University of Tennessee Athletics
OUTBACK BOWL HEAD COACHES JOINT NEWS CONFERENCE
December 28, 2006 | Football
Dec. 28, 2006
TENNESSEE COACH Phillip Fulmer
On his respect for Penn State and coach Joe Paterno:
"I think it goes without saying how much respect and admiration I have for coach Paterno and all his accomplishments as a coach, but even more so as a person because coach has also been indirectly a mentor to a lot of us in the profession. His legendary record is one thing, but he's done it the right way. He's a man I have a great respect for. Having played against him once as an assistant and once as a head coach and once as a player, I certainly know what kind of teams he puts on the field. We have a great respect for the Penn State football team this year, and we're excited about playing the game and such a great Penn State team.
On Tennessee's Outback Bowl preparations:
"Our preparations have gone well in Knoxville. We balanced it I think well with all the finals and everything that we had to deal with there. When it was time to work, we worked. Our kids have been very responsive to that and I think they're excited about the challenge and the opportunity to finish the season with 10 wins, hopefully, and play well. We did not play particularly well in our last ballgame. We certainly want to do much better and we'll have to do much better. Penn State's easily one of the top two or three teams that we've played this year offensively and defensively as well as the kicking game."
On Erik Ainge being liked by his teammates last season:
"You can look at last year and there are so many dynamics in having good chemistry on a football team. We had just come off an eastern division championship and had a lot of players returning. We really felt good about our season and were ranked number three in the preseason. I don't think it was necessarily Erik not being liked at all. From a personal standpoint, you had a senior, very popular, very outgoing quarterback in Rick's personality and a youngster trying to come up and make his way. The dynamics of all that, with the injuries, with the schedule and with us not playing as consistently offensively as we thought we should, it just developed. Instead of making plays to win the games, we ended up making the plays that lost the games. It was very complicated I think."
On Erik Ainge's development as a quarterback:
"Eric is doing now what I thought he would do last year. The dynamics of it all were very strange. I think he put a lot of pressure on himself trying to distance himself from Rick and not split the time. So he's trying to make all the plays instead of playing within the system. That was youth and immaturity and our responsibility. A lot of things happened last year along with assuming too much as a whole team that things were just going to go well. Us bouncing back to be where we are right now is a real credit to the program and to the players on this team and to Erik and to (Offensive coordinator/Quarterbacks coach) David Cutcliffe for doing such a good job with Erik."
On whether the days of coaches staying at a school for decades are gone:
"I've been asked that several times. I think coach Paterno can probably answer it better than I can because he's been there. I can't see it. If somebody starts really early at a young age; I know coach Bowden was really young. I've played against both of them. Coach Osborne is probably in that category as guys that I've watched and admired and appreciated. That '71 game that he was talking about, I had a good friend, Conrad Graham, who was on that team that actually made a couple really good plays that ended up helping us win the game with interceptions, he sent me a copy of the tape. I was watching it with my youngest daughter this summer and we were just having some fun. It hit me because one, it was black and white, and two, because it was the game of the week. In other words, it was the game of the week. I guess it may have been the only game of the week, I don't know how they did it, I don't remember back then. Now, there's so much scrutiny. At eleven o'clock we start and you can watch football until two in the morning. It's so scrutinized, and everybody's got the internet and everybody's got talk shows. There's so much more involvement with trustees and boosters and people are more accountable and less patient. Coach Paterno never had any of those kinds of issues until the last few years, and he's bounced back from those. It's hard for a family to be under that kind of scrutiny. I think we're looking at legendary coaches in coach Bowden and coach Paterno."
On the Penn State defense:
"You don't end up being the number five scoring defense in the country and number 16 overall without having a really fine defensive team. They don't give up big plays, their linebackers are tremendous and their front is very, very active and they give you problems. They're very well coached, and as I said, easily one of the top two or three teams that we've played this year. The front looks at this point in the season; you've seen a lot of things. It's not necessarily the looks that you get. It's the people and the active front and the pressure from the linebackers and the secondary just doesn't make any mistakes."
On the opportunity to win 10 games this season:
"From where we came from, I would already review the season as a good season. We're like Penn State. At Tennessee and Penn State and places like that you expect every year to be in the championship mix. Hopefully we can finish the season well with a good win."
On cleaning up the team over the past year:
"We don't have enough time to talk about all the things. We obviously went through a tough time last year with some things that were embarrassing. You take a church choir and you're going to have some issues from time to time. We had more than our share of things come up in 2005 that were a distraction to us. We had that unusual year. It's just literally an approach and a mindset that we're not doing this. It's counterproductive to what all of us are here for, to get an education and have a great social experience and grow as a young man. We had issues and we dealt with them quickly and firmly and I think the message was spread pretty fast from that standpoint."
On the Volunteers' defense woes:
"We've got a ton of issues and problems particularly defensively. We haven't played at the level defensively this year as we have in the past. A lot of that movement and blitz and all those different looks are strictly out of that's what we have to do to hold up to some degree. We have great concern going into this game with their running game and being able to stop that. Last time we played they pushed us around a bunch. I am very concerned about that again. We know that they're really good. We have focused on the fundamentals as much as we can. We have not really played particularly well since Cal and Alabama and a couple times where we did play well against the run. We have not been a team that has been able to consistently stop a good rushing team. It's a challenge to our guys, and they will be challenged against Penn State."
PENN STATE COACH JOE PATERNO
On coach Phillip Fulmer and Tennessee and his history against Tennessee:
"Phil and I have been on a couple of trips and I've watched his wife beat his backside in tennis I think once or twice. I didn't remember Phil playing against us in '71 and '72 when we played Tennessee down in Knoxville, but I was telling him that Bob Woodruff, the athletic director at that time, was one of the great con guys of all time. We were supposed to have a home and home and he said, `Ah, we can't go back up there. I need another game.' And I said, `I'm not going down to Knoxville to play that early in the year.' And we're in May; we're dickering. I said, `I'm going to fix this. I'm going to say we'll come down only if it's a night game.' Now this is May, and I know they don't have any lights. We became the first night game in the history of Tennessee football and they kicked our rears."
On the Tennessee Volunteers:
"When you play teams like Tennessee, with their tradition and the schedule they play, when you look at this particular team, they can play anybody, any place, anytime and play them extremely well. They lost a couple tough football games to the better football teams in the country. It's a good game for us because we have so much respect for the Tennessee program and the Tennessee football team, and we're trying to find out a little bit more about ourselves."
On what bothers him most about the Volunteers:
"I don't know what to tell you, they're a good football team. Offensively they can run it, they throw it; they have a heck of a kicking game. Defensively they're smart; they're alert, they do a lot of different things. They don't let you get away with anything more than once or twice. They're coming at you with different things, so it's a real challenge for us, but that's good. I think that's what you look forward to in a football game.
On the Nittany Lions' Outback Bowl preparation:
"We've been fortunate that we were able to get out even with the bad rain. The weather hasn't been good, up to now we've had a lot of rain around us, but we go over there and all of a sudden we were able to get on the field. The facilities have been good for us, they're very convenient. So I think we've done as well as we can do. This is Tuesday of a game week, so I think today and tomorrow will be absolutely vital to whether we're going to be able to play the kind of football game we're going to have to play. But we have no gripes; I think everything has gone well."
On safety Spencer Ridenhour being sent home:
"Spencer has broken a team rule and I told the guys we've got a long way to go and I can't put up with any nonsense. I don't have a curfew; I haven't had a curfew yet. I tell them, if you get in trouble, I'm not going to baby you. So, Spencer got involved in something and he's home."
On how coaching in college football is changing:
"I think what Phil said is exactly right. The whole environment as changed. Fortunately, most of the coaches that I know can handle the pressure of being in a place long enough, I'm not so sure how many athletic directors can or presidents can. Boosters, you guys the media, you take up the cry to get rid of so and so, get rid of this guy, get rid of that guy. Coaches understand that there's going to be a lot of pressure on them. I go to work the same way today that I did 25-30 years ago. I think the big change, and the reason we probably won't have some people as dumb as Bobby (Bowden) and I are, to stay as long as we've stayed, is we're paying coaches too much. We've got to expect that. And the reason we're getting paid that much is because we've got football from eleven o'clock (A.M.) until two o'clock (A.M.) (on TV). When there's pressure put on the university, on the president, on the athletic director, wherever it comes from, it's tough for them to handle it. At Penn State I've been fortunate enough to outlive most of the boosters. I've buried many a pain-in-the-rear-ends."
On whether the Big Ten has something to prove this bowl season:
"I don't think we have anything to prove. I think that we've got some good football teams in the Big Ten. Obviously the Southeastern Conference has some good football teams. Fortunately, we've got some good pair-ups, some really good games. Both conferences are very competitive and I think there are going to be some good football games. I'm just glad to see there are so many good match-ups. I think that's good for football as well as being good for the Southeastern Conference and the Big Ten. I think people will enjoy them. That's why there's so much interest in college football."
On whether he'll be on the sideline for the Outback Bowl:
"I've been out to practice every day; I get out there. I've been riding around on a motor scooter so I can write notes and yell at kids. I haven't missed that part of the game yet. I think I'm going to make it (Monday) on the sideline. The only thing I don't want to do is I don't want to be on the sideline (Monday) where everybody is worried about me, because they've got to play a game. They've got to concentrate on what's got to be done on the field. I've got to be able to handle myself, and we're working on that."
On how much the offense has progressed during the time off:
"We'll see New Year's Day. We've worked hard. We're playing against a club that gives you an awful lot of problems on defense. I don't know how much better we'll be, or more consistent we'll be and not turn the ball over as much as we have in a couple of ball games; that remains to be seen."
On coaching at age 80:
"I think everybody ought to do what they want to do. We live in a world where everybody wants to put somebody in a little bottle. Maybe I shouldn't be coaching at 80, I don't know. Sometimes in the middle of the night when I'm looking at Tennessee tape I say, `What the heck am I doing in this job.' I could be sleeping and getting up in the morning and work around the block and not have to worry. But it's fun. If I didn't enjoy it, I'd get out of it."
On linebacker Paul Posluszny:
"I think Paul's been a great college football player. I've always been reluctant to compare him to somebody we've had down the road because we've had some great players at linebacker. I've always had the philosophy that if you give to one, you take away from the other. Paul's one of the better football players we've had at Penn State. He plays every play hard; he's smart, a great, great leader. Good practice player. He's the first guy on the field in practice. He's out there working on shuffling, working on catching the football. He takes a manager out there with him. He's everything you want in a college football player. I think he's a heck of a football player."
On his Penn State Nittany Lions:
"You get good playing good people. That's why it's so important for us to play a team the caliber of Tennessee at this stage of where we are. We're young, Tennessee is young. We're a young football team, and we need to get into a football game with a club that's as aggressive and as clever and has as many good athletes as Tennessee has to see what we're all about. We'll be better, one way or the other, we'll be better."
On the importance of quarterback Anthony Morelli having a strong game:
"I think he needs to have control of his game. He only had 30 snaps going into this year and he got thrown into some tough situations. We played Ohio State and Notre Dame on the road in the first four games. He had to go out there and compete and didn't have a lot of success. I think it's important to have control of his game. He's not going to go out there against a club as good as Tennessee, a team that mixes things up and has a good blitz scheme and changes things up at the line of scrimmage, and be a great player all of a sudden. I think just to maintain his poise and be aware of what's happening will make him a better football player."
