Bielema Addresses Media Monday
September 25, 2006 | Football
University of Wisconsin head football coach Bret Bielema addressed the media Monday afternoon to answer questions about the team's game against Indiana this Saturday in Bloomington, Ind.
A complete transcription of the news conference follows below. A video archive of the news conference can be found by clicking on the red "Audio/Video/Photos" link on the right side of the page.
BRET BIELEMA: After having a chance to sit back and watch the film, we realize there 's several phases of the game that we can improve on, some things we did well in, but overall, in the first Big Ten game, some things that we as coaches really feel that we can correct in a short amount of time. It was our second road game, the first time played probably in that loud of an environment on the road with a hostile crowd, so there 's some growing pains that we need to go through there.
But some special performances, as noted in our release. Offensively, Joe Thomas probably played his most complete game of the season, a good football performance for him. Defensively, Nick Hayden played well a week ago. Going into this game, we felt we needed to name him as our fourth captain, did a great job on Saturday.
Special teams, Taylor Mehlhaff because of his kicking from, the field goal opportunity that he was presented with as well as his kickoffs. And then our offensive scout team player of the week, Jerry Butler, who also subs with us on our special teams, and defensive scout, Kirk DeCremer. Kirk is doing a great job setting himself up for an opportunity to be a special player here at the University of Wisconsin.
In preparation of this week's opponent, I'd be remiss if I didn 't say anything about Indiana University's head coach, Terry Hoeppner, who's been well documented missed the last couple weeks. I've had a few opportunities to be around Coach and know that he's very highly regarded in this profession. And it's great to know that he'll be back on the sidelines this week and be able to lead his team into our game on Saturday. With that, I'll answer any questions.
QUESTION #1: Bret, it seems like the last couple years one side of the ball has been far ahead of the other and carried a bigger load. You know, two years ago it was defensive, last year offense. Have you ever seen it cause any problem among the players, or do you think they handle that situation pretty well'
BIELEMA: No, I don't think so, partly because of the way the leadership was established when I first came here. Coach Alvarez didn't allow that to happen. And if you're referring back to my first year here, defensively we had a lot of seniors and a lot of guys that had put in some valuable playing experience here, and we were significantly more successful, especially early in the season, if you think back to the Central Michigan game, UNLV, different situations that came up that year.
And then last year, kind of the flipside of it, you look at the way that Bowling Green 's game started out. Defensively we had a bunch of new starters, didn't perform overly well in that first game, and our offense was able to keep us in the game and eventually win it. I mean, that kind of went back and forth. Then the North Carolina game was a little bit of a flipside. So if you handle it correctly with your coaches, your players will take the lead. And I don't have any indication that that won 't be the case now.
QUESTION #2: Bret, you mentioned the return of Coach Hoeppner. A couple of the guys said yesterday that you pointed that out, that they need to be prepared for an emotional day for Indiana. How long can something like that carry a team' Is it a quarter, is it a series, is it a half, a whole day'
BIELEMA: I believe it can happen all the way through the course of practice this week and through the game. And it's not so much whether you like a coach or what. It 's whether you respect a coach. I learned very early on in my career that it 's not guaranteed that they respect you just because the word coach is printed on your shirt or your coat. It's how you handle them and how you react with them to the things that go well as well as the things they don't do well. And my guess is they're going to be able to put a four-quarter game in because of the respect they have for Coach Hoeppner.
QUESTION #3: Coach, John (Stocco) arguably had his best game of the season through the air. But if you look at the stats on the receiving end of the ball, it seemed to be all P.J. and Travis, Andy Crooks. Is it a concern that the wide receivers aren't really being able to find themselves on the stats sheet quite as much'
BIELEMA: No. I like it because you saw Xavier Harris . . . in there with a reception, his first opportunity to do so. Isaac Anderson had, I believe, two catches, if I'm not mistaken. So there were some things that got spread around. I'm excited. You know, Travis Beckum caught five balls. That's a significant improvement from when he dropped, you know, maybe an opportunity the week before. I didn't see him put anything on the ground that we felt he had a chance to get his hands on.
And it was a growing experience for our guys to get to where they are right now. And just even going to last night's practice, to me, there's a little 15-minute session we call pat and go, where it's just basically receivers versus air, and I notice just a little bit more increase of an intensity to get the timing of everything down between the quarterbacks and receivers.
QUESTION #4: Obviously there was a lot of atmosphere at the Big House. I don't think there will be quite as much atmosphere this week. How do you think your team will react to a really different kind of a setting on the road and a different kind of team '
BIELEMA: Well, Tom, as you know, the numbers are going to be dramatically different, but every stadium in the Big Ten Conference tries to build home-field advantage, and Coach Hoeppner has installed the rock philosophy and nicknamed his stadium that and really is trying to get his kids to buy into that fact as well as their fans. So I know that they 're going to be hostile crowd, as loud as they can be.
Our kids need to understand that they have had a road game now where supposedly, you know, the volume was going to be a factor or the presence of the band or Hail to the Victors or all that went with it, and all our guys did is went out and tried to put their best foot forward and had an opportunity to be successful early on, which is encouraging to us.
QUESTION #5: Coach, with the running game, what exactly did you see on film, breaking it down, things you can improve on, what P.J. could have done especially toward later in the game'
BIELEMA: Well, P.J. in particular, there were certain plays where he probably could have been a little bit more north and south on. There was times where, as a play developed, he could have got it up. I did like his ball security. I like the fact that we won the turnover battle. But the biggest thing we've got to be able to understand is we need to have productivity for four quarters. At times we were successful. At certain times during a series we were successful and then turned around and tried the same thing later on and weren't able to do it.
A little bit has to do with the way they were able to perform. My hat goes off to Michigan and what they were able to do. I think at halftime they probably had a little bit of a meeting that needed to have them step up and play better, and that's what they did. They executed. And the part that our kids need to understand is, that was a veteran group that our guys knew coming in, and they needed to be able to understand. And now they can have a film to reflect back for four quarters of what it means to play that way for that entire time.
QUESTION #6: Bret, after four games, is there any particular level or area of special teams that concerns you any more than the others' Obviously you have an award, you know, given out to your punter this week, but anything that stands out that needs . . .
BIELEMA: Well, the positives that we have is we know that we have a good kicker and we have a good punter and we have players that we feel can execute what we want on special teams. Saturday was the first time, in my opinion, where I can sit back and watch the film and I didn't think we had won in any particular phase for the entire four quarters.
You take the opening punt, we fly down the field, we get a guy hit immediately. They changed up, went some double vise, which meant our interior men had to cover a little bit better, and we were not as productive as we'd like to see in that department in particular. And then a guy that I've bragged on endlessly, and here Zach had the un-fortune, giving that turnover at the end of the game, but I felt that he was also trying to press, trying to make something big happen.
It was a day that I know our guys will take a step forward from here. And, special teams have been a huge emphasis for us, and they've been a very positive thing for us in the first three games. We took a step back on Saturday, and we need to make an understanding that the reason why that happened and how we need to correct it. Again, you know, when you have a team that's pretty good on offense and good on defense, that usually carries over into the special teams phases as well.
And, a concern that I had last week and something that I'm sure someone is going to ask the question at some point, you know, last week we learned that Shane Carter and Aubrey Pleasant weren't going to be with us for the first time. And we made that, we didn't have the doctors' information in our hands until Monday, which means we were putting two new, Aubrey and Shane basically started on every phase of the kicking game for us in all three games, to have those guys step up and the people that took their spots on Tuesday's and Wednesday's practice, it was their, in reality, their first game.
QUESTION #7: Back to the running game just for a second, I think that was the first time you guys didn't at least give Lance Smith a little look in the game. Was that because of road game, he's a freshman, or you guys just didn't feel comfortable using him on Saturday'
BIELEMA: No, it was, you know, I have had the same pre-game meeting with all my coaches and asked the game plan to get Lance in the game, and really felt that P.J. came out in that opening drive in particular and some drives there soon after that showed us he was into the game. And we like Dywon (Rowan) in certain situations. Had every intention to put Lance out there, just wasn't able to because of the flow of the game. And then when things got flipped on us a little bit and started going to the air, we just felt better with P.J. or Dywon back there.
QUESTION #8: Coach, is this team capable of making the big plays when they need to ' And in the second half of the game, why didn't we see you guys maybe go for the deep threat, maybe a trick play, something to open up the offense after the offense was struggling'
BIELEMA: Well, the part about big plays, on the offensive side, on the defensive side, and special teams, that's what can energize a crowd and get everybody going in the right direction. Defensively we had some opportunities to do that, but on the same account, we gave up two big plays in particular. The long balls to Manningham were kind of heartbreakers. Those are ones that ultimately decided the game from a defense standpoint.
Offensively we made some plays early on. P.J. was a recipient of both of those. But we 'd like to be able to do something in the passing game, but haven't been able to find that guy. As far as trying to get the ball down the field, a little bit of being able to get down the field has to do with how fast you have to get the ball off. And, we had a couple opportunities to do that. There were two.
If you really critiqued the film and sit back and truly appreciate what's going on, there were two tipped balls that were going down the field that I think had a chance to be big hits for us, but, unfortunately, the ball never got past the line of scrimmage.
QUESTION #9: Now your team gets its first chance to try to see if it can bounce back from a loss this season. What do you need, what is the most important thing you need to show your team to help be that leader and getting them to bounce back' And in turn, what do you need to see from them this week to put them in that position to be ready to bounce back'
BIELEMA: Well, the biggest thing is on Sunday. I expected to see some long faces, including my coaches. And the biggest thing that you have to do as a head coach is understand exactly where you're at and where you think you can be by the end of the week and give them that plan. I took a step out of the norm yesterday in our meeting.
Usually I show three plays of offense, defense, and special teams, and what I really wanted them to understand is, I took our nine team goals that they voted on before the season, did a quick review of where we're at and what was left in front of us to kind of give them an understanding of where we are and where we can end up, the first of which was 1-0 mentality.
And I felt going into the Michigan game, as well as going into this week's preparation, our team has bought into that philosophy and that idea. The flipside of 1-0 is sometimes, when you don't get the win on Saturday, you have to make them quickly understand that if they prepare the same way and execute what we need to Sunday through Friday in preparation for Saturday, they have an opportunity to go 1-0 again. And I don 't see our guys getting off that track at all.
QUESTION #10: Coach, you just talked about the big plays from Manningham. In any week of preparation, are you going to focus on plays like that or maybe the positives that Allen Langford had with a couple interceptions'
BIELEMA: Well, Allen did. He came up with the two picks, and both of them were based off of good technique and body position. He'd be the first to tell you on one of those touchdowns he didn't use great technique and resulted in a score. So, Allen is a player that was heavily involved in that game because of where he's from and let alone going to the Big House and everything that goes into it.
And Allen Langford is'you guys interview him. If you can get him to say four sentences in a row, you're doing good, better than I ever have. He's just a guy that quietly goes about his business. I really think that he could probably take the experiences from Saturday, not only the positive ones, but the negative ones, and grow that much more.
QUESTION #11: Bret, you mentioned Pleasant and Carter. I assume because they played this year we're talking medical waivers. And has that been finalized yet or is it still in the pipeline'
BIELEMA: With the NCAA, Jeff, certain things take a certain amount of time. And we knew the, by law, the way the NCAA sets up redshirting, and we're aware of what the numbers were that we needed to stay within, if they played, basically if they were a starter for three games and then were, you know, put in a situation where they are unable to perform anymore, you would be able to give them a redshirt year.
But another classic example of that, just on the flipside, look at Jamal Cooper last year. It was the third game, the North Carolina game, where he became injured, but Jamal had previously used a redshirt voluntarily his freshman year, which meant he was unable to go back and appeal for another medical redshirt, whereas Shane and Aubrey played last year as true freshmen and now they have this medical redshirt, which, you know, is the true interpretation of what the NCAA wanted, you know, to use that extra year for.
QUESTION #12: Coach, you know, obviously talking a lot about the secondary, what they did with Manningham last week, but do you anticipate Indiana maybe even having even more receivers and maybe going to the air even more than Michigan would have'
BIELEMA: Well, George, they actually put more receivers on the field. Indiana's favorite personnel grouping by far is one back, four wide receivers, ten personnel, and that is consistent to what they did a year ago to where they are right now. Their two quarterbacks are a little bit different. One is a little bit more of a thrower. One is more of a runner.
And, what we expect on Saturday is being able to execute a plan off of what they 've seen on film against us, and obviously quarterbacks have been able to run the football a little bit against us, and that's where we probably see more of that going too.
QUESTION #13: Any injury update on Paul Hubbard or Elijah Hodge'
BIELEMA: Paul Hubbard has re-aggravated a previous injury, but expecting to indicate everything will be, he was out there running yesterday, so we're not going to miss a beat there. And then Elijah should have a full recovery by Saturday.
QUESTION #14: And, Bret, Indiana has used three different quarterbacks this year. When you go about preparing for a team, you don't want to put too much information in your players' heads, so how do you go about saying, okay, this is, you know, how do you break that down'
BIELEMA: Well, the two that have played in particular the last game are guys that, you know, we've seen one before and the new one is a freshman. So we just need to keep moving in the direction, as a football, especially on the defensive side, it's more about reacting to what you see in front of you. When they're lined up in a 10 formation, you know, with the four wide receivers, basically you need to be two-by-two or three-by-one, and they like to feature certain things and certain looks out of both of those.
And we need to be able to have, you know, at least two answers for each formation set and be able to execute the plan. The great news is we've already kind of played some teams that have this look, as well as now this is their fourth game. I like the fact that our defensive players are playing better as the season goes along because of what they 've seen on film and what they've been coached to do. It's just, it was unfortunate for us, our first three opponents, everybody had just played one game, you know, so it was a little bit difficult to get any type of tendency or preparation.
QUESTION #15: Bret, there was a point during the game where you were on the sidelines in the midst of about three or four officials. I think it was after they picked up a flag on a Michigan punt return. I'm just curious what you were trying to accomplish in that conversation. And you also alluded to something, that some calls you had sent in to the Big Ten office had come back to you. It sounded like you were saying that every call we thought was wrong was validated when we sent that in to the big office.
BIELEMA: Well, I can't say what I did or didn't say. I know that when I was in a conversation with them, the main issue that I was dealing with was exactly what you're talking about. A flag had been thrown and then been picked up. I asked for the mechanics of it.
One thing you're well versed in, and I, you know, appreciate the Big Ten Conference for doing so, is they want you to understand what certain roles each official, whether it be a side judge, a back judge, a red or an umpire, what his mechanics are on each play. I knew who had thrown the flag and I wanted to know why the flag was picked up, because as is the case every week as a head coach, you need to sit back and understand why certain things were called. And if you don't agree with them, just send them in to the Big Ten office and you'll get your answers.
QUESTION #16: What was the answer you got on the flag . . .
BIELEMA: The guy that threw the flag picked it up. That was the answer I got. I asked how often that occurred, and they said that it happens. I just hadn't seen it before.
QUESTION #17: So when you have disputes with the officials, what do you teach your kids about dealing with officials and disputes and questionable calls'
BIELEMA: Well, kids don't deal with officials. A great saying you learned early on as a coach, when you go to the game, there's three people that are going to be on that field. Players are going to play. Coaches are going to coach. Officials are going to officiate. I was very clear with our players before the season ever started, and also with my coaches, that the only people I want to have dealing with the officials is myself.
There are certain times when my assistants have to deal with them. For instance, Henry Mason, when he is getting ready to send our offense on the field, Paul Chryst is upstairs who gives the call, because of the way time management happens now, when the, if you want to entertain yourself, just sit in the back and watch the official come out on the numbers. And when he walks away, when the back judge walks away, that's 30 seconds until they break from the commercial.
After they break from the commercial, within five seconds the clock will actually start for the 25 seconds, which means that's the amount of time we have to go out there and get the ball to be snapped. There are just some mechanics that go into it that my assistants have to deal with it, but I just feel as the head coach that's something I need to be in any conversations with.
QUESTION #18: We haven't had a chance to talk to Paul Chryst yet, so I 'll pose this to you. When you've got six three-and-outs in a row on offense, how frustrating is that' You know, do you not know where to turn, or did you feel there were things you could attack against Michigan's defense on offense '
BIELEMA: Well, the thing I appreciate Paul is, there's probably nobody more diligent in preparing not only himself but his coaches as well as his players on what the plan is. And, there are certain things that unfold during the course of the game that are going to have to have you deviate from your plan, and one of them was to go to the two-minute situation at the end. You know, got a little bit of rhythm, and, John was able to do so.
But what we wanted to do is we also understood, for us to have success, we wanted to be able to grind out some things, try and be able to put our offense and give our defense a little bit of time off the field and he wasn't able to have success. And he went through a couple different options, but as coaches, you always sit back and there 's things that you wish you could change. But the best news is, we all learn from yesterday's opportunities and move on to the next.
QUESTION #19: Expand a little bit on first-down production, especially down the stretch '
BIELEMA: Well, for six series there wasn't. There's not much to expand upon. You know, so we have to make an understanding and put ourselves in a position to have success. The best thing is, you know, as we develop as a team, you have to understand what players you're going to be able to rely on to give you that first-down play.
It's been seen that P.J. can run the ball on first down. But on the same account, he hasn't been 100 percent on his reads. If you throw on first down, you 've got to have pretty good confidence if you call something that's going to be there, that you want that ball to be caught as well, so it's a little bit of a trial and tribulation until we figure that part out.
QUESTION #20: Bret, Michigan set up a lot of points with their punt returns. After looking at the video, is that more (Steve) Breaston's ability, or is that, you 're a little concerned about your guys' effort on those particular plays '
BIELEMA: I'm not concerned with the effort. Breaston is a good football player and, as has been said, he's the most decorated player in Michigan's history as far as yardage in the punt return game. We knew that going into it. There were things that happened during the course of the game I think that greatly affected his production, as those things unfolded.
It was a little bit of a difficult task for us to get through, but they persevered, and, you know, there wasn't one that was covered correctly the whole way, but on the same account, there wasn't anything mechanical or anything that we have to make sure that we change. It's just a matter of getting off at the line of scrimmage and getting downfield a little better.
QUESTION #21: Are you getting what you expected out of Bill Rentmeester, and how would you evaluate that'
BIELEMA: Well, Billy has been thrust into the action. Josh is backing him up, but for the most part, you see Billy in there most of the time, and he's still kind of finding his way through it. There were times on Saturday where he won and other times where it wasn't a win-win for him. So the thing I like about Billy is, he's a player that's into it. As a coach, you can only ask for someone to give their best effort, and he's definitely doing that.
