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News bullets and other items

• Delano Hill served a one-game suspension against Maryland and will return against OSU
• The vulnerability to a fake punt was something the coaches spotted on film, and Joe Kerridge had the ability to call it off if necessary
• The problems with the passing game are “multiple”
• Hoke used one timeout in the third quarter to avoid having 12 men on the field and another to try and slow the game down for the defense

Opening remarks:

"Obviously we're really, really disappointed and disappointed in the – cuz our seniors, the 12 guys we're graduating, the 12 guys who played their last game [at Michigan Stadium]. We always talk about playing for them and coaching for them and we just couldn't execute at times [when] we had opportunities and at times we did [execute]. I also think that we had some mistakes in the kicking game that obviously hurt us as a football team, and some of those are very aggressive mistakes and you appreciate that kind of effort and that kind of aggression but at the same point we've got to be a little smarter, if that's the right word for it. The one thing is in our locker room there's a lot of disappointment and there's also a lot of pride that these guys have in how they've practiced and how they've done things all year and obviously we've got the greatest rivalry game in college football, in my opinion, coming up and that's what we're going to focus on."

You alluded to it but this hasn't been a very penalized team this year. Can you talk about the punt return and the play on the field goal with the field-goal kicker?
"Yeah, some of this is all subjective and what do you think it is and not. Not seeing the whole thing from the angles that you all get I'll have to look and see, especially on the block in the back. On the field goal, the guy was trying to make a play and he was a guy who was supposed to be coming hard off the edge and I guess he hit him hard enough for a 15-yard personal foul."

Can you take us through the time out and the decision to go for it on fourth down instead of just kick?

"Yeah, on fourth and seven?"
Yeah.
"Number one, it was going to be a long field goal and I believe there was some wind coming out of the south. Matt… could have kicked the opportunity. Punting it, thought pooch it there. Little worried about Will getting too much on it. Thought our defense was playing very well at that time. Was playing very well. Believed in the call, believed in what the kids could do. Still."
Did you take the timeout to make the decision?
"Yeah, in my mind I wanted to be sure. I wanted to make sure I talked to Doug also and how he felt about it also and having the right play, and I felt very good about it."

A big punt [fake] to start the game, a couple fourth downs; did you call this game a little more aggressively?
"You know, I don't know if it was more aggressively. We had seen on film that we could take advantage of the fake. We were- we go for it on fourth-and-one and we had the penalty, so that knocks it back. When you look at different punt teams and you look at different zone of the field, what they like to do, or punt return teams and what they like to do and what they like to be in and we got exactly what we wanted. Joe has the ability, Joe Kerridge, to call it off. He's a really intelligent guy football-wise and so it was there and we went with it."

The difficulty stopping the run in the third and fourth quarters; what did you see there?
"I think they got a little bit up-tempo. I think we lost some of our discipline a little bit in some of those things. I thought we missed a couple tackles in there that we needed to- I think we tackle better than that. I think that as much as anything hurt us a little bit. And I'll give them credit too. I want to give- CJ Brown I think he's one of those quarterbacks who's a little but of a gunslinger and does a nice job with running that football team and he's a good athlete."

[After THE JUMP: more words that are strung together into mostly complete sentences]

Can you assess Devin Gardner's play tonight?
"Well, I thought Devin did an awful lot of good things today. Just like everybody else he wasn't perfect, but this was the first game where he's been healthy in about five weeks, where he's felt really good with his ankle and that allowed him to make some plays with his feet, which he can do very well. I thought he had some balls that we're catchable that we didn't catch and we've got to do a better job with that."

Delano Hill was out today. What's up with Delano?
"Yeah."
Is he inured?
"No."
Suspended?
"Yes."
For what?
....
Just suspended?
/thumbs up
Next week too?
"No."

"Angelique has a question."
You sort of talked about it at the start, but your message to these players in the locker room; I imagine a lot of disappointment. How do you get them refocused? Will it be difficult to get them refocused for Ohio State or is that a no-brainer?
"You know, from what I've seen and what we've seen of this team every week I don't think that will be a problem. I do know the opportunity to play in the greatest rivalry in sport and in college football, that kind of gets your juices going."

You mentioned it earlier, but two timeouts in the third quarter in a game where you could have had them at the end. Do you get on yourself here for some game management stuff?

“No. Well, yes and no. Trying to help the defense a little bit, and at one time we had the wrong personnel group coming off tempo off the field so obviously didn’t want to get caught with 12 on the field, and on the other one just felt we wanted to settle them down a little bit. I don’t like doing that and Greg doesn’t like doing that but just the way the game was going at that time, we thought we’d try and slow it down a little bit.”

Do you wish you had them back?

“Sure. I’d like to have five per half if we could. But there’s no question, you always want to keep them.”

One of the pluses is the way you ran the ball. Can you talk about that?

“Yeah, and we thought we could run the ball. I thought Drake [Johnson] obviously took it up in there pretty physical and had some really good vision, and DeVeon did it also a couple times. Devin being able to create with his legs also was huge for us. I thought the offensive line created some space but yeah, that was great. Now, you want to score touchdowns too.”

You mentioned the drops. Do you think Devin being healthy had a little more zip and receivers weren’t used to it?

“I don’t think so. They’ve been practicing even before with Devin. All summer they throw, all that kind of stuff.”

The passing game had 13 completions. Is it Devin? Is it drops? Is it Nuss’ playcalling? Why is it broken?

“We didn’t want to throw it a whole lot. Didn’t think we needed to as much. We thought we could run the football and we did run the football pretty well. From the standpoint of- it’s always a combination of things. It’s never just one thing. Maybe the ball placement one time was bad. Maybe the hand placement of the receiver was bad. Maybe the defense was pretty good. So you always have all those things.”

11 games in and the passing game still just looks off. Is there one thing that-

“I don’t think so.”

So it’s just multiple?

“Multiple.”