Wolverines Q&A: Hoke on Utah, Minnesota
9/22/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
By Steve Kornacki
Steve Kornacki of MGoBlue.com will sit down every Sunday night with Michigan coach Brady Hoke to discuss Saturday's game and look forward to the next opponent. The Wolverines lost, 26-10, to Utah and are set to open Big Ten play against Minnesota on Saturday (Sept. 27, 3:30 p.m.) at the Big House.
Q. What do you try to project to your team when things aren't going as planned?
A. I think what's important is the tone of how you go about your Sundays -- making sure that we're taking care of the little things. Making sure that, as coaches, we review what we did and how we could've helped. And you review -- did you put your playmakers in positions to make plays. Or did you have too much offense or too much defense or special teams.
Like, we had a miscommunication in the kicking game. We didn't have enough guys on the field (for one punt), and that starts with me. I've got to make sure we are communicating the right way and we don't have a miscommunication so that one guy doesn't go on the field. From a coaching aspect, we've got to make sure there is always somebody counting. And we covered that early in camp.
Q. Whose job is it to count?
A. You want two guys to do it -- your punter, he sees everybody, and your personal protector (set in the backfield). They have the best views. But that starts with us and making sure we get 11 guys on the football field. We all have to count.
Q. Could you expand a bit on setting the proper tone?
A. I think that one of the big things for us is hard work, and how we've gone about that. I think being positive and supporting each other is important, and I think this team has done that throughout. I think they've been prepared when they come out of that tunnel. When you look at the 12-play drive to start the game and getting a field goal, followed by a three-and-out on defense. We get the ball back and have a seven-play drive. We've got to have consistency, but we are doing a lot of good things.
We're not consistent enough ...
Q. That's at the essence of it, isn't it?
A. Yeah, it really is.
Q. You're resilient, and your players need to be. What do you do to assure that they are?
A. We've always done it different ways -- showing kids the good and the bad things that happened in the game. You've got to do both. The good things, you want to repeat. The bad things -- the missed blocks, the missed tackles, the missed vision on a cut, wrong routes, wrong sets by a quarterback, whatever it might be -- we've got to do a good job of showing the negatives. But we also need to be showing the things you want to see repeated. You want to show those.
We have one senior on offense and two juniors, and everybody else is a freshman or sophomore. And they're making great strides. I really believe that. And we've just got to keep pushing in that direction, and showing them the good things, and correcting like heck the things we don't do so well.
Q. You've got the Big Ten season starting with the Little Brown Jug game with Minnesota. It's a fresh start. What does that mean for you and your players?
A. I think it means a lot. I talked about the '98 team to our team. And I got a text from one of the players on that team today. It was from Jon Jansen. We talked about those first two games that year (both losses), and what we did to become Big Ten champions after that. I shared that, and I was a coach on that team. I talked about how that team came together, and started improving every week.
Q. That was an impressive accomplishment. You lost the first two games to Notre Dame and Syracuse, giving up a total of 74 points, and entered Big Ten play 1-2. But Michigan ran off eight straight wins in the Big Ten, and never allowed more than 17 points in any one game. You finished 10-3 and ranked No. 12 in the polls. Jansen was a captain on that team along with Juaquin Feazell. What has it been like for you to continue your relationship with Jansen now that he's a member of the media, working for the Big Ten Network?
A. Well, it's different obviously. But Jon is always somebody I've had so much respect for. Him being an offensive lineman, and me coaching the defensive line. There were battles every day -- him and Glen Steele, him and Ben Huff, him and James Hall. You name it. Jon was such a hard-working guy, and he did it every day. And because of that he was a two-time captain (also on the '97 national champions).
Q. Your quarterbacks, like those at every position, compete every week in practice. Talk about where Devin Gardner and Shane Morris are moving forward.
A. Well, we'll compete, like you said. We'll definitely do that, and we'll evaluate throughout the week and make a decision on where we need to go. I think both guys are very capable. Both guys have shown and had strong moments. And we'll just continue that process throughout. We talk about compete-and-challenge every day at every other position, and that's one of the things that we have to do that with.
Q. Devin Funchess missed one game and came back to make four catches for 82 yards against Utah. What did you see from him?
A. You know what, he took some shots. He got hit on the first catch and then the one over the middle that the safety had a bead on him. I think what Funch proved, as much as anything, is his ability to get the ball, his toughness. I think also his ability that you are sometimes human, too. I'd like for him to get two hands on the slant pass (that was tipped and intercepted). But he's a competitor, and I've liked what he's done so far.
Q. You had two plays that really jumped out in this game. One was the tackle by Jourdan Lewis on the 67-yard pass play to Bubba Poole, who had two blockers in front of him as he reached midfield. But Lewis came all the way from the other side of the field to tackle him at the 25-yard line. The other was a devastating block by tailback Justice Hayes. Talk about those two plays and what it takes for a player to make those kinds of plays.
A. Well, I think this. Those are the kind of guys who are in this program. Justice has been here going on four years, and his growth and his maturity and his toughness that he has come through. And Jourdan Lewis -- the toughness that it takes and the discipline in doing the little things of that effort. I think they both exemplify what we have here, and what we want to continue to build and breed here.
And those two plays, by those two young men ... I think they really stand for what this team is about. Those plays carry over, and they will be a couple of plays that we show during the week. Those are two plays we want to remind our guys of as examples of what we're doing as a football team.
Q. You've played four games now. What is it that you know now about this team, Team 135, that you might not have known before the opening game?
A. I would say that they're competitive, that they're hard working and have been. I think the execution and the consistency of the execution I think we all know has to be better. I think that the attention to details has to be better in everything that we're doing -- from a left offensive tackle on an outside running play having great footwork, paying attention to the details that we've got to make sure that we're positive with that.
Q. You had two hurry-up offenses on fourth-and-one that both resulted in successful first down plays. Talk about why you do that, and the keys to making those plays work.
A. It's part of the attention to details that our offense did a very good job on. As a coach, you always tend to focus on negatives. But when you see that executed flawlessly like that -- guys getting in position, guys getting set, the discipline of the push that we got, all those things ... it makes you happy. We caught them off guard a little bit the first time, and they can't get (the right) personnel on if they are looking to the sideline for a call. I think it's very effective and Devin (Gardner) has done a nice job with it and (center) Jack Miller did a great job with it. You've got snap and go forward, and that's tough duty.
