Q. Any surprise factor that Paulson was put in position to make plays and then is there any surprise left about what he can do?
No. Guy's a top-tier defensive back. And there are certain guys that you worry about saying that early in the season his junior year. I don't worry about Paulson. Paulson is one of the hardest working guys on this team. He's one of the hardest guys on himself on our football team. He demands excellence from himself. Sometimes you have to make sure that you get him to take some air out of the balloon because if he doesn't make a play he gets so angry, upset at himself.
He's so focused and locked in. I don't anticipate over the course of the year him having a chance to make a lot of plays. But I do believe most balls will go over to the other side. I know he's going to be willing and patient and know his job, do it really well. If he gets opportunities he's going to deflect some. If he gets too many opportunities he'll intercept them.
Q. On improved run blocking:
So our honorary captain is Chris Marinelli. And some of you have been here a while, knows Chris started quite a few years for us. He was one of the first leaders we had when we got here with Coach Harbaugh in 2007. And not only was he a founding member of the Tunnels Workers Union, he was the founder. It was his idea. It was him bringing it from his father's experience in Boston as a tunnel worker. And I talked to guys about the mentality, doing the dirty work, about being physical, talked to the entire team, spent a lot of time with the offensive line.
And Chris came in, put the cherry on top today. As we got into the fourth quarter, we started hearing guys talking about the union, put it on the union, the guys up front know. They know we're running it and being physical, and Chris put something in their heads about those years we started really churning, with Stepfan Taylor and with Toby Gerhart, with Tyler Gaffney. We were really getting good running the football.
There's a lot of pride we have, the defense, knows we're running it and we still running and still get a first down, seven yards, six yards or four yards. We believe we run the clock out. Asked a question earlier in the week about rush versus pass. And if you throw the ball well and smartly, which I think we could have thrown the ball better in the first half, run the ball in the second half.
If you're good at running it, you're going to end up with kind of lopsided stats; but for most of the second half we had a two-score lead and then one-score lead with less than four minutes to go, less than three minutes to go. We run the ball. If we get a first down they're not going to have time to score. It's kind of the law of diminishing returns as far as the clock is concerned, keep the clock churning make them take their timeouts, try to impose our will on the defense and hopefully we can finish the ballgame.
Q. You've had seasons where you've had to make it work with a skeleton crew on the defensive line. Can you talk about today the fact that you have to get the motivation going and what a difference that makes for you guys?
It's huge. It's huge. Jovan Swann has had an outstanding offseason, as has Michael Williams. Those were two of our leaders, our seniors, and our defensive linemen. Those guys played well today. I don't know how many stats they had, but they played well.
But the guys you commend: Thomas Booker, we'll see how he is health-wise. But Thomas had a great offseason. He's a playmaker, has a chance to be really, really good. He's made some growth. But where we needed growth was the guys behind him. Thomas Schaffer came in and made some plays today. Played well. Dalyn Wade-Perry made some plays. We need those guys to continue to come out so we can rotate those guys so everybody can stay fresh. I know Dalyn got a hit on the quarterback. And Thomas had some really nice pressure in the running game, splitting guys, pushing guys back. We need to dig deep there so we can rotate those guys, keep them fresh.
Q. One of the ways to victory was yards after the catch. I don't recall you having some receivers that can do that:
Let me choose my words wisely here because when I answer questions like that in the wrong way I get a lot of text messages and phone calls from former receivers. When we had Ty Montgomery, he was a really good down-the-field receiver but also built like a running back, get the ball in his hands quickly.
That's where Connor Wedington, his background is being a running back. We got the ball quickly to him a couple times but also a good downfield receiver. Mike Wilson is a complete receiver as well. Great route runner, very physical after the catch, punt returners, kickoff returners. And we wanted to take the pressure off the quarterbacks.
Seen them take shots down the field, but we have to take advantage of those off coverage, give those guys a chance, we broke a lot of tackles, probably more broken tackles by receiver in this game than we've probably had since we had Ty Montgomery and Doug Baldwin, those guys. But it's something we've emphasized. We haven't emphasized it as much in the past. JJ, JJ broke some tackles also. But he was such a great down-the-field receiver, kept throwing the ball down the field.
With this group, we wanted to do both, down the field but also have a quick game, take so much pressure off the quarterback and the offensive line.
Q. What is your concern in terms of building momentum off this one as you take it on the road to USC?
Well, my hope is that we hit those three passes that we should have hit. So that's 10-0, 17-0 or 24 or 28-0. That's what my hope is to keep the running game to be physical. But when someone drops safeties down or blitzes, like Northwestern did today, that we pick it up. We have an opportunity down the field one-on-one.
Mike Wilson was open down the field. Colby Parkinson was open twice down the field. Osiris. We took one shot. It was kind of a 50/50 ball. Probably threw the ball a little too far. But he had another shot down the field, as well as Simi Fehoko.
We have some guys that make plays down the field, have a chance to take one-on-one matchups down the field we feel are in our favor. So that's the thing for me is to play as well as we did on defense. Play a little bit better in the kicking game, play a lot better on the offensive side, on the passing game, but also be as physical as we were in this game, more so as we run the ball the rest of the season.
No. Guy's a top-tier defensive back. And there are certain guys that you worry about saying that early in the season his junior year. I don't worry about Paulson. Paulson is one of the hardest working guys on this team. He's one of the hardest guys on himself on our football team. He demands excellence from himself. Sometimes you have to make sure that you get him to take some air out of the balloon because if he doesn't make a play he gets so angry, upset at himself.
He's so focused and locked in. I don't anticipate over the course of the year him having a chance to make a lot of plays. But I do believe most balls will go over to the other side. I know he's going to be willing and patient and know his job, do it really well. If he gets opportunities he's going to deflect some. If he gets too many opportunities he'll intercept them.
Q. On improved run blocking:
So our honorary captain is Chris Marinelli. And some of you have been here a while, knows Chris started quite a few years for us. He was one of the first leaders we had when we got here with Coach Harbaugh in 2007. And not only was he a founding member of the Tunnels Workers Union, he was the founder. It was his idea. It was him bringing it from his father's experience in Boston as a tunnel worker. And I talked to guys about the mentality, doing the dirty work, about being physical, talked to the entire team, spent a lot of time with the offensive line.
And Chris came in, put the cherry on top today. As we got into the fourth quarter, we started hearing guys talking about the union, put it on the union, the guys up front know. They know we're running it and being physical, and Chris put something in their heads about those years we started really churning, with Stepfan Taylor and with Toby Gerhart, with Tyler Gaffney. We were really getting good running the football.
There's a lot of pride we have, the defense, knows we're running it and we still running and still get a first down, seven yards, six yards or four yards. We believe we run the clock out. Asked a question earlier in the week about rush versus pass. And if you throw the ball well and smartly, which I think we could have thrown the ball better in the first half, run the ball in the second half.
If you're good at running it, you're going to end up with kind of lopsided stats; but for most of the second half we had a two-score lead and then one-score lead with less than four minutes to go, less than three minutes to go. We run the ball. If we get a first down they're not going to have time to score. It's kind of the law of diminishing returns as far as the clock is concerned, keep the clock churning make them take their timeouts, try to impose our will on the defense and hopefully we can finish the ballgame.
Q. You've had seasons where you've had to make it work with a skeleton crew on the defensive line. Can you talk about today the fact that you have to get the motivation going and what a difference that makes for you guys?
It's huge. It's huge. Jovan Swann has had an outstanding offseason, as has Michael Williams. Those were two of our leaders, our seniors, and our defensive linemen. Those guys played well today. I don't know how many stats they had, but they played well.
But the guys you commend: Thomas Booker, we'll see how he is health-wise. But Thomas had a great offseason. He's a playmaker, has a chance to be really, really good. He's made some growth. But where we needed growth was the guys behind him. Thomas Schaffer came in and made some plays today. Played well. Dalyn Wade-Perry made some plays. We need those guys to continue to come out so we can rotate those guys so everybody can stay fresh. I know Dalyn got a hit on the quarterback. And Thomas had some really nice pressure in the running game, splitting guys, pushing guys back. We need to dig deep there so we can rotate those guys, keep them fresh.
Q. One of the ways to victory was yards after the catch. I don't recall you having some receivers that can do that:
Let me choose my words wisely here because when I answer questions like that in the wrong way I get a lot of text messages and phone calls from former receivers. When we had Ty Montgomery, he was a really good down-the-field receiver but also built like a running back, get the ball in his hands quickly.
That's where Connor Wedington, his background is being a running back. We got the ball quickly to him a couple times but also a good downfield receiver. Mike Wilson is a complete receiver as well. Great route runner, very physical after the catch, punt returners, kickoff returners. And we wanted to take the pressure off the quarterbacks.
Seen them take shots down the field, but we have to take advantage of those off coverage, give those guys a chance, we broke a lot of tackles, probably more broken tackles by receiver in this game than we've probably had since we had Ty Montgomery and Doug Baldwin, those guys. But it's something we've emphasized. We haven't emphasized it as much in the past. JJ, JJ broke some tackles also. But he was such a great down-the-field receiver, kept throwing the ball down the field.
With this group, we wanted to do both, down the field but also have a quick game, take so much pressure off the quarterback and the offensive line.
Q. What is your concern in terms of building momentum off this one as you take it on the road to USC?
Well, my hope is that we hit those three passes that we should have hit. So that's 10-0, 17-0 or 24 or 28-0. That's what my hope is to keep the running game to be physical. But when someone drops safeties down or blitzes, like Northwestern did today, that we pick it up. We have an opportunity down the field one-on-one.
Mike Wilson was open down the field. Colby Parkinson was open twice down the field. Osiris. We took one shot. It was kind of a 50/50 ball. Probably threw the ball a little too far. But he had another shot down the field, as well as Simi Fehoko.
We have some guys that make plays down the field, have a chance to take one-on-one matchups down the field we feel are in our favor. So that's the thing for me is to play as well as we did on defense. Play a little bit better in the kicking game, play a lot better on the offensive side, on the passing game, but also be as physical as we were in this game, more so as we run the ball the rest of the season.
