OPENING STATEMENT

All right, good morning everybody. We practice this morning, which is a little bit different. So just want to wish everybody out there a very happy Thanksgiving and you know this, what football is all about Thanksgiving week and you know we have our annual Rd. Turkey drive this week, which is tomorrow, which I know our players are really excited about and Reese Wilson does a. Great job of heading that up with Cub Foods, who's a huge sponsor of ours and a great supporter of not only our program but so many in the community it's going to benefit a lot of families in need, and coach Wilson does a great job of heading that up and close to 500 turkeys this year. So when you're talking about and those are whole meals, our players will be out there and. Probably have half our team, a lot of them have class at night, but about half our team out there helping give out those turkeys. So a lot to be grateful for a lot to be thankful for as we get into Thanksgiving week. So happy Thanksgiving, everybody out there and open up for questions.

Accommodate. Yeah. You know, you've got to be really creative based on, you know, you gotta you gotta really kind of have a feel for your team and so we went this morning and they were here 6:00 AM and we actually had a practice this morning. A first and 2nd down Tuesday type practice, so the coaches came in basically right after the Penn State game and started working and so Monday we had our today this morning we had our practice. We'll come back tonight for meetings. So we'll have more Tuesday meetings tonight because the meetings today were pretty short and then we'll just continue to go. Tomorrow's a Wednesday already and then we're in a technique Thursday on Wednesday and we travel on Thursday, which is really a Friday for us. So it's just one of those really quick weeks but. Our guys really adapted pretty well and had a really good morning.

You make calls throughout that game. I think if you look at every head coach, there's probably calls that if James has and coach Franklin has it. If you get, they're great calls. If he doesn't and he's got to answer questions, why those calls aren't there. You make calls in the in the, in the heat of the moment of what you want and why you're calling it. Either way, we still have to be. Able to defend it and when you're going after one yard, you know, those are those are the calls people have to make, but either way, we have to execute and we didn't do that and that's my responsibility.

"First of all the Garrett Chernoff and Marcus Henderson do such a great job of I think their roles have expanded, though they have changed and it's not like, you know, adding 15 people in a department. To handle that for them, they've really taken on a lot more and a lot more responsibility and they've had a lot to begin with, but I trust those two tremendously and we have a lot of conversations throughout the day and you know, as we get towards signing day, it's not just signing day, it's looking at the roster in the future. It's having conversations with players in the bye week. I met with a lot of players. I'll meet with a lot of players after the Wisconsin game, I'll meet with players that following week you start to get a feel of what the retention is going to look like once you know what the retention is going to look like and then who signs on signing day. Now you can look at what you're gonna add in the portal, and it's just it's it's just ongoing. It used to be there were ends and OK, that was the end of high school recruiting. OK, now we're going to go into this. It just continues to go all the way through the summer, Ryan and it's it just continues to add that you have to continue to adapt. You got to be open to a lot of. Scenarios and I. Think Garrett Marcus do a really good job of keeping an open mind and then you just you kind of go with it because some of it's inside your control and most of it's not. So it's all about the response factor and what do you have ready to go and I think that's what they do really, really well.

"No, I like where it is. I mean, there's a lot of other things that we could talk about, whether I like it or don't like it, but that one I think is just I think is pretty irrelevant of where it is. I like, I like it at the beginning of December, especially for us like to be able to know who's going to do that. But you know, the whole NFL, I thing I mean that that doesn't even exist anymore. So. You know, that's what makes it really unique."

Yeah. I mean, I think that, you know, when people talk about college football right now saying, oh, we have an NFL model or it's kind of moving towards the NFL. First of all, it's nothing like the NFL. There's a collective bargaining agreement. There's there's a there's a true salary cap for everybody. It's designed for all 32 fan bases to win the Super Bowl, maybe once every 32 years and I know other people are winning that a lot more. Then others, but that's how it's designed in college football is not that way with the salary cap and then now you're going to add nil and there's no limit to that. It's it's not that way. But there's there's a lot of things as you start to look at like what could we do better, you know just. I can't really say the regulations on all of it, of what makes it better for everybody, I think needs to continue to be looked at as we go forward, but all of it at once, the NFL has all things at different times where you're focusing on just that college football, it's it's all of it. All the time, pretty much all the way up to the summer and I think that's what makes it a little more unique than the NFL. You had mentioned in particular after the Michigan game how the team came together. Did you see a lot of similar traits after this loss? I did. I thought the locker room was really similar to the Michigan locker room and you know, these guys were devastated after that game. Anybody would be as much as you pour into it and you know, we've we've had 7-1 possession games, we've won three. We've lost four. I mean, this is a really, really, really good. Six and five football team that we have and they played a really challenging schedule and it's really competitive and you know the parity when you look at it and you look at like the fifth team in the Big 10 down to maybe the 14 team in the Big 10 and they're all within one or two wins and losses from each other and it's all really close and this is what we talked about, what the new Big 10 is going to look like because there's there's, it goes all the way down to that last game. Who separates themselves and maybe one loss or or one win above somebody else? It's it's crazy, but that locker room was a tough locker room to talk to because they just care so much as a football coach. You just want your team to care like this team cares and they play that way when you watch them play as a coach, you couldn't ask for anything more. Our mistakes gonna get made. Yes. Am I perfect? No. Are they perfect? No, they but the coach or the coach is perfect. No, but the amount of effort that goes into a day-to-day operation or a practice. Or a game, or the effort they give and everybody's giving everyone the best chance to be successful. I mean, you couldn't ask for anything more from an organization, and being the head football coach and the leader of that organization, I couldn't ask for any anything, anything more from anybody inside the organization right now. That, and I truly mean that, and that's what's really hard when it comes down to that one possession or that one point and you come up short, you're looking them all in the eye and. They're looking. At you like what's next? You know, what do we do now? And I think that's. That's the challenging part, but this team has responded all year and they're fun to work with and they care a ton.

Yeah. Yeah, I think any game helps, but I think just, you know, being to the last game, you know, they had the. You have that emotion piece of senior day last week. That's one thing, but now it's getting very real where it's it wasn't just your last home game, now it's your last regular season game. Guys will probably play in the bowl game. Some guys might not be their last time ever playing as a Gopher was content has the same thing. This is the, you know, 1890 is the first time we played this football team. Coming up and and this is what it's all about and you wouldn't want to have it any other way. Being able to end the season with one of your biggest rivals and I know our guys will be ready to go ready to play and both teams will be really focused. So no matter what happened at the beginning, middle towards the end of the year, that's all thrown out the window and now you just got to play your best football for. For three hours against one of your biggest rivals, that's really, really exciting in a holiday week.

Wisconsin team. Yeah, I mean we're, we're we're still studying. You know what they do? It's it's only Monday, but it truly is Tuesday. They can score points really quickly and they have a really explosive offense that receivers are playing at a really high. Level. Quarterback finds ways to get the ball into small, tight windows. They have a really big athletic offensive line. They run the ball really well. They have two really good backs. I mean, they have more backs than that, but this 13, this freshman is really, really good #3. We know him about because he played with Marcus Major at Oklahoma. Really good back breaks, and tackles. Uh. You know, quarterback again, like I said, hitting the ball into tight windows and he can run and he's athletic defensively. They're big, they're stout, they're physical, you know, typical Wisconsin team. I mean, they play and they swarm around, swarm to the football, find a way to create takeaways on defense and the well coach. So yeah, we got to play our best football game and I think that's the whole message to our football team is the 1st 11, we got a chance to learn from to apply all those 11 lessons from games into this one.

I don't think we expect anything less ever. I don't think you need to even really tell them that. I think that when you know what's Wisconsin, and Minnesota, I mean, every both teams are going to leave everything they have out there and I don't think it matters of what happened the week before. What happens the week after? It's all about that one week. You know, I think that's what's fun about rivalries. You know, the records get thrown out the window. What you did in the past. Throw out the window. You get to learn from everything and go apply it. You know, one game championship season and that's how we're taking it.

"I just love playing it. So you know, I mean, there's other things that are way above my pay grade of why things are done and the schedules are made and the TV deals, and we're just really grateful, you know, 11:00 AM. Take off and we'll be there in Madison and look forward to a great game."

"Game but yeah, because you got to put things in perspective. You know, I mean the wins and losses that's one thing. You know the robbery, we'll be ready to play but to to say that you're not willing to stop at some moment to give to families in need, 500 families in need, and have the platform that we have as as coaches and as players at the University of Minnesota to not use that. The platform is positive and to say we have other things to worry about. I've never believed that. I believe that you have to bring reality to an entertainment type world, you know, at the end of the day our players and now get paid to be a student athlete and then also go entertain. People. But there's time for real life and this is a game that we play and game that we get to coach and there are way bigger things out there than us, us, you know, winning and losing football games, that does not stunt our preparation, just like right when we had our Halloween extravaganza, right and that was on a Tuesday or Wednesday. Monday night of it was one of the. Illinois week. It's on a Monday night, so that's game plan week, and our coaches dressed up with their own children and then had hope. Kids here for the Halloween extravaganza and we beat a ranked team. Like so? It's not like I'm sitting there saying, oh, man, we can't do that cause we got these two hours and I've got to sacrifice this for this. We find the two hours to make up for it and our players. I mean that, that's something that I'll never sacrifice, that's for sure. So can't wait to help a lot of families in need and that's what Thanksgiving is all about and we want to be able to keep teaching. Those things right that there's other things that come before certain things in your life and make sure you keep those those priorities straight in a world that can sometimes distort all that. I don't want to be that leader that distorts. I don't want to make sure they understand the perspective.

We're going to we'll handle it the way we've always handled it. I think, you know, Coach Lanning is a fun guy he is and if you ever get a chance to be around, he's a fun guy. But for I think coming into the league and not being in that environment before, I think that was probably part of it. We get a chance to listen to it all the time, every day, and practice as you get a chance to come around us and be around us and we prepare for that every single day, but again we'll, I'm sure everybody there'll be a lot of people there doing it. We're just going to prepare for the next."

"No. No, I I don't regret any decision because you're calling the decision based on the the information you have at that time and what you want to do. You prepare all week for that particular situation. Now did we execute it? No. Did Max make a great decision and throw it away? Absolutely. Some things you call don't work and they don't work the way you. Wanted it to. Work the lateral flea flicker pass. Work great. If that doesn't work, that's a terrible call. We got a touchdown out of that one. Penn State's red zone defense is one of the best in the country and we have the ball at the 9 yard line. That's the worst place to have the football against Penn State, so you better have some options and we thought it was a really good option. We still get points and again we, we held them to field goals too, and we forced them into decisions that if they don't get. That there's a lot of questions have to be answered as well. So I mean it's just that's part of the game, but I don't. I usually never have any regrets. I learn from certain things, but I don't have any regrets based on the decision. The information you do it and then you never look back and. The game unfolds as the game unfolds and you have to build. We don't have the benefit of hindsight. We don't have the benefit of 2020. We, you know, hindsight is 2020, you don't have that, you don't have the benefit of that and so you got to make. The. Best calls available and just like every call that we made, but usually after every game Andy you look back and you're like there's two or three calls, you're like, OK, that could have went either way, you know or hey, OK, we'll do this next time. Or, you know, let's make sure when we call that this or this happens, but it's the look we wanted. I mean, they basically bring a, you know, it's a it's a pressure, but it's still man, they just happened to drop 11, then dropped 11 like that all year. So they got us on that one and then we threw it away and lived to see third down and didn't execute the next play it's about execution.

It's a great question because I think people have asked you like what has changed. I think the head coaching job has changed because you're not just the head coach anymore and used to wear a lot of hats as head coach, but now it's also partially the GM, you know, that the president that. You know, all these other things that continue to go into it just add to it. There's nothing that's taken off the plate. It just continues to get put on the plate, but absolutely it's not like I didn't have appreciation for it before, but you're not having those types of conversations in college football that we're having. So I think everybody's adapting to it. That it's not just a newfound respect for an NFL GM. I think everybody that's at this profession knows what an NFL GM does and how they do it. But it's when you have to do that plus everything else. There's a reason why there's just the GM and there's a head football coach, right and there's a president of operations, and there's all these, you know, there's a CEO. There's all these other things of the organize. There's a vice president. There are all these things in an NFL organization, like a business in college football. It's like we're going to make all these changes and some people can afford to make all those changes and add staff and add a whole, you know, a whole department, a whole new. Building and I, whether that goes that direction or not, I'm not sure which direction it goes and which way it continues to go, but that's where, as I said, Garrett turned off. His job has expanded. Marcus Hendrickson, his job has expanded. Everybody in recruiting is wearing a little bit, of a few more hats. But to say that you know that. You're used to doing those conversations the first year we're doing it, and we'll just like when we started NIL and just like when we started the portal, there are always things you're gonna learn throughout the first year that you apply the second year and vice and the second year to 3rd year and we'll just continue to do that. But it is unique, that's for sure.

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