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C O A C H S P E A K • E X C E R P T S F R O M J A M E S F R A N K L I N ' S W E E K L Y P R E S S E R What would it take for you to con- sider 2018 a successful season? And is it within your reach? Yes. It's hard for me to say that right now, because the season's not over and we're talking about the season. So we're focused on Rutgers. At the end of the sea- son, when it's all over and we've played all our games, I think there [will be] a lot of things to be proud of. I think there [will be] a lot of things that we can build on. But we'll have time to discuss those things aBer the season. I really don't want to start talking about season accomplish- ments when we're focused on Rutgers. But I get the question. What went into the decision to flip- flop Ryan Bates and Will Fries at tackle, and how did you think that went against Wisconsin? This is one of these questions that you guys ask me that I would love to just an- swer completely. But it's not the right thing to do for our program and from a competitive advantage [standpoint] against Rutgers. But mainly based on a lot of information, we just felt like the best opportunity for both Ryan and Will to play their best football and give us the best opportunity to protect our quarter- back consistently would be to move Will to leB tackle and Ryan to right tackle. A lot of it stemmed from Bates making sure that he was comfortable with it and OK with it. Bates – there's another exam- ple of a guy who's just going to do what's best for our team. It probably did not pan out as well as we would have liked. But we'll obviously look at it again this week and see what we think is in our best inter- ests moving forward. You were better on third down against Wisconsin than in some previ- ous games. How much of that do you attribute to avoiding third-and-long situations? What do you think was the key to getting in more of those third- and-3, third-and-4 situations? Yeah, I think that definitely was a major contributing factor. We're running the ball better right now. We've got more of a commitment to doing that, especially with Miles [Sanders] – getting the ball into his hands, trying to have some schemes where people can't do things to force us to pull the ball and throw it on the edge or pull the ball and have Trace carry the ball. That's always going to happen. There are a lot more runs called in the game. And depending on what the defense does, it puts us in a situation where Trace will pull it and run himself or we'll throw. Usually when that happens, it creates some pretty advantageous situations. Sometimes they've done a good job as well from a scheme perspective. But I think us making sure going into each week that we've got some runs, that we can hand the ball off to Miles and allow him to get downhill, also helps our offensive line from a number of different perspectives. But I think that was the biggest difference. We had more manageable situations. How has Juwan Johnson approached the past few weeks of not playing, and how has he handled this season in gen- eral? Also, when might you expect him back? Juwan, obviously, is fighting through some things. He's been through things like this throughout his career and throughout his life. And our team has been awesome with him. Very talented guy. He's flashed some brilliance at times. But we've got to get him healthy. Once he's healthy, he'll be able to go out there and contribute at a very high level, and we need him. But like I've talked about all year long, I've got a tremendous faith in Juwan, got a lot of love for Juwan. But we've just got to get him 100 percent healthy so he can go out and be the type of player we know he can be. When will that be, I'm not going to speculate. What has impressed you the most about Miles Sanders as a runner, how he's handled his carries? And also is there a next step for him going forward? I've just been so impressed with his overall development. The type of team- mate he is, the type of leader he has really grown into. How thoughtful he is. How supportive he is. Not just when things are going well but when times get tough. He's been really good. He really has. I see him take an active role with our offen- sive line, loving those guys up as well. He's done a really good job. He's done a really good job in knowing who he is and getting north-south, which I think has also been a big factor in us eliminating the tackles for loss that put us and him in a tough situation. Probably the next step … we can still be a little bit better from a ball-security standpoint. We were fortunate on Satur- day with the one [fumble] they waved off. But I think like any running back, that's a critical piece of it. So this isn't something I'm saying to you guys that we haven't discussed as an offensive staff. And specifically with Miles as well. Don't get me wrong, I think overall he's been pretty good. But I'd like to see him get in a situa- tion where we're talking about record number of carries without putting the ball on the ground. Are you pleased with the improve- ment your team has shown on a week- to-week basis from Sept. 1 until now? Yeah. I think obviously we were doing I think a pretty good job at that early in the season and then we hit some adversity like a lot of programs do all over the country. I think we're headed back in that direction again. So I'm pleased with that. Obvi- ously, there was some time there during the season when I didn't think we were doing that. And that's something that I've taken great pride in throughout my career as a program that individually and collec- tively gets better. So I think we're back on that track right now. I think last week was an example of that. And we need to do that again this week. A9er the Wisconsin game, you said Sean Clifford did some things on the sideline that you found impressive. Is there an example you can provide with him? And what kind of things do you look for from younger players who maybe aren't playing a lot that make you realize that they're maximizing their development when they're not getting on the field o9en? I think that's a really good question. So obviously, it's things that we see in prac- N O V E M B E R   1 4 ,   2 0 1 8 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M 10

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