalez, who else did you mention?

REPORTER: Pitcock.

COACH TRESSEL: Mo Wells, Gonzalez, I would say for sure, unless the unforeseen happens. The only two I would call questionable would be Pitcock and Alex Boone. And I suppose you could say Derek Harden is still out, he was a special teams guy for us. But outside of that, we're at pretty full strength. I would like to think we'll know by Wednesday or Thursday on those guys that aren't going to practice for a couple of days in hopes of being just fine, but David Patterson came out of it well, played 40 some snaps, 47 maybe, and graded well and played well and felt good. So I think for this point in the year, going into game 10, I feel good about our health.

REPORTER: Alex Boone has what, Coach?

COACH TRESSEL: I don't know, am I allowed to say? I don't think so. He won't practice today.

REPORTER: You guys got off to a little rough start, stopping the run the first couple of weeks and quietly crept up to I think two in the Big Ten and top 20 nationally in stopping the run. Is there something you see differently or was that just the backs you faced early on or what's been different?

COACH TRESSEL: I like to think we've gotten better. I think that's something that you better ask one of the defensive staff, but from my vantage point I think we've gotten better. I think, too, when you have some sacks, all of a sudden that is reflected on your run defense, and we've been ahead of some folks and all of a sudden maybe they're throwing more, and so I think there's a little effect there.

And thirdly, I would say to you that the good backs that you mentioned that we faced early were good backs. And maybe at this point in time, when we've had a little more progression, we would do better, but we don't get another chance, but I think our guys are coming along.

REPORTER: How was the Main Event last night?

COACH TRESSEL: I thought it was good. I was only there for about 20 minutes, it was so dark, I couldn't tell how many people were there, but Joel Penton told me this morning there were estimates of nearly 12,000 people and I know how hard he worked on it and his buddies and they sure seemed enthusiastic and it was a neat thing.

REPORTER: How much of a challenge, talking about the run defense, does Illinois pose, their numbers, rushing-wise, and how are they getting those yards? Does Williams have a lot to do with that?

COACH TRESSEL: I think when you have to account for the quarterback as a runner, that is always a huge impact on your run game. If you took our run numbers over the years and extracted the quarterback yards, it wouldn't be nearly as good as it was and I don't know if it was extraordinary, but it was okay. So, yeah, whenever you have to account, especially in those offenses where they have the little spread and all that stuff, you better account for them, but I think they have good backs and they have a good offensive line, so I just think they're solid at what they do and it's evolving and they have the runs and the passes that complement one another, they do a good job.

REPORTER: Jim, Coach Zook went to that freshman quarterback several games ago and is paying dividends for certain. How much of a tough moment is that for a coach, though? I don't know if you've ever done that in the past where you make up your mind, that's the guy, and you have to live with the good and the bad when that happens.

COACH TRESSEL: I think any age, when you make a change, when you change a sophomore over a junior or a freshman over a senior or whatever, anytime you've felt one way and then it didn't play out that way and you have to be honest and objective and do what's best for the team, it hurts a little bit because you hate to see the disappointment. Sometimes it's not all that person's fault, but that's just the way it is and sometimes change has to be made and I'm sure they were seeing in practice that Juice is going to be special and how could they not do what was best for their team, and there wasn't much productivity prior to him, quite honestly, and the productivity since has been excellent.

REPORTER: When you're limited by the number of games you've got left, is it easier to keep a team focused on the team at hand or is it harder when they have just so few games left?

COACH TRESSEL: That's a good question. I think it's in proportion to what the team you're getting ready to play looks like on film. And the good news and the bad news, I guess, both, is that when you turn the film on, Illinois looks good, and our guys who watch them, they take the time, they study it and so forth, they're going to see when they turn the film on that Illinois is a good team.

Plus we've had Illinois in our cross-over film. When we were getting ready for Michigan State, they'd just played Illinois. When we were getting ready for Indiana, they had just played Illinois. Who did we play last week? No, I guess they hadn't played Minnesota yet, but we'd seen them a couple times and saw some good things that they'd done. So I would like to think, if you're paying attention at all, your focus will be enhanced when you turn the film on.

REPORTER: Jim, you said you had recruited Williams pretty hard. Did he just pick Illinois over Ohio State?

COACH TRESSEL: Yeah.

REPORTER: Or did you guys decide to go a different way or --

COACH TRESSEL: I think he was an early decision, stay in his home state, the need for the quarterback thing, and Illinois is a great school. They did a good job recruiting him and painting the picture of good things could happen and the picture they painted was accurate.

REPORTER: What stood out about him when you were looking at him in the recruiting process?

COACH TRESSEL: You know, he really enjoyed studying the game. He loved to compete. He obviously had a good arm and great athletic ability and he just looked like a guy that, man, this guy's going to become something, and he has.

REPORTER: Speaking of your own quarterback for a moment, there was a lot of talk earlier in the season that he was almost hesitant to run, it seemed like a lot of people were saying that, maybe that's true or untrue, but he certainly, it seems through the week, has become more aggressive in tucking it and running and of course he got a touchdown out of it Saturday. Is that just part of his progression in terms of moving into the offense and allowing himself that extra dimension?

COACH TRESSEL: Yeah, I don't know if he was hesitant to run, he just had some guys open. We always told him, get it to those guys that are faster than you, and if one of those guys isn't open and the right decision is to step up and go, let's go.

We probably haven't run as many design quarterback runs as we had in the past. I think you could trace that to a couple things. One, I think we're a little deeper at tailback than we were. There was a time where we were all banged up at tailback, Troy's first year starting in '04 and he was our runningback at times because we were hurt, because that's what the team needed. And as the receivers have grown and so forth, he's been able to throw the ball more from that position. But I don't think he's hesitant. He looked excited when he scored that touchdown to me.

REPORTER: Can you talk about Malcolm Jenkins, what makes him such a good cornerback at this early stage in his career? He's still only 18 years old.

COACH TRESSEL: Malcolm comes from a highly competitive program in high school, Piscataway, New Jersey won three straight state titles when he was there, and the expectations of learning the game at Piscataway are high. He came in here with a lot of understanding of the game of football, locked in to study it even more as to how we used our terminology, has a lot of confidence, and I think Malcolm Jenkins is going to keep getting better and better and be a very outstanding corner.

REPORTER: Jim, of the second-year either sophomores or redshirt freshman and a few of the freshman, have you been surprised by how much they've contributed to this group or was that going to be needed as you looked at your roster going into the season, some of those guys to really step up?

COACH TRESSEL: They had to. Two things had to happen, the older guys had to do a good job leading because they'd experienced so much, they had so much to offer, and there were going to be some other guys that were going to have to step up and be ready to be college football players and you take guys like James Laurinaitis and Ross Homan, Donald Washington, Andre Amos, Jamario O'Neal, Malcolm had played significantly, but Vernon Gholston, who hadn't played a whole bunch was going to need to evolve, and what I like about this group is everyone seems to want to do what the team needs done.

Now, what the team needs done right now is to have a great practice today and enter November with the proper mindset as to how good we have to be. But thus far, they've been very willing to do what needs to be done.

REPORTER: Jim, you guys have continued to play that second offensive line for a series each game. Why is that important for you guys to continue doing that at this late stage in the year?

COACH TRESSEL: I just think it became one of those things that, hey, that's what we're going to do. I'm not sure it has that much science to it. Unfortunately, Saturday, we fouled up their drive because we fumbled on the first play of their drive, but I just think we're comfortable with it and sometimes if you don't make yourself do something, you won't do it and you'll turn around and say, oh, gosh, the game's over and we had some opportunities to get guys in. And as I mentioned to this group going into the Texas game when we were first planning on doing it, is that Jim Bollman kind of grew up that way when he was at the university of Virginia, he was forced to do it. That's what George Welsh made him do.

So he had done that before, and he had never been willing to decide to do it here until it became a little bit of a heat discussion, and then all of a sudden, they did pretty well and I think he got a little bit of confidence in it and we've just continued to do it some.

REPORTER: Is it maybe odd at all to put faith in five back-ups to protect maybe the best player in college football?

COACH TRESSEL: Certainly if he got hurt, I'm sure I'd get asked that question. I think if you ask them to do what they can do, on the other hand, I'm sure you could have the argument that, hey, if you didn't ever put those guys in and someone turned their ankle on the first group and, say, was that responsible not to give anyone some time that was going to have to some day be in there and protect the top quarterback in college football, so, you know, you just hope you're not at the wrong end of those discussions.

REPORTER: A lot of times you'll hear coaches stumping for players for Heismans and that type of thing, and last week Lloyd Carr said something about Hart being one of the best players in football, do you feel the need to do any stumping for Troy to come out and make a statement like he is the best player in the country, any of that type of thing?

COACH TRESSEL: No, because as I've mentioned all fall, what I've enjoyed about the evolution of major awards is they've started to go to the teams who are doing the most as a team, and I think that's when good things happen. I don't think things happen with stumping. I think things happen with doing, and if you do, things will happen. So, no, I don't think -- I don't think we need to do that. Now, maybe after our season's over and there's nothing left to do and the only thing left is stumping, maybe you stump, I don't know, but we've got stuff to do.

REPORTER: Jim, you've done that linebacker rotation and I thought Marcus Freeman was supposed to be kind of a passing-down guy, but he's on the field an awful lot, and his contributions, if you can talk about that a little bit?

COACH TRESSEL: He's moved around a little bit and probably been at three different spots, and he's a pretty flexible guy because he's been here three years and he's had some experiences at a lot of different positions, but his contribution, I think, starts with knowledge, then it goes to speed, then it goes to production.

One of the things I hear Luke Fickel talking a lot about is really what it's all about at that position is to produce, and he's done a good job producing. He's probably, on our production board, he may be second or third right now behind Laurinaitis, maybe Antonio Smith's in there somewhere, I'm not real sure.

REPORTER: Coach the players are going to be playing for the Illibuck trophy this weekend, what does playing for that trophy mean to the guys?

COACH TRESSEL: That's really only one of the trophies that we have to play for, in fact, our guys get to see it, it started back in the '20s and used to do it with live turtles and didn't work out too well in climates like Champaign-Urbana or Columbus, so they went to the big turtles with the scores painted and our guys have a chance each year, we hope each year to see it, if it's not here, we don't, but I think our guys like to compete in anything. You put out something to compete for, and they'll compete. And so as if we need to add anything else, but here we are in November, playing a Big Ten opponent, playing on the road, one more little item on the plate, if you will, is the Illibuck trophy, and that's the ultimate thing would you want done this week is to earn the right to keep it.

REPORTER: As focused as your team seems to be playing right now, do you still find the need to talk to them about possible upsets and do you go through series and history like Illinois, and then USC loses at Oregon State, do you still do that? Do they still need to hear that?

COACH TRESSEL: Oh, I think you need to educate and discuss on the same vein each week. If you only do it certain weeks, it doesn't have the teaching progression. What's the situation today? The situation is we're going on the road in the Big Ten. And what's the situation, it happens to be the Illini. Let me tell you about the Illini. And the more you know about your opponent, maybe Chris Wells needs to hear a little bit about Eddie's (George) tough day against the Illini, and understand that that was something that was distasteful for him and so forth and so on, but I think as much education as you can get every week is important.

REPORTER: If you put this team on the field against your 2002 team, who would emerge? Who's better?

COACH TRESSEL: Well, Troy was their scout team quarterback against that team and did okay.

REPORTER: I mean against your National Championship.

COACH TRESSEL: Right, he was the scout team quarterback against that team and did pretty well. I don't know if he could have beat them, heck, I don't know.

REPORTER: Coach, what lessons did you learn from that season that have been part of the team, what one or two important lessons from that National Championship season?

COACH TRESSEL: The biggest lesson that I'd relearned because I'd been at it so long, sometimes you relearn things, is that never underestimate the intentions of a group of people. And Mike Doss and Donny Nickey and that group of people had some intentions that were not going to be denied.

There are 15 or 16 guys that were freshmen at that time, playing on the scout team, hopefully they learned a little bit, but outside of that, that's like ancient history.

REPORTER: So you don't go back to any of those experiences?

COACH TRESSEL: Not really.

REPORTER: Have you told Chris Wells any of the stories about Eddie's day at Illinois yet or is that still to come?

COACH TRESSEL: Not yet with every little detail, because I really don't know that story with every little detail, but he seems to know about it.

REPORTER: Is there something, though, you can do for a young guy when he's having these problems?

COACH TRESSEL: Tell him to hold tighter. It's got to be the most important thing in the world at that moment is to hand that ball to the official. If that's the most important thing in the world, then maybe you have a chance to do it.

REPORTER: If this was --

COACH TRESSEL: She gets three questions this week and then we're done here.

REPORTER: If this was November 17th, could you play him against the Wolverines?

COACH TRESSEL: Who?

REPORTER: Chris Wells

COACH TRESSEL: Absolutely.