Blue White Illustrated

make sure the way Joe is seeing things on the sideline, Trace is seeing it the same way. That information is really valuable. But yeah, it's Trace going through his progressions. It's making great decisions with the ball. Knowing when to hang in the pocket and knowing when to take off and run. All those types of things, and re- ally, over the last year and a half, he's been really good. He's been really good in those areas, and we want to continue to build on it. When you watch the offensive line on film, what are the specific areas that you look at and say: That's where we can get better, that's where this group has upside and room for improvement? I think the biggest thing is finishing. For the most part we're in good position, and for the most part our fundamentals and techniques have been good. There are a few plays where I think our inexperience has showed up a little bit at times. But for the most part, we've got a hat on a hat. We're in the right position, and we've got to sustain the block for a half- second longer and we're through there. We sustain the block on Trace's one run a few weeks ago and it's a 45-yard gain, if not a touchdown. We sustain a block on one of Saquon's runs instead of a 4-yard gain or a 6-yard gain, with Saquon, it's a big one. I think that's the biggest differ- ence for us right now – sustaining and finishing blocks. Are there some times where the defense makes a great call and they get us for a tackle for a loss or something like that or a zero-yardage play? Yeah, that's going to happen. But for us, I think the biggest dif- ference for us is just sustaining a little bit longer. Finishing blocks from an aggres- sive demeanor, from an aggressive per- spective – that's the next step for us. Instead of just being content with cover- ing my guy up, let's create a little bit more space. Let's grind, let's strain, let's finish a little bit more. I think I could say that about the O-line and I could say that about every position. Defensively, we've got to consistently hit our gaps. There are times where we're not getting into the gap we're responsible for, and all of a sudden now they run the ball through that gap and we've got a problem. It's across the board – offense and de- fense and special teams. We can sustain a little bit more. This past Saturday is a great example. Saquon returns this one for a touchdown -- why? Because we are all on the same page and we all sustain and get him to the next level; he's one- on-one with the kicker. I like our matchup. A few weeks ago we run a bounce return back to the field and we've got one guy who's running the wrong re- turn, and if he's running the right return, we've got everybody blocked and Saquon scores again. It's the little things, it's the details, it's the focus, it's the finishing. My argument to the whole team is that if the coaches, if the trainers, if the doctors, if the players, if everybody can just get a little bit better, just 1 percent better, then that's going to add up. All those little percentage points are going to add up, and they are going to hopefully give us a little bit more margin for error. Northwestern usually doesn't have the most celebrated athletes in the con- ference, but invariably is tough. What qualities does it have that make it so challenging to play against? Yeah, I guess I wouldn't agree with that. I think if you look, they have players every year who are draCed. They have won at a high level. They are able to compete against everybody at the highest level. Whenever you're at an academic school like Northwestern – I was at one with Vanderbilt – everybody just likes the story to be that you don't have the same type of athletes. I don't know if I neces- sarily would agree with that. Like I said, they have a bunch of guys every year who make All-Big Ten, and they have a bunch of guys that get draCed and go to the NFL. They are tough, they are hard-nosed, they are smart, they are disciplined. They've got really good schemes. They've had a lot of consistency in their program on their coaching staff for a number of years. I know Pat [Fitzgerald] and their athletic director [Jim Phillips]. I have a really good relationship. Pat's been there a long time. He played there, and there's just a vision. There's a lot of cohesion there. I think they are blue-collar, hard-nosed, tough, smart and talented in my opinion, and that's why they are a tough out, because they have all the necessary ingredients to be successful. On the offensive line, most of these guys played there last year, and it seemed like it was really one of your most improved units as the year went on. Did you think they would be fitting in better at this point? Is it a matter of adjusting to new positions, because a lot of it's pretty much the same cast? I think the biggest thing is that we have not had consistency at the one position, at the right tackle. We've played three dif- ferent guys there for a number of different reasons, and the reality is, whether it's all five playing really well together or whether it's four guys playing well or three guys playing well, you need all five. All five have to be playing at a high level or people would say, the O-line is not doing as well as they should. I think our O-line is playing good enough to win, but we need to get better. I'd say that about probably all of our po- sitions. You've got Will Fries, who is playing for the first time as a redshirt freshman and playing a lot. That's not ideal. There are going to be growing pains from that. But I've been overall pretty pleased with him. I think he's holding his own in big-time football as a 19-year- old. Obviously, being able to get Chasz [Wright] consistently back is going to be important for us, because he played down the stretch last year and played really well, well enough to win the Big Ten Championship Game and go to the Rose Bowl. So getting him back where he's available for an entire game and available at 100 percent would be important. And then [Andrew Nelson], as well. We went into this thinking those guys were going to help create depth for us [but] we've ended up having to use those guys as starters. So you know, it's about proba- bly what I would expect knowing every- thing that I know. That's about what I would expect. Everyone asks "How are you?" before they ask their question, and I wonder if one of these times at the end you would ever just say, "Look, I'm actually hav- ing an awful day…" I never have an awful day. And I don't believe in saying that you have. Like when you say, "I'm all right," if you say you're all right, that's exactly how your day goes. Goes against everything I believe in. So I will never say that. Twenty years from now when we do this, I will never say that. O C T O B E R 4 , 2 0 1 7 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M 13

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