JonDMiller
Publisher/Founder
COACH FERENTZ: Welcome. It's a busy time obviously. Jeff Tarpinian medically, Jeff has a shot to play in the game. We're hopeful that he will. It's been a tough year for him. You hate to see anybody injured. But a senior, you know, it's just a tough thing to go through. He's making progress. We're hopeful he'll be able to play in the game. That would certainly help us.
I want to congratulate all the award winners from the banquet last week. That was a nice event. The guys did a great job. Just really pleased for all the players that were recognized. Phil Haddy was recognized, too, for his years of service, and Ron Stang (phonetic), who has been helping us out since the '60s. Some great efforts and dedication there. We appreciate that.
Our guys are in finals right now. We've had a slow week footballwise from the practice standpoint. We'll try to resume tonight. We'll be minus about eight players. I think we have eight guys that have finals this evening. We'll get our feet wet a little bit. I think we have 16 guys graduating tomorrow. So we'll practice with everybody minus the seniors and then have a busy day Sunday and get out of here Monday.
It's been a busy time. It's a good busy. We're eager to just try to wrap things up here and get down to Arizona and hopefully finish our preparation on Missouri.
Missouri is an outstanding football team, 10 win season. 40 wins in the last four years. I think that speaks volumes about the type of football team they have. Gary Pinkel and his staff have done a good job, a lot of good football players. Offensively very wide open. Fourwides, fivewides. The quarterback is an excellent passer and also very good runner, deceptively good runner.
Defensively I think they've given up 15 points a game, which is stellar, a big part of their success. Very athletic at all positions, very disruptive. I think they have 38 sacks. Just done a great job. Are very tough once you get down in there. They don't give up many touchdowns.
It's going to be a great challenge for us, one we're looking forward to. We'll get into that part of our preparation over the weekend.
Q. Will Norm be full speed?
COACH FERENTZ: He's been in the office the last couple weeks daily, has been watching tape getting ready. We haven't had a lot of practices. The ones we have had, he's been out there all the way. Good to have him back this season.
Q. (Question regarding Gabbert.)
COACH FERENTZ: He's big. Throws the ball extremely well, very accurately. They throw and catch extremely well. That's what they do the best. Again, I think the other hidden dynamic that doesn't show up statistically, but he's an effective and dangerous runner. Not like he's a big, plodding guy at all. That's not the case. He's a guy that can run well and is very athletic.
Q. The quarterback, does he get rid of the ball, get it out of there?
COACH FERENTZ: You know, again, what they do best, they throw and catch extremely well. They have a good offensive line, led by their center. He's a veteran player. They're very efficient at what they do. The system has evolved through the years. I'm going back to where they were more of a two tight end team and ran the quarterback an awful lot. They've evolved into a very good throwing football team. He doesn't hang on to the ball. He knows where to go with it and does a nice job throwing it accurately, too. As a result, they've been proficient offensively.
Q. You look at Ricky's statistics, with the 75, it gets overlooked, but his numbers compare to Brad Banks.
COACH FERENTZ: I think he's had a great year. He's had a great career. He's had a good year. We've come up short a couple times at the end. That's kind of tainted a couple things.
Rick is a tremendous individual, works very hard. His statistics are impressive because he's played pretty impressively.
Q. Is Colin Sandeman healthy for this game?
COACH FERENTZ: Right now he is. He's a hundred percent healthy. So that's a good thing.
Q. How much does Sandeman factor in now?
COACH FERENTZ: We've got a void. He will. Keenan Davis will. Everybody will get a chance to compete. Donny Nordmann, Paul Chaney. That's a good opportunity for those guys. Eager to see how they respond to it.
Q. (Question regarding Keenan.)
COACH FERENTZ: I think most of the guys we're talking about are fairly flexible. Keenan is, Colin is. Donny has been more of a split end if you will. Paul has been more of a flanker type guy. Marvin, Colin and Keenan all have the flexibility to move around and I think handle that pretty well.
Q. Who will take Derrell's spot on kick return?
COACH FERENTZ: If we were playing tomorrow, we'd probably go with Keenan back there and also Paul Chaney.
Q. Have you thought about distribution with Marcus being the starter going in?
COACH FERENTZ: We're only playing one game. Right now Marcus will go as hard and long as he can. Paki and Brad Rogers will be the next two guys in there. We'll be playing it accordingly and see how it goes.
Q. Couple years of really good bowl performances. Have you thought about where your team's mindset is given the adversity of the last three, four weeks, how they'll respond to being on the field in a game like this?
COACH FERENTZ: I think the bowls we've been to, we had one game where we didn't have a good performance. We didn't give ourself any chance to win in that first Orange Bowl. I think programwise I hope we've learned from that. I think we have. I can only base it on the practices we've had thus far. The practices have been great. That last weekend we practiced well. We're going to have to because we're playing an outstanding opponent. We've got some work to do to get caught up to these guys.
I think our team is eager. I think they're anxious to play. I think they'll practice well. Time will tell.
Q. You think Big 12, you look at their numbers, they're shutting people down. What sticks out with Missouri's defense?
COACH FERENTZ: I think that's a big part of why they've won 40 games the last four years. Usually teams that win consistently, win a lot of games, play pretty good defense. They really do. They're unique. They're like Ohio State in some ways in that they really close to the ball quickly. They're unlike Ohio State in some ways. They're not a direct parallel.
As far as making it tough for you to score, the athleticism they have, some of those kind of things, I think there are a lot of parallels there. That's not a fluke that they've given up 15 a game. That is the most important stat defensively, how many points you give up. If you get it down in there, they do a great job in the red zone. I think they've got to be the top of the country as far as red zone production.
Q. What are some of the other parallels?
COACH FERENTZ: They're tough to score points on. I can't remember it being easy against Ohio State. I can name other people, too. Penn State is pretty tough to score points on. You go down the list.
Ohio State recently has been tough. I guess forever, not recently. But the difference is, this group almost looks like an NFL group, especially up front. Their guys up front are really prolific passrushers. I think 38 sacks they've got. They're unusual. They play a lot of guys. On third downs they'll play their outside guys on the inside, bring in their other outside guys. You have four guys that can really track it down at one time in certain situations. A little bit unique from that standpoint.
Q. Do you present this game to your guys as a chance to get November out of their minds?
COACH FERENTZ: Yeah, I think most specifically none of us are really thrilled about the performance in the last game. That's probably the most recent thing that we're thinking about. This is a chance to get back on the field, hopefully play a better game.
Just for the record, I mean, I thought the Ohio State game was a pretty competitive game. A year ago, two pretty good teams that competed hard. I mean, it would have been great to win it. We wanted to win it. I don't think anybody walked away ashamed about that performance. I felt the same way a year ago in Columbus. It's easy to generalize. But no question our last time out we didn't play very well. If we don't play better we'll lose by 40 in this one. It won't be pretty.
Q. Do you expect any health coming back to the linebackers?
COACH FERENTZ: Yeah, it's end of the year. We got a lot of guys that are still a little bit nicked up. We're trying to be smart about how we practice with those players right now.
It's the end of the year. All that being said, I think this time off's been helpful. I can't guarantee that Jeff will be ready to go. Hopefully everybody else will be. Obviously Tyler Nielsen won't be. He's done.
Q. How about Gettis and Nolan?
COACH FERENTZ: I think those guys are gaining ground. They were a little bit rusty last weekend. They've missed so much time. I think realistically to have it help our depth, we're right down to the nubs here at the end of the year.
Q. Can you talk about freshmen all-American honors?
COACH FERENTZ: It's interesting. I don't know how many games Nolan played.
Q. Six or seven.
COACH FERENTZ: Seriously? Actually started? I lost count of that. Those teams lose credibility a little bit if that's the case.
When he played, he played well. I just can't remember how many games he started.
Q. Started six.
COACH FERENTZ: Did he really? Wow. That's sixth one he didn't last long. Just didn't seem like he played. Probably my mind. That's half the season, I guess.
You know, probably the morale of the story, they have a hard time finding offensive linemen who are freshmen to make those teams. All that being said, Nolan wasn't scheduled to start at the front end of the season. Adam sprained his ankle. I really thought Nolan was playing well and gaining ground each week. We're very excited about his future. James (Morris) got thrown into the Penn State game, responded really well. I think his future looks bright, too. That's very helpful. It's something we feel good about.
Q. (Question about blaming the offensive coordinator.)
COACH FERENTZ: It's a pretty old game. I don't know. I've lost interest it. I'm sure Ken was a hero after the Michigan State game. I'm sure all of us were. It's been different since then. That's football.
Q. Your schedule out in Arizona, is it the same as it has been?
COACH FERENTZ: It's pretty much the same routine for us. We'll go get a couple good work days in, then get into our normal game week routine. The biggest thing is for us to get outside. We are limited with our throwing and kicking when we're practicing indoors. It will be important next week when we get down there to have a chance to throw the ball down the field a little bit and kick and punt with a sterile environment. Punting is a little tough in the bubble. So that will be good. It will be good to be outdoors again. We haven't been outdoors in quite a while.
Q. Do you know anything about the practice facility?
COACH FERENTZ: Paul went down, John went down, the advance team. Said it really shaped out very well. They were really happy about things. We've had great accommodations seems like every trip. I can only think of a couple times where we had any snags at all. Paul thought this was as good a setup as we've had. Plenty of space and what have you. That's great. That's all you can ask for.
It's a great opportunity for us. What a great trip. Get to play a really outstanding opponent.
Q. During this time since the end of the season, Norm was gone pretty much the whole season, I don't know if there's any quantifying what he would have done or meant to your defense being around. Have you had a chance to measure that at all?
COACH FERENTZ: It's kind of like, Can you measure what losing Nielsen meant to us? Was it the same? No. But that's part of the deal. There's no book for this, no drill laid out. I think everybody did a great job of grabbing on, taking care of business.
I'll throw this out there. We played Penn State. I think Norm had just gone to the rehabilitation unit that he was in. I think we held Penn State to three points. It's possible. But over the long haul we're better with Norm, no question about it. So it will be good to get him back and go from there.
Q. Are you still thinking longterm with him?
COACH FERENTZ: Hoping to. Yeah, hoping to. Sure.
Q. Do you have any input on the Big Ten with the names for the trophies?
COACH FERENTZ: Whatever day that came out, that evening, we got something via email. Glanced at it that night. My only observation is, Man, I'm glad I didn't have to be in on those discussions. Those must have been lengthy discussions. I'm sure they've caused a lot of discussions since that time. Not a name on there that wasn't a great player, I'm sure. But then we all could name other players, wonder if they thought about Reggie Roby. Good luck picking two quarterbacks. Go right through that whole thing.
I'm sure it caused some fuel for conversation.
Q. There was a point that Jim Delaney is looking into changing legends and leaders to something else based on feedback. Do you have any response to that?
COACH FERENTZ: This is something I have not thought about at all. That's all I can say there.
Q. What are your thoughts, were you surprised to find out you hadn't played Missouri in a hundred years?
COACH FERENTZ: That was surprising. Phil, Sunday night, whatever it was, that was kind of surprising. Kind of random. We never played South Dakota either, I guess, right? Played most of our border rivals. They do rival at some point, South Dakota.
I want to congratulate all the award winners from the banquet last week. That was a nice event. The guys did a great job. Just really pleased for all the players that were recognized. Phil Haddy was recognized, too, for his years of service, and Ron Stang (phonetic), who has been helping us out since the '60s. Some great efforts and dedication there. We appreciate that.
Our guys are in finals right now. We've had a slow week footballwise from the practice standpoint. We'll try to resume tonight. We'll be minus about eight players. I think we have eight guys that have finals this evening. We'll get our feet wet a little bit. I think we have 16 guys graduating tomorrow. So we'll practice with everybody minus the seniors and then have a busy day Sunday and get out of here Monday.
It's been a busy time. It's a good busy. We're eager to just try to wrap things up here and get down to Arizona and hopefully finish our preparation on Missouri.
Missouri is an outstanding football team, 10 win season. 40 wins in the last four years. I think that speaks volumes about the type of football team they have. Gary Pinkel and his staff have done a good job, a lot of good football players. Offensively very wide open. Fourwides, fivewides. The quarterback is an excellent passer and also very good runner, deceptively good runner.
Defensively I think they've given up 15 points a game, which is stellar, a big part of their success. Very athletic at all positions, very disruptive. I think they have 38 sacks. Just done a great job. Are very tough once you get down in there. They don't give up many touchdowns.
It's going to be a great challenge for us, one we're looking forward to. We'll get into that part of our preparation over the weekend.
Q. Will Norm be full speed?
COACH FERENTZ: He's been in the office the last couple weeks daily, has been watching tape getting ready. We haven't had a lot of practices. The ones we have had, he's been out there all the way. Good to have him back this season.
Q. (Question regarding Gabbert.)
COACH FERENTZ: He's big. Throws the ball extremely well, very accurately. They throw and catch extremely well. That's what they do the best. Again, I think the other hidden dynamic that doesn't show up statistically, but he's an effective and dangerous runner. Not like he's a big, plodding guy at all. That's not the case. He's a guy that can run well and is very athletic.
Q. The quarterback, does he get rid of the ball, get it out of there?
COACH FERENTZ: You know, again, what they do best, they throw and catch extremely well. They have a good offensive line, led by their center. He's a veteran player. They're very efficient at what they do. The system has evolved through the years. I'm going back to where they were more of a two tight end team and ran the quarterback an awful lot. They've evolved into a very good throwing football team. He doesn't hang on to the ball. He knows where to go with it and does a nice job throwing it accurately, too. As a result, they've been proficient offensively.
Q. You look at Ricky's statistics, with the 75, it gets overlooked, but his numbers compare to Brad Banks.
COACH FERENTZ: I think he's had a great year. He's had a great career. He's had a good year. We've come up short a couple times at the end. That's kind of tainted a couple things.
Rick is a tremendous individual, works very hard. His statistics are impressive because he's played pretty impressively.
Q. Is Colin Sandeman healthy for this game?
COACH FERENTZ: Right now he is. He's a hundred percent healthy. So that's a good thing.
Q. How much does Sandeman factor in now?
COACH FERENTZ: We've got a void. He will. Keenan Davis will. Everybody will get a chance to compete. Donny Nordmann, Paul Chaney. That's a good opportunity for those guys. Eager to see how they respond to it.
Q. (Question regarding Keenan.)
COACH FERENTZ: I think most of the guys we're talking about are fairly flexible. Keenan is, Colin is. Donny has been more of a split end if you will. Paul has been more of a flanker type guy. Marvin, Colin and Keenan all have the flexibility to move around and I think handle that pretty well.
Q. Who will take Derrell's spot on kick return?
COACH FERENTZ: If we were playing tomorrow, we'd probably go with Keenan back there and also Paul Chaney.
Q. Have you thought about distribution with Marcus being the starter going in?
COACH FERENTZ: We're only playing one game. Right now Marcus will go as hard and long as he can. Paki and Brad Rogers will be the next two guys in there. We'll be playing it accordingly and see how it goes.
Q. Couple years of really good bowl performances. Have you thought about where your team's mindset is given the adversity of the last three, four weeks, how they'll respond to being on the field in a game like this?
COACH FERENTZ: I think the bowls we've been to, we had one game where we didn't have a good performance. We didn't give ourself any chance to win in that first Orange Bowl. I think programwise I hope we've learned from that. I think we have. I can only base it on the practices we've had thus far. The practices have been great. That last weekend we practiced well. We're going to have to because we're playing an outstanding opponent. We've got some work to do to get caught up to these guys.
I think our team is eager. I think they're anxious to play. I think they'll practice well. Time will tell.
Q. You think Big 12, you look at their numbers, they're shutting people down. What sticks out with Missouri's defense?
COACH FERENTZ: I think that's a big part of why they've won 40 games the last four years. Usually teams that win consistently, win a lot of games, play pretty good defense. They really do. They're unique. They're like Ohio State in some ways in that they really close to the ball quickly. They're unlike Ohio State in some ways. They're not a direct parallel.
As far as making it tough for you to score, the athleticism they have, some of those kind of things, I think there are a lot of parallels there. That's not a fluke that they've given up 15 a game. That is the most important stat defensively, how many points you give up. If you get it down in there, they do a great job in the red zone. I think they've got to be the top of the country as far as red zone production.
Q. What are some of the other parallels?
COACH FERENTZ: They're tough to score points on. I can't remember it being easy against Ohio State. I can name other people, too. Penn State is pretty tough to score points on. You go down the list.
Ohio State recently has been tough. I guess forever, not recently. But the difference is, this group almost looks like an NFL group, especially up front. Their guys up front are really prolific passrushers. I think 38 sacks they've got. They're unusual. They play a lot of guys. On third downs they'll play their outside guys on the inside, bring in their other outside guys. You have four guys that can really track it down at one time in certain situations. A little bit unique from that standpoint.
Q. Do you present this game to your guys as a chance to get November out of their minds?
COACH FERENTZ: Yeah, I think most specifically none of us are really thrilled about the performance in the last game. That's probably the most recent thing that we're thinking about. This is a chance to get back on the field, hopefully play a better game.
Just for the record, I mean, I thought the Ohio State game was a pretty competitive game. A year ago, two pretty good teams that competed hard. I mean, it would have been great to win it. We wanted to win it. I don't think anybody walked away ashamed about that performance. I felt the same way a year ago in Columbus. It's easy to generalize. But no question our last time out we didn't play very well. If we don't play better we'll lose by 40 in this one. It won't be pretty.
Q. Do you expect any health coming back to the linebackers?
COACH FERENTZ: Yeah, it's end of the year. We got a lot of guys that are still a little bit nicked up. We're trying to be smart about how we practice with those players right now.
It's the end of the year. All that being said, I think this time off's been helpful. I can't guarantee that Jeff will be ready to go. Hopefully everybody else will be. Obviously Tyler Nielsen won't be. He's done.
Q. How about Gettis and Nolan?
COACH FERENTZ: I think those guys are gaining ground. They were a little bit rusty last weekend. They've missed so much time. I think realistically to have it help our depth, we're right down to the nubs here at the end of the year.
Q. Can you talk about freshmen all-American honors?
COACH FERENTZ: It's interesting. I don't know how many games Nolan played.
Q. Six or seven.
COACH FERENTZ: Seriously? Actually started? I lost count of that. Those teams lose credibility a little bit if that's the case.
When he played, he played well. I just can't remember how many games he started.
Q. Started six.
COACH FERENTZ: Did he really? Wow. That's sixth one he didn't last long. Just didn't seem like he played. Probably my mind. That's half the season, I guess.
You know, probably the morale of the story, they have a hard time finding offensive linemen who are freshmen to make those teams. All that being said, Nolan wasn't scheduled to start at the front end of the season. Adam sprained his ankle. I really thought Nolan was playing well and gaining ground each week. We're very excited about his future. James (Morris) got thrown into the Penn State game, responded really well. I think his future looks bright, too. That's very helpful. It's something we feel good about.
Q. (Question about blaming the offensive coordinator.)
COACH FERENTZ: It's a pretty old game. I don't know. I've lost interest it. I'm sure Ken was a hero after the Michigan State game. I'm sure all of us were. It's been different since then. That's football.
Q. Your schedule out in Arizona, is it the same as it has been?
COACH FERENTZ: It's pretty much the same routine for us. We'll go get a couple good work days in, then get into our normal game week routine. The biggest thing is for us to get outside. We are limited with our throwing and kicking when we're practicing indoors. It will be important next week when we get down there to have a chance to throw the ball down the field a little bit and kick and punt with a sterile environment. Punting is a little tough in the bubble. So that will be good. It will be good to be outdoors again. We haven't been outdoors in quite a while.
Q. Do you know anything about the practice facility?
COACH FERENTZ: Paul went down, John went down, the advance team. Said it really shaped out very well. They were really happy about things. We've had great accommodations seems like every trip. I can only think of a couple times where we had any snags at all. Paul thought this was as good a setup as we've had. Plenty of space and what have you. That's great. That's all you can ask for.
It's a great opportunity for us. What a great trip. Get to play a really outstanding opponent.
Q. During this time since the end of the season, Norm was gone pretty much the whole season, I don't know if there's any quantifying what he would have done or meant to your defense being around. Have you had a chance to measure that at all?
COACH FERENTZ: It's kind of like, Can you measure what losing Nielsen meant to us? Was it the same? No. But that's part of the deal. There's no book for this, no drill laid out. I think everybody did a great job of grabbing on, taking care of business.
I'll throw this out there. We played Penn State. I think Norm had just gone to the rehabilitation unit that he was in. I think we held Penn State to three points. It's possible. But over the long haul we're better with Norm, no question about it. So it will be good to get him back and go from there.
Q. Are you still thinking longterm with him?
COACH FERENTZ: Hoping to. Yeah, hoping to. Sure.
Q. Do you have any input on the Big Ten with the names for the trophies?
COACH FERENTZ: Whatever day that came out, that evening, we got something via email. Glanced at it that night. My only observation is, Man, I'm glad I didn't have to be in on those discussions. Those must have been lengthy discussions. I'm sure they've caused a lot of discussions since that time. Not a name on there that wasn't a great player, I'm sure. But then we all could name other players, wonder if they thought about Reggie Roby. Good luck picking two quarterbacks. Go right through that whole thing.
I'm sure it caused some fuel for conversation.
Q. There was a point that Jim Delaney is looking into changing legends and leaders to something else based on feedback. Do you have any response to that?
COACH FERENTZ: This is something I have not thought about at all. That's all I can say there.
Q. What are your thoughts, were you surprised to find out you hadn't played Missouri in a hundred years?
COACH FERENTZ: That was surprising. Phil, Sunday night, whatever it was, that was kind of surprising. Kind of random. We never played South Dakota either, I guess, right? Played most of our border rivals. They do rival at some point, South Dakota.
