Sept. 15, 2009

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MARK DANTONIO WEEKLY PRESS CONFERENCE TRANSCRIPT

COACH DANTONIO: First off, really just to sort of finalize last week, I think it's important that we move forward. Certainly, we need to focus on the solution here, what the problem was, critique the problems that we had, plan forward, practice towards the things we need to get accomplished, and really emotionally sort of regroup ourselves and move forward. I think our players are doing that. I feel good about our coaches. I feel very good about our players. The bottom line is we need to take strength from everyone and fortitude and push it forward. That's what we'll do.

We'll focus on the future. Right now, the focus is on Notre Dame. This is a big rivalry game for us. This will be the seventh time I've played against them personally. I guess three times as a head coach and four times as an assistant. It will be my fifth trip down there to South Bend to play. So it's an outstanding rivalry really going back all the way to 1966 and the 10 10 tie.

So many people in this program have been a part of this tradition throughout our time here, whether it's guys that I've met in the 1960s or the 1980s or the 1990s, they're talking about Notre Dame. They talk to you about the past games and what it's all meant to them, so it's a very important game.

Offensively, Notre Dame is coming off a tough loss themselves. Offensively, they have put up some great numbers. They have 10 starters back. They have Michael Floyd, who is the leading receiver in the nation in terms of yards per catch. Armando Allen had a great game (against Michigan), rushing for a career high. (Jimmy) Clausen has thrown for over a 1,000 over his last three games with no interceptions. They're one of the few teams that haven't allowed a sack this season. So Notre Dame is an outstanding offensive team.

Obviously, Coach (Charlie) Weis is an offensive coach, so they will be very fundamentally sound. They're going to throw it up top. That's the nature of what they've done (in the passing game). They go deep a lot, but they've established the running game as well.

Defensively, Notre Dame has six guys back with starting experience. Jon Tenuta is the defensive coordinator. He was at Ohio State before I had arrived there. He's known as a pressure coach, so he's going to pressure. He's going to play an under front predominantly. They're going to mix things up defensively and be very well coached. This team tackles well and plays extremely hard.

In terms of specialists, they have a rookie kicker (in Nick Tausch) and their punter (Eric Maust) is back for his second year. On special teams, they've excelled in blocking kicks these last couple seasons, especially last year I believe they had five blocked kicks, so that will be a challenge for us as well.

But our players will be excited about the challenge. The nature of I think young people are to be resilient. This is an exciting opportunity to go down to Notre Dame, and we will be emotionally ready. I'll just take some questions.

Q. Last week's practices were very physical and your team struggled with tackling (against Central Michigan). When you're going up against a team like Notre Dame that gets so many yards after the catch, is there not a whole lot you can do differently than what you did last week?

COACH DANTONIO: I think the one thing that if you look at the game film of last week's game, what we start to do is start to watch a little bit instead of playing like we're used to playing. I think some of that is rhythm. We get out of rhythm a little bit. You're trying to do this, trying to do that against the spread offense, working this and that, you get out of rhythm a little bit. Suddenly a 3 yard catch becomes an 8 yard gain and that type of thing.

We have to get back to do what we do best, play downhill, play fundamentally sound, and that's what we'll do. We'll go back to things that have been good for us and work it. Our players will play with confidence. I have no doubt in that.

Q. You said Sunday night that you felt better after spending time with your players. Would you elaborate on that? Is that about kids' resiliency more than a 50 year old man? Whenever you lose a game of any kind, the fans on the Internet want to jump off the bridge, fire the coach, and change the whole philosophy. Is this where your even keel comes in? How do you keep that from filtering into your team? Maybe the second part first if you would.

COACH DANTONIO: I try not to come to too many press conferences, I guess (laughter).

First of all, when you have a problem or something tough happens in your family, you want to go and be with your family. Our football team is our family in this case. As I said to our football team and I think I mentioned it Sunday night, if I sat down and said, hey, you got to play cover four, wizard red magic, those types of things; it means nothing to anybody here. It means something to our players. When you run a cut route, have a moving tray, it means nothing to anybody sitting here or any fans, but it means something to our players.

What we have to do is go back, look at the people who are truly invested in this program. The people who are truly invested in this program are the players who play the game. We have to re-gather ourselves and find strength in each other. When I was around our players on Sunday, I felt good. This is a problem. This is nothing like the problem that one of our players encountered on Friday afternoon when his grandmother passed. It's nothing like that. That's a problem.

So what we have to do is understand that this is a game. I know (the outcome) it influences a lot of people, but at the same time, you move forward and you play the next game. That's what we'll do.

Monday our players weren't around as much. So I'm looking forward to today, so I can get back with our players because it helps everybody. When the coaches and the players are practicing, you move forward. You're able to move forward when you start getting back to normalcy. That's what we'll do.

That's how I see it. We've been knocked down before. Football teaches you to get up. It's that old adage. That's why you play competitive games. Playing a deep ball in the deep third of the field, you guys have been out there and watched the jugs shoot the balls out and the players go up and defend it, but not too many people can do some of the things we do.

What I would say is we take stock in ourselves, go back to the basics, what has made us productive, successful, offensively, defensively and special teams, and we play on emotion. That's what we'll do.

But this is not an easy game. This is not a game for everybody. But this is what we choose to play and coach and do for a profession. We've been successful at it, and we'll continue to be successful.

Q. I think you hinted one time last year that you grew up a Notre Dame fan. If that was the case, what attracted you to the program at an early age and what does it mean to be part of that rivalry with so much history?

COACH DANTONIO: When I grew up, I think there were three TV stations. Notre Dame was on every Sunday morning. I watched a little football. That's what was on and I was Roman Catholic. That's what we did. That's really the extent of it. Once we got cable, I changed (smiling).

Q. To what?

COACH DANTONIO: I guess to other teams.

Q. Speaking of moving forward, Colin Neely is a guy who played pretty well before the penalty (against Central Michigan). Do you anticipate that being able to help him move forward this game?

COACH DANTONIO: Colin is having a tough time right now, much like all of us. All I've asked our team to do and what I do is ask what could I have done differently? As the head coach here, I can control a lot of things. There are things that happened prior to that snap where we could have gotten out of this game and won the football game.

So nobody's to blame for this, no one specific person. It's on all of us. I'll take responsibility because I'm the head coach. But you have to ask yourself what you can do. They had to get 23 yards before they could even kick that field goal. We had a chance to get the on side kick. There's so many things, so many things that you go back to where this game is very winnable.

With that being said, give credit to the people who won the game, too. I don't want to take anything away from anyone else. I'm just saying that we had opportunities to win the football game. We didn't win. It is what it is. We move on. I don't know any other way to do that, except riding in on Sunday morning was tough. I see all the people cleaning up after all the fans being here, and we had a great crowd here. I know what goes into playing football here. I know what goes into making this a game day experience, all the people who take their time and come here and spend their money here to be a part of this family.

But when you're a part of a family, you take the good with the bad and you're still part of the family. If you're hangers on, you're just riding along for the ride. So I know who's with us. We'll be fine.

Q. I know you prefer to have a lot of fourth and fifth year players. You have a lot of young players. How comfortable do you feel in their maturation process to this point? Is it a good pace?

COACH DANTONIO: Certainly, we need to get better at all phases (of the game). Right now, every football team is trying to get better. We have a lot of young players. We have some red-shirt freshmen playing. We have some sophomores playing, but we have players with experience playing as well. So those players playing for the first time, they're in a new situation. It's a new experience for them. They're probably thinking a little bit.

But we've got 31 players who have been down to Notre Dame, who were there in 2007. So we have a nucleus of guys on this football team who have played in that game down there. We also have a nucleus of guys who have played up here. And we've played well. We played excited. We'll get it back. This just gives us more resolve.

If anything, I think when you're tested; you come back with more resolve. That's what most people do. They have a chance and they can't wait to play and they're excited about playing and they make sure they cross the Ts and dot the Is on the next one. And that's what we'll do.

Q. You hear people say a team just has another team's number. Any idea why Michigan State has been successful at Notre Dame, done things no other school has done?

COACH DANTONIO: Well, I would say it comes down to specifics in terms of blocking and tackling. I'm sure there's an emotional edge to both teams when you play in this game. So I can't say it's emotional totally.

Things have happened. I think we've played pretty fundamentally sound. Whenever I've gone down there in the past, we've played very fundamentally sound. We've not turned the ball over. We've done things that allow us to win.

Q. On the depth chart, you have (Trenton) Robinson starting at free safety. He had a strong spring. He might have stepped back a little in the preseason. What has Robinson done to impress you and move him up?

COACH DANTONIO: First of all, Trenton had an outstanding spring. Remember, Danny Fortener had a good 2008 season. He was very, very solid. Trenton had an outstanding spring. He makes a lot of plays. He came into camp, a little short on experience. We went with the other guy because of the experience. I don't think Danny Fortener has played badly, it's Trenton has played very well and has been very active. I think he had seven solo tackles and three assists on Saturday. He's an active football player, and he combines speed with that activity.

Consequently, he's sort of risen up the depth chart. It doesn't mean that he's going to remain there. It doesn't mean that we will not play the other guy. But I just think that he deserves that opportunity to start in this situation. And it will be a great experience for him.

Danny Fortener has played well, especially in last year's game (against Notre Dame).

Q. Obviously, you haven't been a part of the six straight road wins at Notre Dame, but what kind of pride do you take in that streak and wanting that to continue?

COACH DANTONIO: I'm just happy to win. Whenever I'm on the winning side, that's the only thing that really matters. I don't really look at it as a streak. I think maybe alums do. But the players that are at Notre Dame, the players that are here, you can only really evaluate what has happened while they have played.

That streak goes back a number of years. So it's really out of those people's hands. It's on the people that have played in the game. So it comes down to guys blocking, tackling, catching the football, playing the ball in the deep part of the field, mental errors, emotion, adversity, those types of things. And that's really got to be carried by the people that are currently here.

I think the people that have been down there in the past share in 2007's win, but beyond that I would say it's a clean slate.

Q. What kind of challenge does their receiving corps pose for you based on this past weekend?

COACH DANTONIO: First of all, they have outstanding receivers, in Michael Floyd and Golden Tate. Duval Kamara is another guy, No. 18. (Kyle) Rudolph is an excellent tight end, and (Jimmy) Clausen spreads the ball around. Clausen is in his third year (as a starter) now, so he's an experienced quarterback. He knows where to go with the ball, and he gets rid of the ball quickly. They're going to throw it deep.

Yeah, it presents problems. It presents a lot of different things for us, challenges I would say more than problems, but extreme challenges because any time the ball goes up in the air, you've got to play it. You've got to get up there and get it, climb up a ladder and grab it. That's what we'll do. We'll focus on that. But just like everybody who is experienced, when the ball goes up in the air, you can look at it every Saturday, when the ball goes up in the air deep, somebody's going to come up with it usually.

Q. You go to Notre Dame, to Wisconsin, you come back here for Michigan. Can you talk about the importance of these next three weeks in terms of shaping the direction of your season?

COACH DANTONIO: If you look at Iowa last year, they struggled early in the season, then all of a sudden came on strong. We'll play them one game at a time. We're not going to look too far in advance because I don't think that's fair to our players. We need to make sure we're ready for the next game.

We go away twice. We've played well at Notre Dame in the past. We've played well at Wisconsin in the past. We've played well here. We had a chance to win every one of those games, whether it was in 2007 or 2008. We've won some and we've lost some.

This football program will not stand on these three games, it will stand on much longer than that. But we'll focus on one game at a time, and if we can really focus on one play at a time, we will be fine.

Q. The Notre Dame offense . . . one of your best defensive efforts against them here (last year). Do you take anything from that game? Is it fair to say it's different playing an offense more like yours?

COACH DANTONIO: They're somewhat like ours, but they don't run some of the same things. So it's tough to really compare because they don't run a power game. It's a little bit different schematically inside.

But I would say we did play well here last year defensively. But, again, it's a new game. They'll critique what they did. They'll make different decisions. They'll have different things, different strategies, just like we will. So it's really a clean slate in terms of how we play them and how they play us. They're all sides of it.

Our quarterbacks will go down there. This is the first opportunity for our quarterbacks to go down, so that will be exciting for them. It will be an exciting atmosphere for us. There will be a lot of Spartans down there, too.

Q. In some ways, in a twisted way, does a head coach like this situation?

COACH DANTONIO: I'm surprised you'd say it like that (laughter).

Q. It's perfect for me. That a coach would like a situation like this, coming off a bad loss like this, but you get your players' attention, gives you the opportunity to see how tough they are?

COACH DANTONIO: What you try to do in winter workouts, spring practice, summer practice, at different points in time, you're constantly trying to put your players in adverse situations to see how they're going to respond in an adverse situation. Obviously, last Saturday, we had some adverse situations out there and we needed to respond.

On the two point play, we responded. But we didn't get the on side kick and the defense had to come back in. They faced a lot of adversity. They were a little shell-shocked and played soft. We didn't respond, okay? But you're constantly trying to put your players in those situations.

I think those are life lessons for people: for coaches, for players, for administrators, for fans. Those are all life lessons. So now you look at a situation like this, we lost the football game. That's another life lesson. How we respond to that will be critical and will shape us further.

If we go down there and play well, that's a positive. If we go down and we don't play well, then we got more adversity and we'll have to face more challenges. But that's the dynamics of reality and the human existence.

I like seeing how our players are going to do backed up against a wall, sure. I don't like to be backed up against a wall personally. But I'll find out. And we've been there before. So, you know, we'll be there again, I can assure you. We'll be there again. It's the nature of it. But it makes us stronger in the end.

In the end, it will make us stronger, all of us, remember back when this happened or that happened. Even my daughter remembers back when she was a fifth grader and I was a first time head coach and she said, remember when.

Everybody remembers, and it pulls people together. I think that's natural. For the most part, people have a very strong spirit in terms of how they face adversity - most people - and they'll respond.

Q. You mentioned how (Jimmy) Clausen has played well in the first couple games. He hasn't had pressure on him. That's where he seems to struggle. How important is it for your defense to get in his face this week?

COACH DANTONIO: It's important for our defense to get back on track. If you look at this past week, we didn't pressure CMU enough. We couldn't get there, whatever the case was, but we didn't hit the quarterback enough. If you're going to affect the quarterback, you got to hit him more. You've got to do more in coverage. Whatever it is, you have to get hits on the quarterback.

So that will be important. I'm sure we'll see screens. I'm sure we'll see all the things that they do. But that's why we're playing this game, so we're going to find out a little bit about ourselves. But I think you're correct.

Q. Quarterbacks are status quo?

COACH DANTONIO: Yeah, I think so. We didn't lose that football game because of our quarterback play.

Q. Regardless of who or how well they play, you got to be able to run the ball better. Can that be traced to a younger offensive line or do your younger running backs need to learn how to run harder?

COACH DANTONIO: Some of it can be traced back to experience both on the (right side) offensive line and at running back. I know that Larry Caper cut back one time where he could have stayed on the outside with it, but that's (a lack of) experience. It's also about experience on the offensive line, getting the right guys up there. You've got to stay on your blocks and everything. We only had 56 plays on offense (against Central Michigan). We ran the ball 30 times for 107 yards.

Again, we scored 27 points. We didn't turn the ball over. It was more a fact that we didn't get the ball enough. At the end, they took the clock and didn't leave anything left.

I would say that's got to come. But that's part of youth, too. We'll continue to get better.

Q. Also with the running backs, they haven't really been involved in the passing game much to this point. Is that something you anticipate doing more down the road as they get more game experience?

COACH DANTONIO: That's what we'll see. I don't want to talk too much strategically here, but that depends on the pressures they see, block protections, different things of that nature. But we will get them involved at times.

Q. You tend to talk about senior leadership all the time. What have you seen from your seniors in terms of helping the team kind of get over this loss with the younger players, get refocused? Is it what you're looking for?

COACH DANTONIO: Well, what I've seen from our seniors has been all positive. I've seen resolve on their part. They have been there. They have had some tough losses. They know how to respond to those (setbacks). And I think that they've dealt in a very positive way. I've been proud of our seniors.

But our football team collectively, when you go through things like this, and I can only identify with a family or something like that, when people go through these things, the people that are truly the leaders, the true leaders, begin to take control in adverse situations. And I think that's probably the same thing that will happen to our football team.

The guys who are the true leaders, they'll respond and they'll start to take control of this football team.

Q. Are you starting to see that?

COACH DANTONIO: Well, like I said, I didn't see them on Monday. But I feel good about where our players are, where our emotional state is. I feel good about their work ethic. When I talk to Coach Mannie about how they worked out in the weight room, he said excellent, very focused, very businesslike, doing everything they were asked to do. On a scale of 1 to 10, I guess emotionally and fortitude, you know, excellent, 10, 9.5.

Q. A couple of good passing attacks. Notre Dame has allowed more than five yards a carry. Not allowing sacks. Over 200 yards a game rushing allowed. Is this a game where a team who can run the football is going to win it?

COACH DANTONIO: I think you have to have balance. I think if it goes all one direction, you usually have a hard time winning the football game. I can't say that entirely, obviously. But I think we have to be balanced. That's our makeup.

If we can be balanced, run the ball for 100-150 yards, that's balance. If you're running the ball for 200 yards, that's excellent in the running game. Many people can't run it for 100. We need to make those situations second and 4, those types of things.

Q. You talked about your team, you want to see how they respond, how tough they are with their backs against the wall. Notre Dame is in a similar situation to you. How will you measure that, whether you win or lose? Both teams are in a close situation.

COACH DANTONIO: Yeah, I can't control anything on the other end of the spectrum there, on the other side of the field. That's for other people to figure out on their end of things. We can only control our set of circumstances and where we're at.

All I can tell you is we lost a game. It was very disappointing. It was an emotional downer for everybody. We need to climb out of that hole and we're going to do that. We're going to go down there and it's going to be exciting for us. I know we'll be excited to play. I feel very, very good about that.

Q. What has Blair White meant to the offense so far and how is he helping the younger receivers?

COACH DANTONIO: Obviously, Blair (White) has been very, very productive. He's been a big positive for us. He's gone up and made the catch for the most part but nobody's perfect. He's proven to be is a very productive player. He's a gamer and he's tough. He's going to do everything he can to win a football game, whether it's on special teams, he had a big punt return in the game Saturday, or whether it's catching the football, or whatever it is.

But there are things that everybody just needs to ask where they're at and try and improve, and he's one of them, and he'll do that. But he's an outstanding person and competitor. He's a man of great character.

Q. Charlie Weis, because of his offensive experience, has designated days where he spends with the offense, play calling process. Because of your defensive experience, do you spend more time with those guys this week than you normally would? If so, what do you emphasize knowing what happened Saturday?

COACH DANTONIO: If you've been to practice, you know that I spend most of my time with the defense and a lot of time in the secondary. When I see that deep ball go up or that pass completed, that's on me, too. So I'm involved in that defensively. That's where I spend my time.

As a head coach or CEO or whatever you are in terms of leadership - because my area of strength is in the secondary - that's where I tend to spend most of my time because that's where I can do the most good for my football team. So I'll always do that. I will go over to the offensive (practice) field, and I will be in the offensive staff meeting room. But I'm going to watch the film defensively at night and I'm going to make sure that whatever is being said that I'm in agreement with.

Thanks a lot and have a good day.

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