Rich Rodriguez

"I felt good first quarter, first half. Really we moved the football, just didn't finish drives. Poor execution at critical times when we needed to. They made some plays, and to win a game like this you have to finish more drives." Worst game of the year finishing.

Denard - "I don't know what play it was, but he dislocated a couple fingers on his left hand." Third and fourth fingers. He likes to grip it with his left hand when he runs, so loss of feeling was a problem. Denard lobbied to go back in initially. He went in one drive, then realized he couldn't play like he wanted to.

"We had some drops, which hurt us." Denard was pretty sharp, but the window is smaller against very good coverage. Guys have to make some difficult catches. WR corps was a little thin today without Hemingway, and with Stokes going out. "You have to make those kind of plays to beat a good football team."

Tate's experienced enough to make plays. Ohio State's defense is good: "They're athletic defensively." They made plays in the passing game, breaking up passes "I mean some bang-bang stuff." In the first half, it was M shooting themselves in the foot. "Some of that was them, but a lot of that was us too."

Hagerup - "He violated a team rule, so he didn't make the trip."

Early in the game, the D was hitting the right gaps, tackling well. That faded later in the game. "That's just my view from the sidelines."

Kickoff return touchdown: "Yeah, it was awful." Didn't get the kick they wanted (maybe because of wind), and the coverage wasn't there.

Postgame speech: "I don't know if I need to share it with everybody. We talked about some things. I don't need to share everything with y'all."

"I'm ticked. What you want me to go jump out there and hold hands with all the Buckeye fans and sing kumbaya? I wish we'd played better." Will be mad for a while, then move on to the next one. "This will sting for a little bit, which it should. We'll think about it a little bit, which we should. But you can't replay it, unfortunately."

Has the defense improved over the course of the season? "Some. Not as much as I'd like." It's not at a Michigan level. He can't chew out freshmen, because they're going to make the mistakes. Need them to play like 3rd-4th year guys. "They are what they are, and they'll grow from this."

Job security: "I'm going to work tomorrow as always." No outside chatter will change how they work. "I took this job to make us the best program in America. And sometimes it takes a little longer to mold the program the way you wanted to mold it. Sometimes you get more obstacles in your way," but he's not deterred from the goal. "I think the worst is behind us. I know it is." People are entitled to their own opinions, but the coaches, players, and people in the program feel confident it will happen. "It's been a lot slower than our fans wanted, I don't blame them for that."

On outside perspective of the program's progress: "Sometimes people see what they want to see... I know what I see, and I'm in the middle of it. Maybe some people don't want me to have success. I would think most people that follow Michigan and love Michigan do, because they love our school and love our program."

Progress is being made. Rich sees it in practice, and can see the positive attitude. Likes how recruiting has gone last 2 years and is going this year.

Rich and his coaches aren't used to this either: "We're used to playing in Championships and BCS bowls, and all that, too. It's been frustrating as heck. But I'm not deterred, because I know where I'm at, I know what we're doing, I know what we have in the program, and I know what we need to do to fix it." He will evaluate everything with the program to improve it whenever he can.

Will have to watch film to see why turnovers have gotten worse over the course of the year. The team isn't at the point where they can overcome that.

"A couple personal fouls. The stuff after a play is silly. There's no need for extracurricular stuff after the play. there's enough intensity during the whistle." They haven't had many pre-snap penalties this year, but had an important today taking back a 20-yard gain because a true freshman was lined up wrong.

Team meeting Monday, talking about bowl preparation. The guys have their finals in a couple weeks. They'll lift a bit to stay in shape. Rich has a preliminary bowl practice schedule in mind, but won't finalize it until they know date and location of bowl game.

Jordan Kovacs

OSU is a good team, Michigan needed to take advantage of opportunities if they wanted to win, and it didn't happen.

On his interception: Knew a shot to the goal line was coming. "I just broke on the ball. I thought I might have a chance to return it, but didn't make it far enough."

Do they worry about Rodriguez's job security? "Not at all. We play for each other."

Ryan Van Bergen

"It obviously hurts a little more when it's Ohio State." They wanted to send the seniors out with a win. "You gotta take personal responsibility, everybody has to be accountable. Nobody played their best game for us today." Disappointing for today, but promising for the future and sending the seniors out with a bowl game.

Doesn't know why they didn't play well. Mentality and game pan were good. Mental mistakes "kinda plagued us a little bit in the second half of the season, and that definitely was evident today."

"Focus on controlling what we can control," try to execute, not worry about their coach's job status.

Used more of a 4-man front to get some size up against their line. Gave the OSU OL some problems, "I think we made some plays in the front 7 to stop that run... For the most part, we were pretty stout in the run game."