Darrell Hazell’s Time

COACH HAZELL: Good morning, obviously it wasn't the way we anticipated starting but after watt watching the game film there was a lot of encouraging things we saw as a staff, obviously fixable things that is always the things that you're looking for, and I'm very encouraged about our football team and the guys in our locker
room.

I thought the morale was very good yesterday, and guys stopping in the office to study
more film, the guys are very anxious to get back out on the field and prove that they are much better football team than we showed last Saturday.  So we'll begin our physical preparation today at 2:15 and make sure we're ready to go on Saturday at 12 o'clock. We did have some personnel changes just today at the linebacker position. We are probably going to start Will Lucas at the will linebacker, play Sean Robinson at the sam, and Keep Joe at the Mike. We are going to put Michael Rouse back on defense, and then we are probably going to start Ryan Watson at the nose but still had an eight-man rotation on our defensive line but that's where we are.  Personnel in terms of those guys that are a little bit banged up, Ricardo Allen is a probable for
Saturday. He has a high ankle sprain but it's not as bad as we thought it would be.  Landon Feichter has a couple beat-up hands but he should be ready to go by Saturday.
 

Q. I know you might have scaled back the offensive package in Cincinnati, when you
are going against them this week, do you keep it scaled back, or do you say, let's just let it rip and go for it?
 

COACH HAZELL: It's very important for us, we talked about this extensively as a staff that we are able to execute the things that are on the game plan, and we didn't do a great job of that last week.
 So we scaled it way back and we want to be able to line up both sides of the ball on special teams and play as fast and as hard as we can. So our package is very thin, and I told Coach Shoop before I came over here, as we go through the week and watch film and find things that we think will help us, I said, you've got to cut something else
out of the game plan. So there's no more adding. There's only reduction of the game plan going forward this week.
 

Q. In terms of what you need to see on Saturday, what are the keys? What has to
happen not only for you to be successful, but for you to build and grow from last week?
 

COACH HAZELL: I think the biggest thing right now is for us to play with a tremendous amount of confidence, no matter what the situation is.  One of the messages to the team on Sunday is that it doesn't matter what the scoreboard says or the clock says; you've just got to play, and everything else will take care of itself.  But sometimes, and I've seen this before, sometimes you get paralyzed by the scoreboard,
and it doesn't allow you to unlock your potential, so we are going to make sure that our guys are focused on the game and not the scoreboard.
That's more important.
 

Q. Facing an Indiana State team that gets beat that badly, they didn't stop the run,
they didn't stop the pass, they didn't do well in a lot of areas, what's the point of emphasis, what are the concerns from Indiana State's point of view?
 

COACH HAZELL: Well, for sure, and that was an uncommon thing to get beat as much as they did. But if you watch the film, there's a lot of things where they self-destructed on special teams early in the game, and they gave up some big plays, a lot of big plays, which allowed the game to get out of hand pretty quickly. It was 42-7 rather fast, so I'm sure they are going to play better. They have good players on their football team.  But it's about us playing the way we are capable of playing more so than anything.
 

Q. What do you absolutely have to do better this week that you didn't do last week?
 

COACH HAZELL: Well, the biggest thing offensively is we've got to be able to get the plays and get the plays called so we can get out of the huddle. Sometimes you put stress on yourself when you're breaking the huddle with ten seconds, and all of a sudden you're rushing up to the line and you have motion and you have shifts; that
creates stress.  So what we are going to do this week in practice, I want them out of the huddle and at the line of scrimmage by 15 seconds; so we can see the defense and understand what we are blocking, make our calls up front. Those are the things that
we are trying to concentrate to improve upon.
 

Q. You obviously don't want the guys to panic, it's only one game, just stay the
course, but what can you use from last week to build off of going forward?
 

COACH HAZELL: Well, there's so many things. It's easy to see once you watch the film. Guys are at a gap sometimes on defense because they are not doing their job.
 But there's so many different things you can take from the film to help us get better. And that's what this, from one to two is all about, making sure we are make the improvements in all right areas.  We have to make plays, both sides of the
ball. The third down was probably the biggest component of the game that stuck out. They were 60 percent or better and we were only at 36 percent conversion. It's hard to win football games when you don't run so many plays. And we ran 28 plays offensively in the first half, and not enough plays in the second half.  And if you look at the time, like we talked about yesterday, if you look at the time line of the
game, it's a 7-7 game with about 25 seconds to go in the second quarter and give up a seam route for a touchdown and make it 14-7. And then they drove the ball for about seven and a half minutes in the third quarter.  But it's still a football game, and that's
when you can't stare at the scoreboard.
 

Q. Is that a culture thing that you're talking about, that maybe these guys need to be -- I don't know if it's mentally tougher or how would you kind of look at that I guess.
 

COACH HAZELL: Well, it's got to be proven to them that that is what happens a lot of times when you're not used to being down, or you don't know how to respond when you're down and that is a little bit of a culture thing that we'll continue to work at.
 

Q. Antoine Lewis, why can he be important to this defense?
 

COACH HAZELL: He's really, really coming on. He's a guy that just makes plays.
There's nothing flashy about him. He plays extremely hard. He has a great energy about him all the time. He's upbeat. He's going to help us in a lot of -- you saw him covering punts the other day, did a phenomenal job for us and I'm really excited about the prospects of him.  
 

Q. How do you award the helmet stickers? Is it a grading out position by position, or if you get a sack, you get a sticker?
 

COACH HAZELL: It's a grading out -- there's a certain percentage that you must meet. Each guy has a criteria that he must meet positionally.
 No one will get a sticker for this game because we didn't win the game but we'll go through all the things this week as to who would have got a sticker if we had won the football game. For example, our punt unit would have got an extra sticker, probably would have got two stickers. On defense, Latta would have got a sticker and on
offense it was Justin Sinz. I can't remember the other two guys that graded out winning performance.
 

Q. So you only give them out after a victory?
 

COACH HAZELL: Yeah.
 

Q. Why do you line up with -- I don't know if you guys call it the swinging gate  
formation on the extra point, or what you would call it -- why do you do that?
 

COACH HAZELL: Try to catch guys off-guard. We call it muddle-huddle. We tried to put Gabe out there by himself to see if we can get isolation, and then if they are not sound and they are not covering our kicker and holder and our snapper, we have a call -- if they don't have an overload to where all of our linemen are, we have a
call and if they line up properly, we'll go back and kick it.
 

Q. You mentioned the culture, guys don't know how to respond when they are
down --
 

COACH HAZELL: You have to point it out to them, and they all understood once I explained it to them. I said, on the sideline, there was this blank stares at times when we were down. And I said, you can't worry about those things. It's a 14-7 game or it's a 21-7 game. You can't worry about those things. You just have to keep fighting
and do your assignment for those particular plays that are coming up.  That's the only thing that you can control at that point in time. We'll get it fixed. I'm very confident.
 
 Q. You ran the ball 22 times in the previous games. How important will it be this
week to establish the running game and not only run more often but effectively?
 

COACH HAZELL: I think that you have to be able to run the football. I think everything in our offense comes off of a run play and we try to make it all look the game, but you've got to be able to be physical up front and run the football.
 I know the other guys that graded out winning performances were two of our offensive lineman, Kitchens and Pamphile, they both played pretty well for us. If we can keep those guys going forward -- Kugler played well, so I was very
pleased with our offensive line play.
 

Q. Were there maybe one or two people that stood out that played extremely well?
 

COACH HAZELL: Justin Sinz was a guy who played well for us at tight end spot. Justin was the one that also graded out a winning performance; it wasn't Kitchens. Kitchens was real close but he didn't grade out winning. Justin Sinz played well for us. Our young running back obviously continues to get better each week, Dalyn
Dawkins and he's got a bright future for us. So those were some of the guys that stood out offensively.
 Obviously Latta did a great job, he was our defensive Player of the Week that we voted. He doesn't know that yet so don't share that with him when he comes over here. He did a good job for us.