Scot Loeffler Monday Press Conference Transcript (Toledo Game)

Scot Loeffler Press Conference
Nov. 5, 2021 (Toledo Week)
Bowling Green, Ohio

Loeffler: I thought last Saturday we played our most complete game. The thought the players showed great resolve, great grit and we finally made the plays when they presented themselves. We came up with a couple good stops at the end and found a way to win the game. We're excited about that. I think the program took a step forward last week and just like any other week, we're trying to take another step this week. Regarding Davon Ferguson, he's going to be out for the season. He had surgery on Monday, which went extremely well, and he'll be back with the Falcons next year. But he's doing well and we're going to miss him. He's a good player. He's going get healthy and help us the next year for sure.

Q: Did you hear anything in regards to the ejection at Buffalo?
Loeffler: Yeah, just like I said after the game, I think it was a learning experience for all those involved. I said that I have to do better. It was all handled internally. Everything was done very professionally and I’m happy with how the league handled it. We'll move on and go from there, but it was a good learning experience for all involved for sure.

Q: How much has this rivalry kind of grown on you over the last couple of years?
Loeffler: Well, it's been a rivalry that I watched ever since I was a kid. Growing up in Northeast Ohio, we watched the Michigan-Ohio State game, we watched the Michigan-Notre Dame game, we watched Kent State-Akron and we watched Bowling Green-Toledo. If you’re an Ohio, Midwest guy, it’s very important game. It’s been a great rivalry, fun to watch, exciting. I’m very grateful to be a part of it.

Q: What are emotions like for a game like this? Do you have to harness that?
Loeffler: It’s like that in any great rivalry. It’s like that 365 days a year. You're trying to recruit better. You're trying to build your program better. You're trying to do this and so are they. I love great rivalries that have good respect. I think that goes across the board. It’s rivalry week. There’s nothing better. I love the rivalries I’ve been a part of and this one is a special one, too.

Q: Take us back to beating Toledo in 2019.
Loeffler: That was a great win our first year here. But you're always measured on the previous game. We went up to Toledo and did not play well and they played very well. You have to have a chip on your shoulder from that loss. We're going to come out and work really hard this week and try to move the program and compete against our rival.

Q: What does it mean to win games like this and what does it mean to lose games like this?
Loeffler: It’s a rivalry game. It’s bragging rights for 365 days a year. Most of the time there’s such great respect with the game. Those great rivalries, you win some, you lose some. Obviously, you're training year-round to try and win for sure. It’s a rivalry game. I've been on the winning side of a lot of them, losing side of them. They hurt a little bit more and a little bit sweeter when you win. That's probably the only difference.

Q: What is there to be said about the offensive line and how they have stepped up over the last few weeks?
Loeffler: I think they're developing and growing. Obviously just like I said, we're so young. In a regular situation, we would have these guys still playing a little bit and lifting a lot of weights. What they've done in the situation that they were in has been pretty good. We’re playing really hard right now. It's not always pretty but it's not going to be pretty whenever you have as much youth as we have but I'm really thankful for them. They've really done a good job improving. This week is no different from Buffalo. We're going to have to have multiple ways to get rid of the football. We had a good plan versus Buffalo and used every single ounce of it and that helped us against Buffalo. This team that we're playing is, I think, the most talented team in the conference. I think they can rush the passer, they can cover, they can run and we're going to have to play our very, very best game, handle the no talent issues, control the rush and find creative ways to get rid of the football.

Q: For the players who haven’t experienced this rivalry, what is the message to them?
Loeffler: It's a rivalry game. It's been a tradition around here for a long time. We always talk about respect. We talk about this game year-round in terms of preparation. Everything that you do during the offseason and during training camp, it all matters because this is the game. There's no question about that. We educate them on the rivalry, we educate them on the games that we’ve played in the past, the great players have made plays in this game. I think rivalry games should always be treated with great respect. Always have and always will.

Q: Do you have a Toledo drill during the offseason or do you guys do any of those kind of things?
Loeffler: We have. It's pretty typical in any rivalry game.

Q: Does it mean more to kids from Northwest Ohio to win a game like this?
Loeffler: I think the whole intent of our recruiting philosophy is 75% of the roster, it’s the Clawson model, about 75% of our roster needs to come from a four-hour radius. The other 25% can come from anywhere and the arm can come from anywhere. I think whenever you have a team that is built on the four-hour radius this game means more. If I lived in Texas, I don't know if I would know the history of the Bowling Green-Toledo game. I don’t think I would. I would have to be educated when I walked in the door. I lived two and a half, three hours from here, so I understand the importance of the game and I think our players do too. The majority of all our coaches are from this area, so we understand the rivalry. I think it's a great local rivalry, area rivalry I should say. I do think that for the people that are within four-hour radius, it’s pretty important.

Q: How much has Matt McDonald progressed from last year’s game until now?
Loeffler: He should have surgery before the season. He had that injury in training camp. He didn’t play well. I think the best thing that ever happened to him was those five games. In terms of, he’s not healthy, we weren't ready to do anything offensively. We couldn’t protect, we couldn’t get open, we couldn’t do this. He learned that Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Eli [Manning], all these great ones, they go outside of the box and nine times out of 10 they get beat and they lose the rep. There’s no difference in Matt McDonald going outside the box, and he understood that. Whenever you go outside the box bad things are going to happen. We're still fighting it. He's 10 million times better with it. There are about three or four plays in the offseason that we hope to eliminate for next year that we don't have any of those. I’ve been around those great, senior quarterbacks. They can go forever without throwing an interception and they can go forever without going outside of the box. That's the goal.

Q: What do you see from Toledo right now?
Loeffler: I see a super athletic team that’s playing with great effort. They might not have the ball bounce the right way a few times, but they're playing really hard. That's the best compliment you could ever hear from a coach. I think they’re playing really hard, I think they are as athletic as heck. They had a couple of things that didn't go their way a few times. I think this is one of the better teams, if not the best team, in the league.

Q: Where do the players stand with buying in?
Loeffler: We're 3,000 times better in that area. There are always a few locker lawyers and all that other stuff, but we have very minimal problems right now on our football team in terms of attitude, effort, care, love for each other. That's the one thing that we're completing night and day and that's why we're giving ourselves a chance. We went from not being able to compete, not being in a football game, guys didn’t even know each other's names, to they care. They care about Bowling Green, they want to win for each other. They're trying. Are we perfect yet? No. We have work still to do to get to the championship level and have great consistency. We do, we have ways to go there. But we put ourselves in position through change of culture and through how to practice to give ourselves a chance to compete. Now we have to push it over the top and I think this stage of the program is the hardest. It's easy to go from the very bottom to good. Like going from good and pushing it over top to great is really challenging. We have some holes we got to fill through recruiting, but in terms of our attitude and in terms of guys liking each other and doing things the right way, we’re night and day.

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