Twenty-four passing yards allowed and Tevin [Coleman] did break 100 yards but it didn’t hurt you guys. Talk about that rush defense, it didn’t break, and then also the pass defense with only giving up 24 yards.

“Well, the pass defense… let’s be honest, that’s a product of them not throwing it very much. The rush defense: I was very pleased with the attitude and the resolve our kids had as far as keeping the ball inside and in front. If you noticed the great production that they had had previous, a lot of it came on huge plays. Eighty yard runs, 70 yards runs and I think our kids did a real good job of making sure we kept it inside and in front and everybody got to the football.”

 

Northwestern’s offense [and] the challenges they pose?

“Yeah, Northwestern, obviously we really respect them. I personally really respect them and their staff, the way they coach. They will be really aggressive. It’s- when they play they play, and the quarterback has a very good arm. They’ve got good wide receivers. Their offensive line has got some experience. They’re a team that has done very well throughout this year. Records, I don’t even look at records. I just know anytime you play Northwestern you better be ready to play because they’re going to play you strong and they’re going to play you hard and we’ve got to come with our “A” game on defense.”

Will you watch film of Iowa, for example, or just kind of stick to what you do?

“No, I’ll watch them very, very closely. That’s what we’ve been doing. That’s what I just came from. We study our opponent every little thing we do. We sometimes study them too much, I think. We study their last four games as closely as we can and then we go back and look at other games and see if there’s anything there. No, but we watch Iowa very, very closely. And Nebraska we watch closely. Wisconsin we watch closely. They’re very good games to watch.”

 

You see a kid like Mone doing what he did on Saturday, [does] that get you a little bit excited for his potential for the future?

“Oh, definitely. He did some very, very good things and he got the reward. Everybody sees him getting the fumble recovery and him doing some things, but there was other young guys that deserved an award also that played that allowed him to do that. That was neat. It was- I could go through every one of those guys. You saw some of the plays Wormley made in there. Godin keeps stepping up. Frank, Brennen Beyer [and] some of the plays he made you don’t see sometimes but it’s because of what he does that allows somebody else to play. I could- there was a lot of good play in there. There had to be to do that against a great runner like him. There’s some young kids. I mean, Ryan Glasgow. To strip the ball and recover the ball, to do that- I could go on and on. That wasn’t just the game they’ve done that. These young kids have done that and this might have been the game where they all kind of did it together or a lot more of them, and that was a good offensive line. I didn’t know how good they were but when I watched it and saw them come out on our backers a coupe times and they had some pretty good offensive linemen and for them, for our kids to have that success I was proud of them.”

[After THE JUMP: Greg Mattison is like, ‘Steal my signals, bro’]

MGoQuestion: When you were calling plays on Saturday there were two guys behind you holding up towels. What was the reason for that?

“I was sweating a lot and I wanted to make sure- heh, no. There’s somebody- I tell you, this football is passing me by I tell you. You know what they do is they get up above and they watch you signal, and then when they see you signal then they call in their headset from upstairs over to the other sideline and they tell them what you’re going to run.

“Honestly, I can’t wait for the time, and maybe we’ve got it coming, where we’re going to have enough good football players and the guys have improved enough that I’m going to be able to say, ‘Hey, we’re running this. Now you don’t have to bother looking down over the towel and all that. Here’s what we’re running. Go ahead and go.’ But, no, that’s what they do. They do that. But the thing about that [is] they’re not stupid either, so all of a sudden when the towels come up they get a guy on the other side and he’s looking across at me and he goes, ‘Okay, there’s the signal.’

“So you have a choice. You say, ‘Okay, let’s do this. Get four guys next to you and have them all signal.’ I don’t have time to do that, to have guys faking like they’re giving a signal and that’s what this football game has gone to with the no-huddle and all that. That’s what it’s become now. Bo would die. Bo would, he would not like that at all, I can tell you that. But that’s what that towel’s all about.”

 

How prevalent is signal stealing?

“Oh, I think it’s real prevalent. I really do. I mean, I probably should have somebody study- you’d like to get somebody that’s really honest go over to the team and say, ‘Okay, did you get all of coach Mattison’s signals or not?’ and see if a guy would be honest enough or not to tell you that. You see like in the NFL for example, and I never did it, but you see in the NFL when the guys are talking they always cover their mouth up. Come on. Come on. But they have had stories of guys up there reading lips and getting the word out to somebody, but I think it’s very prevalent. With offenses that don’t huddle like this, like these kind, I think they would say that’s a very big deal to them because now they can- that’s why the guy comes up and acts like he’s going to snap the ball and then looks over [to the sideline]. That gives them time to be able to hopefully steal what I’m doing, but I, you know…it didn’t hurt us that much but I don’t know.”

 

You could have people doing that as well, right?

“Yeah, you definitely could but I would never want to cheat one of my players by not getting a signal in or a right defense in and he says, ‘Coach, what happened?’ and I say ‘I was king of waiting to see what they were going to run.’ I’ve always believed- one thing I’ve always tried to do is get the call in to the players as fast as I can so that they can get their feet underneath them and they can play. I’ve always told them ‘That’s the deal I’m going to make with you. I’m going to get you that defense. Now you get there and play.’ I always feel bad- probably the worst I feel when I’m signaling defense is when I don’t get it in quick enough to them. That really bothers me because I know it’s not fair to them and they work so hard you want them to have the right opportunity.”

 

Brady said he’s close to making a decision on Jabrill. Can you talk about how his attitude has been throughout the season and how he’s approached what he’s had to deal with?

“Jabrill’s been tremendous. Jabrill’s like anybody who is not allowed to play right now. I mean, he’s been tremendous. He does everything he’s supposed to do with the trainers. He does everything he’s supposed to do with the academics. He does everything he’s supposed to do with everything surrounding the academics and football, and so he’s been the exact same great person that we were excited about getting when we got him.”

 

That’s an interesting topic [re: signal stealing]. Was there a game or two this year where you thought they knew too much? 

“I don’t think so. Like I said, I don’t know. Some day they’ll probably come up to me and say ‘We had every one of your calls’ but I don’t think so. Usually you can tell. If somebody gets your signal you can tell because you’ll say ‘I had a great call here. This is a great defense and we played it good and they still gained yardage.’ That’s usually kind of a telltale deal but I don’t know. I don’t think so. We’re so much into personnel. In other words, I try to make defensive calls based on who’s in the game, and so it takes me as long as I can for my players to call it fast enough. It isn’t like I just call it right there, so I’m always waiting to see what they put in there anyhow.”

 

You used the towels last year at Northwestern as well. Could there be signal stealing as well? I mean, now that we’re on the topic…

“They’re a no-huddle team. They’re a fast paced offense and that’s what I mentioned. Anybody that runs a no-huddle and runs a fast pace I believe has that in them and that’s not unethical. That’s part of what this has become. It’s part of running that offense, and I think you look at Ohio, they do the same thing. I think there’s a lot of people that do that. Any time you can make it harder on them, that’s what you do with the towels.”

 

Going back a couple minutes, you mentioned the guys getting a reward and working hard. That’s something you guys have talked about a lot. Just defensively, do you consider that maybe a rebound game considering what happened at Michigan State? How happy were you to see your guys come out and respond on homecoming?

“Well, I was very happy for them to see them respond because we talked all week about [how] we control how we play, not who we play. It’s up to us and ask the question ‘Are you good enough? Are you good enough? If you do it right is anything anybody [will] do bother you?’ And every one of them would say, ‘No.’ And then I would say, ‘Then let us as a group, every guy, when we come in Sunday to put that laser on that play let’s make sure we’re all willing to stand up and say that’s me on this play. And let’s be accountable for how we play every play, one play at a time, all 11 of us.’ And they all did that. They all were for that and it was interesting when we watched the tape together. There were so many good things of guys running to the football, guys playing Michigan defense and not always doing it perfectly but playing it hard and all those kind of things. So it was rewarding for them to do what they said they were going to do and look at that game as how we wanted them to, and I was really pleased with them for that. I was proud of them.

“As far as looking at it as a rebound game, when that game’s over that game’s over. You’ve heard me say that before. All we talk about with our defense is let’s be as good as we can be. Whatever happened the game before, we can’t do anything about that anymore. The only thing we can do is coach it harder. The only thing we can do is make sure our players do what they’re supposed to do. The only thing we can do is make sure you do what you’re supposed to do better than you did before and then let’s see how that matches up and that’s what happened.”