Minnesota vs. Tulsa Minnesota
August 29, 2005 - Head Coach Glen Mason
“Thank you for coming today; I mean that sincerely. I’ll kind of give you an update and then I’ll entertain any questions you may have. I’m happy to report two things: one, we ran a tough camp. I’ve mentioned to a number of you who come by all the time that from the get-go that we were ahead of the curve as far as pushing the players.
At the same time we stayed100 percent healthy. For the last two days, knock on wood, we haven’t had any guys on the injured list, which is amazing with how tough we went.”
“I think I can speak for all the players and coaches, we are anxious to play a game. Practice is what it is; it’s practice.
I really believe that we look to be better on offense for a couple reasons. Bryan Cupito has greatly improved as a quarterback. I thought he played pretty well as a first time starter in the Big Ten last year. Maybe sometimes he received some undue criticism, sometimes his supporting cast let him down, but he hung in there tough and he handled the pressure extremely well. He was improved during spring practice. He spent his time wisely over the course of the summer, and is really looked good during our two-a-day camps.”
“Our wide receivers, we have a lot more depth there than we’ve had. A year ago we had three receivers that I had confidence in, now we have six or seven guys that are really working in to the mix, which has helped our wide receivers stay healthy. Once again, we are going to field what I think is an awful good offensive line. There is a lot of experience there.”
“Needless to say, we need to be better on defense. When I say I hope we are better on defense don’t read anything into it. I know we need to be better, but I haven’t seen us play yet, except against our offense and my estimation, my evaluation is that we are better. We need to be tested in the kicking game. Why?
Because we have a new place kicker and a new punter.” “ I’m familiar with the Tulsa program from my years at Kansas. I used to watch them and thank God they never got us, but it seemed like every year they beat somebody nationally ranked that they shouldn’t beat. We’re playing Thursday night. We are anxious to play. It is a late night game. It’s a very late night game. I was glad to hear yesterday that we were assured it will start on time or it would have been an early Friday morning game. You only have one person to blame, that’s me. I didn’t ask all the questions like I should have when we agreed to move it to Thursday night, but that’s okay. It’s late for me, but I’m not sure it’s too late for our players. They like it when it’s late anyway.”
On the toughness of two-a-days:
“I evaluate that every day. I think one of the reasons that it was more physical was because the defense was more physical. The hitting was more intense. You sit back every day, and if guys are not getting injured you keep going and going. That’s what we kept doing. It’s always a crapshoot. You don’t when to pour it on or to pull it off. The only thing is how we play Thursday night. If we play well Thursday night, I’ll look back and that’s what I’ll do and say how we went during summer was pretty good. If we don’t play well, then we went too hard too early, or we eased up too fast. Sometimes that’s really not an indication, but what else to you have to gauge it by.”
the ball though.”
On expectations compared to last year:
“In my terms last year I shot my mouth off publicly. I did that for internal reasons. I don’t know if that makes any sense; I’m just telling you what I did. When the dust settled, I don’t think they were unrealistic expectations. Even if I hadn’t shot my mouth off, they still would have been there internally. Most of those guys from last year are still here. They are a year older, with more experience and they realize that those things were within our grasp. We have a lot of guys on this team that have played a lot of football that it seems like yesterday were sitting in the back row and are now sitting in the front row. When you get to the front row that’s it. You get one more year and you are out of here. I don’t think things have changed very much.”
On Tulsa’s kick returner Ashlan Davis:
“Somebody asked me the other day if I was going to kick away from their great kickoff guy. I said I don’t have any idea where we are going to kick. I have new kickers. I’m serious. You’d like to think through common sense, he’s one of the best in the country, don’t kick to him, but give them some credit. They play that game back there pretty good; they switch right before the kick and all that stuff. So you better assume the ball is going to him. You don’t stop him with one guy and rely on the kicker to kick away from him. It’s going to take the kicker plus the ten guys covering to do a good job on him.”
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Quarterback Bryan Cupito
On the start time of Thursday’s game
I’m not really worried about (the late start) and I don’t think it’ll be a problem. Being the first game of the season it’ll be really exciting and we’ll have to find ways to relax. Usually there are games on TV to watch, so without games to watch, I don’t know what we’ll do.
On personal improvements as a second year starter
Any quarterback, the more experience they have, then the better they’ll get. I believe I’ve improved since last year and hope to show it on Thursday. I’m seeing different looks and knowing what I should run. I’m picking up on reads that I probably wouldn’t have made last year. I feel I’ve improved on everything and the receivers definitely improved during the offseason and we’ve carried it into two-a-days. So I really think the passing game has improved from last year and it needs to for us to be successful.
On Tulsa’s defensive scheme
The run a lot of three down lineman, but I don’t know if they’ll do that against us with our effective running game. Since they might change it up, we’ve also been going over some other looks. If they run three down lineman, we’ll run the ball and if they change it, we’ll pass the ball. Either way I think we’ll be successful.
On the differences between last year and this year I just feel more comfortable. Last year I was really anxious to get going. I’m anxious to get going again this year, but I’m more comfortable with the situation. The only thing that’s really changed is I’ve got more experience and so I’m a lot more relaxed.
On balancing the running and passing game
With just having the good running game we weren’t as successful as we wanted, so this year we intend to pass the ball as well as we run. Then hopefully we can end up where we want to get.
On preparations for Tulsa
We’ve got to treat them like they’re No. 1. You can’t overlook them because they’ve got a great team with great players. You can’t expect it to be an easy win because anything can happen. No matter how many good players we have, we’ve still got to go out and get the job done. We’ve heard almost everyday that the last time a Big Ten team went down there, they got beat.
Looking for offense, they'll pass
BY JOHN SHIPLEY
Pioneer Press
Here's something for Gophers fans to look for in Thursday night's season opener at Tulsa: passes to tailbacks in the flat.
Laurence Maroney took one 80 yards for a touchdown in practice the other day. During one of Minnesota's two scrimmages, Gary Russell weaved in and out of traffic for a 16-yard gain after catching a short pass.
"Oh, yeah," Maroney said of his receiving prowess, "I got hands. I'll line up in the slot."
Maybe nothing that drastic, but offensive coordinator Mitch Browning says the kid does have good hands, and Minnesota seems to be committed to shortening its passing game with the hope of lengthening the gains.
"We're going to get them the ball a lot more," quarterback Bryan Cupito said. "I know a lot of people weren't happy with us not getting the ball to the running backs, but we've worked on that a lot."
The Gophers gained an average of 17 yards a reception last season, second only to Navy's 18.3 in all of Division I-A. Unfortunately for both teams, that didn't mean a whole lot in the grand scheme of things. Minnesota ranked 88th of 117 teams in overall yards per game with 181.5, and Navy was 116th with 99.3.
The Gophers have a lot of tall, athletic receivers and spent much of last season going long and missing. The longest TD pass of the season was 80 yards from Cupito to Ernie Wheelwright against Division I-AA Illinois State. Wheelwright also caught TD passes of 53, 42 and 35 yards, and a team-high seven overall.
But Jared Ellerson, expected to be the go-to guy as a junior, caught just three touchdown passes, the longest being 21 yards — and that was from tailback Marion Barber III against Northwestern.
Coach Glen Mason said Monday that his receiving corps is deeper than ever. He called 6-foot-6 sophomore Micah Rucker the most improved player on the team, and said 6-1 junior Logan Payne played himself into the rotation during fall camp.
Still, extra bodies don't necessarily mean the long ball will proliferate. Perhaps diversifying will. After throwing some short passes in a scrimmage on Aug. 13, Cupito joked, "We're going to try something different this year."
It's a new concept for this group. Maroney caught three passes last season and has four receptions for his career. Russell has never caught a pass outside of practice, nor has Amir Pinnix, the other tailback who will be in the mix.
That, Cupito said, will change.
"We have a lot of plays designed to get them the ball out of the backfield," he said. "They're our best players, and we have to take advantage of them. We intend to that."
JT
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