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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 A6er the game against Georgia State, you mentioned you had some concerns about your run defense. I know the past two opponents have run for 150 yards against you. Will Iowa provide even a sterner test for that run defense this week? And if so, why? ABer going back and watching the tape, I would love to see us give up a few less yards but most important, we're getting turnovers and keeping people out of the end zone. But yeah, I think obviously this is what Iowa prides themselves on – run- ning the ball and being really physical up front. Coach Ferentz is one of the more well-respected line coaches in the coun- try from his NFL time. His teams have al- ways been great up front. So yeah, it's going to be a challenge. They are a big tight end team. They have got one of the better running backs in the country, a young man out of New Jersey. So it's going to be a challenge, there's no doubt. Obviously it's a little bit different. You're not facing a team that's a spread team or an RPO team. They are more of a traditional offense, like a Michigan, like a Michigan State, like a Stanford. Iowa is going to get up and they are going to line up and they are going to try to pound you from multiple personnel groups. With Brian [Ferentz] now being the coordina- tor, they are probably a little bit more multiple when it comes to motions and shiBs, but they are going to try to run the inside zone on you. If they feel like they've got leverage, they're going to try to run the stretch play on you and get on the edge and cover guys up, and the back is patient enough to find a seam and then hit it. We've all seen that he's a playmaker, and then they've got a big, strong-arm quarterback who they are able to take ad- vantage of off the play-action pass. It's going to be a real challenge for our defense. I don't think there's any doubt about that. You didn't have Amani Oruwariye at cornerback against Georgia State, and I wanted to get your thoughts on your two freshman corners, Tariq Castro- Fields and Lamont Wade. How did they play Saturday, and what they have shown you the first three games and on the practice field? Obviously, we've been able to get to know Lamont over a longer period of time in terms of him graduating early and being on our campus and in our program for spring ball. There's been an excite- ment and a buzz about him, not only through the whole recruiting process, but then he got on campus and backed it up. So we're excited about him. I think his role will continue to grow as the season goes on. He's a confident guy. He's a ma- ture guy. He's a playmaker. But he's learn- ing every single day at practice and he's learning every game. I think Castro is the same way. Obvi- ously, he showed up here in more of a tra- ditional sense in the summer, taking summer classes, and then in camp. But it was pretty obvious early on, he's a long kid who can run who has got good ball skills, who is mature, who is intelligent. It was obvious that he wanted to play and was willing to do the things necessary to play. You know, we're excited. We've got a bunch of guys who are young guys who we're excited about and who are playing well for us. I expect as the year goes on that those guys will continue to play more and have larger impacts. Late in last year's Iowa game, people got a preview of what you could do with Trace McSorley and Tommy Stevens on the field at the same time. How much would you say that package has grown or evolved in the past year, and how much pressure can that put on a defense with both of them out there? I think it does a number of things. It al- lows us to get another guy involved in our game plan. It allows us to get Tommy game experience and get him on the field, which is always a challenging thing to do at the quarterback position. How do you get guys meaningful reps without throw- ing off the flow of your offense? It puts another weapon on the field. He's a big, strong, fast guy, and then obviously [op- ponents] have to be concerned about him throwing the ball, as well. So it makes a defense tentative when you've got a quarterback like that carrying the ball. You have to have in the back of your mind that this guy could throw it at any moment, which is going to make you a little bit tentative in terms of how hard you run support. It's a nice package. It's some- thing that we've been messing around with for a while now, and we've got a bunch of accumulated reps in practice. We've got a lot of different ways and a lot of different things that we can do and that we've done in practice. So I think this package will just continue to evolve. What's nice about him is he can play like a receiver, he can play like a running back, he can play like a quar- terback, and we've used him in almost all of those ways. I don't think there's any doubt that it creates stress on a defense. How would you compare how your offensive line is performing now com- pared to the second half of last year? There seem to be some struggles in the run game, but what's your take on that? I think that's fair. I think not having [Brendan] Mahon last week caused some challenges for us. On top of that, we moved [Steven] Gonzalez over to the op- posite guard, and I think that affected him a little bit. So we weren't as clean as we've been. Having Mahon back I think will be really helpful. And then, let's be honest, everybody's defensive model is to say we are not going to allow Saquon Barkley to run the ball and beat us. I think we've been creative enough to try to get him the ball in different ways, and he's been im- pactful that way, but I don't think there's any doubt that we have to get better at consistently running the ball between the tackles. Having Mahon, who is such an experienced player and such a strong, physical guy – we feel good about what we're going to do. But I think that's fair. I think that's an area we need to improve on offense. That and third down. Your Big Ten opener last year was on the road at Michigan, and obviously that didn't go too well. Are there any lessons learned in that game that you can apply to this year's opener at Iowa, especially to raise the level of your preparation and play, now that you're in the Big Ten schedule? Each season stands alone. Each game stands alone. We're going to do every- thing we possibly can to prepare, to show our guys what it's like to go on the road. But we've got a much older, more mature S E P T E M B E R 2 0 , 2 0 1 7 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M 12

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