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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 You said a1er the game against Michigan State that "we've got to be- come more of I hard-nosed team up front." How do you go about changing a team's personality or identity three- quarters of the way through the sea- son? It's not going to happen overnight. We've got to keep stressing it on both sides of the ball. We've got some injuries that have factored into that, as well. But we need to be able to create space on of- fense, and we need to be more physical and strike our keys and one-on-one matchups defensively. So it's not some- thing that's going to change overnight. We have done some really, really good things this year, but we need to do it more consistently, and we need to do it in every circumstance, at home, on the road, ranked opponent, nonranked opponent, conference game, nonconference game. We need to be more consistent with everything we do. Your thoughts on the defensive end play against Michigan State. How did you think the group did? I think obviously whenever you lose two starters on the one position, that's a chal- lenge. Losing Cam Brown and now you loss [Ryan] Buchholz, that's a challenge. We can't say we don't miss those guys. Saying that would not be truthful. Hopefully we'll get Buchholz back here sooner than later. I think Kevin Givens brings value there, but obviously he does- n't have nearly the accumulated reps at defensive end that he does at defensive tackle. The more experience he gains there, and the more way to develop some of the younger guys – that will be helpful. Because we are missing those two guys right now, there's no doubt about that. Shareef Miller has been forced to play a lot of snaps. How has he handled that? I think our model has been at its best when we're able to rotate those guys and keep them fresh. It's also about injury protection. If you're playing 65 plays, you have a [greater] chance of spraining an ankle or pulling a muscle or whatever it may be. So that's part of it, as well. Guys get nicked up. So now you've got a guy who's playing 25 more plays than proba- bly he should be. All of those things factor in, there's no doubt about it. That's why getting some of these guys back would be really helpful for us. And it's also [a mat- ter of] training these guys to recover and be durable and help them with some of the things that we're doing, some of our other packages. That's huge for us, as well. About becoming more hard-nosed up front: How do you make that change? Is it mental? How much is scheme and play-calling? I think it's all those things. It's a combi- nation of how we practice. It's a combina- tion of mentality. It's a combination of development. It's a combination of re- cruiting, of scheme. It's all those things. That's a challenge, especially when you face really good fronts. And I think it's created some opportunities for us, as well. Trace [McSorley] has thrown for a bunch of yards because people are so invested in overloading the box. And that formula has been pretty good to us when we don't turn the ball over. Obviously, when you have a hard time running the ball and you're throwing for a bunch of yards and those things are creat- ing great matchups on the perimeter and great throwing situations and you win, then you can live with it. But you still need to improve in some of those areas. But when you turn the ball over, that's obviously where you have some real chal- lenges. So we want to become more bal- anced, as much as we possibly can. But it's not going to happen every night. It's going to be just a constant growth each week, each day, each practice as the sea- son goes on. How did the players respond to your message of returning to the formula that you know works? All the feedback that I got from coaches, from players, from administration, it felt like my message aBer the game was good. Looking at the guys' body language and things like that, it seemed like it was re- ceived well. I think last year we started to have some conversations that we hadn't had in the past, and this year we had conversations that we hadn't had the past. And it kind of opened that door. Once that door was opened, we started to have more of those conversations. And I'm just a huge be- liever in taking care of today. That will take care of tomorrow. So we are going to make sure that we get back to the formula that got us here in the first place and that I believe so strongly in. It's not like we had gone far off that model or that formula. But we cracked the door open, and when you do that, you start to hear more of it than you should. You have one of the least-penalized teams in the country, except for the past two weeks. What do you do to make sure that doesn't become a trend going forward here at the end? I'm pretty comfortable with that. I don't think it is a trend. We've been that way all year long. As you guys know, I turn penal- ties in to the officials each week. And I don't feel like it's a trend. There is a part of it when you play high- level competition and you're playing high-level athletes, you see a little bit more of that. But I don't see that being a trend for us. I really don't. Again, we study all those things. I turn those things in. And you have discussions and study it and talk to some guys that we have on our campus, as well, about rules interpreta- tions. And we have officials at practice every single day. But I look at the whole season, and we've been one of the better teams in the country in penalties. We've had two games where it's spiked up for whatever reason. We'll continue to study it and make sure that doesn't continue. You've talked about getting Saquon Barkley the ball more. Have you seen that being done enough? What have defenses done to prevent that from happening? We would like to get the ball in Saquon's hands, but we're not going to force it. We're not going to run him into looks that aren't good looks. Obviously, we have some things called for him to get the ball out of the backfield and people are cover- N O V E M B E R 8 , 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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