Oct. 8,
1996
Off The Practice Field....Notre Dame Head Coach Lou Holtz
COACH HOLTZ: First of all, the attitude of our football team, I
think that is the thing that concerns me and the question I am asked
most obviously. We had one of the poorer practices we've had yesterday;
walked off the field - and some of you were there - one thing that
bothered us -- if I am not real happy, I don't hide it particularly
well.
We looked at the film. After looking at the film I was a little
bit more upset. We came in this morning and the encouraging thing was
several of our players came in and were watching film on their own and
that doesn't happen very often with the academics. I know they are
concerned as well. You know you ask why. Well, we had a couple of days
off, I expected them to come back, but we had some people that were out
that really disrupts the continuity of it.
Mike Rosenthal has bursitis,
an infection in his knee. He will not be able to practice today. We are
hopeful he will be able to play on Saturday, but we don't know yet.
Jeremy Akers. So when you lose your two starting guards, that is a
problem.
Raki Nelson has a hip pointer. I don't know if he is going to
be available, but he could only go about three plays yesterday and he had
missed about the preceding five days.
Peter Chryplewicz is just coming
back from an injury on his ankle; he is in completely full speed. So you
just had a lot of inconsistency and one thing led to another.
On
defense, Jarvis Edison has serious back spasms which came up overnight.
And Jarvis, we don't know, we are going to have to see. I'd like to
think that they can get rid of the back spasms in time for him to play,
but we will have to wait and see. Back spasms are what occurred to Mike
Doughty down in Texas that caused him to miss the last two and a half
quarters of that football game. But it wasn't a particularly good
practice. But I think injuries have somewhat to do with it. If we
don't have a bounce-back real good practice today, I will be very, very
disappointed.
The thing that we haven't done this year is we haven't
played for 60 minutes. We haven't played a complete game on offense,
defense, kicking game. There hasn't been the sense of urgency that
there needs to be on a consistent basis. And we probably haven't
practiced a complete practice - offense, defense and kicking game with
the concentration that you'd like to see. How good are we? How bad are
we? I don't know. I do know that I was exceptionally disappointed with
our performance against Ohio State and I talked about that. I don't
get a chance to read the papers, but mail has come in saying that I put
the blame on the players. The blame goes on me, but it goes on
everybody. I thought I made that abundantly clear. But I do know we did
not play well at Ohio State, yet if the punt returns holds up, we are
within a touchdown with 3:35 and two timeouts and the wind in our back, but
it didn't hold up. The point I made is after that game I felt we must
really be an awfully bad football team and yet I gave Ohio State an
awful lot of credit. I think they are very, very good. But the fact is
that there were many things that occurred in that game we were not
completely ready for that Ohio State did contrary to what they had done
all last year and even this year.
So I don't know how good we are, but
it does seems like it has been months since we played a football game.
It seems like the Ohio State game was six months ago which tells you
somewhat about the kind of two weeks that we have put in. Washington is
a very, very solid football team, obviously. They lost their opening
ball game to Arizona State at Arizona State, I think, by three points.
When you first see that in the opening ball game, you don't know. Then
Arizona State turns around and wallops Nebraska quite decisively and
goes on as undefeated at the present time and that is the only loss that
Washington has.
Offensively, they changed a lot of things since last
year. Last year there were a lot of I-back, play action passing,
etc. Rashaan Shahee, I think is the correct pronunciation, rushed
for I want to say for 153 yards against us which was a career high for
him. He did not play at all against Stanford last week and they have a
junior college tailback there named Corey Dillon who is 6'2", 225, who
carried much of the load. I don't know whether Shahee was injured or
whatever the case may be, but I do know they have two fine tailbacks, and
they have gone predominantly to a one-back set and
Shane Fortney throws the
ball very well. I think Huard probably is as accurate a quarterback
as we have gone against - throws very, very well; nice quick release and
finds the receivers very, very well. Defensively, they returned, I want
to stay, seven starters from last year. They did move a few of them
around - Ink Aleaga was an inside backer last year; now he has been more
of an outside backer. Although I see in the depth chart here they have
moved him back to the inside backer, but played very, very well. He is
an excellent player. Their secondary plays well. Last year with
approximately five minutes to go in the game, we were behind 21 to 7 in
that football game out there and I know that Washington feels they
should have beaten us. The thing is that when you look at them, they
are a much better football team this year than they were last year. I
don't think there is any doubt about it. They are a better offensive
football team and certainly a better defensive football team. The
question I don't know is where we are and we will find that out when we
happen to play them. What questions could I answer for you?
Q. Lou, you may not be able to totally address this since you
mentioned the line injuries, but you talked before about some indecision
at guard and/or offensive tackle. And also some competition at wide
receiver. Have you settled on who will start at flanker and in the
offensive line?
COACH HOLTZ: Let me cover -- that is a good question,
Jack, and I didn't cover that adequately. We
are going to look at Ridder and Petitgout and Clevenger to one tackle. I
think Mike Doughty is playing very, very well -- consistently well. Mike
Doughty and Mike Rosenthal and maybe Kaczenski are
playing the best in the offensive line. But I think the starting left
tackle will now come down to Luke Petitgout and Chris Clevinger. I
think one of those two will start. Petitgout played very, very well
against Texas and he has practiced well. It is a little bit of an
adjustment moving to the other side. Left guard, it will have to be
Jerry Wisne starting. I think Jerry Wisne is going to be an outstanding
guard. I think Jerry Wisne will be as good a guard as we have had here
at Notre Dame and we have had some great ones. I think Jerry Wisne and
Mike Rosenthal in a year are going to be as good a guards as there are
in the country. I think with Kaczenski and Doughty and Clevinger and
Petitgout all coming back, the offensive line is virtually the same one
that we played with last year and this year with the exception guards.
But Wisne is an excellent football player. He is just not very
experienced he makes some mistakes. He is a aggressive and he is tough
and he has done an awful lot of good things. He is just not very
consistent with comes with immaturity. Rosenthal is mature beyond his
age. I mean, I have never seen a football player that is as smart as
Mike Rosenthal or pick things up as rapidly as he does. And with Jerry
Akers's injury that sorts of resolves that it will be Jerry Wisne,
although Jeremy Akers does give you a lot of consistency in there.
At
the wide receiver, we are going to look at different things. Nobody has
really come to the forefront except Bobby Brown. Bobby Brown is a young
man who hadn't played much, but Bobby has really come alive the last two
weeks and I expect Bobby Brown to play an awful lot this week in the
football game. At safety, we felt moving Deke Cooper there, we will give
him a good chance. And he doesn't have the best quickness in the world,
but I think he is a natural defensive back. I think he is a natural
safety. And with Jarvis Edison back's spasm there is a very, very
strong possibility that we could start Deke Cooper at free safety. We
should get A'jani Sanders back by Navy. That doesn't help us this week.
That doesn't help us next week. I don't anticipate any other defensive
changes, Benny Gilbeaux at strong safety and Rossum and Covington at the
corners. Of course, Wynn and Dansby and Alton Maiden and Bert Berry,
Minor, Cobbins and Tatum will be in the defensive front 7.
Q. In light of some of the, I guess, practice struggles you have
had, if you could have would you have rather got back out and played a
game Saturday?
COACH HOLTZ: We could have gotten out-- pardon?
Q. If you wouldn't have an Open Date would that might have been
easier to get refocused after the loss?
COACH HOLTZ: Yeah, I think it
would have. I think it would have been easier to shed the loss. You
know, then you are involved in the other team's opponent, etc.
When you have an open date, it just does make it a little bit different,
but we did and what we tried to do is (1) get them a little bit
healthier which we really haven't been able to do, (2) was get a little
bit better fundamentally which I think we are, but we have not become a
team, but as I say, some of the offensive players were watching film
very early this morning, so that was an encouraging sign.
Q. Lou, with the style and personnel that Washington has,
particularly at wide receiver, do you see them as more of a big play
threat than, say, last year?
COACH HOLTZ: Oh, I don't think there is
any doubt they are a big play threat for several reasons. They isolate
you into a lot of coverages where you are spread out clear across the
field and they hit their receiver and get you in a one-on-one, and they
catch a short rout and breaks a tackle and turns it into a big gain or
else you squad on them, and they go by you deep. Yeah, it is a big-play
offense. And anybody that can spread people out and keep them from
playing man-to-man coverage is usually going to be a big-play offense if
you have somebody that can get those individuals the ball. I think
Washington has both of them. Problem we had was when we split people out
against Ohio State, etcetera, they just went out and covered them with
one man and played you with everybody else inside. And we can't do
that. And I am not sure that we could resolve that because as you and I
both know Washington plays a lot of man-coverage and they blitz a lot.
They play with an 8, 9, 10 man front. And this is not going to shock
us. We saw it last year and we will see it again.
Q. I wonder if you could assess just generally how your defensive
line has played this year?
COACH HOLTZ: I think our defensive front 7
has really played well. Even against Ohio State which was an
outstanding offensive line, I thought we played awful, awful well up
front with our front 7. We missed some tackles in the secondary - nine
of them to be exact - which accounted for an awful lot of yardage. But
I think our front 7 -- and the guy that is underrated in that whole
front 7 is Alton Maiden. I think he has played awful well for us at
middle guard. In practice this week, I might also say that Antwon Jones
is really making good progress there. But I think our front 7 has
played awfully, awfully well. But then again, the season is only
one-third over.
Q. What quality about Ron Powlus stands out to you?
COACH HOLTZ:
His intelligence. His peripheral vision. His football sense. His
quick release. His accuracy in throwing the football. We had -- we
threw two interceptions against Ohio State. He has thrown three for the
year. The one interception hit the receiver right in the hands. It was
man-coverage and the guy was riding on his back. I mean, he made a
perfect throw. You can't ask it; hit the receiver's hands; bounced up
in the air and they intercepted it. And what was the other interception
he threw? Oh, the other one was when their nose guard dropped back into
coverage and we had a crossing rout and their nose guard dropped back
and we hadn't prepared for it. Those are the only two interceptions,
but I think the fact that he is a very, very talented individual.
Q. Coach, the Huskies are expecting through the bye-week and so forth
that you are going to get back to really a power game, Lou. Has that
been your emphasis since the OSU game?
COACH HOLTZ: I don't think so.
What we are trying to do, we are trying to get unsettled offensively.
That is the main thing we are trying to do.
Q. You mentioned how you were concerned with how the press thought
you put too much emphasis on the team going into Ohio State. Well, how
about this game and its importance to your post season placement?
COACH
HOLTZ: I am not sure I heard the question because my hearing is going
down a little bit. As I understand it, I put too much emphasis on the
Ohio State-- I don't--
Q. No, you said you were concerned with how people perceived that
you did, but what about the importance of this game?
COACH HOLTZ: Oh,
this is an important ball game. Of course, every game I feel is very
important. You know, I can go back and I reflect back when I coached at
William & Mary and anywhere else, every game was important at William &
Mary as any game I have ever coached. If you are involved in it and you
put forth a lot of time and effort it is very, very important to you.
And I feel the same way about our players. Out players at William & Mary
felt the game was exceptionally important when we played. This is a
very, very important ball game. We are playing a very, very good
football team. What I am more concerned about at the present time is
how well our football team is going to play because I don't know
anything about it. I have never had a football team I can't get a pulse
on. I can't. Absolutely no pulse. Now, that is a bad sign, you can't
find the pulse, you call the coroner, but I don't think that is the
case.
Q. After the Ohio State game, one of the quotes that you had, you
said that you can't shake it; you probably never will be able to shake
it. Knowing how important it is for the team to put this past them and
move on and knowing that they do take their cues from the head coach,
what have you done to get the team in the right frame of mind?
COACH
HOLTZ: Next question. I think that is starting to come around now
- starting to come around now. Main thing I have tried to do to shake
it is to make total preparation for the University of Washington. I
think that you are absolutely correct in your assumption that players do
get their cues from the head coach, by his attitude and whether he gives
up on the side line and during the year, whatever the case maybe. I
think they also take their cue of preparation and what kind of
preparation you have made and things along that line. We haven't talked
about bouncing back or anything else yet. I think what is important is
that we bounce back from yesterday's practice and go forward from there.
You know, I lost my father on January 11, 1977, I guess it was. And you
know, you don't ever shake that. You still think about your father from
time to time. I think about my father an awful lot since I have been
here at the University of Notre Dame. Just sometimes your mind will
wonder. You say, gee, I wonder what my dad would say. But you go on -
life goes on; you move on. You take what you have and you move forward
and I am not philosophic -- I am not philosophizing -- I am not really
saying what I really feel in my heart except this: Just you have to
take wherever you are and you got to do what is your obligation, your
responsibility. Our obligation and responsibility is two fold as I see
it. One is to prepare the team for the University of Washington. No. 2
is to get over the Ohio State loss and those will be accomplished. They
are not now. But they will be.
Q. Autry Denson is a guy that you took a look at wide out before the
season; then had to move him back. Talk a little bit about the things
he gives you and perhaps the versatility that he brings?
COACH HOLTZ:
He is a very, very fine back. He also can be a fine very, very fine
wide receiver. When we moved him out there we had lost Randy Kinder for
an indefinite period and we were struggling at the tailback situation.
Then we put the ball on the ground so many times at Vanderbilt that we
had to put him back at tailback for that game and subsequently we
decided instead of moving him back and forth depending upon the status
of the tailback, that we would just put him at tailback and we would
leave him. He is a very strong runner for his size. He has good
peripheral vision; good quickness, and he has deceptive speed. He does
not have breakaway speed, but he does have very, very deceptive speed as
was evidenced by the punt return of 91 yards against Ohio State that was
called back. I also want to say this: I think Farmer and Kinder, if I
were to pick out two people who had great preparations during the
opening week, it would be Robert Farmer and Randy Kinder.
Q. Denson's finger is all healed?
COACH HOLTZ: No, but it wasn't
amputated either. He has a splint on it at the present time. It does
affect him catching the ball. He is a very, very fine receiver, but I
don't know how much he will be able to catch the ball. I would not bet
that he would be able to run back punts with the splint on his finger,
but you know, at the present time if you asked me today, but we don't
play today. Hopefully, that thing will continue to get better, but he
does have a broken index finger and I think it is on his right hand.
Q. A week ago, Lou, discussion was team speed. You had made, I
believe, a guarantee that you would have that team speed rectified next
year. Are you taking a different head coaching position or how exactly
are you going to pull that off?
COACH HOLTZ: With recruiting. We have
some commitments from some people that can flat run. Now, I think team
speed is important. Sometimes when you are recruiting a guy said, boy,
he has got excellent speed. Well, he does compared to the other people
that are going to go to college and play intramural basketball. They do
have good speed compared to them. But to me good speed is somebody that
runs track - where a guy is there at the watch and he is running
against someone else and he runs 10, 300 meters. I know 10, 300 meters
is pretty good speed. So we will -- we are talking to several athletes
that have excellent speed and it has to be done through recruiting. And
I think that speed is the greatest asset you can have, except
intelligence. I think intelligence is more important than speed. Other
than that, nothing is more important than speed. You know, the people
you -- when you had people that could run here and we have had people
that could run. You talk about the Pat Terrell; you talk about the Rod
Smith, I mean, you are all talking about state high school track
champions in high school. We don't have that now. At one time, the
Notre Dame football team had a 440 relay that had the best indoor time
in the country of all colleges comprised entirely of football players.
That was speed and that is the one ingredient, the only ingredient I can
think of that we lack at the present time.
Q. What has Bobby Brown done in the last couple of weeks that
impressed you?
COACH HOLTZ: Number one he is running his routs far more
comfortably; far more precise. He has better understanding of the
offense. He is blocking much, much better and he is catching the ball
and he is a good target. If you have Bobby Brown on one side and
Malcolm Johnson on the other, you have two guys that really don't have
great speed, but have pretty good quickness, but they are about 6'4",
they are big and strong and aren't going to get hung up on the line of
scrimmage all the time by people, and -- but he has been impressive the
last week.
Q. How about Shannon Stephens progress at receiver?
COACH HOLTZ:
Shannon Stephens is the one guy that can run. There is no doubt about
it. Shannon Stephens will be a great asset, but when you run a rout and a
lot of it has to take time, experience. You have got to be at the right
place; you have got to be able to read coverages. You got to be able --
and his development has not been as rapidly as what we would like or as
consistent, but it is -- sometimes things just take just take time, but
he does have the speed to get people off of him, or run away from him.
He does have that kind of speed.
Q. How far away is your secondary from being the type that you
talked about last week that can control a game or make the big-play when
you need a big-play made?
COACH HOLTZ: I think our corners are at that
stage now. I wouldn't say our corners are great, but our corners are
pretty good football players. They are good competitors, and they
tackle well and they have got a lot of experience. They play well and
they play with confidence. I think Allen Rossum is really playing well
as is Ivory Covington. Our problem is that, you know, we just -- when we
lost A'jani Sanders, that hurt a lot. But we have not -- we did not
play well in the secondary against Ohio State with nine missed tackles
and seven missed assignments. I mean, there is no way in this world
that that is particularly fair, but it is not because they wanted to
make them. It is just new. Things happen quicker in the game and you
are reading this; all of a sudden, boom, here comes the guy with the
ball and you lose your poise, maybe, and don't break down and don't wrap
up and things just happen quickly, but I think that eventually we can
get there. I definitely think we can, but our corners are playing well
now.
Q. Last week you mentioned -- you used the phrase split
personality. I think it was last Tuesday talking about your offense. I
am wondering where in a week's time have you made any progress with that
dilemma?
COACH HOLTZ: The thing that is really frustrating to all of us
offensively, nothing seems to mesh. We have a quarterback that can
throw and read coverages. We have problem beating man-coverage which is
what we see. And we don't run a lot of option which presents some
problems on that. When people play you in straight man and blitz you
and line everybody up there for your power football game, you know, you
can split people out, but every time you split people out you become a
little bit more vulnerable to the blitz; then people really have to be
able to beat the receivers quickly. And we don't have a lot of
quickness in the offensive line. We have pretty good size. But you
can't do a lot of pulling and trapping and we do trapping - I am talking
about long traps and sweeps and get outside by pulling guards, et
cetera, we can't do that. So you have a quarterback whose talents are
one area and you have people that are doing things that take his talents
away and we just aren't good enough to be able to take and run the
football. In the past, this hadn't been the case. When we had Rick
Meier, he had some fine receivers out there that people were afraid to
play man-coverage. And that is what is really frustrating, which we do
we go, which direction do we go, etcetera. But nothing seems to fit the
puzzle at the present time, and we thought that, you know, couple of
years ago that we would resolve the receiver problem with some people we
signed. It just did not turn out. So where do we go from here is we
still have a split personality.
Q. Because of that and some of the problems that presents, could
this be a week that you would, even before the game, decide to spot
Jarious for some certain series of downs?
COACH HOLTZ: I have really
entertained the thought of playing the entire second team at one series
in the first half, just see how people responded. We talk about having
some competition at left guard, at left tackle. I think we have good
depth at tailback. I think Jamie Spencer needs to get on the field.
Let's see Jamie Spencer. I think Jarious Jackson would like to get on
the field. But that could not be substituted by a whole team. It is
possible that a second team could be substituted at a series or a
certain segment of them and that is always possible.
Q. Comparative the scores are very often misleading and
meaningless, but Nebraska scored zero points against Arizona State.
Washington scored 42 points against Arizona State. Is that a
significant comparison?
COACH HOLTZ: Yeah, I think that what Nebraska
-- you know, when -- I didn't see the game, but Nebraska, I would think,
met a nine-man front and Nebraska is probably like us to a certain
extent, either they couldn't get the ball to the wide receivers or they
didn't try. But in any event, what highlights I saw, Nebraska tied to
combat the 8 and 9 man front with the option. And I think they threw
the ball away about three or four times on it which cost them. Whereas,
Washington splits you out and has an excellent offensive line - fine,
fine receivers; good tailback and they couldn't play them in straight
man and yet at the same time, if Arizona State went out and double
covered, they ran the ball and they brought everybody in and they threw
the ball which. You know, sounds likes good logic if you can do it.
Q. Can your players take any kind of confidence or get any kind of
confidence just looking at the Ohio State, Penn State game the fact
that they were able to stay with Ohio State compared to what Penn State
did?
COACH HOLTZ: I didn't get a chance to see the Ohio State, Penn
State game but I was shocked by the results. I came in and saw the
halftime 24 nothing and watched a little bit of the third quarter when
the guy said that this was the first time Penn State was in Ohio State's
territory, I couldn't believe it. I think Ohio State is an excellent,
excellent football team. They played Penn State very, very similar to
the way they played us. They lined up and got up on them man-coverage.
Ohio State lost Howard in the first five minutes of game I understand,
their one corner. Springs is a great corner and Howard is a very good
one. But I was surprised. Ohio State is an excellent team. I knew that
when they came out of our game. What I was disappointed in was that
Ohio State -- we allowed them to jump up there and play us man-coverage
and stuff the line and twist and everything else along that line. But
as I said, that is one of the reasons I said it, I don't know how good
we are; I don't know how bad we are. All I know is we have got some
injuries problems right now and we are not practicing right now and we
have got a very, very difficult task with us; particularly if we are
starting a freshman safety that has only been there a couple of weeks.
He will definitely play. Deke Cooper will definitely play and he will
play in the first half, but whether he will start or not, I don't know,
so yeah, I do have some concern. Because I know Washington is capable
of moving the ball on anybody. What we have to find out, whether we are
or not.
Q. In the Ohio State game Ron Powlus, I think, was leading rush in
the first half with some pretty good numbers. He had 38 yards or
something in the first half. Was that by design or did he make some
reads and take what they gave him?
COACH HOLTZ: What we felt we had to
do we felt that we had to miss-key them some and so we put in a little
quarterback counter and we got the ball on the 13 yard line; ran a
quarterback counter and he ran it for about 8 - 8 to 10. Then in the
first half also we ran a quarterback counter, he only got 5 on it, but
the safety man tackled him in an open field - which tells you something
about how close they were playing. We ran the option. He went 22 yards
on it where they elected him to keep the football, etcetera. But
because of what they are doing, we ran some option. We didn't run
enough of it. As I said, we ran it 10 times for 104 yards and dropped a
40 yard pass and I am talking about play action passing and the option,
etcetera, but we knew he had to win the ball some, but we didn't want
him to beat them running the ball. We just wanted to get a critical
first down or two.
Q. You mentioned Bobby Brown stepping up. Is there anybody else
that, you know, it is painful to watch Pete Chryplewicz to try and go
out there at the end of the Ohio State but you'd rather have a guy that
knew what he was doing at 80% than maybe taking a chance but is it time
to give Dan O'Leary a look?
COACH HOLTZ: We have worked Dan O'Leary and
John Cerasani and I think Mike Gandy is a good tight end too. We have
three good tight ends, Cerasani, O'Leary and Gandy I don't know what it
is. Sometimes I swear that -- I am personally -- and I don't want to
make this political, but I think English ought to be the main language
everybody in this country speaks because I think we have some football
players that don't speak English. And I say that because if you say
something to them in English and they look at you after the play is over
like they never heard it before. But that is the only thing with
Cerasani and O'Leary and Gandy is just consistency. So many in
offensive play that you take for granted - what foot you step with is
critical. Where you put the toe is absolutely critical. And where your
landmark is on that block is critical; then all of a sudden they stunt
and this and you have got to pick this guy up and that guy, it is just
an awful lot for a young player to learn, but O'Leary is an excellent
receiver, excellent receiver.
Q. Couple of years ago when Ryan Leahy was hurt a lot and Jon
Spickelmier was just kind of finding his way, you talked a lot about
long snapping and it has kind of taken care of itself, you don't hear
about it anymore. Is that something that people take for granted --
COACH HOLTZ: It is. A long snap is something people take for granted
just assume that it will be there. John Spickelmier has worked very
hard on it and takes a lot of pride in that. Dan O'Leary is an
excellent long snapper as well. What has made it more difficult with the
long snap and it is two told. One, you can always find a long snapper
when everybody is in the single wing because somebody is used to
snapping the ball all the time, spiral, et cetera. You get away from
the single wing, it became a loss start. I don't want to reminisce too
much, but at North Carolina State we lost a game when we made a bad snap
twice and I said in the press conference if anybody in the student body
cab long snap, I'd appreciate it you call me and gave my phone number
and 20 people showed up and we found an outstanding long snapper who was
a freshman who snapped for all four years. But John Spickelmier with
the spread punt now also has to block. Before, you know, when you had
tight punt, all he did was snap the ball and everybody else blocked, but
with the spread punt, he has got to block and it is a very, very
difficult block, so we really, really appreciate the job he has done.
And I think one of the reasons that we have kicked the ball pretty well
on field goals is we have a timing and if you want to real good key
whether the place kick is going to have a good chance to be made look
and see does the ball come back at the same velocity as normal; does it
float back; does it come hard; is it left; is it right; is it high; is
it low, because that all affects the timing. Many times the kicker will
pull the ball left; that is because the guys get there, the snap is
behind them; by the time he gets it down, the guy's foot is already
started through, etcetera. So when we go to the motel on Friday night,
we don't take very many players, but we take John Spickelmier. He is
very, very valuable to us.
Q. How much can you expect from a guy making the snap with the
block?
COACH HOLTZ: He has got a gap the block. And it is not easy.
It is not easy to make that block. He has got to snap the ball and he
has either got to the slide to the right or left and if there is a guy
in that gap, he has got to set it back and move it over to the right.
This is one reason that we spent an awful lot of time on fake punts and
we never go into a football game that we don't have a fake punt and a
fake pass ready for a football game. We will never go into a football
game. But he has done an excellent job. Any other questions? Thank you
very much.
