Coach Dave Wannstedt Monday Press Conference Transcript

Sept. 25, 2006

Dave Wannstedt

Toledo Week

September 25, 2006

On the Citadel victory:

Very efficient would probably be the way to describe last week. Obviously it starts with the quarterback, Tyler (Palko) played real smart, and he's been playing very efficient from the quarterback position. When that happens and you're not turning the football over, you're going to have a chance. The other thing that's been good is our offensive line continues to protect the quarterback. It all fits together. When you have time to throw the ball and you have a good quarterback, you're going to have opportunities to make plays. That's what has kind of happened.

On Toledo:

The opponent this week, Toledo, not much has to be said about them. We all know their history, they've been the top team, or one of the top teams in their conference (MAC). They've been to four out of five bowl games the last five years. Our players, H.B. Blades and Tyler Palko, we do have a couple players that remember what happened the last time we played these guys. There won't be anything that anyone takes for granted this week.

On game preparation:

I think the credit that these seniors deserve and this football team deserves is the veteran guys on this team have showed up every week ready to play. They got prepared during the week and that's where it starts and it won't be any different this week. We need to go out there and have real physical practices, which we will and be attentive in the detail as far as meetings go. That's really where we're at.

On defensive end Doug Fulmer:

From an injury standpoint, a health standpoint, something we need to announce is that Doug Fulmer is going to have surgery (on his left ankle) on Wednesday. Unfortunately he'll miss the remainder of the season and that's really a serious shame because the kid worked so hard to get a starting job, he worked so hard to really put himself in position to really have an outstanding year. It's very unfortunate. We played McKenzie Mathews last week. He'll continue to mix-in. Chris McKillop will start and we'll be ok there with Chris and Joe (Clermond) and Charles Sallet. Vernon Botts will move over from (defensive) tackle to get some work at (defensive) end. It's a shame for Doug because he has really put the time and effort into it and we'll get him rehabbed and get him back in as quick as we can. Other than that, I think we're in pretty good shape.

On senior leadership being a factor in the win over The Citadel:

It's something that you can't just wake up Saturday morning and say, ok, we're going to go out there and take care of the little things and clean up the details and everything that goes into playing well. Really the other thing too is you can't play this game at a high level, regardless of who you're playing unless you're playing with emotion. That just goes one-and-one with football. That doesn't happen Saturday morning. You need to start building that up as the week goes on and our guys did that last week. It starts at the top with these seniors. They're the guys that set the example.

On using the 2003 loss to Toledo as motivation:

I don't have to say anything but the guys that were there will, I promise you that. They'll say it better than I will.

On the performance of ends McKenzie Mathews and Chris McKillop:

Chris is a starter for us. The guy that really has been a pleasant surprise is Joe Clermond. Joe played the best of anyone on our defense, in fact he was our (coaching staff) defensive player of the week. He has been consistent every week, making very few mistakes and making plays. So between him and Chris McKillop we felt like we had two starters there. McKenzie Mathews will be in the rotation, probably play about half the game. It was a good game for him to get his feet wet. He has a lot of room for improvement and he will. The thing about McKenzie is he's a very intelligent player, you don't have to tell him things many times, he figures it out pretty quick. He's coming from a program in Syracuse (Christian Brothers Academy) that has played at a very high caliber, similar to Central Catholic, a private school that plays great football and he's been coached well, so he has a chance to bridge that gap a little quicker than others might.

On the depth of the defensive line:

Well, we hope to get Mick Williams back this week, we held him last week. He banged up his shoulder a little bit. (John) Malecki's playing better, Gus Mustakas is playing real good, Rashaad (Duncan) is playing real good. There's a part of me that, I wish a couple guys would really jump ahead of the pack, but that hasn't happened. Gus has probably been our most consistent defensive tackle and Joe Clermond has probably been our most consistent defensive end. Vernon (Botts) has been great. He's a senior that hasn't had many opportunities to play and we've played him at tackle, we've played him at end, (and) in the past he's been a tight end. The guy has already graduated, he's a smart guy. He's doing this because he loves it and he loves this school. So we'll move him out to end this week and he'll help us out there.

On Toledo's defense:

Defensively they run a combination of four down linemen then they'll jump into the three down linemen scheme. It's a somewhat complicated defensive scheme. Probably different than anybody else that we've played so far. A combination of what Virginia did and what Michigan State did would probably be a way to categorize these guys. They're coming off a two-game winning streak, we know that.

On Toledo's offense:

Offensively, they want to be balanced. Most of their passing game is a lot of movement passes. They've got three (running) backs that are players, they have an all-conference wide receiver, their tight end some people say is a definite pro prospect. They've got a good system in place. You can see that even though they've rotated quarterbacks they really haven't taken a step backwards.

On the size of Toledo's offensive line:

These guys will be as big as anybody we've played. Maybe not Michigan State but they'll be as big or bigger than Cincinnati, certainly The Citadel and probably comparable to Virginia. What's happened I think, is ...they've done a great job recruiting. Ohio State can only take so many players. Really, when it all comes down to it, we all know how many Division I players there are in the state of Ohio and these guys have done a great job recruiting, particularly at the line position. That's probably the one position where you will see the most change in a guy from when he was a freshman to when he is a senior. Size, strength and so forth. That's what they have, they have three seniors and two juniors on their starting offensive line, so they are a veteran group. They'll be a very, very good challenge for our young defense.

On Toledo's quarterbacks:

You'd like to be in position where the quarterback has to make a lot of plays, try to put some pressure on him. We can't do anything crazy and give up anything cheap, so there's always that balance.

They played the starter, (Brandon) Summers started the game and played the first quarter and into the third, then they brought in (Aaron) Opelt and he played the second (quarter) and then finished the game. Why? I don't know. They were ahead, they beat McNeese State pretty good last week, so that gave them the flexibility to do that. One looks like he's a little bit more athletic than the other but they didn't drastically change their offense when they rotated quarterbacks.

We're going to defend what they do. I think we have a pretty good feel for what they want to do philosophy-wise. We know these guys pretty good, they haven't changed much and they're going to come in and run their offense.

On the performance of Kevin Collier and Shane Brooks:

Kevin played good, it was an opportunity to evaluate him. A few mental mistakes on protections. I thought he ran hard and protected the ball. He was a little bit conservative. There was probably a few more yards to be had. He didn't try to do anything fancy and he protected the ball well. He was smart I think, for his first time playing. Overall he was fine. LaRod (Stephens-Howling) is healthy, so now we're in a situation where three guys can play, at least. You're nervous about sticking Kevin in the game, or anybody in the game for the very first time. Now he's got some playing time so you feel a lot better with him.

On the run game:

I'm not happy with our run game at all. We have a lot of work to do there. If we're going to be a good football team, we've got to find a way to run the ball more effectively. Big plays, sustaining blocks (are lacking). A combination of things, but to have a good running game you have to have pretty much everyone on the same page. One guy can miss a block or come off a block and the guy makes a tackle, while the other four or five guys all did their job. So it can be a little tricky. Our offensive line is playing a lot better as a group. I think the continuity of the group is outstanding. Paul Dunn (Pitt's offensive line coach) has done a great job of molding those guys after a year-and-a-half. Tyler's not holding the ball as long. Our offensive scheme has become a little bit more quarterback friendly. We're not sitting back there holding the ball. We haven't eliminated all of our deep-drop, seven-step passing game but we don't have much of it in. So we've got to give credit there to Matt Cavanaugh (Pitt's offensive coordinator) and the coaches. In the off-season, we looked at what can we really do with the guys that we have. Obviously (it's a matter then of) where our quarterback is throwing the ball and being accurate. Tyler is playing very well.

On Derek Kinder leading the nation in receiving yards:

We went into it with him being our possession guy but he's made some big plays and has given us a chance to score points.

On Brian Bennett's performance:

I thought he did very well. For his first time playing in a year, when he got hurt during last season, I thought he went in there and played well.

On Tommie Campbell returning from a one-game suspension:

Tommie Campbell will be back with us. He was here yesterday and we'll wait until later on in the week to name a starter (at the Will). We feel good about Brian (Bennett) getting in there and getting playing time. He got out of it healthy, he made some plays. Tommie is back and ready to go so we should be a little bit stronger at that position (Will linebacker).

On the performance of LaRod Stephens-Howling:

I love LaRod. The guy gets the most of what's there. Very seldom do you ever watch a play of LaRod and say I wish he would have gotten two more yards. He is a tough runner and he can take it the distance if he breaks one. I'm pleased with our backs, we just have to be careful. We have two freshmen and a sophomore. We can only go so fast and that's the challenge from a coaching standpoint, not to get ahead of ourselves.

On Toledo's offensive scheme:

No, they're not (still running the spread). In fact, they use their tight ends quite a bit. They'll do some spread but the tight end is involved with either three receivers or two tight ends and two receivers, at least 50, 60 percent of the time. They're almost always one-back, they don't use two (running) backs very often.