On Michigan

We now shift our attention to conference play and we open up against the reigning conference champion on the road. An unbelievable opportunity for us as a program. I talked to our team a little bit about going up to Michigan and going up to Ann Arbor. We have nothing to lose. We're going to face the reigning champ and we know we'll get a really good team. They're well-coached. They are one of the least penalized teams, opposite of us. They're one of the least penalized teams. They play a physical brand of football. They've got playmakers across the board on the offensive side of the ball, defensively, I know they lost a bunch of guys but when you watch them in the first three games, they played very physical. They've got an exotic third-down package, which tells us that we've got to be really good on first and second down in terms of trying to keep that blitz package off the field. They've got a lot of new players coming in that are really playing hard. I think they've taken on the personality of their coaches there. Like I said, it's a great opportunity for us against the reigning Big Ten champ. To go on the road, like I said, leave caution to the wind and go up and try to play to the best of our ability and keep the game really tight and get it to the fourth quarter, then you never know what can happen. Like I said, our team is excited to go up there and have this opportunity so early in the season against a really good team against Michigan.

On playing away non-conference games

Playing on the road against an out-of-conference schedule makes it a little easier for us going on the road against Michigan because we've traveled now. We've got into our players and the new players in our program understand what it's like when you go on the road.

On what he remembers from the win over Michigan 8 years ago

It's a long time ago. I know it's a great, a great venue, a great place to go play a game. They're one of the bluebloods of college football. I don't remember a lot about that game. I do know that anytime you can go to a place like Michigan and come away with a win, you've got to give credit to the team we had in 2014. There's nobody on that team left in this locker room. I don't think that will have any bearing on what happens Saturday. We talked about, as a team, it's really important for the consistency in which we get ready to play. Understanding we're going to go up against the reigning Big Ten champ. To me, if you don't get excited about that opportunity, that's why you come to Maryland to have that opportunity to play against really good teams like Michigan. To me, they set the standard for our league and set the bar. We always talk about trying to close the gap on teams like that. This year affords us the opportunity to see where we fit.

On being competitive against top-tier conference teams

Kind of like an equation, they all have the same value. Beating a Michigan doesn't have more value in terms of our team than winning a game against another Big Ten opponent because we really don't focus a lot on the opponent. I'll continue to say this, what happens on Saturday is going to be 90% due to do what we do and not necessarily what Michigan does to us. That's just the way the game of football is. As you look at the first three games here, we have a lot of work to do still as a team. I really like the direction that this team is heading, I like the culture of the locker room. I think I said this to our team yesterday in our team meeting when we were putting the game behind us is that I don't know if we would've won that game Saturday the last three years with the type of penalties, kind of how we played a put ourselves in the hole other than the culture in which we're creating showed through. That's what was unique and if there's any silver lining in the way the game played out is that we found a way to win.

On J.J. McCarthy

Their philosophy is that they want to run the football. They have explosive playmakers on the perimeter, J.J. is an explosive playmaker with his feet and his arm. They will feature the quarterback run because of that ability. They play to his strengths but he also shows the perpensity that if you commit to stopping him as a runner that he can take the shots that come off the play actions down the field where they've got talented receivers. The Bell kid and number 14, a fast, fast player. Henning. They've got a bunch of really talented perimeter players. When you put them on tape on offense, J.J. is dynamic with his feet but he's also shown the ability to throw the ball. They do want to run the football and I expect them to line up and they had their way with us a year ago, I think you'll see a lot of the same. I just hope we play a little differently.