[Barron/Fuller]

Joe Bolden and Taco Charlton

Opponents only scored six touchdowns in the red zone on sixteen chances this year. What do you guys attribute your success in the red zone to?

JB: “Yeah, I mean, obviously as you get backed up- you never want to allow a team in the red zone- but when you get backed up it finally hits you and you can’t break. Ultimately when they’re in the red zone you want to hold them to three points. I think our mindset, our defensive mindset, is we don’t want them to have even three points. So, you line up to kick a field goal, we want to block it. I would say just the mindset we have when the ball gets down to the red zone.”

TC: “Yeah, to contribute to Joe, just give us a place to stand. That’s all we need. We just need a place to stand and we’ll make that stop. We have the confidence in ourselves. We know we have the coach in coach Durkin and all the coaches on the staff. They gave us all the abilities and we know we can get a stop if we get down there.”

Joe, your coach just got done talking about you guys playing the top three rated quarterbacks in the league the next three weeks. I know you’re focused on this one, but how much of an extra challenge do you take it when you face a guy who’s very efficient behind center?

“Yeah, a guy who knows how to manage a game, knows how to win football games, and having his ability playing- I think other guys on offense, when you have a good quarterback you have other guys playing off your quarterback, and it’s almost like a driving force for your team. Having guys behind the center and taking snaps with that ability, with that efficiency, I believe boosts your whole team: special teams, defense, offense. But really, when you look at all three of them and you look at especially Sudfeld, they’re all great players. Like I said, they manage the game of football very well.”

Talk about how the Michigan State loss opens the door for your Big Ten title hopes, and will you be rooting for Ohio State to give Michigan State a second loss because you need that to control your own destiny?

JB: “Yeah, it obviously helps us out. At the same time, not too worried about that. We’re worried about Indiana. Rooting for Ohio State is a very bad- I would say not a very good phrase. Obviously we want to get in the Big Ten championship, and for them to win that game here in a couple weeks would be awesome, but at the same time I don’t really care what happens there. All we care about is Saturday. We can’t get there without continuously winning.”

TC: “Yeah, we can’t control what Ohio State does or Michigan State does. We just control what we do, so we make sure that we gotta win to make sure we control our own destiny. Everything else we hope will take care of itself. Rooting for Ohio State? I don’t know if we can go that far with it.”

/silence while the microphones are redistributed

JB: “Nobody’s very talkative today. Used all your questions with coach Harbaugh.”

[After THE JUMP: De’Veon Smith and Ben Braden]

Your coach was going on and on about inconsistencies and lack of clarity with rules and penalties and targeting and all that kind of stuff. As players out there, do you almost feel like you don’t even know what not to do or what you can do or what you’re allowed to do at a certain point?

JB: “All I would say to that is I think we signed up to play football, let us play football.”

TC: “Exactly. Players play, coaches coach, officials officiate, so we just do our part.”

Your thoughts on the defense at this point? You went through the string of shutouts and then you hit a little time where you got nicked some up at Minnesota. Where is this defense in your eyes, and how ready are you for these last three games?

JB: “Obviously not where we want to be defensively, I would say. Like you pointed out, the Minnesota game wasn’t us. In my opinion, 26 points is too much to give up. But I think on the last couple plays of the Minnesota game you saw what our defense is about. Like Taco said, just give us a place to stand. You know, that ball might be almost across the goal line already, and if it’s not in the end zone already then we’re fine.”

TC: “Exactly. We know how good we can be. We’ve seen that in the past; we’ve seen that in the shutouts we had, so we know how good we can be. We slipped up a couple times. We didn’t have our best games but we’re still hungry to be that great defense that we know we can be. We have the coaching to do it, so it’s a matter of going out there and proving to everyone else how good we are.”

Taco, going off what you said, you guys have given up nine offensive touchdowns total scored against you guys. Is that a stat that makes you feel like when you’re gauging how good you want to be that maybe pops up like an encouraging sign or do you guys even pay attention to stuff like that?

TC: “Personally, I don’t pay attention to it. I mean, I see after the game- we might see stats and stuff like that tweeted out at us that we’ve only given up this and that but during the game we don’t want to give up anything. We don’t like giving up yards, we don’t like giving up first downs. We want to be a stingy defense and that’s what coach Durkin preaches at us. We’ve just got to go out there and play with our effort and our passion, and we feel like we can be one of the best defenses doing it.”

Joe, what have you seen from Indiana in the times where they’ve been successful and put up all those points and the times when they’ve let down? What are the differences in those that have had people have success against them?

JB: “Yeah, I haven’t necessarily got to watch a whole lot of them yet, but they’re a good football team. They’ve played a lot of teams very tight, a lot of teams down to the last couple plays, and that seems to be the trend in college football this year. If the ball bounces their way a couple extra times then they have a couple more wins in the win column. Without seeing a whole lot of film yet I would say they’re a balanced football team. Like I said earlier, Sudfeld’s a great quarterback and their offense knows how to score points.

"So, their ability to- when their defense starts playing hot and their offense is scoring points…I feel like I’m talking about common sense here: If your offense is playing well and your defense is playing well then you’re going to win the football game. But in my opinion they’re a very balanced football team.”

[Barron/MGoBlog]

De’Veon Smith and Ben Braden

Jim said that that was the best game he’d seen out of Jake [Rudock], that he looked like an NFL quarterback. You guys have probably had a chance to watch the film. What did you see that maybe really clicked for this offense and clicked for Jake.

BB: “I think this far in the season you’re really starting to see our chemistry click. Jake was at Iowa last year and now he’s with us [and] this is his first year with us. You know, I think as each game progresses the chemistry is just building on itself. Just having confidence in each other and trusting each other just goes along with the chemistry. I think that’s just a huge aspect of what our success has been built on. Just us building chemistry with us every day. We’re together at practice and off the field and things like that.”

Ben, in the first quarter there was that screen pass to Drake Johnson. It looked like you ducked. What did you see there?

“I came out and I just could hear him yell ‘Duck’ so I just started ducking my head until I heard him catch the ball. Yeah, but that was kind of like I came out and was scared a little bit at first because that was right in my face and I wasn’t sure what was going on, but it was definitely a funny moment to talk about with him after the game.”

The screen pass game was a big part of Saturday. What did you guys see on film? Did you know that you were going to have that much success against them.

DS: “Honestly, we didn’t know we were going to run that many screens. I think when coach saw we had success with the screen he decided to go back to it, so on and so forth. I mean, we practice it a lot during practice and stuff, but I didn’t know we were going to do it to that extent.”

De’Veon, players like to say everybody’s nicked up this time of year. Is it just the time of year where you say no matter what I’m just going to do what I need to do to get ready and get in there?

“No, I can’t say that because getting in the training room is something our coaches put in our head every day. So definitely getting in the training room and getting all the treatment I can get is definitely helping my body out no matter what. I also feel like taking all the hits I take in the game, it takes a toll on my body, but it’s just a matter of how much sleep I’m getting and what I’m eating and putting into my body. I have to put that all into a factor. If I’m going to be serious about football am I sleeping the right amount of hours, am I eating the right stuff? So, that all comes into playing a factor in how my body reacts.”

De’Veon, did you see progress in the running game last week from Minnesota and Michigan State? The numbers are a little better.

“The numbers are definitely a little bit better but all the running backs in the room, we expect more. We could have done more and put up some bigger numbers but we’re happy with the ending result of a win, so really can’t complain about it. Jake had a great game passing.”

What’s the obstacle to doing both?

“Just getting in the film room and looking to see if we missed some holes or our landmarks and stuff like that, so that’s probably the main focus point for us.”

On those delayed screens it seems like a lot has to go right for it to work like you want it to. Maybe you both can address this, how they instruct it because you have to get a lot of push toward the quarterback. And De’Veon, what do you think when you’re waiting for the pass and see all these guys charge at Jake?

DS: “You obviously have to avoid every single one of them. My job is to get behind the line and wait for them to go. That lets me know that I can go roll out and look for the ball, so the only thing I have to focus on is catching the ball and avoiding any defenders.”

BB: “I think just practicing it often. Our coaches do a great job of giving us different looks and different fronts and things you may not necessarily see but just putting us into every situation they can think of possible so we’re prepared for it and practicing as much as possible. Repetition for that is key to success and just getting comfortable and when things happen you just get used to the timing of things, and that goes for any play, really.”

De’Veon, has Jake impressed you as a runner? I mean, his touchdown run, escaping that rush- he’s got four rushing touchdowns, which outside of Denard is a pretty high number for a pro-style quarterback at Michigan.

“Yeah. Jake surprises me when he takes off during games. It’s kind of funny watching out there because he’s a little bit more elusive than a lot of people think he is. I enjoy seeing him out there running instead of passing the ball sometimes and instead of me getting hit. [/laughs] That’s my quarterback, but he doesn’t take as bad as hits as I take. It’s great seeing him out there running the ball.”

De’Veon, evaluate Jabrill’s touchdown run.

“That was a good run. I said, ‘Wow’ because I was on the sidelines during that play. It was definitely a great run he had. He literally used all the tools he could use to avoid the tackler and get in the endzone.”

The other two were asked about rooting for Ohio State with the final stretch of games here. Is that something you’re capable of?

BB: “I mean, I think for that, our main focus is Indiana right now. That’s our next game. I watched the Michigan State game, I’ll watch other teams play, and it’s just great to see good football. At the same time, our focus has to be on what our next game is. Maybe the cards will play right. We can’t really focus on that. We’ve got to do what we’ve got to do to prepare for Indiana and just one day at a time from there.”

DS: “I agree. Just focus on Indiana. You don’t want to have to worry about any other team besides Indiana, because that’s our next opponent.”

De’Veon, Jim mentioned that on the throw to Sione Houma, four guys went with Jabrill or watched him on that play. Have you noticed just how much the defense pays attention to him and he is a valuable asset as a decoy for you guys?

DS: “Yeah, he’s definitely a huge decoy for us because every time he’s in on offense they think he’s going to get the ball, so we take that as an advantage. That was the gameplan going in and it worked.”