On what he took away from having to watch the team

Really so much to unpack there. From other coaches stepping up, other staff stepping up, other players stepping up, just the amount of leadership bonds that were necessary, that were created. All the tremendous positives that came from that. Told you this before but Moses had 70 leaders, how many do we need? A lot. More. That really created an opportunity to do that. From my perspective, I went to a place I've never been, which wasn't on the sidelines. As a player or a coach. At a friends house, Sherrone's house, one week, the other week watching the game at my house. Last weekend, traveling, watching the game on a computer. Quite a bit. Seeing the game in a different way, through a different lens. I think it's made me a better coach. As a result, going to implement some new things I haven't done as it relates to a few policies around here to make sure I don't ever get sidelined again. Ramping that up to a gold standard. Also, how we watch the game as an offense. Watching it on TV, you can see the things. When I'm there, just to explain it, how I see it in my mind, I'm there and I'm in it and you're doing everything in real-time. Telling people what to do, how you see it. The perspective of, for them to see it, for them to watch it, what did you do right? What did you do wrong? How did you see this? Kind of excited about that, implementing that today. A ton of positives. If I seemed a little bit distracted, it's because I have so much on my mind and, hopefully, we can keep this a little bit short because there's so much to do. It's real positive. You watch the game, so many feelings of, hey, just win. Just win the game. As I'm watching that. By one point, by one point is what we're really after. Don't know if—watching it from the perspective I had, maybe there's been too much put on the players that they've got to win by 40 points or 30 points. 25 points. That's a lot. Make sure our team knows that. That's the goal is to win the game. Next is, you pray for this and you hope for this, is that you come out of the game with no injuries. Then it's where you start to get greedy. I want defense to be the best, I want the offense to be the best, I want the special teams to be the best. Then I get even more greedy. I want each position group to be the best and then each individual player to be the best. That's what we want. That's where we want to go and that's what we want to be about. We're going to chase that. We're going to keep chasing that perfection.

On the defense through three games

You talk about being happy for the other guys success, happy for the shining light that our defense was in this game. Tremendous performance. Some of the numbers, it's gotta be—I think it is the number one lowest-scoring defense in the country right now. Not hard to figure out, we're giving up 15 points in three games, that's 5.3 points per game. You dive into it a little bit deeper. 33 possessions, one touchdown, three field goals. That's some good division. You go there, it's .45 per drive. Just phenomenal. Guys being the difference maker, guys stepping up. Calling it guardians of victory now. Kris Jenkins, the interception he made. The way Jaylen Harrell is playing. Again, another week where he's the tone-setter that caused a fumble, tackles, had the rush, had the pressure that led to an interception. Tremendous. Quinten Johnson, a guardian of victory, squashed the momentum right before the half there. Really set us up well. He gets a game ball, guardian of victory sticker for defense. But, also, he's a game ball, player of the game, for special teams. He had a rep against their best player, remarkable. One of the best reps that we have ever seen. Had a tackle, crushing it. Happy for him. Cam Goode, three tackles, one sack. Rayshaun Benny, great to see his performance. Three tackles, one assist and one TFL. Really good. Scoring defense, number one. Total defense, number two. Other cool stat, bunch of them. 10 tackles for loss in the past two games. 17 players have contributed to 24 tackles for loss. 8 guys part of the 9 sacks. And less than 250 yards in all three games. Continued, really, great, great play. Felt the same way about the special teams just how hard they played, Our guys were playing all out. Minus the one fumble, it was really good. Tommy Doman continues to be super impressive and handling everything that he does. Offense, gosh, the game's over, they're happy, happy, sad. Especially about the turnovers. Then, really watching the tape, just start getting fired up because you see the positives. We won, there's so much to learn from. When I was walking through the building yesterday, we have a quote of the day every day by a player, sometimes by a staff member but mostly by players, Ike Iwunnah was up there. It said, I never lose. I either win or I learn. There we go. We got the win and we got to learn.

On Cornelius Johnson

He's put together three really good games. Catching the ball and making big plays. Challenged him last week to be a better blocker on the perimeter and he was as were alll of our wide receivers. Roman Wilson, again, the way he's blocking all three games and the production, getting open, everything has been great. I thought our perimeter blocking, emphasized it and practiced it. Our guys really came through in that area.

On the policies he will implement to make sure he's not sidelined again

One of them is the analyst and making sure there is absolutely no coaching whatsoever. You say that over and over to guys and it's just a natural coaching instinct. They want to protect us. I want to protect them, I want to protect me. We've done an incredible job, gone to the nth degree to follow every rule. Just actually watching the game and not being on the sideline, I saw it from a different perspective. Man, here's what we could do to make it even better. Implementing that. Just talking about some of the things, different perspectives.

On Rutgers

Really good. Tremendous respect we have for the Scarlet Knights, for Coach Schiano. The way they bring it when they play us, or anybody, and the way they're playing this year, playing really good defense. Gavin Wimsatt, playing really good football. They're running the ball really effectively. We know that's part of the stuff. You ask me, hey, what are you doing? You seem out of breath. A lot on the plate right now getting ready for Rutgers. As I'm sure you can understand, you've watched them play. They're good.

On what he saw on the interceptions

You always ask me what's scary good, sometimes I say scary good, gosh it's scary good right now. What does that mean? Scary good? That's where you want to be. Law of averages are going to catch up to you at some point. You do what you can to keep those balls in the air. They want to come down. Where were we just at? We were comparing touchdowns to incompletions ratio. We're talking touchdowns to interceptions because there hadn't been any. There's no way that's going to continue, it's not going to happen that way. Some things, as a player, you want confident, you want aggressive. Optimistic that everything is gonna work out. Sometimes as a football player, optimistic bias that can get you in trouble. Sometimes it gets you unprepared, certainly does in life. In football, or athletics, you're much better off there than playing it scared. It works out better when you play that way. Some precautions have gotta be taken and some risks avoided. Turnovers. The ball, ball security, that's the big one. Plenty to learn from, plenty to coach, super excited about it. J.J. is smart enough to know he didn't play a very good game. He's also smart enough to know that he can learn from it as well.

On what he saw on the film and what he says to J.J.

Specifically, let it rip but see the throw, see the completion, is critical. Being at a good base. One came with eye discipline broke down for J.J. and then he let it rip without seeing the throw or seeing the completion. Threw another one kind of like a fadeaway jumper that he didn't have to fadeaway on it. That did not get intercepted, could've thrown it right over a defensive tackle that got tipped and it was actually a completion. There's no question—I like analogies, I think I am the coach I am today because I had so many great coaches that I learned from and believe me, pretty much did what they did. Also, coaching times and coaching events where, oh, I'm not doing that, that's what you don't do. That's when you learn the most. You learn what not to do. Same thing as a player. You have success, yeah, you learn from that but there's things that you do, say, I play quarterback so eye discipline or footwork and you get away with it and it's a positive outcome, you don't learn, really, as much because you think, OK, I can do that and still have a positive outcome. It's when you don't have the right eye discipline or footwork and then the bad things happen, now it's seared into your brain. You learn more from the mistakes. I think the same as was in coaching as it is in playing. What not to do sometimes you learn the most.

On what he sees is the same from this team and what is different compared to the last few years

I see we're very close to getting there in areas. I think we're really improved in a lot of areas. Run game is one where, man, there's a Michigan play right there. All 11 are doing their job exactly how they're supposed to be doing it. That was an 8-yard gain and that's a beautiful thing. Just not enough of them yet. Not enough of those type of plays. Matter of getting all 11. Sometimes it's 9, sometimes its 10. We had one play where it's like 6, that's really bad. Just getting it all humming. I know it's super close. Big week for us to learn, to emphasize, to practice, to learn, too. Things we're learning as coaches, we gotta make the best plan for our team, our offense, these playmakers that we have in Roman, CJ, Tyler Morris is coming. Colston Loveland, he's the go-to guy. Blake, Donovan, putting them all in a position to be successful. Planning, practicing and then executing.

On Myles Hinton hurt and LaDarius Henderson coming in

First thing that jumps out, LaDarius really played well. I was really happy how he got in there and performed. Every starter on the offense, I'm not going to stand up there and say I believe in them, I do, they know it. I think we've got a heckuva group there. Just keep planning, practicing and executing.

On the decision to bring in Henderson over Hinton

I don't know, exactly. I don't know, exactly. I'll find out.

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