Offensive Coordinator Walt Bell
Opening statement:
“Last week, it was very apparent to everyone that it didn’t go the way we wanted it to. We had some huge penalties early on, not necessarily in terms of kids doing things out of character, just combat penalties. With a really young quarterback who’s playing his first chunk of significant time, to put him in those situations can be pretty rough. Not just his early turnover but of our first seven drives of the game, we unraveled five of them ourselves. Mistakes really killed the half for us, and after that, things got worse from there. I think it’s a great lesson for our kids on offense, just about the amount of maturity it takes to be able to survive a storm. We talked last week about handling adversity and as long as those lessons keep getting put in front of them, hopefully we’ll be able to learn from them at some point as an offense and move on. Even if you don’t have a great day, find a way somehow some way to get us back in the football game. Moving onto Michigan State, they’re a very well coached and good defensive team and have been for a very long time. They have not gotten the result they’ve wanted in the past couple of weeks, and if there’s one staff in the country that will probably get those guys going and right that ship and get them ready to play this week, it’ll be those guys. I have great respect for what they’ve done on defense for the past couple years, having watched them play. Having gone against something like that in Arkansas State every day from a schematic standpoint, how difficult they are to deal with. It’ll be a good matchup and hopefully we can go be the best us we can be and make this ball game.”
On whether he studied Michigan State before the season and if he was surprised at their recent losses:
“Absolutely. And no. Winning games is hard at every level. For anybody to win, lose or draw, you look at the records right now and there’s a couple of teams who I thought would do that and there’s a bunch of teams that are surprises. People are up and down and winning is hard. To answer the first part of your question, yes. We did everything we could to study all the Big Ten opponents and definitely a big emphasis on the first six opponents. There’s a lot of coordinator turnovers, some new personnel, but with the personnel that Michigan State has coming back, they had some guys to replace, especially up front, but they’ve done such a great job recruiting to their mentality and what they do on defense. You expect them to go right along, but with all of football, with the quarterback position being so important, any time you lose a guy that some people thought was the best quarterback in that draft, you’re going to have some issues. You’re not going to play at a high level without a guy like that. For them defensively, they’re sound. They do a great job. The past couple of weeks, they missed a couple of tackles here and there, not that they weren’t there to make the play, not that they weren’t sound, they just hadn’t gotten the guy on the ground. They’ve had a couple of people make good plays here and there, but they’re still solid and similar to what we expected. They haven’t changed too much.”
On tight ends and their performance:
“A lot of that has to do with personnel and personnel development. Right now, what we need to be able to do with the football we haven’t been doing in the past couple of weeks. Those guys have to be a big part of what we’re doing in the run game. We feel really good about the other guys. We just go to our other little guys that right now give us a better opportunity to get the upper hand and create some explosive plays. Balance to me isn’t 50-50 run-pass: balance to me is everyone on the field being a weapon, or at least everyone on the football field being a threat. We do need to get those guys more involved, but every week, the ball is going to get spread around. We’re going to play a lot of people and sometimes the ball finds you and sometimes it doesn’t.”
On Tyrrell Pigrome’s progression:
“That’s the hardest part about the position, especially for young quarterbacks. A lot of places, those kids have the benefit of the doubt to have a redshirt year or the spring before they really have to go out there. If you want to be a great quarterback, you have to play quarterback. For him to have to learn on the fly is difficult, but you’re doing everything you can in the meeting room to try to eliminate as many of those possible issues as you can and try to put him in stressful situations. The good news is that he’s already starting to get some of those repetitions that will benefit him for the rest of his career. The bad news is that he’s getting those repetitions in right now and he’s going to make mistakes with that. But there’s only one way to learn and that’s through failure. What really separates the good ones and bad ones to me is their ability to handle that failure. I think he’s a confident kid. There’s not a worry in his body. With every mistake, he’s learning and finding a way to get better next time.”
On Perry Hills being a mentor:
“Perry [Hills] has always done a great job, regardless of whether it’s Pig [Tyrrell Pigrome], Max [Bortenschlager], Gage Shaffer, young running back, young wide receiver, he has always done a great job. Anytime you have older kids, you want them to be a part of that role on the mentorship aspect of not just the physical aspect but the mental part of the game. Obviously, Perry has been through some things. He’s had some rough times as well, but he did a great job on game day, especially rallying back Piggy [Tyrrell Pigrome] to get him regrouped and rallied back so he could go out there and give us a chance for the rest of the game. [Perry Hills] has done a great job being a mentor, a shoulder to lean on, and helping him get through it.”
On whether he has noticed a difference in DJ Durkin’s disposition this week:
“No. I can tell you this, and he’ll see this with a sense of pride. There has been absolutely zero difference in our head football coach. He is quite possibly the most intense dude that I’ve ever been around. It is a well that does not dry up, or has not dried up yet, from the first day we got here as a full staff sometime in January until right now. All day long, it’s go, go, go. There’s no changes. There’s never a high, a low, a peak or valley. He’s running that thing on 11 all the time. His [meters] go to 11. That’s where he keeps it, that’s where our staff is and that’s how we work. We’ll see the benefit of that pretty soon.”
Opening statement:
“Last week, it was very apparent to everyone that it didn’t go the way we wanted it to. We had some huge penalties early on, not necessarily in terms of kids doing things out of character, just combat penalties. With a really young quarterback who’s playing his first chunk of significant time, to put him in those situations can be pretty rough. Not just his early turnover but of our first seven drives of the game, we unraveled five of them ourselves. Mistakes really killed the half for us, and after that, things got worse from there. I think it’s a great lesson for our kids on offense, just about the amount of maturity it takes to be able to survive a storm. We talked last week about handling adversity and as long as those lessons keep getting put in front of them, hopefully we’ll be able to learn from them at some point as an offense and move on. Even if you don’t have a great day, find a way somehow some way to get us back in the football game. Moving onto Michigan State, they’re a very well coached and good defensive team and have been for a very long time. They have not gotten the result they’ve wanted in the past couple of weeks, and if there’s one staff in the country that will probably get those guys going and right that ship and get them ready to play this week, it’ll be those guys. I have great respect for what they’ve done on defense for the past couple years, having watched them play. Having gone against something like that in Arkansas State every day from a schematic standpoint, how difficult they are to deal with. It’ll be a good matchup and hopefully we can go be the best us we can be and make this ball game.”
On whether he studied Michigan State before the season and if he was surprised at their recent losses:
“Absolutely. And no. Winning games is hard at every level. For anybody to win, lose or draw, you look at the records right now and there’s a couple of teams who I thought would do that and there’s a bunch of teams that are surprises. People are up and down and winning is hard. To answer the first part of your question, yes. We did everything we could to study all the Big Ten opponents and definitely a big emphasis on the first six opponents. There’s a lot of coordinator turnovers, some new personnel, but with the personnel that Michigan State has coming back, they had some guys to replace, especially up front, but they’ve done such a great job recruiting to their mentality and what they do on defense. You expect them to go right along, but with all of football, with the quarterback position being so important, any time you lose a guy that some people thought was the best quarterback in that draft, you’re going to have some issues. You’re not going to play at a high level without a guy like that. For them defensively, they’re sound. They do a great job. The past couple of weeks, they missed a couple of tackles here and there, not that they weren’t there to make the play, not that they weren’t sound, they just hadn’t gotten the guy on the ground. They’ve had a couple of people make good plays here and there, but they’re still solid and similar to what we expected. They haven’t changed too much.”
On tight ends and their performance:
“A lot of that has to do with personnel and personnel development. Right now, what we need to be able to do with the football we haven’t been doing in the past couple of weeks. Those guys have to be a big part of what we’re doing in the run game. We feel really good about the other guys. We just go to our other little guys that right now give us a better opportunity to get the upper hand and create some explosive plays. Balance to me isn’t 50-50 run-pass: balance to me is everyone on the field being a weapon, or at least everyone on the football field being a threat. We do need to get those guys more involved, but every week, the ball is going to get spread around. We’re going to play a lot of people and sometimes the ball finds you and sometimes it doesn’t.”
On Tyrrell Pigrome’s progression:
“That’s the hardest part about the position, especially for young quarterbacks. A lot of places, those kids have the benefit of the doubt to have a redshirt year or the spring before they really have to go out there. If you want to be a great quarterback, you have to play quarterback. For him to have to learn on the fly is difficult, but you’re doing everything you can in the meeting room to try to eliminate as many of those possible issues as you can and try to put him in stressful situations. The good news is that he’s already starting to get some of those repetitions that will benefit him for the rest of his career. The bad news is that he’s getting those repetitions in right now and he’s going to make mistakes with that. But there’s only one way to learn and that’s through failure. What really separates the good ones and bad ones to me is their ability to handle that failure. I think he’s a confident kid. There’s not a worry in his body. With every mistake, he’s learning and finding a way to get better next time.”
On Perry Hills being a mentor:
“Perry [Hills] has always done a great job, regardless of whether it’s Pig [Tyrrell Pigrome], Max [Bortenschlager], Gage Shaffer, young running back, young wide receiver, he has always done a great job. Anytime you have older kids, you want them to be a part of that role on the mentorship aspect of not just the physical aspect but the mental part of the game. Obviously, Perry has been through some things. He’s had some rough times as well, but he did a great job on game day, especially rallying back Piggy [Tyrrell Pigrome] to get him regrouped and rallied back so he could go out there and give us a chance for the rest of the game. [Perry Hills] has done a great job being a mentor, a shoulder to lean on, and helping him get through it.”
On whether he has noticed a difference in DJ Durkin’s disposition this week:
“No. I can tell you this, and he’ll see this with a sense of pride. There has been absolutely zero difference in our head football coach. He is quite possibly the most intense dude that I’ve ever been around. It is a well that does not dry up, or has not dried up yet, from the first day we got here as a full staff sometime in January until right now. All day long, it’s go, go, go. There’s no changes. There’s never a high, a low, a peak or valley. He’s running that thing on 11 all the time. His [meters] go to 11. That’s where he keeps it, that’s where our staff is and that’s how we work. We’ll see the benefit of that pretty soon.”
