Football Transcript: Notre Dame OC Gerad Parker ahead of NC State game
- By Tyler James
- The Insider Lounge
- 0 Replies
Notre Dame offensive coordinator Gerad Parker spoke to local beat writers Tuesday night ahead of Saturday's game against NC State. Below is a transcript of that conversation. Questions may be paraphrased.
GERAD PARKER
How did Pat Coogan evolve to become a starter?
“Of course, always and forever it’s performance based in everything we do. Then Coogs has done a great job getting himself there by becoming a very physical player, very conscientious in the way he approaches the game. He’s detail-oriented. All the things that you would want to say, the adjectives you would use in describing a guy. Then for his inexperience, he’s made up in effort and learning what to do and knowing exactly where coach Rudolph wants him to be. That’s what Coogs has done. All that I just said has developed trust with his teammates and his O-line and certainly with us as coaches. It’s put himself in a position to play at a high level so far.”
Is putting Coogan and Rocco Spindler on the move essential to what you want to do?
“Yeah. And again, I think I said it last week, it’s weird to say me — us. It’s something that we want to do. It makes us harder to attack in our run fits, certainly with our pass protections and all those things. We’re always hunting ways to make sure we do that. It’s critical to us staying ahead of it.”
What do you make of Sam Hartman’s struggles against NC State in the past? Do you talk to him about that?
“It’s not dodging the question, but we haven’t had one conversation. There’s too many ways and too many things that are already hard enough about this job and certainly hard enough about his job. We don’t want to bring up ghosts. We’re going to make sure we put him and the rest of this football team on offense in a position to just play to the best of their abilities and find ways to attack the defense we got for this week. This one is a big challenge for us, and we know it. We’re going to keep him confident by him knowing what to do and feeling very confident in the game plan. That’s a real answer.”
How much does his previous success against NC State matter?
“It’s like the two-minute drills and those things. He’s been in those fires. So he’s been in that stadium. That helps anything when you already know an environment, so you can step in with confidence and know what it’s going to be and then take whatever it is. In this case, our game plan together and hopefully go down there and play at a level we expect ourselves to.”
Have you looked at what NC State tried to do? Or is it not applicable because Wake Forest ran a completely different offense?
“Right. That would be fair to say. We certainly looked at what they do, but you want to look at what they do and how we believe they’ll do the things to defend us.”
How would you assess your depth on offense?
“I would hope to believe that’s what we have to do as a staff. We believe in our guys that we brought in here as a recruiting staff all the way down to our staff members and coaches. If we don’t let these guys grow and empower them to get better and try to assess where our depth is, we won’t know. The only thing we can do is continue to give them guys opportunities that they’ve earned, because it is performance-based, but also let them go out there and have some pieces of success. Then if there is some small failures, that we allow them to fail up and keep moving forward. That’s what these two games have allowed us to do so far.”
Have you guys run a two-minute drill in practice that was quicker than the one on Saturday?
“We haven’t done that. (Laughs) We have not done it to where it’s went that fast.”
Why is Sam Hartman able to do that so well?
“No. 1, what creates a good, accurate passer is certainly arm talent and those things, but a clean pocket helps. If you go back and look at that deal, the clean pocket of it all. Then of course, I think experience does matter. It’s not the only thing that matters. We had guys show up on time. Coach Freeman pushing us on a weekly basis to make sure — those are situations in football you have to work. Us knowing what we’re going to call, how we’re going to call it, when we’re going to do it. The details of— if you look at Jaden Greathouse’s catch, he got to the ticks, ran, got all he could get. He knows now I can only be tackled out of bounds. Clock stops. Little details of all of it that were impressive. And there’s only one way to gain those and build confidence, and I thought that did that for our guys.”
The Timeouts, is that all Marcus or is that you?
“It’s collaborative. It sounds like a dugout in baseball when you get in those things to make sure what we need to do and when. Why not have as many checks and balances as we can? It’s all of us together. But he’s the boss.”
9-for-9 touchdowns on first-half drives in your first two games. Can you remember at any level of football that kind of efficiency?
“Don’t do that. (Knocks on wood).”
You have to not score someday. It’s fine. You have the luck of the Irish.
“Yeah, let’s ride the wave, baby.”
What do you attribute it to?
“It’s cliche to say it, but it’s prep. It’s good preparation. Give credit to a good summer that our guys put together installing our base offense, then growing it to the variations we need and we have good players. We have a quarterback that’s playing at a high level and those things all attribute hopefully early success and we can keep it rolling now.”
What kind of growth have you seen in DE Joshua Burnham?
“It was noticeable probably midway of fall camp. You started to notice, ‘OK, Burnham’s showing up.’ This stuff and how he’s starting to show up in games is no surprise to us. It started to be a noticed thing about him making that transition, how hard he plays and how he rushes.”
What is the challenge NC State’s defense presents?
“They do a helluva job. That’s a veteran staff. Gibby (defensive coordinator Tony Gibson) is a veteran football coach, has a great reputation and the statistics speak for themselves. It’s hard because it’s multiple, but also they do what they do. And what does a great defense do? They run to the football and read and react and fit. If you turn on the film and you watch them this year early and last year, and all their tape through his years, this team fits. They fit and fit fast. What better compliment to a defense than that? That’s what makes it a tough challenge for us.”
Do they do a good job of making it cloudy for teams?
“They do a really good job. They can go from adding zero coverage to looking like zero and falling out and having eight pairs of eyes and playing drop eight. That’s the beauty of it. In a three-down front, it kind of affords them the ability to do those things in coverage that are very hard to prepare for. And two different ends of the spectrum. You’re talking about zero compare to drop eight at a flip of a switch. Then the run fits — you say it’s a three-down front, it’s easy to fit. Well, they do a great job muddying up the fits, muddying up the front and coming to fit you too. That’s what makes it hard.”
Do you have a sense of how good you are offensively yet based upon who you’ve played?
“Yeah. It’s always growing. You’re always going to think that way, because we’re always paranoid. All of us coaches, we’re paranoid. And we’re perfectionists. I want to enjoy things and whatever, but the biggest thing we can do is play the team. And I’m telling myself this, because it’s a good question and it’s a good thought. I get it. But we have this one. This one will tell us a lot, and this is our next one. We need to answer this challenge.”
When you see an MA, maybe that worked against Tennessee State. Do you think maybe it won’t work this week?
“Fair. I think you say, ‘That window would’ve closed.’ Or, “Hey, we can’t start that way.’ Because there were a couple little small things in that game to start that we overcame with great plays. But at the same time, as things progress through this season’s schedule, that window tightens.”
What have you seen from Sam’s pocket presence? Is that just natural with his experience?
“Think about how many times he’s played in a pocket. So that’s helped him have a lot of confidence in the pocket. Their system, and I’ve said this before in the preseason, of him walking to the line of scrimmage and some of their schemes got him really good at being comfortable throwing in a really tight area. He’s comfortable in a pocket where sometimes guys can get skittish. You don’t feel that sense with him, because he’s been in that fire.”
Is it reassuring to see the tight ends come through in the two-minute drill after being used sparingly before that?
“I told them Sunday after the Navy game. There’s just different game plans and different things, especially for a team that plays a certain way like Navy did that makes it very difficult. You’re not going to sit back there and say ‘Hey, let’s drop back pass’ against an operation like that. So that takes away some of the opportunities for tight ends. That’s all. We knew they were capable. We knew Mitch was very capable. We knew Holden was as well. It was good to see them have some production out there in front of the home crowd.”
GERAD PARKER
How did Pat Coogan evolve to become a starter?
“Of course, always and forever it’s performance based in everything we do. Then Coogs has done a great job getting himself there by becoming a very physical player, very conscientious in the way he approaches the game. He’s detail-oriented. All the things that you would want to say, the adjectives you would use in describing a guy. Then for his inexperience, he’s made up in effort and learning what to do and knowing exactly where coach Rudolph wants him to be. That’s what Coogs has done. All that I just said has developed trust with his teammates and his O-line and certainly with us as coaches. It’s put himself in a position to play at a high level so far.”
Is putting Coogan and Rocco Spindler on the move essential to what you want to do?
“Yeah. And again, I think I said it last week, it’s weird to say me — us. It’s something that we want to do. It makes us harder to attack in our run fits, certainly with our pass protections and all those things. We’re always hunting ways to make sure we do that. It’s critical to us staying ahead of it.”
What do you make of Sam Hartman’s struggles against NC State in the past? Do you talk to him about that?
“It’s not dodging the question, but we haven’t had one conversation. There’s too many ways and too many things that are already hard enough about this job and certainly hard enough about his job. We don’t want to bring up ghosts. We’re going to make sure we put him and the rest of this football team on offense in a position to just play to the best of their abilities and find ways to attack the defense we got for this week. This one is a big challenge for us, and we know it. We’re going to keep him confident by him knowing what to do and feeling very confident in the game plan. That’s a real answer.”
How much does his previous success against NC State matter?
“It’s like the two-minute drills and those things. He’s been in those fires. So he’s been in that stadium. That helps anything when you already know an environment, so you can step in with confidence and know what it’s going to be and then take whatever it is. In this case, our game plan together and hopefully go down there and play at a level we expect ourselves to.”
Have you looked at what NC State tried to do? Or is it not applicable because Wake Forest ran a completely different offense?
“Right. That would be fair to say. We certainly looked at what they do, but you want to look at what they do and how we believe they’ll do the things to defend us.”
How would you assess your depth on offense?
“I would hope to believe that’s what we have to do as a staff. We believe in our guys that we brought in here as a recruiting staff all the way down to our staff members and coaches. If we don’t let these guys grow and empower them to get better and try to assess where our depth is, we won’t know. The only thing we can do is continue to give them guys opportunities that they’ve earned, because it is performance-based, but also let them go out there and have some pieces of success. Then if there is some small failures, that we allow them to fail up and keep moving forward. That’s what these two games have allowed us to do so far.”
Have you guys run a two-minute drill in practice that was quicker than the one on Saturday?
“We haven’t done that. (Laughs) We have not done it to where it’s went that fast.”
Why is Sam Hartman able to do that so well?
“No. 1, what creates a good, accurate passer is certainly arm talent and those things, but a clean pocket helps. If you go back and look at that deal, the clean pocket of it all. Then of course, I think experience does matter. It’s not the only thing that matters. We had guys show up on time. Coach Freeman pushing us on a weekly basis to make sure — those are situations in football you have to work. Us knowing what we’re going to call, how we’re going to call it, when we’re going to do it. The details of— if you look at Jaden Greathouse’s catch, he got to the ticks, ran, got all he could get. He knows now I can only be tackled out of bounds. Clock stops. Little details of all of it that were impressive. And there’s only one way to gain those and build confidence, and I thought that did that for our guys.”
The Timeouts, is that all Marcus or is that you?
“It’s collaborative. It sounds like a dugout in baseball when you get in those things to make sure what we need to do and when. Why not have as many checks and balances as we can? It’s all of us together. But he’s the boss.”
9-for-9 touchdowns on first-half drives in your first two games. Can you remember at any level of football that kind of efficiency?
“Don’t do that. (Knocks on wood).”
You have to not score someday. It’s fine. You have the luck of the Irish.
“Yeah, let’s ride the wave, baby.”
What do you attribute it to?
“It’s cliche to say it, but it’s prep. It’s good preparation. Give credit to a good summer that our guys put together installing our base offense, then growing it to the variations we need and we have good players. We have a quarterback that’s playing at a high level and those things all attribute hopefully early success and we can keep it rolling now.”
What kind of growth have you seen in DE Joshua Burnham?
“It was noticeable probably midway of fall camp. You started to notice, ‘OK, Burnham’s showing up.’ This stuff and how he’s starting to show up in games is no surprise to us. It started to be a noticed thing about him making that transition, how hard he plays and how he rushes.”
What is the challenge NC State’s defense presents?
“They do a helluva job. That’s a veteran staff. Gibby (defensive coordinator Tony Gibson) is a veteran football coach, has a great reputation and the statistics speak for themselves. It’s hard because it’s multiple, but also they do what they do. And what does a great defense do? They run to the football and read and react and fit. If you turn on the film and you watch them this year early and last year, and all their tape through his years, this team fits. They fit and fit fast. What better compliment to a defense than that? That’s what makes it a tough challenge for us.”
Do they do a good job of making it cloudy for teams?
“They do a really good job. They can go from adding zero coverage to looking like zero and falling out and having eight pairs of eyes and playing drop eight. That’s the beauty of it. In a three-down front, it kind of affords them the ability to do those things in coverage that are very hard to prepare for. And two different ends of the spectrum. You’re talking about zero compare to drop eight at a flip of a switch. Then the run fits — you say it’s a three-down front, it’s easy to fit. Well, they do a great job muddying up the fits, muddying up the front and coming to fit you too. That’s what makes it hard.”
Do you have a sense of how good you are offensively yet based upon who you’ve played?
“Yeah. It’s always growing. You’re always going to think that way, because we’re always paranoid. All of us coaches, we’re paranoid. And we’re perfectionists. I want to enjoy things and whatever, but the biggest thing we can do is play the team. And I’m telling myself this, because it’s a good question and it’s a good thought. I get it. But we have this one. This one will tell us a lot, and this is our next one. We need to answer this challenge.”
When you see an MA, maybe that worked against Tennessee State. Do you think maybe it won’t work this week?
“Fair. I think you say, ‘That window would’ve closed.’ Or, “Hey, we can’t start that way.’ Because there were a couple little small things in that game to start that we overcame with great plays. But at the same time, as things progress through this season’s schedule, that window tightens.”
What have you seen from Sam’s pocket presence? Is that just natural with his experience?
“Think about how many times he’s played in a pocket. So that’s helped him have a lot of confidence in the pocket. Their system, and I’ve said this before in the preseason, of him walking to the line of scrimmage and some of their schemes got him really good at being comfortable throwing in a really tight area. He’s comfortable in a pocket where sometimes guys can get skittish. You don’t feel that sense with him, because he’s been in that fire.”
Is it reassuring to see the tight ends come through in the two-minute drill after being used sparingly before that?
“I told them Sunday after the Navy game. There’s just different game plans and different things, especially for a team that plays a certain way like Navy did that makes it very difficult. You’re not going to sit back there and say ‘Hey, let’s drop back pass’ against an operation like that. So that takes away some of the opportunities for tight ends. That’s all. We knew they were capable. We knew Mitch was very capable. We knew Holden was as well. It was good to see them have some production out there in front of the home crowd.”
