October 13, 1996
Lou Holtz Sunday Press Conference
JOHN HEISLER: Coach Holtz is here. He will make some opening
comments and take some questions.
COACH HOLTZ: I had the opportunity
thus far to study the offense; study the defense. I haven't studied the
kicking game. The first comment that comes to my mind is we are playing
too well on defense to give up as many points as we are giving and that
is not the defense's fault. Our kicking game is just putting us in
atrocious field position and yet our punter and our place kicker are
doing an excellent job. I thought or punt team performed well, but I've
got to study it. Our kickoff team, letting the punt bounce and just
putting our defense in poor field position. That is unfair to our
defense because they are playing far too well. You give up 240 yards
and 20 points, that just doesn't mix. The fault is not our defense.
The fault is field position that is being supplied by the offense and by
the kicking game. Defensively I was very, very impressed. I did not
think we could do as well against Washington's offense as what we did.
I think that our front 7 played awfully, awfully well. Bert Berry,
Renaldo Wynn, Alton Maiden played exceptional ball game as well as
Dansby, Minor, Cobbins, Tatum. The biggest improvement was in our
secondary. For having been only there a couple of weeks, I thought Deke
Cooper played made a lot of plays. He just shows up. He is not very
fast, yet he is our sprinter on the punt team. He doesn't look like a
great athlete and yet he does the best job of holding up their sprinters
on our team. He made the interception. The other individual that really
stepped up was Devron Harper. Look at him, I mean, he made some fine
plays; competed well, so those two freshman along with Lee Lafayette.
Lee Lafayette would have made a major contribution to this football team
had he not been injured, so those three freshmen and the secondary are
really most encouraging. I thought that Allen Rossum and Ivory Covington
played awful, awful well; both tackled well. Benny Guilbeaux played
well.
Jarvis Edwards came in played and awful well. I think it was
probably the best our secondary has played thus far. And consequently it
was just fun to watch our defense play. I think late in the second
quarter we had only given up one first down, which was really
impressive. Offensively, we played well in all areas. We had more big
plays in one game than we probably had the entire year. I felt all
receivers played well. I thought our receivers had improved and got
some big plays from Shannon Stephens, four of them to be exact, so he
shows signs, these last two weeks, of really making some progress. I
think one guy that doesn't get enough credit is Cikai Champion. Cikai
Champion played very, very hard; blocked awful well. Malcolm Johnson, I
think we need to see a little bit more of Bobby Brown and Shannon
Stephens on the field. Some people I don't know if Peter Chryplewicz
has ever played a better football game since he has been here at Notre
Dame as far as blocking. We felt a key match-up was Peter Chryplewicz
and whoever was over him. He played awfully, awfully well and he caught
the ball well. I think Mike Rosenthal, Mike Doughty, Chryplewicz, and
Kaczenski were just an awesome -- I don't know if we have ever had a
right side play as well for a whole ball game and as physical as they
did. Our entire offensive line played well, but those three in
particular.
I think our running backs ran well, and all of them had the
chance. We rotated them around - Denson, Farmer and Kinder. And
Edwards played well and Jamie Spencer played well and when I am saying
"played well," they played well without the ball. I thought Powlus
played well and did some things that you just don't teach. I mean,
hitting Chryplewicz on the 5 yard line there, third down for the
touchdown, it was his third receiver. He just sees things. He ran the
ball, and he just -- I'd say what do you want to run, I want to run 24
pow, I want to run 22, they were just really into a good rhythm. I
thought some of the younger players, Joey Goodspeed really has a lot of
running ability and it was encouraging to see some of the players come
to the forefront. I thought Hunter Smith did a nice job kicking. Jim
Sanson, we had a PAT blocked without any pressure - we talked to him
about it during practice, he is just kicking the ball far too low; not
getting it up quick enough. And it wasn't a case where there was
penetration where we didn't miss the extra point and there were other
ones, the ball just wasn't kicked high enough. He is going to have to
work on that. As I said, the disappointing thing was our kickoff
coverage; letting the ball bounce on punt returns, which gave then, the
fumble and the snap. We fumbled a snap, it was on first down because
they were jumping defenses and any time you go on first down,
quarterback can't pull out quickly or the center can't afford to be late
- I don't know which one it was - but the snap was mishandled and that
could have been disastrous. David Quist made two tackles on the goal
line which were really critical and that was probably the most
encouraging thing was the goal line stand; not only because it really
gained back the momentum, but because great defensive teams play well on
the goal line and we had two good goal line stances down there which I
think that you build on that. I go back and I look at the different
things - it was a good win. I didn't know how we would play, but I
think Washington is much better than what they showed against us. They
obviously did not have a particularly good day. We did. I thought
Jarious Jackson came in and in the first two series, he really wasn't in
control. Didn't have a leader. I thought the last two times he went in
when he moved the ball, he took charge of the team. I mean -- that is
what you really want with a quarterback and so that was a good
experience for him to have a chance to play four series, I think it was.
And as I told him, we were not going to hamstring him when he went into
the game; that we would give him a chance to move the football and do
different things. But it was a win, and we move on now. Injury-wise, I
do not know of any major injuries, but I would imagine Covington, we
will have to see about Covington and other bumps and bruises. Kaczenski
got hit on the sideline and he could not have gone back into the game,
so I am concerned about Kaczenski. I do not know of any other ones at
the present time that are serious.
Q. Now that you have played five games, you have had a variety of
different types of situations, that come-from-behind win on the road,
actually two come-from-behind wins on the road; a loss at home and
yesterday a dominating win against a relatively highly ranked team. Do
you have a feel yet for the personality of this year's football team?
COACH HOLTZ: You know, Brian, one of the unusual things was going into
last week's game. I did not. I -- I couldn't read the football team.
I couldn't judge them. The personality of this football team, I think
right now is they just really like to play the game. They like to play
the game better than any football team I have seen. I am talking about
practice and everything else, but they don't -- I don't know how to put
this, offensive linemen like to be aggressive. They don't like to pass
protect. This football team, I think, just predominantly likes to play
the game. Here you have Autry Denson, Farmer and Kinder at tailback and,
you know, they practice well. As I said, Kinder and Farmer maybe
practiced better than anybody else on our team last week and they played
well. They like the game and I cannot ever emphasize the importance of
that; you say, well, everybody likes the game. Yeah, everybody likes
the game when they are catching the ball and when everything is going
well. I am talking about just liking the game, going out to practice.
I talked to Cobbins about something because he is a captain and I
respect his opinion. I talk to all our captains and I talk to others,
other seniors. Every time I say to Cobbins, what do you think about
this. He says, all I want to do is graduate and win. He just says I
want to play football, win and graduate, nothing else. This team is not
into politics. This team isn't into anything except they like to play
the game. I think that is how I would characterize it at the present
time, Brian - more so than any team that I have ever coached anywhere.
Q. Following up on that, Lou, maybe the polls aside on this
question, how good do you think -- I mean, you have been up and down in
the rankings, how good do you think this football team is?
COACH HOLTZ:
I think this, Brian, I think that we have some awfully good strengths.
I think our defensive front 7, as we knew going into the year, was
pretty good. We knew that we had pretty good backs, although we put the
ball on the ground far too much, but we still played pretty well. I
think our offensive line, we felt, would be pretty good. We felt Ron
Powlus would be pretty good. The problem we had was secondary and
receivers and speed. I think Deke Cooper has helped our secondary. I
think Devron Harper has helped our secondary. But I think to lose
A'Jani Sanders and have a Benny Guilbeaux -- our secondary is getting
better and if they can continue to get better we can be outstanding on
defense, but we can't continue to put them in poor field position, but I
think that the strength of the defensive line was neutralized until our
secondary started coming. The same thing is, offensively, I think that
our receivers are starting to come and we are not putting as much
pressure on our receivers as what we did earlier in the year. How good
are we? I think we are -- I think we are a pretty good football team
when we play the way we did yesterday. I don't think we are very good
at finessing. I don't think we are very good at fooling people. But
are we a great football team? No. Could we become a great football
team? Yeah, we are capable of it. But our kicking game has got to get
better. We need more speed in our kicking game; particularly in our
coverage aspect. That has probably been the most discouraging thing
today, has been the way we have fielded punts; not the way we block for
them - the way we fielded them, and the way we have covered kickoffs and
the turnovers. Those would be the three most discouraging things. And
you have got to be able to run the football to be a good football team
and I do think that we are not a great running team, but I think we are
pretty good. I think we are a solid football team whose weaknesses
aren't as glaring today as they were three weeks ago and hopefully they
will even become strengths in other three weeks, Brian.
Q. Is there anybody else you might try with field and punts?
COACH
HOLTZ: Well, I don't think I have ever had anybody that catches them
any better than Autry Denson. And in fairness to Autry Denson, Hunter
Smith does not punt in the game the way he punts in practice and -- what
is Smith's averaging, 43? But Hunter Smith -- and usually we have our
punt team with a back to the camera and that is usually punting
downwind. And so Hunter Smith is kicking them 60, 65 yards and we are
not used to seeing the 32, 33 yard punt. So number 1, when the ball is
kicked, he immediately thinks he is going to have to run back because we
keep trying to make him count off the yardage. It is not a question of
fielding the ball. He fields the ball better than anybody on our
football team and as well as anybody we have had since I have been here
at Notre Dame. What he has to do is have enough courage and finally he
did step up and caught one yesterday of about 33 yards. That is all he
has to do. I think he can field it well, but we just -- we need to
understand and when we meet and look, how we are putting our defense and
our offense in bad field position by some of the things that we are
doing which is self inflicted.
Q. How do you envision lining up at wide receiver this week?
COACH
HOLTZ: I think that if you ask me to line up the two right now and I
haven't talked to our coaches - split end will probably be Malcolm
Johnson with Bobby Brown behind him. And flanker would probably be
Mosley or Shannon Stephens with Cikai behind him.
Q. Was Rick just shook up when he got hit on the sidelines or did
he get dinged in the head?
COACH HOLTZ: What happened is he got hit in
the leg and he couldn't go back into the ballgame. It was unfortunate.
Our sideline -- and I am at fault as anybody in this world, but our
sideline -- I want to tell you, you know, I try to anticipate somebody
coming and you look and there is not a lot of room to get out of the
way. We don't have a lot of room to begin with, and we dress so many
players and it is just very, very difficult and I don't know what
happened, but it is one that went in there, Carretta and (inaudible)
went over there and they came to me and said he can't go back in. Now I
haven't gotten the injury list yet I am hopeful he will be okay but I
don't know.
Q. I realize hindsight is 20/20 but the way your team dominated
yesterday, do you regret that you didn't have the same game plan
against Ohio State two weeks ago, sir?
COACH HOLTZ: Oh, no. I wanted
to lose the Ohio State game. (audience laughter). No, Howard, I am just
being facetious. The thing that -- knowing what we knew at the time
going into Ohio State, Howie, we didn't know the difficulties we had
because one of the problems we have on defense, our secondary, and one
of the problems we have on offense was our receivers and they were going
against one another, but, yes, absolutely, I really think this is what
gives us the best chance to win. It gives us a chance to have the most
big plays. It gives us a chance to be most consistent. It gives us a
chance to fall into a rhythm. Yeah, I think we need to throw the ball a
little bit more and obviously will than what we did yesterday. But,
yeah, I think this gives us the best chance to win. I don't think there
is any doubt, Howie, we are a better football team playing the way we
did yesterday than the way we tried to play earlier in the year.
Q. Much was made yesterday about the return of Notre Dame football
and you talked about old-fashioned going back to the running game. How
big of a role does the tight end position and has the tight end position
played since you have been at Notre Dame in that approach?
COACH HOLTZ:
Well, the tight end is really critical because he sees so many different
looks there and whether you run inside or outside, the tight end is
absolutely critical on it and particularly in yesterday's game. You
know, the tight end got to be able to catch passes and run routs,
etcetera, but he definitely has to be able to block for us. And we ran
off-tackle, I don't know how many times, over the tight end and Peter
Chryplewicz just did an incredible job. He played as fine a football
game as I think we have had a tight end play here, just was outstanding
in every phase of the game. And there is no doubt, David, that the
tight end is very, very critical to us and we have always had a good
tight end and we have a good tight end this year.
Q. Lou, it is becoming apparent from the way things are going
around the country this season that a team might be able to win the
National Championship with one loss. Is Notre Dame back in that mix and
what are your feelings on that situation?
COACH HOLTZ: You know, Bob, I
sort of feel that this might be a year where everybody is going to have
one loss. I do know this, come January 2nd there will only be one team
without a loss. I don't think there will be two. I think that you just
have to see what happens. I think the only team that has a shot at
Florida is Florida State. Maybe the only team that has a shot with
Florida State is Florida, and if Ohio State would have gotten caught by
Wisconsin yesterday, maybe, I don't know. I don't see anybody being
able to beat Ohio State. You still have Arizona State came back, so
maybe they will make it through unscathed, although they play Southern
Cal at home this week, that will be interesting. I think that -- it is
possible for everybody to end up with one loss, although somebody would
have to upset Florida State and Florida State would have to beat
Florida; and somebody would have to beat Arizona State and somebody
would have to beat Ohio State, but the only thing that we have tried to
focus on -- I have never tried to labor this team under any
misconceptions that we still with a shot at the National Championship
but there is only going to be one team on January 2nd that is
unblemished at the most and we aren't going to be one of them, but we
can't do anything about that. I felt so bad after the Ohio State game,
and it was two weeks ago I was here, and the thing I lamented was I felt
I didn't give our players a fair chance. And we really didn't, and so
we made up our mind we are going to go back. When I say we didn't give
them a fair chance, we ran -- they ran a lot of twists and stunts and
amazing, the game plan that Washington University ran was almost
identical to the one that Ohio State ran. Almost the same defense, same
twist, same stunts. Just we ran more quick hitting plays and did things
like that, so it isn't what people do and it isn't what you do on
offense. It is the execution of it. We narrowed down what we did and
we got a lot of reps on it. So just go from there.
Q. What did Wisconsin do that no one else was able to do to make
that game so close and were you surprised about that?
COACH HOLTZ: No.
I really want. Bobby Alvarez called me on Thursday and unfortunately, I
was putting out some forest fires, not brush fires on Thursday, I didn't
get a chance to call him back and I regret that because I usually talk
to Barry and Cooper and Skip and some other people, every week they
call. But Barry has a very good football team, but Ohio State is a
very, very fine football team. I think defensively they are very, very
solid. But if you don't make many mistakes and you don't give up many
big plays and you keep them backed up, I think you can have some degree
of success against Ohio State. I do not think Ohio State is unbeatable
anymore than anybody else in the country is unbeatable and yet I have
great respect for them, but I just am not surprised, Wisconsin is a
pretty good football team. Anything can happen. You know the same team
you see one week is not the same team you see the next week. Let us
also keep in mind, Ohio State came off of a Notre Dame, Penn State game
back-to-back and, you know, maybe they weren't at their best, but you
know, let us give credit to Wisconsin and to Ohio State.
Q. (inaudible)
COACH HOLTZ: No. I think he wants to be back
there. You come out to practice; you see Hunter Smith boomin. So he
used to everything coming off him, whoom, with the wind too; then all
of a sudden not used to it coming up on him short, but, he can catch
them, he can come up and catch them. He just got to have some
confidence and evaluated but I think you make a good point, does he want
to be back there. I thought about putting somebody else back there, he
wasn't real happy about it, so I just have to assume that he does. This
is one thing we have got to address. We can't keep doing this. We are
putting our defense in terrible field position and they don't deserve
that.
Q. With what you said about finesse, the power game that you showed
yesterday, is this the official death of "blarney offense"?
COACH HOLTZ: I think we still try to do some things, no.
We still had some one back and split the back out some, not a
preponderant amount because we didn't need it, but I think it is what
your talent allows you to do. We were going to try to match up our wing
back on their linebacker, our tailback on their linebacker, but they did
something they had never done before, they went zone on hit when we did
that. They didn't stay man-coverage on it, but -- so you just try to
take and do what you can do offensively and what can move the football.
And I'd like to think that if we can't run the ball that we can do some
other things. We can run the option. We can run the short passing
game. We can run play action pass, but we aren't going to be as
complicated as what we have been. By "complicated," I am saying, too
many formations, too many passes, too many things for people to learn to
get reps on.
Q. Talking about the freshmen and secondary, forgive me but I don't
remember the year, but years ago in mid-season, I think it was after a
loss (inaudible)?
COACH HOLTZ: I tell you what had happened, it was
Willie Clark and Jeff Burris going down to Tennessee. They played at
Tennessee and we won the game. I don't see that happening because right
now we have -- Allen Rossum and Ivory Covington are playing awfully well
for corners, and I think A'Jani Sanders and Gilbeaux and Jarvis Edwards
are good sound players that are going to get better. They are going to
have to get better because with A'Jani Sanders who is a freshman
eligibility-wise, Gilbeaux is a -- no, he is not. But A'Jani Sanders
didn't play at all last year and you got Lee Lafayette who I thought was
going to be excellent and Devron Harper and Deke Cooper. I mean, those
are four fine, young players, you know, so what I think we are going --
we are going to have a little more depth. We are going to have to start
going 5 and 6 defensive backs when we have to, but you want to talk
about going from one style offense to the wishbone and next, I mean,
geez, talk about us playing one game at the equator and the next one at
the south pole. But those young players are really doing well, but I
don't anticipate any wholesale changes, but I do anticipate then them
becoming more and more involved in it.
Q. (inaudible)
COACH HOLTZ: Coach Moore and I have been together
for nine years and I think he is a great coach and an outstanding
person. He voices his opinion and I voice mine and you know, talking
about pass protection and blockin and things like that, just things in
general, we felt -- I didn't realize it was that obvious, but I just
want to let the players pick sometimes, but we have been together nine
years and he is a great football coach and he is a great human being.
Q. (inaudible)
COACH HOLTZ: Many times if the turnovers were
because of ball handling, handoffs, carrying the ball improperly. Our
guys carry the ball properly. We also have run into a string where
people are really making good hits and the heads are going on the ball
which sometimes -- but we just -- it isn't carelessness and it isn't
carelessness because if that were the case, you would be dropping the
ball on handoffs, etcetera, but it is a case where sometimes you have to
have two hands on the ball and that is going to become a necessity for
some people.
Q. (inaudible)
COACH HOLTZ: Nothing serious. Just that your last
game here might come a little quicker than you think. You don't have
two hands on it just about what I said you, running out of the tunnel
for the last time, you know, put two hands on it, enough is enough.
But he played awful well without the football.
Q. Lou, can you explain a little bit too and what the future holds
in terms of your not wearing the head phone and (inaudible)?
COACH
HOLTZ: It wasn't something that I had anticipated doing before, but as
we got near game time and you know, you had two weeks and I was very
well prepared, but I just -- you got to be able to think and you got to
be able to go by your gut feeling and as Bob Davie said to me during the
game, he says -- boy, he said, when you tell me you have a feeling in
your gut and I feel differently, he says I sure don't want to change it,
because usually my gut feeling is usually right whether it be I think we
ought to do this on offense or -- and during the course of the game,
what I found that you can't do things by committee when you have got
such a short time. You can't take a popular consensus. So what I
decided is that for right now, at that time, that I would not use the
headset, but I would have Bob Chmiel right next to me who would tell me
everything and they would recommend a play every play, which is their
obligation, and -- but I may not take that recommendation, but you
catalog it or, you know, you can say, was that man, was that zone, was
that three coverage, was that double eagle, was it 31, was it 13, you
know, you get that information, but you only get it when you want it.
So I just felt that it enabled me to stay in the game a little bit
better at the present time and that is all and got a lot of help from
upstairs. They did a tremendous job. But we got into a rhythm and
getting into a rhythm is as much timing as anything, in other words, the
play goes in; you get out of the huddle, you know, you get into a rhythm
and we hadn't been into a rhythm on offense all year.
Q. (inaudible)
COACH HOLTZ: Bob Chmiel, I think, got a little
tired, but I tell you what - when you don't wear the cord, nobody steps
on it. At least, I don't notice they did. When you got that cord, you
are always jerking your head and -- but, no, I thought it worked out
very, very well because we had great communication with upstairs and
downstairs.
Q. One other thing, Barry Alvarez had a week off before Ohio State.
Did you talk to him (inaudible) and tell him that maybe the power game
works (inaudible)?
COACH HOLTZ: I talked to him about, but I didn't
tell him what to do. We talked more about attitude, etcetera, and we
exchange ideas. It used to be, for the coaches that always called me,
coach, I have got this problem, what do you think. Now they call me and
give me advice, but I mean, we exchanged ideas. I think Barry is a
very, very special guy and a special coach.
Q. (inaudible)
COACH HOLTZ: No, I just think you make some
miscalculations earlier in the year about what we would be able to do
talent-wise and I think as the year goes along, you know, our receivers
really made great strides the last two weeks, but it might also be
because we took less pressure off of them. But, no, I don't look at it
that way, just felt this is what we had to do and why I was so mad last
time we came in here because I felt that is what we should have done
before previously. We aren't going to be able to run that way against
everybody. We are going to have to throw the ball much more than we did
yesterday, I am sure, as the season unfolds. Okay? Thank you very much.
