Word of the day?

“Huh? Uh, let me think about that one.”

MGoPetulant: “Fake bubble.”

“… Okay. Questions.”

Will you keep the same five offensive linemen that you ended the game with?

“We’ll see. It’s going to be competitive, but those five guys did a pretty good job during the game. It’s going to get tougher. And we’re going to have to demonstrate some consistency. But if they can do that, they will be the five offensive linemen. But we’re not eliminating anybody. We still have some talented kids in the wings. We’re trying to keep this thing competitive. Do we want the five guys? Yes, we do. I’ll answer the question before you ask it. But that being said, we got to this point where we’re pretty functional now because we’ve kept it competitive. We don’t like doing it this way. We’d rather just have the same five from the beginning, but it hasn’t worked out that way.”

MGoQuestion: After looking at the film, did you think Kyle Bosch and Erik Magnuson an upgrade at the guard positions?

“I don’t know if they were an upgrade. They were an alternative, and they had a chance to prove what they can do. They didn’t do a bad job. Upgrade is a pretty strong word. I wouldn’t say that.”

Were they able to accomplish what you wanted them to do?

“Well, we didn’t have a lot of play kills. A play kill is a guy is unable to block his guy, hence the play is dead. Ten guys playing, one guy not playing, and because one guy doesn’t execute his assignment, the guy’s hit in the backfield or the quarterback’s sacked or whatever. They just didn’t have a lot of play kills. Their technique wasn’t always perfect, but they didn’t cause the play to fail very often. As a coordinator, that’s important. It’s not the end-all now, because we have expectations that go beyond just not killing plays. But as a coordinator, if you call a play, you want to know everybody’s handled, everybody blocks so you can get the ball off and everybody’s blocking at the point of attack so the running back has a chance to do something. And they did a pretty good job of that.”

Jeremy Gallon said having Devin Funchess emerge has helped him. Have you noticed opponents shifting coverage off Jeremy?

“Yes. And I would never take anything away from what Jeremy Gallon. He had a career game. But some of it was because they were so conscious of Devin Funchess running down through the middle of the defense, because he poses that threat all the time and it gave Jeremy some opportunities. There were some were it was irrelevant. There were some where he just put some nice moves on the guy and just beat him. But there were others where there were two receivers out there and both of them can hurt you, and that makes a difference. There may be another game where it’s reversed, where Funchess has the big game.”

How hard is it to have the sort of chemistry that Devin Gardner and Jeremy Gallon have?

“Well it’s like the offensive line. You work together long enough, you know what the other guy’s going to do. That’s critical. That doesn’t happen overnight. Those guys have got to go out there and throw it around when we’re not coaching it. Like in the middle of July when coaches are on vacation. They’re out there throwing the ball and practicing back shoulder throws and throwing comebacks and doing all that stuff. Just building a trust where both of them understand he’s going to be here at this time, and I know when I release the ball I can count on that to happen. That takes time. That doesn’t happen overnight with anybody.”

At what point last Saturday did you think your quarterback needed to throw for 500 yards?

“I never realized that. I just knew that we wanted to be balanced. That’s all. We didn’t throw 30 passes, did we? How many did we throw? 29? When you consider the numbers, that’s astronomical to throw 29 passes and get those numbers. We’re just trying to – battle field decisions. You go in there and it’s a shootout and you’re just trying to hold serve.”

Formationally, you were more diverse, too. Are you going to keep that up?

“Yeah. As much as we can. We used a little more gun running in this game. We always had that in the offense. We just felt like against Indiana it was just something we were going to attack a little more. We’ll have some of that in our offense every week. A week ago we were pounding so much and we didn’t do a good job as you guys all know. So we just wanted a little variation here and there. Are we becoming a spread team? No. We’re not becoming a spread team, so get that out of here. I’m going to answer that question before you ask it. But we’re going to have that dimension in our offense. We’re going to have the ability to take you sideline to sideline, we’re going to have the ability to mow you over. In the final numbers, I think we had 446 yards accounted for in under-center offense. We certainly don’t want to lose that. We had another 300-something-odd in the shotgun. That’s good, too. If you have both, certain games one’s going to be better than the other.”

MGoQuestion: Michigan State has held you to some of your worst offensive performances over the last couple years. How will you attack them differently with a new quarterback?

“I don’t know. We’ll see. I wouldn’t say it if we were. Hopefully we can execute better. And they’re a good team. You have to give them a little credit, too. They’re stopping a lot of people. We can’t concern ourselves with how good we think they are with how much we have to concern ourselves with execution. If we go into the game and don’t turn the ball over and play solid, you’re not going to roll up 700 yards every week, and certainly not on them, but you have to do things that help you win the football game. That means convert on third down, running the football efficiently, take your shots, hit them when you need to, be able to move the chains. It will result in different gains based on who you’re playing, but a lot of it is how you’re playing. That’s the big thing. Don’t give them short-range opportunities, all the coach speak you hear every week. We look at this game much like we look at every game. We’re very respectful of what they do defensively, but a lot of it is our ability to execute.”

What’s the biggest challenge when calling plays against them?

“Well just staying in a good down and distance. It’s a challenge when playing any defense. When you’re in a good down and distance, play calling becomes a lot easier. When the play calling becomes difficult is against Penn State, Connecticut, when you’re in bad down and distance all the time and you’re playing against the chains and constantly trying to pull plays out of your comfort zone. I don’t play golf anymore, but when I played golf, it was like my golf game. It was a drive and a series of recoveries. That’s the way those two games were. You’re trying to recover from second and 10.”

MGoQuestion: You said last year you didn’t have Denard audible because you didn’t want to get involved in a chess match against Michigan State’s defense –

“That’s not true. That’s not true. He may not do as much audibling. We have never gone into a football game and told a quarterback he has no audible. But there are certain games we’ll tone it down because we don’t want to get in chess matches. To say never audible, there are certain plays that he’ll still audible. Just try to keep it to a minimum against certain opponents.”

MGoFollowup: Does having Devin at quarterback change anything?

“Again, I wouldn’t say if it did. That would be tipping my hand. But every game we have a certain plan that we’re going to try and execute. Sometimes it goes exactly the way or pretty close to the way you expect, and other games it doesn’t.”

How much does the game against Indiana do for your confidence?

“I’ll tell you after Michigan State. I’m not saying anything right now. Ask the question after that regardless of the result, and I’ll let you know what it did.”

Do you like the timing of this bye week?

“I love these two bye weeks. I do. It gives us time to really evaluate where we are, what we’re doing. Sometimes you play bad after a bye, sometimes you play good after a bye. But it just gives us a chance to get our feet on the ground. The only problem with byes that I wouldn’t like as much is if you were really rolling, if you were having an eight-game rampage and moving the ball, playing good defense. Then I don’t think I’d like a bye, but the way it is now, we’ve been hit and miss in some games. It’s always good to stop and take a breath and look to see what we’re doing. Coaching wise, personnel wise, it gives us a chance to say, we don’t have a game, we have some time to think about this.”

Have you been surprised that it’s been so hit and miss?

“No, I’m not surprised, but it’s not an excuse. I mean, yeah, we have a lot of young guys. I could say that every week. Hey, we fumbled the ball. Bleblehehasdjflaksjf. It’s not an excuse. There are certain things we’re doing that go beyond being young. Even if you are young, you shouldn’t be doing it. Yeah, we’ve got some young guys, some things are going to show up. It’s not an excuse. We have to play. Other guys have young guys, too. And now we’ve played seven games, we should start doing some good things. Some of that stuff ought to go away.”

How much does Jake Butt allow you to move Funchess around? How beneficial has that been?

“Huge. Jake Butt is a guy that I told you before, he’s the nicest surprise because we could use him. We didn’t plan on using him. It’s been a big deal because he’s given that U, that move, that H-back type guy where Funchess, now that he’s playing outside some, didn’t have to tow the whole load. It’s been just gigantic for us. He’s done such a nice job. Some games he’s been bigger than others. It hasn’t always been receiving. But eventually Jake’s going to have a good receiving game because he’s a really good receiver, but just being able to do some of the stuff we’re asking him to do in that package and not put all of that on Devin Funchess.”

MGoQuestion: Brady said the only time a road environment has affect your communication was the Michigan State game in 2011. What happened specifically during that game, and how do you plan to address it?

“You know, it’s funny, and I’m trying to remember now. I just know there were some time clock issues. That happens here and there or every once in a while. I just remember that part of it. I’m not drawing on exactly what happened. I wish I were better prepared for that question. That was a couple years ago. My wife says I forget how to get home some nights.”

MGoFollowup: Is it something you have to address this week or next week?

“Oh yeah. I think we have to deal with it without embellishing it too much. Deal with some of the things that happen on the road, but not – you know, sometimes this road game thing can be a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. You talk about some of the problems you have, and then you have problems. But the good teams are aware of what they have to deal with on the road, yet they’re not intimidated or don’t really think that much of it at the end of the day. Any place I’ve been where we were a good road team, we always talked about that’s what you have to deal with. But that’s where we stop. We talked and say, ‘Okay. Same dimension of the field. Everything’s basically the same.’ ”

You talked about a quantum leap in Devin Gardner. Is that footwork, mechanics?

“Footwork and mechanics. And he took another one this week. I mean, goodness gracious, he’s just done a wonderful job of standing in there and throwing the ball. I mean, he’s not making a lot of off-balance throws. A couple times he got flushed out of the pocket and he was a little indiscriminate on one or two plays. But within the confines of the pocket, when he’s got to step and throw, he was really good at Penn State and really good last week. But three weeks in a row of him working on it hard. He’s taken that so seriously. Devin wants to be a good pocket passer. The only way you’re going to be a good pocket passer is if you’re unperturbed by the rush, knowing that the rush is going to get you sometimes. He’s been good. Really good.”