Wolverines Q&A: Hoke on Notre Dame, Miami University
9/8/2014 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, 31-0, at Notre Dame and are set to host Miami University at 3:30 p.m. this Saturday (Sept. 13).
Q. What did you learn after watching videotape of Saturday night's game at Notre Dame that you perhaps didn't realize while coaching on the sideline?
A. No. 1, and I felt this on the sideline, too. I felt on both sides of the ball and in the kicking game, the kids played hard. The preparation was good, how we traveled and the itinerary, everything when you travel was good. And on the sideline, they were a team. I thought they played with good effort. There was nothing to show you otherwise.
I think there are some real positives that were good. And that's hard to swallow when you get shut out. We have some growing pains we have to go through. But we've got to execute better on both sides of the ball. We need to execute with the fundamentals and the techniques better. We've got to take care of the football, and that's premium. We're minus-five in turnover margin in two games, and that usually doesn't speak well. And so we've got to do a better job, and I have all the confidence in the world that we will. We've got to get the ball back and create some opportunities and create some short fields. When you look at the first two series, the offense has the ball and they've got rhythm and they're sustaining drives. You miss a field goal, you miss another field goal, and that's frustrating. The thing I liked is that defensively, when the turnovers happened, I think at the end of the day they got three points from turnovers. And so they responded from a defensive perspective.
Do we have things that we need to do better? Yeah, there's no question. And that starts with putting guys in good positions so we know they can be successful. We want to make sure that from a standpoint offensively -- I think we had nine plays of lost yardage. Two of them were rushing, two of them were penalties. One of them was a fumble, and two of them were on passes. And there were two sacks. So, you look at that.
It wasn't that we couldn't run the ball. You look at some pretty good runs in there. I think the protection was better than you may perceive. I think people, in their minds, they probably have the last one on fourth-and-whatever. But for the most part, we were getting on the right guys. We've got to get a little stouter once in a while. The quarterback's got to move and slide in the pocket. They gave us a lot of different looks. They got more out of the I-(formation) front than we thought we'd get from them. At the same time, the kids on the front did a pretty good job, and the backs did a pretty good job.
Q. You touched on the need for creating more turnovers. What's the key in creating more turnovers?
A. I think there are two different types of turnovers. There are fumbles, and it's how many bodies you can get to the ball. The second guy in can rip at it or punch it or you put your face on the football, whatever it might be. But when you have somebody in there to recover the football, it means you have good pursuit and all that. And we've had that. The other way is through the passing game -- jumping routes, playing tighter in your coverage, obviously pressure on a quarterback to get it away.
And I think when you look at the way they played. They wanted to keep the ball in (quarterback Everett Golson's) hands or throwing it. And I think they found out they couldn't run the football (31 carries for 54 yards), and so you've got a lot of three-step (drops), and you've got a lot of quick throws. But at the same time, there were enough times when we were a step away on some of the drop-backs. And he does a good job of slowing you down a lot because of his ability to run. But I think the guys did a nice job. I think he had to throw four balls away in the course of the game. And so we applied some pressure with the four-man rush without the end result of getting him down or him making a bad throw.
Q. What were some of the other positives you saw on film?
A. I think the kicking game, we didn't kick as well even though the average (42.5 yards per kick) was good. But I thought we covered well there, and that was big. The ability to compete and challenge in all phases. Dennis (Norfleet) has gotten a little return on the edge if you don't take that one out. But that's a guy trying to make a play, and I have no problem with that. Kickoff coverage, because (Notre Dame) had had some good returns the week before. Matt (Wile) kicked the ball well on kickoffs, and I think they only had one chance to return. And it was a 16-yard return. You know, the coverage was really, really good. I think we put good pressure on the punter and had a chance on two of them, and Mike McCray was close like he was the week before (in blocking a punt against Appalachian State).
We've just got to execute.
Matt's been a great kicker, and he just has to settle down a little bit. On the first one, I think he kicked it out, and it never quite came back (on a missed 46-yard attempt). I think on the second one (from 48 yards), he rushed it. But the snap was good, the hold was good. And his plant foot slipped.
Q. You get asked questions about injuries at every press conference. Do you want to explain why it is that you don't want to discuss injuries?
A. No. 1, you want to be forthright and all of that stuff. But what happens is you say a guy may be alright, and all of a sudden he's not progressing through the week like we thought he would. He has a setback, and all of a sudden he doesn't play. And then everybody thinks you're trying to hide something. But that's not the purpose. No. 2, it's to protect the kids for where they're at. I think in general we just don't need to talk about them.
There was a player, I really thought he was going to be ready to play. And all of a sudden on Thursday he's running around a little bit and looks alright. Well, on Friday, it's not looking good. That's why we put him out in pregame (drills). And then we decided we are not going to use him. And I know it was the right decision because he wasn't full speed. And not having him, that factors in a little bit.
Q. Your goal is still out there to win the Big Ten championship. Talk about that and what you need to move your team forward at this point.
A. Well, this was the first big test. There were some things we did well in it, but there are things we didn't do as well. So, you take the things that we did well and repeat them. And getting back to some fundamentals and techniques with some of the main coverage issues we had, some of the alignment issues, some of the offensive schematics, the simplicity a little bit would be something that we would look at. So, there's some really good things to learn from. But at the end of the day, it's one game. And it's one we take very seriously -- no question about it. But the goal is still there for the Big Ten championship, and we've got to improve every week as we go forward.
Q. You talked last week about the great energy and enthusiasm that you got from your fans at Michigan Stadium. You have three games coming up with Miami (Ohio), Utah and Minnesota all at home. What is important in maintaining that attitude?
A. There's no question that you want to win wherever you play. But winning at Michigan Stadium and playing in front of our fans -- we've got the greatest fans in the country -- they get impatient, believe me, we get impatient. But they love their Wolverines, and we want to go out there and play our best every time we go down that tunnel. Being at home for three weeks is going to be a lot of fun for us as a team. And playing in front of our students. Our students, the first week, were amazing. And our guys felt it and fed off that. Hopefully, we'll have the same kind of turnout.
Q. You've played against Mid-American Conference teams many times as a player and a coach. What do you expect from Miami (Ohio)?
A. You know they have such a rich tradition, when you look at the history of football in the Midwest. You see Bo Schembechler, Woody Hayes, Ara Parseghian, who all coached there. And my dad (John) played there. They've got great tradition, and I was telling the kids and going through the tradition and talking about how they'll come in here and they have a quarterback (Andrew Hendrix) who's a transfer from Notre Dame, who came with Chuck Martin, the head coach, who was the offensive coordinator at Notre Dame. I see very similar a lot of things offensively -- throwing the ball all over the park. And they've run 175 plays in two games. So, they want to have a tempo to what they're doing.
Q. Is it a spread offense?
A. They can get into the spread looks, but they are going to get into the jet sweep, and they are going to have the zone keep and all that kind of stuff. And so it will be similar to what we just played (at Notre Dame).
Q. Back to your dad. Who did he play for at Miami?
The head coach was Coach Hayes. Bo was a junior, I think, when my dad was a freshman. My dad played two years there and went into the military.
My dad played at Tipp City, just north of Dayton, and Woody would come and go to church with him on Sunday. And grandma Hoke would fix a Sunday meal after church or he would take my dad for breakfast. It's when you could do that when recruiting players. It's kind of neat.
