Today the 43rd annual Big Ten Media Days got underway in Chicago. The event is being held at the Hilton where reporters gathered to hear each coach give a “State of the Union” of sorts about their respective programs and then take questions from the media. In addition to the now 14 coaches, BTN President Mark Silverman, CFB Playoff COO Michael Kelly, and B1G Commissioner Jim Delany all spoke and held Q&A’s.
I am going to give some highlights from each coach and some thoughts on their demeanor or things I think I picked up on. The first thing though before I get to the coaches is that the ballroom where the session was held today was grand. If it is in the same location next year, we may all have to wear tuxedos:
The first coach up was Northwestern’s Pat Fitzgerald. He was pretty adamant about a couple things. First, he says his team is more unified than any other team in the country. Secondly, he wants to get back to playing Wildcat football:
“I think we lost track from, first of all, not sticking to what we value. You look at the way we didn’t respond very well from things that were out of our control, and that’s been the hallmark of our program. And that’s ultimately my responsibility as a leader. And so I took that personally this offseason, and we really worked hard in everything that we did to put our guys in difficult situations to force them to respond.”
Next up was Purdue’s Darrell Hazell who was excited about the upcoming season and the competition in the program. Here was his answer to the biggest area that needs to improve on the team:
“Well, I think it’s up front for both sides of the ball. I mean, obviously we didn’t play as well as we’d like to up front on the defensive line last year. We lost the edge way too many times. We have to be much more sound, gap sound. But also offensive line-wise, we have some very good young quarterbacks in our program right now. We have to be able to pass protect and be able to protect those guys. If we can do those two things on both sides of the ball, we’ll have some success.”
After that was Wisconsin’s Gary Andersen who was the first of many coaches to mention the positive of the new rule where coaches can spend some time with the players during the summer. Andersen says he would debate anyone who says their schedule is easy:
“So there is no easy Big Ten games. Anybody who thinks there is is sadly mistaken, and I’ll debate that with you as much as you want to debate it because you better strap it on and be ready every week in the Big Ten. So as far as the schedule goes, I disagree it’s an easier schedule or what have you. That’s my opinion.”
Next to speak with Illinois’ Tim Beckman who commented on his youthful but experienced team. There were a lot of questions about departing QB Nathan Scheelhaase but there was another QB in Aaron Bailey who was a topic of discussion:
“Well, Aaron Bailey is a quarterback. That’s what Aaron Bailey was recruited for. That’s what Aaron Bailey wants to do. He wants to line up at quarterback and lead the Fighting Illini. So he’ll be involved in that competition. There’s definitely a fight at that position. You’ve got three state champions. You sit in your quarterback room there Coach Cubit does, and they’ve got eight state championships just in that quarterback room. That’s outstanding. So Aaron Bailey will be competing for us at quarterback, and we’ll see how that ends up and how that competition ends up for Aaron’s sake.”
The next coach at the mic was Michigan’s Brady Hoke who I could describe as a bit salty during his Q&A. He didn’t want to be too quick to anoint incoming freshman CB Jabrill Peppers which is understandable. However, I found his answer quite curious when asked about feeling the pressure for his job this year:
“You know, why do you coach? I mean, why do you really coach? If we’re doing everything we can for 115 guys, sons on our roster, from the graduation, since we’ve been there, 69 of 69 seniors have graduated. That’s important. Because football’s only going to last so long. So the only pressure is every day preparing those guys for life after football. Competition, hard work and all that, that’s part of it. But socially and academically, that’s a big part of it. So when you talk about that, that’s the only pressure as a coach that I’ve ever felt – making sure we’re doing it for the student-athletes.”
New to the Big Ten Rutgers’ Kyle Flood was the next man up. He talked about being excited to be in the conference and how it is the premier academic/athletic conference in the country. The most interesting concept he introduced was recruiting the “State of Rutgers.”
“I think recruiting is always about finding the right people for your culture. I think that’s where it begins and ends. Certainly as we recruit, we recruit what’s called the State of Rutgers. And the State of Rutgers begins in New Jersey, but it also includes southeastern New York, eastern Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and we’ve always traditionally recruited Florida. So that’s been our recruiting footprint, and that will not change. What I will tell you is the Big Ten schools, whether it’s our neighbor to the west, our neighbor to the south or any other traditional programs in the Big Ten, have always recruited New Jersey. And that hasn’t changed. And what’s important to me is that we find the right players that are right for Rutgers.”
Fresh of his team’s surprise year, Jerry Kill felt like his team had a good summer. He was asked about how to get his program to continue taking steps forward:
“I think there’s no question we want to continue to improve on what we did last year. And we won eight games, and I think anytime you go into the Big Ten and if you don’t have a mission to win the Big Ten, then why play? And I think our kids, they’re like anybody else. It’s a new season and that’s our mission statement, and the same way last year, but we have to build on what we did a year ago and continue to make progress. And that’s part of having a team that is hungry to play, and as I said starving right now. And I think in the offseason — we don’t have a lot of mottos. Some places, you go all over, they have a whole bunch of mottos. But my whole life, and anybody I’ve ever coached, is work hard. That’s the key to success, work hard. And where I was at when I was at Northern Illinois, we talked about it and we’re talking about it now, is that we have to do it the hard way. But that’s the way that our coaching staff, that’s the culture that we’ve created, our whole coaching careers, and we know we’ve gotta do it the hard way and we look forward to it. That’s kind of, so to speak, our team image right now.”
The reigning Big Ten champ coach MSU’s Mark Dantonio was up next. Dantonio has a dry humor you just have to get used to. He did have a good line when asked about keeping the fire burring in the MSU/UM rivalry when he said “I live in Michigan, that ought to do it.” Here is what he had to say about dealing with the attention that comes with a successful program:
“I think the Big Ten Conference, you’ve always got attention coming your way. And it’s what you do with that and how you handle that. So what we’ve tried to talk about, really, is how do we handle success now. We’ve had success. We’ve gotten to a point where we’ve done some special things. What’s on our agenda next, how do we handle that success, and that’s really going to be one of the biggest things we’ll have to deal with this year. I think we’re a little bit more of the hunted. That’s a good place to be, but it’s also a very precarious place to be as well.”
Nebraska’s Head Coach Bo Pelini came up next. He was asked a lot of non football questions which was slightly odd given the question makes surrounding this team. He was asked about the run/pass split goals coming into the season given the stable of running backs:
“First of all, you have to establish the running game. It’s always important. To win a championship — I think it’s been shown over a long period of time — you have to be able to run the football. You look at even a lot of the great teams that have played, have come through this conference, back to Coach Alvarez when he turned around Wisconsin, Coach Tressel when he was at Ohio State and really what Michigan State was able to do last year, Ohio State when they’ve gone on their runs, you’ve got to be able to run the football. And that’s always a necessity. You’ve got to be able to do that. You’ve got to stop the run, but you have to have balance. We always talk about that. We want to have balance. We’ve been about a 60/40 run-pass team, and I believe at the end of the day you’d like to get as close to 50/50 as you possibly can. But I think when it comes down to it, you want to be able to do what you want to do when you want to do it. And that means you’ve got to be able to execute in every phase of the game.”
The other new kid in school, Maryland was up next with Randy Edsall. He also talked about how happy he was to be in the conference of course. He was asked his thoughts on their first conference home game against Ohio State:
“Well, I think it will be electric. I think it will be a sold-out crowd. It will be something that I know our fans are looking forward to. Ohio State is a program with great tradition and history and one that has done very, very well. And it will be something that I think everybody that’s in attendance and everybody that gets a chance to watch on TV wished that they were there, because I think it will be a ton of excitement, one that I know we’re looking forward to as well as all the other games we’re going to play.”
Urban Meyer stepped up next and talked a lot about Braxton Miller’s health and keeping him upright. Other than talking about getting good LB play and the WRs being able to carry more of the load this year, Braxton was the topic of his time. Here is where getting the OL figured out to help Braxton ranks heading into the season:
“Concern number one. I mean, that’s it. There’s a bunch of concerns you always have. It’s A through F, A through Z, A through X, whatever it is. But the number one on the list is development of that offensive line for the reasons you just said, among many others. You want to win that game, but protecting our quarterback is paramount. So that’s — I don’t want to say that’s all our focus — but that’s where a lot of our focus is right now.”
First year Penn State Head Coach James Franklin was up next and you can tell that he can work a crowd. Franklin talked a bunch about QB Christian Hackenberg saying he has all the tools. He also essentially said he has sneaky athleticism. However, his most interesting answer came on a question about how he left Vandy:
“Well, this is what I’ve learned. There’s no good way to leave. When you invest so much in a place and you invest so much in people, there’s no good way to leave. There’s going to be hurt feelings. I’ve read a lot of different ways the way people leave, and we tried to do it the right way. We stayed, had a team meeting, addressed the team and said goodbye. But I hope over time that people look back and realize how much we cared and how much we invested in that program and in those kids and in that community. That’s what I hope.”
I believe that Indiana’s Kevin Wilson was the coach to mention the conference getting into the eastern time zone and expanding the footprint instead of just welcoming Rutgers and Maryland. Here were his comments about the new divisions:
“We’re excited to be part of the Big Ten East. Being in the Eastern Time zone with our recruiting region and whatnot. We’re really excited with the opportunity with Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State, Maryland and Rutgers. So we’re really excited about the east brand going.”
Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz closed the session out for the coaches. He talked about how good it would be to play Illinois for the first time since 2008. He was asked his thoughts on the coming CFB Playoff:
“I think, certainly, everybody’s talked about that nationally, and I think it’s been a good step certainly, personal commentary. I think that model always made sense. I say “always,” going back 10, 15 years ago. I think it’s been good for the game certainly, and our game is a very popular game anyway, so probably just one more step to enhance the whole picture.”
In addition to all the coaches, BTN President Mark Silverman spoke about the network and its future. Then CFB Playoff COO Michael Kelly gave a nice presentation explaining the Playoff. The biggest news from him was that the rankings would drop every Tuesday starting October 28th. Lastly, B1G Commissioner Jim Delany closed the day out. He feels like the new “Power 5” governance model will be passed on Aug 7th. He also feels that the big five conferences need to get together and figure out a way to not be overrun by the compliance issues plaguing college football.
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