Q&A with Offensive Line Coach Bill Mottola
7/4/2009 12:00:00 AM | Football
July 4, 2009
MURedHawks.com recently had the opportunity to interview Miami University offensive line coach Bill Mottola. He answered questions on a number of different topics.
You've coached every offensive position during your career. How does that give you an advantage?
It gives you some insight into the big picture of every play and protection that's being run. You have an understanding of what the other players are going through, whether it's trying to get open as a wide receiver or footwork at running back or the mindset of the quarterback during the course of the game. So it's helped me to become a better offensive line coach.
How did it all come to be that you were hired at Miami?
At the coaches' convention in Nashville, my wife and I walked in that first day, talking to all of the different coaches who I had worked with previously. Coach Jappy Oliver, who I had worked with at Vanderbilt, was sitting at a table with Coach Haywood. They invited me to sit down with them and I re-introduced myself to Coach Haywood. We began talking about offensive line play, ideas, schemes and philosophies, then after an hour or so we got up and left. About a week later, Coach Haywood gave me a call and I came to Miami and interviewed.
You have coached at Kent State. What is the reputation of Miami at other Mid-American Conference schools?
So, now, you're taking advantage of that.
There's no question. What was a negative when I was at another school is now a huge positive.
Your resume also includes five seasons at the United States Military Academy. One would assume that the dedication of the young men there is extraordinary.
That was a great experience, working for five years for Bob Sutton, who Coach Haywood also worked with when he was there. The young men that I recruited and got a chance to know were special. I still keep in touch with them. The thing that I learned coaching there was that you really had to be exact in what you taught. Whatever you told those young men to do was exactly the way they were going to do. And in terms of the teams we played against, we weren't evenly matched athletically, so it really gave you some insight as to the different schemes to use to exploit people's speed and our lack of it.
Have you applied any of your Army experience to the players here at Miami?
I've done several different things here that we did at Army. I've tried to carry that over to everywhere I've bee. If some of the players at were able to do things athletically at West Point, then certainly some of the guys who we have here should be able to get it done. It's more of a mindset, toughness type of issue.So is football as much of a mental game as it is physical?
It definitely is. For the offensive line, it's definitely a very physical game. The mental part is the attitude that they have to apply every day, not just on game days. We've really tried to hammer that home here, whether it's in the off-season or during practice or a game. We want them to make the most of every opportunity that they get. They need to be mentally tough enough that, no matter what happened to them on the previous play, they want the ball run behind them on the next play. Whether they 'pancaked' someone or whether they got beat, they need to be ready for the very next play.
What are the attributes that you're looking for when you're recruiting an offensive lineman?
Number one would be toughness, other than the physical attributes that the young man has-height and weight, etc. Sometimes you get too caught up in the measureables and you don't get to see how the young man can overcome the physical shortcomings that he may have. It's gotten tougher to determine that because of the limited contact you can have in recruiting. How tough is he? Does he play every day? Does he practice every day? Does he go hard? Is he someone you can rely on and you can trust? The chemistry within the offensive line group has to mesh and we want to make sure that we're bringing guys in here who have the same character traits as the guys that we have. The young man's toughness and his ability to finish, these are key in the evaluation.
Miami lost three very experienced starters to graduation. How did you approach spring practice and competition for positions?
The first thing I told our players was that every position is open. And that's true to a certain extent, but I wanted them to understand that this was the exact thing that was going on. People aren't just going to hang around and inherit a position just because you happen to be the second guy in line. Everyone has got to keep competing. When those guys graduated, though were three huge holes that were left. They were three fine players who won't be easy to replace. Every year you're going to have to replace somebody. Depth-wise, we need to get to a point that we won't miss a beat within the offense. We need to not only compete, but excel. And that's the next stage of it, to understand that nothing is just going to be handed to you. We've got to keep the machine moving, even though we may have lost a gear here or there.
Four returnees had significant playing time-Brandon Brooks, Nate Williams, Bob Gulley and Ken Staudinger. Did they have any advantage over the others?
They obviously had an advantage in that they've played the game at a high speed. They had an advantage, experience-wise. But, knowledge-wise, because we were putting in a whole new system, everyone was on the same level. It really put significance on their ability to pick up and learn the system as fast as they could so that they could use the experience they already had. They may not have had the same kind of mentality that they had before. So, for me, the biggest thing was to work on their mental game and to get back to some old-school ways of blocking people. We wanted to take them out of their comfort zone a little bit. I wanted to see them to some things that they may not have been asked to do in the past and to see how they reacted. They did great. Those guys are four of our leaders and we look to them to lead the way in the weight room and in the off-season. And that's got to continue for us to be successful.
The other players who return played primarily in scout team situations, so they hadn't necessarily adapted to a certain style of play and their minds may have been less cluttered than the others.
There's a big difference in looking at a card as scout-teamers and actually being able to execute. Brad Bednar joined us in January and he did a good job of jumping in there. The other nice thing about these kids is that they're all relatively smart in that they pick things up quickly. We moved on to more technique and specific technique for each individual. They were a little bit further behind because of where they've been mentally, but they're all competing hard and doing a good job.
What have you done to take advantage of the coaching knowledge of Michael Haywood, Peter Vaas and Morris Watts?
It's been a lot of fun, whether we're watching Kentucky tape or watching tape of ourselves from the spring game. The insight and the references that Coach Vaas and Coach Watts made are something that you put in the back of your mind. They're always coming up with things that they have experienced and have run before, whether it's schemes or situational football. There are some real gems in there. Then with KiJuan (Ware) and Cedric (Cormier), I'm in-between everybody. I can see where they're coming from as young coaches. It's interesting being the middle man in the whole situation. Every day is different here and it's different for a lot of reasons. Coach Haywood did a great job in putting the staff together with the dynamics of each individual. There are a lot of different opinions, but, at the end of the day, we lock arms and go out to the field with the same mindset. It's been great.
You're roughly two months away from the season opener against Kentucky and you've been studying UK tape for a while.. How much work is there yet to be done?
As a new staff, we're anxious to get into that first game. Being the big game that it is for us, it makes it even more exciting. We're pretty far along in the evaluation process, but the bigger part of it is evaluating ourselves-our offensive line, our schemes-to make sure that we're playing to our strengths and trying to exploit any weaknesses of theirs, if they have any.
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