Oct. 1, 1996
Off The Practice Field....Notre Dame Head Coach Lou Holtz
"This is Sports Information Director John Heisler here at the University of Notre Dame (Oct 1).
Coach Holtz is here and will make some opening remarks and then we will
begin with some questions."
COACH HOLTZ: "First of all, I have been never
been able to understand the validity for having a press conference
during an open date. We will do the best we can with it."
(On injuries) "Autry Denson had an index finger operated on. He should be back for
Washington. He will have to wear a splint. We are hopeful he
will be able to run back punts and will be able to catch passes.
"Peter Chryplewicz will miss most of the work this week. Melvin Dansby
will miss some. That will give us the chance to work with Brad Williams
some. I think he has tremendous potential as a defensive tackle. Brad
had a stress fracture when he reported here for freshman practice and
consequently just been back for about the last ten days, but he has
awful good quickness and very sound fundamentally."
(On Ohio State) "The game with Ohio
State is still disappointing; hard to get rid of. We will practice three
times this week. Basically devoted to fundamentals. It is no consolation that virtually everybody is going to
suffer a defeat during the course of the year. Probably going to be one
team undefeated at the end of the year; two at the maximum probably.
Doesn't make it any less painful."
(On problems) "The thing that concerned our team
since the ballgame is that some of our real deficiencies were revealed.
Our problems at safety, and our problems at wide receiver versus
man-coverage. We are addressing the safety position. I think that Deke
Cooper -- everything that we have given Deke Cooper to do, he has done
very, very well and deserves to really get a look at safety -- whether it
be free or whether it be strong.
"The loss of A'jani Sanders, who really
progressed very, very well, was damaging to us at the Texas game,
but I think we can get that resolved. We will get him back for Navy, but
I am worried now about the University of Washington. I think Deke
Cooper is going to get a very, very good look. We
know that Rossum and Covington are playing very, very well. They are
playing awfully well for us. I think Deveron Harper should be able
to play some. I think, after this week, Deveron Harper will be in a
position to step in as a third corner and I feel comfortable at corner.
"The safety positions are wide open and I could not
venture to guess who will start for us at safety in the
Washington game. That will be ascertained over the next nine practices,
I guess. The same thing is true at wide receiver. We will look at the
wide receiver position; yet at the same time, we have some limitations
there."
(On Washington) "We have looked at some film on Washington. They
have changed their offense a great deal. They are a one-back offense.
They run the ball very well and average over five yards a carry. What has
really impressed me was the accuracy of Huard. Huard has fine receivers.
He throws the ball very, very accurately. And they spread you out all
over the field and force you into some man-coverage and that is not the
best interest of us with the safety position at the
present time.
"I know that Washington is a very,
very solid football team from what I have seen on both offensive
and defensive sides of the ball. They have very good athletic ability,
and they are playing well. When they lost to Arizona State,
you didn't know exactly what that meant, but it turned out Arizona State
has an excellent, excellent football team. It was evidenced the
following week when they beat Nebraska. Since that
heartbreaking loss, 45-42, Washington has come back and won its last two
games against BYU and against Arizona. They play
Stanford this week, but they are a very, very complete football team.
"Washington seems to have very, very good chemistry and are playing with awful good
confidence. We played them out there. We looked at that film. They did a
very fine job on us both defensively and offensively. It was one of
those games that we won the football game, you weren't sure exactly how
or why we won it."
(On the offense) "The thing that is bothering me most about our offense is we
haven't been able to get into a rhythm. We have haven't been consistent and maybe we tried to do too many
things. I don't know, but that is the one thing that we are going to
look at very, very strongly this week. Also, there is a possibility that Luke Petitgout or
Tim Ridder could possibly start at left tackle. There is some things
that we are going to go back and look at. We are going to find some
answers this week in practice and next week.
"It is not the effort of
the football players by any stretch of the imagination. I thought they
played as hard as we have ever played. We just did not get into a rhythm
on offense and we didn't tackle or stop the third down. Three times Ohio
State had third and 7 to 9 on us, and all three times they converted. We
felt that was one of the things we had to do going into that football
game, was stop the third and plus 4. Third downs, we would have to be
able to do that and we didn't do it. Falling into a rhythm is really
really important. We haven't been into a rhythm all year on
offense. I am talking about getting up to the line of scrimmage; spending
too much time on the line; just a variety of different things. And if
you can't get into a rhythm on offense, you really don't have much
chance.
"So the receivers, the offensive tackle position, the safeties,
are areas we are going to look at; plus just evaluating what we have to
do on third down. And the other thing that has been very, very
disappointing has been our goal-line defense. We just haven't played
goal-line and I think these are all things you have to go back and look
at. So the open date comes at a very good time in the fact that you can
go back and look at and evaluate. Comes at a disappointing time because
the last thing you want is to have a week to sit on this. What questions
can I answer for you?"
Q." Lou, you said the problem with the wide receivers is they are not
beating man-to-man coverage, but are they doing the little things like
coming back for the ball and breaking off their patterns when there is a
blitz and moving with Ron and blocking downfield, things like that?"
COACH HOLTZ: "Everybody can understand that
we have problems on man-to-man coverage where they do the little things,
they are blocking, coming back to the ball, etcetera. We give
good effort and we do block downfield fairly well. But we don't do
little things the right way. You know, they have sideline markers there
for a reason. That means you are supposed to stay inside of that. But I
think overall, we have probably blocked downfield better than we
have ever have.
"We dropped three, four passes last week. One of
them was intercepted very easily, or probably should have been
caught. I don't faulter blocking with the exception of the one missed
block down at Texas. We missed that block big time and Randy Kinder paid
a tremendous price for that. But other than that, we have blocked
fairly well. We haven't come back to the ball as well and we
just haven't competed as well as what we would have to do against
man-coverage. We have been fairly successful in getting people open on
zone. But that is a little bit different than man-coverage.
"You just
have to be able to beat man-coverage and the first thing to beating
man-coverage you have to get off the line of scrimmage. If they jam you
and keep you on the line of scrimmage, you can't get off the line of
scrimmage, you don't have much chance to defeat them. And the best thing
you can to do to beat man-coverage is to threaten them to death with
speed. We don't have that. But you can still beat man-coverage with good
techiques that we do not have at the present time. I think Urban Meyer
has done an excellent job with our receivers other than the fact we
can't beat man-coverage."
Q. "Lou, you seem to think Deke might be one of your answers or part of
an answer at safety. Is there somebody we haven't seen a lot of at
receiver, I mean, is Raki Nelson maybe ready to be able to be that guy
at wide receiver?"
COACH HOLTZ: "Raki Nelson has to be on the field more. He is the
one guy that has some quickness and some moxy. We are impressed
with him and he can very well possibly end up at flanker. Another
individual I hope will mature this week and I think has chance to be a
very good receiver against man-coverage is Jay Johnson. So Jay Johnson,
Raki Nelson are going to get an awful lot of work this week and we will
just have to see, but there is a good chance we will see Raki Nelson at
flanker. I know for sure we are going to see him at flanker today."
Q. "Lou, have the players recovered from the weekend and maybe
developed a feeling that 10-1 wouldn't be all that bad, or how do you
read the team's mental state at this point?"
COACH HOLTZ: "I visited with
them Sunday and I gave them 'til 3:30 to feel sorry for themselves and then it would be over. I have not seen the football team
since then. We gave them off Monday. The NCAA rule is you must give them
one complete day off. I will see them today. What
was their mood? I really don't know what it will be. I can tell you
this: I know what it is going to be. I don't know what it will be today,
but I know what it is going to be...it is going to be, hey, you made a
commitment to play; you love the game; you can't change the past. It
just move on. Nothing else you can do about it, move on.
"We don't have
anybody to blame but ourselves. We got up there; we got a chance to take
our swing at the bat. We didn't hit the ball. Go back to the dugout and
wait for your turn again. That is -- you know, not everything is going
to go your way. You don't have any other alternative. I just could not
and would be exceptionally disappointed if somebody dropped his head and
said, well, the season is over. Maybe the National Championship is over.
The season is not over. Not everything is going to go your way. Yeah, it
would have been great. But it didn't. And that is over. Am I concerned?
Yeah."
Q. "You almost had an overtime game
last week with Texas; fortunately for you guys, you didn't. How do you
feel about that and do you feel going first is a disadvantage in
overtime?"
COACH HOLTZ: "First of all, I was very much in favor of
overtime. I happened to be on the committee that first addressed it;
then took it to the Football Coaches Association and I was in favor of
it. I have not been involved in overtime, but being involved in overtime
-- there is the possibility of it against Texas. I didn't feel that that
was in our best interest to have overtime.
"But let me tell you why I
think it is good and then some of the drawbacks. I think it is good
because when you score with two minutes to go, you kick the extra point.
You kick the extra point and say, well, we will decide it in overtime if
we do not win it before then. Whereas, if you don't have overtime, then
you are almost forced to go for two, or you leave yourself exceptionally
vulnerable with all the second guessers, but more importantly, you have
to face your football team if they feel that you played for a tie.
"I
think the greatest disservice you can give to the football team is to
play for a tie. So I think that takes a lot of the decision making that
was unfair off a football coach late in the game. On overtime, I think
overtime definitely gives an advantage to the team who has a good place
kicker. Because you start on the 25 and if you don't make any yards, you
have a good possibility to get three. Then that is going to force the
other team to either score or get three as well. I think it is
definitely an advantage to go on defense first. Let us say that you have
fourth down and four. And you go first. You kick the field goal.
" Let us
say you make it. The other team -- let us say that -- let us say that
the other team goes first and scores a touchdown. You have fourth and
four and you know they have a touchdown, you aren't going to kick a
field goal. You would have to go for it on fourth and 4 because the
field goal isn't going to help you, so you know exactly what you need.
"Let us say the other team fumbles the ball in the second play and
doesn't score and you get the ball, you run the ball three plays pick up
six yards, you are on the 19-yard line, you kick the field goal; you win
the game. But if the other team scores first and you know that you
better score a touchdown or the game is over or the bare minimum you
need to have is a field goal and the game is over, you know exactly what
you need. That makes an awful lot of difference, but I think it does
give an advantage to the team that has the best field goal kicker."
Q. "Can you explain what -- so many people back on offense -- why this
offensive unit is having problems falling into a rhythm?"
COACH
HOLTZ: Well, I think it's a combination of things. First of all, our
guards are not back. Derrick Mayes is not back. Derrick Mayes received
double coverage most of the time and now we don't get that double
coverage and so that extra defender is up on the line of scrimmage. I
think you saw Texas. I think you saw Ohio State, so I think
that is a big difference on it as well. The guards are a little bit
different, although Rosenthal is playing awful, awful well. Rosenthal is
playing exceptionally well for a sophomore. I think he is playing very,
very well at right guard. I feel very comfortable there. We have a
little problem at left guard, but I think the main difference is the
forced double coverage that they provided on Derrick Mayes."
Q. "Can you, in any way, estimate how much of the time Ohio State was
able to pretty much commit its safeties to run support because it didn't
have to worry about pass coverage?"
COACH HOLTZ: "Well what they did --
they mixed it up pretty good, Phil. What they did, they had the safety
man about seven yards from the line of scrimmage. They had Springs and
Howard lined up over the two slot men and they took the strong safety;
put him at tightend; not getting technical, but most of the time or much
of the time they would play our two slot men man-to-man and then the
safety man would fill. Occasionally they would play it man-to-man and
the safety would just be free on passing downs and then sometimes they'd
play man-to-man, they'd bring that safety man up and they blitzed him
and did the combination of things. They were not worried that, you know,
we would throw the ball or go maximum protection and protect it when
they were out there man on man and they did a very, very fine job.
"They
did an awfully good job of not letting us off the line of scrimmage.
That is the first thing. You got to be able to get off the line of
scrimmage against -- Springs is an outstanding corner and Howard is
very, very good as well. But it was a big, big difference. Previously,
when we put two wide receivers out on the same side people would go out
there and double cover Derrick Mayes and put three on two which opened
up the running game. Initial thing that we wanted to do was by splitting
people out, etcetera, was that they would go out there and they would
double cover. When they force double coverage, then you would have
advantage of being able to run inside, but they are not doing that. They
are just staying in there and lining you up man-to-man out there and we
just can't get the ball to the wide receivers.
"You know, I thought that
we went deep on them one time. I thought Ron made a great throw, you
know, but we just didn't come down with the football, etcetera. But this
is something that we have to look at. And I'd like to be able to
continue to mix it up and split people out and throw it but we are going
to have so see what Raki Nelson and Jay Johnson can do."
Q. "Will there be less Blarney in that kind of thing because the wide
receivers can't make the threat stand up? I mean, is it ineffective?"
COACH HOLTZ: "No, we can't be productive in throwing the ball out there
on a consistent basis. There just isn't enough margin of error on it
right now."
Q. "Lou, in the past you have talked about the only thing being worse
than no confidence is false confidence. In light of the way your team
came out in the pre-game which you were disappointed in, was there a
false confidence? Has false confidence built up when you win a game with
a last second field goal?"
COACH HOLTZ: "That is really a good
question. I have tried to examine everything. The environment on
the campus last week was, you know, electric. And we have more
distractions when we play at home, unbelievable. I am talking about from
the luncheon to everybody being on campus to the pep rally to everything
else and yet I think that is all very, very important. And I think that
maybe we didn't handle that particularly well. Maybe we thought that we
would play well just because all that was there. I really don't know.
"We
made mistakes we normally don't make. I can't remember the last time the
whole right side didn't collap -- you look at it on film, you say, I
don't believe that, but you know, sometimes you can't explain things. I
could not explain this. Give me a psychiatrist. I need a psychiatrist.
Maybe our players need a psychiatrist. I can could not explain what
happened. I have thought -- I looked -- I looked at practice,
preparation, I have looked at everything. I just could not explain it. I
wish I could. I really do. And I am not stopping and looking for answers
yet."
Q. "You talked about man-coverage problem. Defense is afraid of the option or
weary of the option. Is that
something we may see more of from you, the option play, because of the
problems you are having beating man-coverage, keeping defense honest?"
COACH HOLTZ: "There are three things we run into, seeing something
different than what they had done previously, but that is not unique. We
are used to that. The two things that we are seeing that is man-coverage
much more not -- you know, we are used to man-coverage with the free
safety double covering Derrick Mayes, or something like that, which
takes one guy out of the running game.
"The other thing we are seeing is
a lot of twist and everything else up inside, discombobulated when you
are handing the ball off to the tailback. Now, why didn't we see that
much in the past? Well, we always had one receiver that demanded double
coverage. The other thing is that we ran enough option to discourage
certain types of coverages and the other thing we did was we ran some
quick hitting plays which destroyed or discouraged the twist, etcetera.
We ran 10 trap option, trap option pass plays last week. We went to it
more than we have in the last couple of years because of what they are
doing.
"Those 10 plays, we had 105 yards on those 10 plays and that
counts a 40 yard incompletion that we dropped and had we caught it
running in stride, it might have been 70. You are going to say, well, we
ran 10 plays and had 140 yards on those - which I think brings up, once
again, that, you know, if that is what we have to do to discourage all
the man-coverage and the twists, etcetera, then we are going to see a
little bit more option than what we have. Is that what we would like to
do? No.
"What we would like to be able to do is create big plays by
somebody playing us man-coverage and either running by him or running a
post or forcing a cushion and catching a 6 yard hitch and breaking a
tackle and going for 40. But out of those 10 plays, we had three plays
over 22 yards counting the dropped pass, three out of ten. We are going
to have to get some big plays and we probably will run a little bit more
option. That is not what we would like to do but if that is what we are
forced to do to win then that is what we are going to have."
Q. "How much of your receivers' inability to get open against man is tied
to just their not being experienced or quick enough and how much is it a
breakdown in the pass protection?"
COACH HOLTZ: "I think it has more to
do -- they got us twice in the first half by bringing four to the split
side where the protection could not pick that up which they hadn't done
before and once we -- you can get the protection, but you have got to be
able to get off the line of scrimmage and run crossin routs and do some
things like that and we will work very, very hard on it. The best way to
beat man-coverage is speed.... Speed.
"We are talking about recruiting
and we are talking about speed. The coach says he can really run,
compared to his teammates. I want to know if he could really run then
how is he doing in track. Well, he doesn't run track. You know, I don't
-- only people that run track are people that lose. I never liked track.
I never won a race in my life, even with the girls. People could run and
they like track. So we need to get some track people. We need to get
some football receivers who run track. We do not need track people to
play wide receiver."
Q. "Coach, Ron Powlus has gotten a lot of criticism in the last three
years. I he had not come here with the hype that he had after high
school, do you think he would be getting as much criticism as he has now
and also some people have raised the question would he be better if he
had been in a pass oriented system; what do you think of that?"
COACH
HOLTZ: "I think Ron is an excellent passer. I don't think there is any
doubt about it. I thought that some of the throws he made Saturday under
duress were tremendous. I think that, you know, you need to have great
receivers in any passing game. I think that is an absolute necessity -
people have to have a field and can get open, etcetera. And I feel bad
because I felt we would be able to get the receivers and build the type
of offense that would reveal his talents and abilities. I really did.
And I feel bad about that. But he is an outstanding quarterback and he
is going to play for a lot of years on the next level. There is no
doubt."
Q. "Knowing what you know now and what you were able and were not able to
get, would he have been better off at, say, a like a Florida or a BYU, a
more pass-oriented offense?"
COACH HOLTZ: "Absolutely not. He is better
off at Notre Dame because he is at Notre Dame. Seems like a good
question to end on."
Q. Is this a trend do you think you are seeing with more 8 and 9 man --
I guess 7 and 8 man fronts, do you think it is just against your team or
do you think it is more of something that is happening in college
football at a lot of places and if so, which team do you think maybe
started that trend?
COACH HOLTZ: "Well, I think Washington started the
trend with Emtman, and the year they won the National Championship with
the eight-man front and getting up there and blitzin and bringing 8 and
then droppin 8 and playing a lot of man-coverage and that is what
Washington does. We are going to face the same thing against Washington,
we are going to face man-coverage. We are going to face an 8, 9-man
front, etcetera.
"Yeah, I think that most of the successful teams that do
that play an aggressive-type defense and jump all over you. When we got
hurt is when we jumped up there -- our front 7 -- when you go back and
look at the film, our front 7 played awful well against an excellent
offensive line. They really did. Where we got hurt was third and 7, they
hit the guy on the slant on our safety. We had two safeties and went
down to the one; next time they had third and 7 hit a tightend on an
outcut on our safety for a touchdown.
"You know -- you have to do what
your talents enables you to do. It's an excellent defense. It is a great
changeup and you have got to be able to do it. But you also have to be
able to line up there and play good man-coverage. I got home late last
night and turned on the second half of the Dallas Cowboy game. I have no
idea what happened the first half. I don't know how Rodney Peete got
injured. Number 1, they did not throw at all to Deion Sanders' side. No.
2, Kevin Smith side, he played it pretty well. He let that one pass, but
they jumped on him, whether it be slant or quick and then they didn't
even hesitate to blitz him and created a couple of turnovers and coming
hard at them.
"Same thing Dallas Cowboys is facing right now. You know,
without a guy to get double coverage, they are bringing corners and
safeties and standing up there. Emmett Smith is having problems running
the ball and he has got an all pro line. I know he is banged up a little
bit, but you take out Novacek and you take out Michael Irvin, you take
those two guys out of there and all of a sudden it is a different
offense, different style. So, I mean, you know, the things we are
experiencing is not unique to Notre Dame. It is not because our lady is
on the dome that we are having these problems. This is universal."
Q. "With your defense are you putting more guys up on the line than in
previous years or the fact that you have sort of an inexperienced
secondary, does that prevent you to be able to do that?"
COACH HOLTZ: "We
have been more conservative than what we would like to be and I think it
is a good very question. Against a team like Ohio State and even Texas
to a certain extent, you are forced sometimes to jump up there in
man-coverage to be able to get your extra man up there and yet it has
hurt us at times as well when they have isolated safeties. The things
that I have been pleased with is how well our corners have played. We
put our corners out there, gee, they aren't very big but boy, they have
responded well.
"Our problem has been with the safeties and yet we don't
do it a whole lot because of some of the problems we have there. So I
thought our front 7, for the most part, really played awful, awful well.
With occasionally a guy here; a guy there. We got hurt a couple of times
where the guy ended up in the wrong gap or got reached and they went in
the secondary and instead of being it being seven or eight yards, you
miss a tackle and, boom, it is 33, 22, whatever else the case may be."
Q. "Under the current Bowl alliance system only two at large spots with
one loss now you are obviously still available, but is the pressure to
win out the rest of the way going to hurt the team and also in the past
you have talked about under a disappointing loss the importance of not
losing the team and where is this team in terms of something like that?"
COACH HOLTZ: "I think, first of all, you bring up a good point on the
bowl situation, but I don't even think about bowls. I worry about our
football team responding, and I tell you what, I think Washington has
got excellent chance to win the Pac-10. I think you got three
outstanding teams in the Pac-10, I think Arizona State, Washington,
along with USC, obviously. And that would be interesting to see
how that thing folds out.
"The main concern I have is getting our team
ready to play the University of Washington. I am scared to death of them
offensively and then I am really scared of the deficiencies that we have
on offense. I think sometimes when you lose, everything looks a little
bit darker, a little bit bleaker; now I am wondering can we make a first
down the rest of the year. I have my serious doubts. Can we stop
anybody? I see them split people out and an accurate quarterback and
good pass protection, you know, you get nightmares.
"I don't expect to
lose this football team, but it is always a concern. It is always a
concern. I don't think there is any doubt, particularly after last week,
particularly when you have some strong leadership and they had their
hearts set on a National Championship. And I never bothered to
discourage that. I think you ought to set high goals and I felt, okay,
if it doesn't happen, if we do stumble, if we do get beat, we would
approach it at that time. That is exactly the way I am doing it. We fell
about as far as we can fall and let us see where we can go from here."
Q. "Against Ohio State you didn't use any shotgun. You did use some
against Texas. Some may have wondered whether that would have helped.
Second, followup to Nancy's question with Ron, there also seems to be a
popular opinion that you are going to win more with a Jarious Jackson
once he gets the chance because of his mobility and option skills
similar to Tony Rice; your reaction to that."
COACH HOLTZ: "First of all,
first part of the question on the shotgun, on most of our formations Ron
has the option to go into the gun automatically on his own even if I
don't call it. One time I did call it, he got underneath the center.
Sometimes he feels more comfortable under the center, but that is his
option that he can go with the gun. I don't think so at the present
time, but if I felt Jarious Jackson gave us a better chance to win we would
do that. Ron gives you very good field leadership. He is a very accurate
thrower. He throws well. He protects the ball well. I don't -- I don't
know what more, you know, looking back at the film, he played awful
well. I mean, he really and truly did. He threw the one interception
where they came with the blitz and we had a crossin rout and they
dropped the middle guard. And that is my fault as much as anybody's. The
other one, I mean, he hit the receiver in the hands on a critical pass.
But no, he gives us the best chance to win - no doubt."
Q. "You have probably publicly second-guessed yourself more than maybe you
have ever had at any time after this game about the decision to not to
go for the field goal, the two-point conversion, do you find yourself --
do you secondguess more as you are in the game longer or is it just that
is what happens after a loss?"
COACH HOLTZ: "I think that happens after a
loss, but not as much as it has this time. Had we played well, maybe it
wouldn't. Geez, we didn't play well, and it is sending you a message,
what we'd do, how'd we do it and I have always felt - and this is not a
bad policy to have - when things don't go well, you better look at
yourself before you look at other people. And I think usually you will
find enough to correct within yourself that you don't have time to get
on other people.
"And the one thing that players didn't need at the
present time was being given the blame for something. I think that is my
responsibility on that, and I take it and I accept it. You know, we will
talk about certain things with the football team, etcetera. But we
should have never played that way. No way. As long as I have been in
coaching I have never had a big game where we have played like that,
ever. And I can't shake it. I will never be able to shake that one. You
can put me in the grave tomorrow; you can put me in the grave when I am
103 - I hope not - I hope it is long before then, but I will never get
rid of that one. That one will stay with me -- when you ask me what game
do you remember, I will remember that sucker."
Q. "One last question on Ron. After Peyton Manning's game against
Florida, people were still talking no one people -- people still
considering him for the Heisman. Yet Ron has a bad game; all of a sudden
people talk about him as a failure. Why is that and is that fair?"
COACH
HOLTZ: "You know as much about that as I do. You can answer that as well
as I can. I don't -- I don't know what people are saying. I don't read
it and nor do I have time for it. I think that everybody always wants to
evaluate somebody after every play or every game. I say when Ron Powlus
hangs up his cleats and says his football is over, evaluate his career at
that time and I think you will find that it will be exceptional when his
last game is done, period."
Q. "Ohio State showed you two different quarterbacks and showed your
players, two different styles. Is that something unique to your players
and will you, in fact, perhaps do that with Ron and Jarious?"
COACH
HOLTZ: "I think that they did -- Jackson, you know, has very, very good
feet and maneuvers around. The other one was -- Germaine, he threw the
ball, I thought Jackson threw the ball well. The reason they alternate
both of them, I don't think they can determine who is their No. 1
quarterback. I think they have both have had tremendous success. I think
they played Jackson much more. But you know, I have never believed in
alternating quarterbacks, but I do believe that in playing two
quarterbacks, but not alternating them."
Q. "Do you or your coaching staff feel like you prepared for this time
when you lose Derrick and some skilled people, by signing skilled
players like Randy Moss or Leon Blunt and had you prepared for this and
things have fallen through and kind of a segway, is it harder now than
ever to get the high impact, high skilled type of athlete into Notre
Dame given the academic standards here?"
COACH HOLTZ: "Well, I think No.
1, that we knew that we would have to replace the Derrick Mayes and
there wasn't any doubt that you look like Randy Moss would be the guy
that you would go to that would compliment Derrick last year and then we
hope we could compliment another one this year so you'd always have two
guys that could be big-play people. Sometimes everything doesn't work
out. As far as the admissions at Notre Dame, I don't think there is any
doubt that it is much more difficult now to get into Notre Dame now than
it has ever been. I think that is attested to by the tremendous rise
that Notre Dame has had academically.
"I think I have been very blessed
to be here ten years for the most exciting time in Notre Dame's history.
I think people are going to look back at this 10 year period and say,
you know, I don't know if there has ever been a brighter ten years. What
I am referring to is the academic success that this university has
enjoyed. You look at the aesthetic value. When I came here Juniper was a
street without a sidewalk. There wasn't a paid parking lot on there. Now
you look at the buildings. You look at the beauty. You drive down by the
lake and you see the flowers. I mean, it is incredible. You see the
addition of the stadium. You see the, you know, the TV contract, the
fund-raising, and I was asked on the Charlie Rose show yesterday, would
I want to change it. No. That would be unfair to every student that has
been here. Notre Dame sets those policies.
"I do believe that you have
some years where there are some outstanding athletes that just don't
have a chance to come to Notre Dame, but you have some other years where
there aren't some outstanding athletes that have a chance to come to
Notre Dame. I am talking about people who can run, and speed, etcetera.
But also it takes an individual also to have his priorities in accord
with what Notre Dame offers. Notre Dame doesn't offer apartment living
and big city living and throwing and catching year round. But, yeah, can
Notre Dame compete? Absolutely. But I don't think there is any doubt
that there have been some athletes that we had hoped to alleviate some
of the problems that we have had that are not here. Other years they
would be here, possibly, or, you know, maybe sign a great receiver, a
great running back.
"We have a commitment from a couple of great athletes
that I think are going to have tremendous success here at Notre Dame and
speed is not going to be a problem after this year. Guaranteed. One
thing, Notre Dame will run as well as anybody after this year;
particularly at wide receiver and defensive back. You cannot win if you
cannot run. And all great teams have big-play people and great
secondaries and a good offensive line. And excellent defensive line and
a good kicking game. You have got to be able to run. Okay, thank you."
