UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 7, 2009

Rich Rodriguez

Q. Talk about the efforts of your special teams.
COACH RODRIGUEZ: I felt they were pretty solid, a lot of young guys playing for the first time. I didn’t do the exact count, but somebody told me it was like 28 players that we had playing for the first time in the big house. We saw them at the end of the game, but there were a lot of first time players at the beginning of the game, with meaningful time on special teams.
I thought Zoltan punted very well, very pleased with the way Jason kicked, I thought Brian Wright kicked off very well.
We made some mistakes, some typical first game mistakes all across the board, also on special teams, but nothing we didn’t feel needed to be corrected. Normally after the first game you maybe replace four or five guys on different special teams unit, and we may change two or three spots, but other than that, I thought it was solid.

Q. Offensively what changed in the second half?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Well, in the third quarter we just had really the two series, and one we scored on and we had the holding penalty. And then the fourth quarter, we didn’t execute as well, but a little bit of — we changed a little bit to try to — we ran more of our kill-the-clock offense and didn’t show as much. We still were trying to score, but the execution wasn’t quite as sharp.
And then we went into — let’s see, we’re going to need to see if we can kill the clock, kill some time off the clock and some tight game, so we went into that mode on offense.

Q. Didn’t that give Notre Dame more of your real offense to look at?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: I think they saw quite a bit in the first half anyway, but there was no need to show anything other than — special or anything like that at the end of the game.

Q. Just in general what did you learn about your team maybe that you didn’t know going into the weekend?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Well, I thought going in that they’d play hard and that they would execute better, particularly offensively, being the second year. What I didn’t know is how the freshmen quarterbacks would play and how we would do with the new scheme defensively.
There were times on defense we were scrambling to get lined up. There was a missed assignment here and there, but overall I thought for the first time out of the gates defensively in the new scheme they handled it pretty well.

Q. Personnel-wise did anybody surprise you?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, I was really pleased with the composure of the guys playing for the first time. That was one aspect of it. Sometimes you talk about the quarterbacks, and that’s the obvious, but also like Craig Roh, who’s a true freshman who started for the first time, and I was really pleased. I’m sure all those guys were nervous, but Craig played very, very well. I thought the freshmen quarterbacks in particular handled themselves pretty well.

Q. Will you feel a strong need to play Nick Sheridan since Tate and Denard performed the way they did Saturday?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Sure. Nick, it’s more of a week by week, a feel thing, just like it was Saturday. I was pleased that we were able to get all three of those guys in at meaningful times.
Nick made the one mistake with the interception, but he also made some really solid plays before that, and the touchdown was a great play by Nick. Nick is there, but I’m not going to have a set rotation per se. But we will continue to do what we did in the next several weeks what we did this past week.

Q. Will you start Tate again?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, Tate will start, unless he has a really bad week at practice. If he has a really bad week at practice, then we may make a change.

Q. Any guys get nicked up in the game?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Speaking of injuries, I don’t know if we talked about it. I think to make it easier on you all and certainly to make it easier on us, what we’ll do, I kind of adopt the same — I tried to get it adopted league-wise like they do in the ACC, but for whatever reason it didn’t pass, but what we want to do is give you a report on Thursday just like the NFL does of who’s doubtful, who’s probable, who’s out, and that way we don’t have to answer questions all week.
I’ll tell you today where we’re at, and then Thursday you’ll get the report from the trainers so we can verify it. In fact, I brought my list.
We came out of the game relatively healthy. Junior Hemingway tweaked his ankle a little bit so he’ll be limited this week, somewhat today and maybe tomorrow, and then we’ll see how he goes on Wednesday. Mark Moundros got dinged in the game, but he should be cleared for Saturday. We’ll probably hold him out of contact all week. Boubacar Cissoko, who had a little bit of a nerve problem, reaggravated it a little bit in the game, but he should be fine. We’ll probably hold him out of a little bit of contact this week. Brandon Minor, who did not play as you all know, actually looked better than he had in a couple weeks in pregame, but we still held him out. Hopefully this week he’ll be stronger and we hope that he’ll be able to play Saturday.
I think that’s all of it for right now.
Carlos will start, again, unless he has a tough week of practice.

Q. How did Carlos do?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: He played pretty well, he really did. He made some nice runs. There was a few misreads as you would expect for the first time in a game. But we thought he ran well, he caught the ball well, and he really protected well.
He’s worked really hard as our backs have on protection and on blocking, and I thought that you could see the difference in Carlos and our backs in blocking. It was pretty solid.

Q. How much do you go back to what Greg did last year against Notre Dame?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Well, I’m sure Greg and the defensive staff will look at it, but I’m sure Notre Dame is, as well. They’ll look at what Greg did with them last year because it was a nice win for them. I’m sure they’ll prepare for that scheme.
Again, they’re a year older. Most of their offensive players are back. Clausen has got another year under his belt, and he’s performed at a very high level in his last several ballgames. We have to have a nice plan for them.
Defensively we played really well at times Saturday. Second half not as well, but we’ll have to play really well to win this one.

Q. Assess the offensive line’s performance Saturday.
COACH RODRIGUEZ: It was solid, it wasn’t great. I thought it was solid across the board. The effort was really good. But we had a few more mistakes that we’ve got to get fixed. This is a big week for the O-line and for the tight end and the backs and all the blitzes that we’ll see. They like to bring it on just about every snap. I’ve played against Coach Tenuta’s defense. Last year you could see his impact on it. Played against it a couple years ago when he was the defensive coordinator at Georgia Tech, and I played them in a Bowl game.
We know they’re going to bring a lot of pressure, a lot of blitzes from all different angles, and for our O-line this is a big week of preparation for them and our quarterbacks.

Q. Do you remember a true freshman quarterback playing at as high a level as Tate did in his first-ever game?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: I have not had a true freshman start, so it was a new experience for us. But he’s kind of unique from the standpoint that he probably was more nervous than he let on, but he didn’t act like it, and he didn’t seem like it on the sidelines or in pregame. He had a big smile on his face. I think he was more excited than nervous. I’m sure there’s got to be some nerves in there.
The pleasing part is when he did make a mistake, as all the guys do at time they make a mistake or two,
he knew right away what it was. So you know when that’s happening his mind is into the game and he’s thinking the right things. He’ll keep getting better as will Denard and the rest of those young guys.
That’s the most pleasing part. We’re still a very young team and we’re going to make mistakes, and this is going to be a bigger challenge because of the talent that Notre Dame has. I have to remind ourselves sometimes to be patient as coaches. They’re going to make a few miscues here and there, and we’ve got to just keep plugging ahead and learn from them.

Q. Talk about what Denard Robinson did.
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Well, he ran really fast. You know, he’s still kind of — he’s only been in the offense three and a half weeks. To compare him with Tate is sometimes not fair because Tate, again, had the 15 practices in the spring. That makes a huge difference. And Denard has only had the camp, only the three and a half weeks of camp.
I think Denard’s learning curve is going to get there. But again, he kept his composure out there. He didn’t panic. He made a couple plays and a couple plays he’d like to have back. But I think it was good to get him out there.
Again, Denard is not just a running threat and Tate is just not the thrower. As I said, those guys have to run the whole offense, and we work on it.
I think Denard is a very, very conscientious guy and he wants to learn and it’s important to him, and he’ll keep getting reps, as will Tate and Nick, and we’ll see what happens.

Q. There was one play where Denard was the slot receiver. Are you planning to have them both on the field at the same time more often?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: It could be. There’s probably more we could do with that. We wanted to get — one, we’re trying to get the ball to the guys in space, fast guys that can run, and he’s one of them, obviously. You know, it was also good maybe for him to get kind of his feet wet without having to take the snaps and say the cadence and all that.
I thought it was invaluable, how important it was for him to get in there with meaningful time and for the offensive linemen to hear him on his cadence, for him to make decisions, not just in the run game but the pass game.

Q. It seemed like Notre Dame’s defense on Saturday struggled a little bit with gashing when Nevada tried to run up the middle. When you see something like that, do you kind of have to —
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Well, I think the bottom line is they shut them out, and Nevada was one of the top — I don’t know what their stats finished up last year, but I think they were in the top ten I think nationally in total offense and maybe in scoring. To get a shutout in the first game against them, I know they’ve talked about they had time to prepare, but also, Nevada had time to prepare for Notre Dame’s defense.
I thought it was a great performance. I thought they tackled well in space, which is a big thing to do when you play a spread team. They got pressure on the quarterback who’s a very experienced guy, so I thought it was a great performance. They got the shutout, and I’m sure they’re going to play with great confidence against us.

Q. Do you feel like this game, now that kind of both teams have answered some sort of questions, is taking more of a national tone again?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, I would hope. I would always think Michigan-Notre Dame is always going to have a national tone. It’s one of the greatest rivalries there are, and it’s a game that has great passion from the fan following, I think from a national following, and certainly from a TV perspective that will be there, as well.
Everybody knows we have tremendous fan support, and it was unbelievable on Saturday. I could imagine our fans can’t wait for this Saturday, as well, to have another great turnout and to be in the game like they were this past weekend.

Q. When Junior was out last year, did you know what kind of player you were missing?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, we did. Junior was really banged up real year, and I’ve said several times his athleticism makes a difference for us out there. He’s a big play — as he showed this past weekend, big play wideout, and hoping he can get back quickly, because when he’s not out there we miss him.

Q. Anything further on Adrian Witty?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: It doesn’t appear that Adrian will be able to make it for this fall, and then hopefully we’ll continue to recruit and follow his progress, whether he goes to prep school or retakes the tests for next year.

Q. You’re so close to the game. Could you tell, did it sound louder in the there with the stadium almost —
COACH RODRIGUEZ: I didn’t notice it much, again, because I had the two headsets on. But some of the kids said that, and some of the other coaches and people remarked that it seemed louder. One, again, we’ve got tremendous fans, so that helps. But also, I think even the structure, the way the glass and the new suites are maybe keeping some of the noise in there. But it was pretty intense. Some people that watched the game on TV have told me that it sounded loud in there. It’ll keep getting louder if we play well and give them some reason to shout.

Q. You’ve looked at Notre Dame’s personnel a little bit. What sort of challenge is their passing game for your secondary, and is your secondary up for it?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: We hope so, because they’re going to get challenged by a quarterback that is playing as well as you could possibly play. He’s very strong-armed, accurate, smart guy, can take advantage of some situations. He throws the deep ball extremely well, and he’s got some guys that can catch it in Tate and Floyd. He’s got two of the best in the country at wideout. Their tight end is an NFL guy, outstanding player, and I really like their tailbacks.
I remember Armando Allen coming out of high school. I thought he was one of the top guys in the country coming out in high school. I knew his high school coach very well. So they’ve got a lot of talent, and they’re playing and executing in a nice way ever since the Bowl game. You could see the Bowl game gave them confidence. They carried it over last week against Nevada, and I’m sure they’re going to have a lot of confidence coming in here.

Q. What did your secondary do well against Western?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: We tackled very well. I thought we made some nice breaks on the ball. They hit some passes on us, as they will, probably all year against everybody else. But when we did, we tackled for the most part.
We gave up the one big play, which was disappointing, but we’re going to have to do that again. If we get in one-on-one situations or challenging situations, our corners and are safeties are going to have to really play well, because they’re playing against some of the best wideouts they’ll see all year.

Q. With those wideouts they have, in particular Floyd and Tate, what jumps out?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Well, just their athleticism. One, they can run. Those guys are running. Floyd is a big guy that can run. They go get the ball. They’ve got tremendous ball skills. So there’s a lot of times there’s jump balls and there will be guys right on them, and they’ll go up and make a play. That happened against Nevada, it happened last year, it happened against us. We’ve got to do a great job of playing the ball in the air, and then we’ve got to get our safeties involved to help a little bit.
And then the other thing, the obvious thing, you’ve got to get pressure on the quarterback. Clausen is too good — as most talented quarterbacks will be, but just give him time to sit there and look around and scan the field and find the match-up he wants, he throws. We’ve got to try to get some pressure on the quarterback.

Q. Justin Turner, the true freshman, he didn’t see the field on Saturday. Are you looking to play Turner?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, again, he’s a true freshman; he’s only been here a few we
eks. So I think he’s going to continue to grow. His progress will keep getting better, and we’re going to need him. He’s in our thoughts and he’s getting a lot of reps. As he progresses, either he or Teric Jones or you mentioned J.T. Floyd, he played quite a bit. We’re going to need more corners to emerge.
Justin is one of those guys talented enough to do it. Again, he’s only been practicing for a couple weeks, so we’ll see what happens.

Q. What was the breakdown on the one touchdown —
COACH RODRIGUEZ: They made a nice play and we made a mistake. I’m not going to single out guys for that. That’s not fair to them.

Q. What was your assessment of J.T. Floyd’s performance?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: I thought he played pretty well. I think he was really nervous. I don’t think he felt his legs for the first quarter and a half when he was out there because, again, he was playing for the first time.
Normally when you get more confidence, you can play more aggressively and you don’t think as much. I think as the game went on, he got more and more confidence. I think as the season goes along, he’ll get more and more confidence. In practice Boubacar missed a little bit of time, Donovan missed a little bit of time and he was the third guy in, or the first guy in, third corner. He was really aggressive in practice and really did a nice job.
I think the encouraging part is he played okay for the first time out there, but he’ll keep getting better as his confidence grows, which it should, because he can play.

Q. Are you more comfortable with the depth in the defensive backfield?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Getting there, but not yet. Again, we have not been — that was a pretty good challenge Saturday, it’s a bigger challenge this Saturday.

Q. What did you think of the defensive line and particularly Brandon Graham?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Brandon had a lot of pressures. I think he probably got frustrated because he was close a lot of times. There were three or four times he was right there, and he may have not made the sack but he made the play with the pressure. Mike Barton had some pressures; Ryan Van Bergen had some; as I mentioned Craig Roh did a nice job and had some pressures. So I thought that was pretty solid. Overall on the D-line it was a good effort.
But again, this is another big challenge. If Brandon can get some more pressures this weekend, and particularly with some attention that he’ll get, because Notre Dame will match protect a lot. They’ll keep a tight end or a back end to protect and release him out late, so they’re not going to give him a lot of one-on-one opportunities. He’ll have some, but they’ll match protect and then release him out late and try to give Clausen time to throw it.

Q. What was your assessment on the return game on Saturday and were they selected mostly because of how they —
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Ball security was first and foremost in our mind, in both the kick return and punt return. Greg is the best we have at catching the ball, and he had the one nice return. We were close on that. There were a couple times where we had one more block, we probably could have had a big return, particularly on punts.
The kick return, again, we only had a couple opportunities, but I thought Darryl Stonum really hit it up in there pretty good. But that was such an emphasis first for us, as you all know, taking care of the ball and the ball security first. That was our first thought. But Tay Odoms is going to get some chances in the punt, too, because he catches the ball well, and he may be our best back there as far as making something happen.

Q. After watching the tape do you have a couple more defensive linemen that you trust versus say a couple weeks ago?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Well, the guy I think I mentioned earlier who had a really good spring and had an outstanding camp was Greg Banks, and we mentioned him before, that he is — I don’t want to say transformed himself, but he has done such a great job of taking his game to another level, from the work he did in the weight room to the work he did during fall camp. We’ve got a lot of confidence in playing Greg inside right now. He was an end that we moved inside.
Ryan Van Bergen is a solid football player. We think he’s in great shape, played really well. Mike Martin is another guy we mentioned. Craig Roh was — to have a true freshman start at a defensive end/quick position is going to be quite remarkable as a true freshman to do that because there’s a lot on his plate. But he’s a smart, tough guy. He and Brandon Herron played really for the first time at that position and did pretty solid work.

Q. With Craig, was there a moment that came where you saw him —
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Probably for me it was the one-on-one pass rush drill that they did against the varsity or the upper class offensive linemen, and he was a handful for those guys to block. We thought, geez, he’s got that skill, can he learn some of the other stuff.
Craig is very conscientious. He’s still a freshman so we know he’s going to make mistakes, but he’s 235, 240 pounds, and in a year or so he’ll be about 250 and faster, and he’s a hard worker that wants to be great. He doesn’t want to be good, he wants to be great, and I’m excited to see what he’s going to do.

Q. Did Tay Odoms get banged up at all? It seemed like he came out of the game pretty early.
COACH RODRIGUEZ: No, we were rotating. Coach Magee and I talked about we had a planned rotation in mind with him and Kelvin Grady. I think Tate had 30 plays and Kelvin had 26, and that is about the right rotation, an equal amount of reps. I think that helped. Again, Tay Odoms played too many plays last year, so it was the emergence of Kelvin and Roy Roundtree and also Terrence Robinson, we’re able to keep those guys fresher.

Q. How do you think Stevie Brown played?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: He played really well. Him and Obi Ezeh were the two defensive players of the game for us. I think Stevie has really taken to that new position. He had a big fumble he caused and did a nice job of helping get lined up and just played really well, really solid.

Q. Who were your offensive players of the game?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: It was Junior Hemingway. He made the obvious big plays, but he was solid all the way around. And then Zoltan was the special teams player of the game. He’s continued to show that he’s one of the best, I think, in the country.

Q. What was the reaction to Koger’s catch when you guys saw it again on film yesterday?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: It was funny because I had been on the guys all camp with catching the ball with two hands, go up with two hands, go up with two hands. I’ve probably yelled it 50 times, “Go up with two hands.” So Kevin makes that catch and everybody is slapping him on the back, and the first thing I see him after the game, we haven’t even gotten out of the tunnel yet, and he said, “Coach, I went up with two hands, just my other one couldn’t reach there.”
So you saw it on film he did. He went up with two hands, but it was so far wide that he could only catch it with one. I said, “That’s okay, Kevin, we forgive you for that, the one-handed catch.” It’s great because we’ll have a big kick out of that. Every time somebody gets a one-handed catch now, they’ll refer back to my comments.

Q. With Tate, how unusual is it having an upbringing, basically he grew up to be a quarterback; his brother was a college quarterback; his dad was a quarterback. How unusual was that and how much do you think that prepared him for this?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Well, we think it’s made a little bit of a difference because he’s been, as you said, around so many games and played since he was little. His dad has taken him around, taught him football, and he’s not your typical freshman coming in that’s not been around a little bit. Because of his older brothers and his of the exposure he got to camps an
d teaching and all that, he’s a little bit more seasoned and mature from a quarterback standpoint.
But again, he’s just one year removed from high school. There’s still moments where you can see it’s a true freshman. But the exciting part is what he and Denard and those guys are going to be, when you say, oh, boy, these are mistakes they won’t ever make next year or the year after that. There’s so much more you can do offensively as those guys grow.
See, right now, any coach will tell you that when you have this amount of offense they can use and as they understand and grow you can use this much more, but you don’t want to trick yourself. We don’t want Michigan beating Michigan. We’re hoping to slowly add some things, and it really depends on the development of all those young guys, but particularly the young quarterbacks.

Q. The series when Nick went in (Inaudible).
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, Tate, something happened with his ankle brace or his shoe came off. Maybe he shouldn’t tie them, like Denard. He came out, so while he was doing that, we wanted to keep a rhythm going, and I wanted to get Nick in the game anyway. So we got in there, and we thought it worked out all right, but then we had the touchdown called back because of the hold.
We’ve got to get that cleaned up. We had some typical — the holding penalties and we gave up the one big play on defense, and we could break on the ball better and we had some misreads, so some typical first game stuff.
But it was good to get Nick in there, and he made the one mistake with a pick. But Nick is a smart guy. I don’t think he’ll make that mistake again.

Q. What percentage of the offense do you think those guys can run right now?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Well, there’s so much to it. Tate could probably be 70 percent of it, but again, how much offense you can add, we can add a lot, but it seems like a lot, but it’s really not a lot. To those young freshmen, 18, 19 year olds, it may seem like more than what we think. As coaches, we sit there and watch film all day so it may not seem like a big deal, but we’ve got to remember they’ve got a lot on their minds, particularly tomorrow with classes starting. So now you’ve got to be careful. We’ve got to be careful this week because we’ve got a lot to be prepared for, but they also are going to class for the first time, a lot of these true freshmen. We’ve got to make sure we’re not overloading them.

Q. One of the things that Koger mentioned, the pressure that Notre Dame brings. How is he as a blocker?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, he’s been outstanding. Both he and Martell Webb have really done a great job at camp. Our defense has brought a variety of blitzes on different fronts. They’ve been able to handle things pretty well. Again, it’s the second year in the system for both of them, so we would expect that. Kevin is a big, physical guy and so is Martell. It was good to split time with those two, as well. Those are guys that we think pretty highly of, and they both played pretty solidly on Saturday.

Q. Your two quarterbacks combined for 21 carries. Is that about what you want them?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: That’s probably more than I’m accustomed to. We probably gave more particularly to Denard in the first game just so they would get that experience. I don’t know normally if you go into the game — some of those carries were pass plays that were — that everybody was covered, and that’s okay. We tell the quarterbacks, everybody wants the quarterback to say, well, everybody is covered and you go to your third read, your fourth read, going to your third and fourth read, by the time you get to your third read, I’d rather you take off, and your fourth read is running.
You want to keep your quarterback’s eyes downfield. I think that’s important, but I think it’s important to have his eyes downfield so he knows whether to run it or throw it. If he can keep positive yards and get out of negative plays in the passing game, if everybody is covered, then that’s a good thing.
But some of those runs were passes that turned into runs, and some of them were designed runs that we wanted to get those guys used to running.

Q. Is that just to kind of indoctrinate him?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, we probably should have got him in earlier. He had performed well enough at camp. We were confident enough to put him in earlier in the game, and I think he was ready for that. So he’s not at the end-of-a-game guy; he’s in the mix.

Q. (Inaudible.)
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, that’s the key. The negative yardage plays, when you get behind the chains, so to speak, the 2nd and 15s or the 3rd and 12s, there’s not a whole lot of offense, no matter who your quarterback is or your receivers are that can overcome that. If we can stay on schedule, and the whole key for us is getting 1st downs and positive plays on 1st downs. If we can do that, then you’ve got a whole lot more offense that you can call or that you think you can call to have success.
There’s no question for us, that’s not just the key in that game but the key in this game and the key in every game is having the positive yards and not having those 3rd or 2nd and very longs.

Q. When you’ve got a lead, do you like sometimes having two tight ends and a fullback?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: We’ve done it in the past. I know somebody mentioned earlier, you’ve got to understand when you’re in the I. Just look back over the years, we’ve always done that. Our whole thing is at the end of the game, in the 4th quarter and we get to six or seven minutes to go, what do you do to win the game? How do you close it out? How do you win the game? I think the last drive might have been about six or seven minutes, six minutes or so.
So we’ve always worked very hard on that and take great pride at having that ability in your offense to close a game out if you have that lead in the 4th quarter.

Q. How many snaps do you think you had with two tight ends and fullback setup last year?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: We didn’t have any leads in the fourth quarter. You’ve got to get a lead first. That’s the whole key, so get the lead so you can have a chance to use that.

Q. Have you showed your team tape of last year?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: You know, the only time we use last year is really as a reference point for upcoming opponents. In other words, we’ll watch some of Notre Dame’s film, particularly offensively, to see if they’ll play us the same way.
I know they’re using more — I don’t say more, but they’re doing a few different things this year defensively than last year, but we’ll always use last year’s tape as a reference point.
But as far as being a difference, it’s a different team every year, so we don’t use that to compare this is their team or this is our team. You’ve got to look at this year’s film.

Q. You had so many turnovers in that game last year. How much can you take out of how you guys managed the ball?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Well, I think it was frustrating to watch it. We’ve already watched it a couple times. I think we had six; is that right? Six turnovers, and some of them they caused and some were uncaused turnovers. Those unforced errors, ball falling out of our hands. That was before it was even raining, so that was really frustrating.
So that point is like, geez, we were really frustrated, but still, they won; they made the plays and we didn’t. But we certainly didn’t give ourselves much of a chance, particularly early in the game, and we were so far behind so early.
I thought our guys competed and came back, but it was as frustrating as we’ve ever been simply because we just weren’t helping ourselves in any regard.

Q. Has their offensive line improved, Notre Dame’s offensive line?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: I think so, from what I’ve seen. Again, they blocked us well last year. They got some big plays and we didn’t get a lot of pressure on them. Again, I’ve only watched a cou
ple of their offensive games. I’ve watched more of their defense. But they were very good against Nevada, very good.

Q. Do you know Coach Weis?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, I’ve known Charlie for a few years. I didn’t know him until a few years ago. And then a few years back we visited, talked a little football, and I don’t know, it was a couple years ago.

Q. How much of your defense did you guys actually show Notre Dame?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Oh, I think, again, Greg would be a better judge of that than I would. He wasn’t holding anything back. We were doing everything we could to win the Western game. They saw our defense.

Q. How about the pressure you didn’t get on 3rd down. It seemed like they had to either get rid of it or they were going to get hit.
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Well, we got some pressure from blitzes but we also had some three-man pressures, which as a coach you really like to see. There were two times that Brandon Graham, we were in a three-man rush and he got pressure on the quarterback, got a one-on-one situation with a tackle. If you can get pressure with three men, you’re going to have a good day.

Q. Do you know Corwin Brown much?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: I know Corwin just a little bit. Again, I just met him a couple years ago. I know he was a Michigan guy and was a great player here, and we’ve talked and seen each other at different functions. I believe he was back for the reunion.

Q. Did you have Kevin Grady going in (inaudible)?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, Kevin is a backup fullback. I say backup, but he’s right there in the rotation with Mark. They kind of split time. And he also can play some of the one-back, which he did on Saturday, and he plays on some special teams, so Kevin has had a good camp. He’s a coachable guy that — anything we ask for Kevin Grady to do, he’s been willing to do it.
We thought he played pretty well. Again, everybody can correct a few things here and there, but Kevin, he’s kind of a nice weapon for us to do. He’s got great ball skills, and he and Mark will continue to play that fullback position, as will Johnny McColgan, who’s another young guy who’s a walk-on that has really come on and gives us a third guy we feel pretty good we can put in the fullback.

Q. Have you finished handing out the walk-on scholarships yet?
COACH RODRIGUEZ: Almost. I still have one or two possible offense. So there’s upwards or seven or eight open available scholarships we’ve been able to award young men with. It’s quite pleasing because they’ve earned it for sure.

End of FastScripts