Cotton Bowl Classic Head Coaches Press Conference
12/30/2015 12:00:00 AM | Football
DALLAS -- MSU head coach Mark Dantonio met with the media one final time on Wednesday at the Omni Hotel in downtown Dallas on the eve of Thursday's College Football Semifinal at the Cotton Bowl Classic against No. 2 Alabama.
Dantonio was joined alongside Alabama head coach Nick Saban and the two answered questions for nearly 45 minutes from the hundreds of reporters in attendance.
The following is a complete transcript from Wednesday's press conference:
COACH DANTONIO: Very excited to be here today. Want to thank the Cotton Bowl again for their hospitality, everything we've been able to enjoy here as a program right now. Looking forward to the game tomorrow night. And as I said pretty much all week long, this will be a great opportunity but a great challenge for us as a program. And we're looking forward to our moment.
COACH SABAN: We'd certainly like to thank everyone involved with the Goodyear Cotton Bowl for the first-class hospitality that the city of Dallas and all the folks here have worked hard to accommodate our team and create a lot of real enjoyable hospitality for us. I think everything has been really first class.
Obviously, this is a great competitive venue for both teams. But really excited about the opportunity that our team has, what they've been able to accomplish this year to play against a very, very good, challenging Michigan State team who has had an outstanding year as well.
So this is what we came here for, and I think this is what the competitors are excited about.
This concept of a playoff seems to have been so needlessly debated for so long. I'm just wondering now that we're two years into this, what each of your dispositions would be toward it. And if you are pleased, how much more pleased would you be if it went to eight games? Or eight teams, rather.
COACH DANTONIO: My feeling is I think it's great for college football, the playoff. I think having been in it now for the first time, four games (teams) is very difficult as you move through the process. I think when you start to throw eight teams in there, I think it's going to get a little bit even more muddled as you move forward. We have our championship game within our conference which sort of served as a way to get into this. And right now we're coming in to playing our 14th game. So it's a lot of football games.
COACH SABAN: I think that one of the concerns that I had going in to the whole playoff system, although I think there's some tremendous benefits to it and I think four teams certainly gives everyone the opportunity to get the best team involved. And you have to play your way through it.
But one of the unique things about college football was always that a lot of positive reinforcement was given to a lot of teams who had the opportunity to go to bowl games. And there were some pretty significant trips involved for families and fans and teams and players.
And my concern was if we had a playoff, all the attention would go to the playoff and we would minimize the importance of those games for all those other players. And I think that's probably happened to some degree.
But I think that from a fan's perspective, having a four-team playoff, making sure that you get the best teams involved, you know, creates a lot of excitement for fans. And I think it's a very fair way to do it. I think if we play as many games as we play now and go to eight teams, we're going to be playing too many games.
I'm hoping that you can share a story perhaps about maybe the first time that you two met and just what you felt about each other and if you see similarities in one another that you think have fortified your relationship and coaching together over the years as far as how you have maybe gravitated toward each other and learned from each other.
COACH DANTONIO: That seems to be the ongoing story these days, huh, Coach? (laughter) I got to know Nick a little bit prior to coming to Michigan State. And he hired me. He was still with the Browns, as I remember. Still with the Browns. And hired me before -- actually he sort of interviewed me over the phone a number of times. And then I took the job, I went there, and then met him on that first recruiting weekend.
So as I remember it, pretty non-eventful and we had recruits in and we moved from there. So it's been a great experience.
COACH SABAN: I've told this story before. But I remember when Mark was in high school. I forget where I was coaching. Probably Kent State or something at the time. Zanesville High School. And went to South Carolina and sort of knew of him because of recruiting [him] as a high school player. And then when he got into coaching and was a GA, kind of watched his progress and his career and met him a few times and was always impressed with him. And we got the opportunity to hire him at Michigan State, I think he was, at Kansas.
I didn't really know him well enough to say that we were good friends or anything but certainly respected the job that he did and made a great contribution to us trying to build the program back up at Michigan State a little bit at that time under the circumstances that we were under then.
He's, obviously, blossomed into a fantastic job in terms of what he's done at Michigan State right now. And I think the world should recognize what a great job he's done.
Mark, has Nick ever been angry at you or hollered at you or anything?
COACH DANTONIO: Of course. (laughter)
My assistants would say the same. So I think that's part of the job, you know? You're detail oriented. You want things done the correct way, and there's a process. There's a process to everything, and that's the way of the game. This is a high-pressure, high-stress environment that we're in. And things need to be run correctly, and they need to be all going the same direction.
We're in our sixth day in town and a lot more media are here. You're getting asked a lot of the same questions. Are you getting tired of talking nice about each other? The fact is you're trying to beat each other's brains in tomorrow.
COACH SABAN: It doesn't have anything to do with that. You respect people for what they do and you respect great competitors. And as a coach, you know what it takes, the hard work that it takes, the togetherness that it takes, the culture that you have to sort of establish to have a winning program.
And when you play another winning program, you just have a lot of respect for that. There doesn't have to be any dislike or distrust or hatred or anything else. You respect competitors, and I think great competitors go do their best against each other. And you have the same respect when you come out the other end regardless of what happens in a game.
COACH DANTONIO: I want to add that a lot of our program is patterned after the people I've been able to work for. And, certainly, Coach Saban has had great success. And, quite frankly, a lot of the things that we do are patterned after the things that I learned from him, whether it's technique in the secondary, in the back end a little bit, or defensively, or just structure of the entire program, recruiting. A lot of different aspects.
So as I said before, would not be sitting up here in front of all you answering the same question over and over if I had not been afforded that opportunity.
How important for you as head coaches is it to find innovations or introduce innovations in the off-season? And how much time and effort do you individually put into that?
COACH DANTONIO: He's letting me answer all the questions, I guess. First, anyway. We'll probably get to kick off. (laughter)
But I would say that's part of coaching. Coaches are always trying to find something new. They're trying to be innovative. Trying to do something they've seen maybe they can adapt and use within their own program. And I think that's part of the process. Had that not been the case, we would be stuck in neutral someplace.
And I think players, programs are always evolving. Always, constantly. And I think that's one of the best things that you do as a coaching staff, is try and get better every year. So you have to critique yourself and have to reinvent yourself at times as well.
COACH SABAN: I think that any business -- I think they call it quality control. You sort of assess the things that you did well, the things that you need to improve, some area that may give you difficulty. And then you go into research mode to try to figure out how can we innovate, to use your term, something that will help us do these things better. So it's sort of all a part of the process of what I think any successful organization tries to do in terms of evaluating where they are, what they need to do to improve.
You also look at the landscape of the business world around you in college football. That's what other teams are doing. And is there something that they're doing that would be beneficial to what we do and how would it complement us. So I think we're always trying to improve and get better.
Mark, for you specifically, you talk about how things change and how you change. This is your first bowl game where there's a potential, obviously, of another game after. Has that affected this game either mentally for your guys, how you approach it, anything different knowing there's a possibility of another?
COACH DANTONIO: Well, we've not tried to let that affect us. We've tried to deal with the present. I think that's the best thing that we can do right now and understand what we know, build on what we know and go from there with it.
We've been successful in the last four bowl games so we tried to take that mindset as we've come into this. Obviously, this is a little bit bigger and a little bit busier, I would say, as well. We've got to take that into context and critique that as well. This whole thing will be critiqued as we've both talked about up here. Our goal is to always get better. Always get better and keep moving forward.
Mark, Jake Coker, Alabama's quarterback, said earlier this week Nick Saban is pretty hilarious. Would you agree with that statement?
COACH DANTONIO: Yeah, I would. (laughter)
Any moments at all you can think of?
COACH DANTONIO: My players say the same thing about me.
Any stories you can recall at all?
COACH DANTONIO: No. We're talking about 15 years in the past. We'd have to sit down and talk for a while. But you're talking about 1995 when I was hired and worked for Coach, for Nick, through the '99 season. So five years and five good years. Five good years. Five years with a lot of learning, a lot of different things.
But I can't really come off with an hilarious story right now. Intense time up here in front of all of you.
Nick, how important is it to keep it loose with your players especially during weeks like this when so much is on the line?
COACH SABAN: I think that the players basically need to stay focused on the things that have helped them be successful in the past. Doesn't start now. It started with the preparation for the game and how they invested their time in practice and what they needed to learn about the other team so that they have a chance to go out and execute and be successful.
But I don't know that you try to keep players loose. I think that there's an edge that you'd like for them to have that is going to give them the best opportunity to go out there and play for 60 minutes in the game the way that I'm sure they'd like to play and we'd like for them to play.
Nick, Mark's talked a lot about things he learned from you. Have you learned anything from him except maybe how to block a punt in the last ten seconds?
COACH SABAN: Well, you know, I think that since we have not worked together for, I think he said, 15 years, which I hadn't figured that out -- but I think you learn a lot from anyone that you work with, especially when they're quality and do a good job. I think relationships are really important in any organization. I've always tried to have really good relationships with the people on our staff and the players in our organization and the people in our organization.
And I always felt like I had a really good relationship with Mark. And I think that that was helpful in, you know, maybe us being able to work well together.
And I learn things from everyone on our staff. So I think it's a part of how you evolve and improve. You're always looking for input from the people you work with.
Since your last meeting five years ago in a bowl game, how would you say your programs have evolved, changed, maybe are the same in some ways since that last time you met?
COACH DANTONIO: Well, 2010 is quite a while ago but that was the first year that we'd really -- we started moving -- really moving in the right direction. Obviously we had some room to grow after that football game.
So as always, I try to measure our progress by who we play against and how we come out at the end. Try and define our football team at the end of the season, not at the beginning.
So we're going to see how far we've grown. But there was no question at that point in time that all of a sudden we got hit with a little bit of an avalanche and our guys played hard, but we need to be better.
COACH SABAN: Well, that team that we had that year, I think, was a very difficult team. I think sometimes when you win a national championship, the team that you have the next year sort of sometimes is a struggle to not have complacency. And I think that was probably true of that team. So in some ways, I felt like that team underachieved.
But then they seemed to want to -- they seemed to realize that and wanted to prove something. Then we played in the bowl game and probably played more the way they were capable of playing.
But from my standpoint, what happened in that game will have nothing to do with this game because none of the participants are the same except maybe the coaches. But to me, Michigan State has really, really grown as a program in a lot of ways. Quality of players. You can see that the system is embedded. The character, the competitive character they play with is something that's very obvious when you watch them play. And I think those characteristics are what makes a team, a really, really good team and puts you in the position that they're in.
Nick, having been in East Lansing and what you've done both at LSU and Alabama, just I guess from Mark's standpoint, what would a national title mean for him and Michigan State?
COACH SABAN: Well, first of all, I have great love and sentiment for Michigan State having spent ten years of my life there. I have a lot of great relationships.
Michigan State afforded me a great opportunity. George Perles was the first coach that ever gave me the responsibility of leadership being a defensive coordinator. And Michigan State gave me an opportunity to be a head coach when I was defensive coordinator at the Cleveland Browns.
But a national championship means a lot to any program. But from my perspective, I think it means the most to the players. And most coaches are really excited for the opportunity that the players have created for themselves by the hard work and commitment that they've made. And I think the fun of it all is to see them sort of reach the fruition of what they've worked for.
Nick, at what point before a game can you tell if a team has the right mental outlook, if they're ready to play? Is it locker room pregame warmups? At what point can you tell? And what are you looking for in that moment?
COACH SABAN: I don't really think -- I can't tell. I mean, maybe somebody can tell. I can't even tell that we're going to play for 60 minutes in the game once the game starts.
I think you're always trying to focus on playing the next play and making sure your guys are staying focused and doing the best job you can to sort of teach them as the game goes on, any adjustments that they need to make and things they need to do better. And so sometimes I think we have the right mindset and all of a sudden we have a lapse in the game and the other team goes on a three-play drive for 81 yards and scores a touchdown and gets right back in the game. And you're sitting there saying,
"What happened?"
So I don't think that you ever know for sure. I think you're always trying to work to make sure that you're keeping the right focus and mindset on your team as you play a game.
You're constantly in a teaching role with your players. But for both of you, what have you specifically learned from your respective teams this season and in particular this week?
COACH DANTONIO: I think from my perspective, I've learned resilience, how we've played through things and play through to the end of the game. And our seniors have had -- what I think is most important if your seniors have their best senior year that they've had, great things are possible. We've got great senior leadership again this year. Because of that, it's created great chemistry which creates energy.
COACH SABAN: I think the thing probably for me is the togetherness that our team has. We've always had good players. And I think this year's team probably has better togetherness. Everybody's sort of committed to the same vision of what they'd like to try to accomplish. And the leadership has certainly reinforced that.
And the other players have accepted the leadership and followed suit. And I think that creates great relationships and good team chemistry. And that's probably one of the things that's helped this team sort of grow and develop and create an opportunity for themselves that early in the season I didn't think many people thought was possible.
Nick, when you talked about Michigan State's competitive spirit, when you talked to your team about that, do you mention specifically how the Spartans have thrived in these underdog situations, how they seem to embrace being on the other end of teams like Alabama?
COACH SABAN: Well, I think that more importantly what we've tried to emphasize is how many games that they've sort of been able to show the resiliency that they have. Whether it's win the game late in the game or win the game in the fourth quarter, I think that kind of competitive grit is something that you have to have a tremendous respect for. And you've got to know what you're up against when you play against people like that.
Coach Saban, Mark Hollis said that he called you before he hired Mark Dantonio. Can you talk about what that phone call was like. And, also, if you can maybe share some background on Harlon Barnett. I know he played for you with the Cleveland Browns.
COACH SABAN: And Michigan State.
And Michigan State. Thank you.
COACH SABAN: Well, first of all, I thought Mark would be a really good candidate to be a head coach at Michigan State. He had lots of ties there. He'd done a really good job everywhere he'd ever coached. He'd been in a position of responsibility and done an outstanding job in that.
He certainly has the right kind of personal character and integrity to have the kind of leadership that I think is necessary to sustain a program with some kind of consistency and success because of the values and culture that you create.
So that was my assessment of what I thought a good direction for Michigan State would be. And I would say that, sitting across from Mark right now, he sure hasn't disappointed anybody.
And Harlon Barnett, has always been one of my favorites. Because he's a great competitor, really good person. And when you have an opportunity to coach a guy as a college player and then later on he becomes a professional player and he plays for you, it's always a little bit different the relationship you have with a guy like that. And, certainly, I have a tremendous amount of respect for Harlon not just as a player but now as a coach. And what a great person.
Obviously you guys have prepared nearly a month for the game. What stands out the most about either team?
COACH DANTONIO: Well, when you look at Alabama, first of all, they have very, very good players. Secondly, they're extremely well-coached. They play very disciplined. Due to some of the people I've worked for, I understand technique, et cetera.
So I've watched their secondary. I've watched their linebackers. Their linebackers stay clean. Downhill players, thumpers, big thumpers, great athletes as well.
In the backend, they're very well-coached, play on balance, very good tacklers in space, play the ball in the deep part of the field.
When you look at them offensively, very cohesive offensive line. You see structure. You see toughness. You see effort. You see knowledge of what they're supposed to do, which are the three things that I've basically learned from a very early time in coaching with Nick that has to happen if you're going to be successful. And you see that, and you see them playing at a very high level.
And as I said earlier, my first statement, it would be a great challenge for us. Great opportunity to be here today, but it will be a great challenge. We'll need to be at our best, play at our best because our best is going to be needed here.
COACH SABAN: I think that Michigan State is a team that obviously is hard to beat.
And I think they do the things that you need to do to be hard to beat. They don't turn the ball over. They have great balance on offense, players do a great job of executing, and they're very well-coached. You go to the other side, their system on defense is very sound and solid and the players have a great understanding of it and do a great job of executing it.
And they're well-coached in the kicking game. So some teams are really, really flashy and they go no huddle, fast pace, do all these things that create this mirage of big plays and space plays. And that's not necessarily the kind of team we're playing.
They beat you basically on fundamental execution and not making a lot of mistakes. And that always makes the team hard to beat. And then you throw in the kind of competitive resiliency they've shown this year, that's really helped them to be very, very successful.
You mentioned earlier, Nick, that the 2010 team that went to the Capital One Bowl is considered to have underachieved. And you also mentioned the possible -- in the playoff system, the possible effect it's going to have on the other bowls. For a program like yours that has been in this position either BCS title game or playoff almost every year recently, do you foresee going forward a system much like the NFL where, if you don't make the playoff, the program, your expectations, that's considered to have been an unsuccessful season?
COACH SABAN: I don't think there's any question about it. I think it's -- I think in some circumstances I saw it happen this year. Coaches who won nine games and average winning 9 1/2 games over 15 years lose their job. Based on what standard?
So I think that's probably going to be the standard. And that's the thing that I thought was unique about college football, that there was a lot of positive reinforcement for having a good season, a very good season. And now that standard is going to be measured more as to whether you get in the playoff or not.
Mark, Connor Cook has talked this week a little bit about his growth from a recruit into the program. When did you know that you would have or potentially could have the quarterback that you have now?
COACH DANTONIO: I think when you recruit, you recruit on size. You recruit all these different things, what you see on film. You get to know the people involved in it. And then you start to develop people. Brad Salem, our quarterback coach, did an outstanding job with him through the process. He's been in the system for five years with the same coaches, coaching him both as a coordinator basically in the same system. So he knows our system inside and out.
So when we redefine something or readjust, he's able to adapt very, very quickly. But we thought that in coming to camp and in watching him in person, he had a great deal of upside, tremendous potential. We knew he needed to grow, get a little bit bigger, those type of things. He's filled out as most young people do.
We've had great quarterbacks. We had Brian Hoyer and then Kirk Cousins. Nick Foles was in our program. Here comes Andrew Maxwell. And then Connor Cook. So that trend hopefully will continue. But I just think that he's done an outstanding job, and he's played on a big stage before. And he's been playing since he's a sophomore, and I think he's 34-4. So he can do about anything he wanted to do. He can create. He's got a quick release, strong arm, those type of things. And he believes in his receivers. And he throws the ball in very tight windows and throws a very, very catchable football. So those are the things that I know that he does. And he's been a great, great performer for us. Great leader for us as well.
Nick, you've had teams that have played very well in bowls and you've had teams that haven't. Is there an art to bridging that three- or four-week gap and what have you learned through the years of how to do it.
COACH SABAN: I think creating the right mindset is probably the most important thing.
Teams that have responded to the challenge of what they want to do and what they want to accomplish seem to do a little better in terms of their preparation, their practice. And some of the other teams, you're always a little frustrated with in terms of how they're going about the preparation and maybe respecting the moment of the challenge that they have.
But I've been pleased so far with the way this team has sort of gone about it. So, hopefully -- we're playing against a good team. And as a coach, you always hope that they -- you can get the team to play to the best of their capabilities. That doesn't mean you're always going to win, but certainly that's what our goal is with our players.
Y'all ended the season last year on very different terms. How much do you remind your teams pregame this year about the emotions of last year's finish?
COACH DANTONIO: Last year we were able to win the Cotton Bowl on January 1. So it's sort of ironic to me that we're playing on December 31st. And we look to go 365.
And we left on an upswing, and it was a very positive end of the season for us and it sort of catapulted us into 2015. But along with that, we didn't reach our goals. So we were an 11-2 football team and ended up No. 5 in the nation. But nobody felt like they were satisfied, and I think that's what allowed us to move forward sort of with a state of mind that understood that we need to play better. We needed to do better than we did; and we needed to play our best in big games, which I don't think happened last year on a consistent basis.
COACH SABAN: Well, we were very disappointed in our playoff game a year ago.
We played against a really good team who was playing really well at the time. And we don't ever want to take anything away from what they did. I thought they were one of the best teams in the country which proved out to be the case in them winning the national championship.
And even though it was a very competitive, tough seven-point game, I felt like our team did not play the way you would like for them to play. And I think they felt the same way, very disappointed. And I think that probably was one of the catalysts for this year's teams sort of having something to prove. And so far, they've done the things that they need to do to be able to give themselves another opportunity to see how they could play in a playoff game.
How do you feel about the New Year's Eve placement of these games knowing that the audience is likely to be conflicted? And why shouldn't these games, as important as they are, be played at a time that would be more favorable to an audience nationally?
COACH DANTONIO: Some things you can control, and some things you can't. Doesn't make any difference when we're playing as far as I'm concerned. We're playing at 7:00 tomorrow night, and that's the focus. So I'm more concerned about the people on the sideline and how they're viewing it.
COACH SABAN: I don't really have a comment about that. That's not my concern. I don't have any control over it. We have a good opportunity. I never even thought of it that way. So we have a lot of good people in administrative positions that can make those kind of decisions. And when they make them, we're just happy to be involved in them.
But to follow up there, Nick, shouldn't games of this consequence and this importance on the national stage be scheduled at a point where the audience could benefit from it most?
COACH SABAN: Well, I think if they're interested, they'll benefit from it. They'll have time to do everything they want to do. They can watch the game and then they can go do whatever they want to do. So I don't know why they're conflicted. But that's everybody's choice. I mean, I think that's why we have a great country. (laughter)
Coach Saban, I think with the Coach [Steve] Spurrier out of game. Coach [Frank] Beamer out of the game, you're the winningest coach in college football. Do you consider yourself an elder statesman? And has your role changed in college football in general and the issues you consider?
COACH SABAN: No, I didn't realize any of those things until you mentioned it. So that would just show you the level of awareness that I have of these types of things, especially when you're sort of focused on your team and wanting to do a good job for your team. And I don't see it being any different. We have enough challenges trying to help develop the players that we have, recruit good players for the future. Keep everybody in our organization sort of paying attention to the principles and values that have helped the organization be successful in the past. And that's challenging enough for me without getting involved in things that I really can't control.
I do have an interest in what is best for college football. And I think all of us as coaches probably feel the same way. And if there was something we could do for the benefit of the game and the player, I think that we would definitely be involved in that to whatever degree we could to help the quality and integrity of our game.
