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q & A : d a r r e l l h a z e l l Busy, But Efficient Hazell talks about football, life BY GOLD AND BLACK STAFF D arrell Hazell���s life has been a whirlwind since accepting the job to become Purdue���s head football coach. But soon after signing his first recruiting class, he took a break to appear on Gold and Black LIVE, the webstream show hosted on GoldandBlack. com and WLFI.com Fridays from September through March. Here are excerpts from the Feb. 8 interview. Gold and Black: Have you been busy lately? Hazell: ���Little bit busy. Trying to complete the staff and trying to find a place to live and all those other good things, but it���s been great.��� Gold and Black: You had 23 letters out and 23 letters in. Were there any nervous moments on signing day? Hazell: ���No, I thought it was pretty smooth. We got the last letter in probably about 12 o���clock; the first one came in about 7:04, 7:05 a.m.. That was Keyante Green who was the first to come in, but there was never any anxious moments.��� Gold and Black: When you don���t know your personnel that you have right now as well as you would like at this point, do you recruit the systems or do you just try to get the best players possible those last couple weeks? Hazell: ���I think you have to recruit numbers for those positions first and try to get the best available players. That���s the two things we looked at. I don���t know if it���s the perfect scheme or not, but that was the approach we had to take.��� Gold and Black: Which position do you think will initially be open to some of the freshmen playing early? Hazell: ���I think the position that could probably help you the quickest because of the amount of things that they don���t have to learn is the running back. It���s going to be wide open in the spring. We���re going to have competition at every single position, and we are going to let the best players play.��� Gold and Black: When you���re taking over a program, is there a template to a first recruiting class both on and off the field? Hazell: ���That is the No. 1 thing we look for, guys that are going to do things the right way and represent us well, on and off the field. That is the quality we will look for before athleticism, before grades, is a guy that is going to be respectful to others and make sure he is doing the things that we are asking him to do.��� Gold and Black: What was the most interesting meal that you had on the recruiting trail while visiting guys that you were trying to get committed and visiting guys already committed? Hazell: ���I am not a big seafood eater, so when you sit down and have to eat some seafood, it is always hard. I have had some great meals on the road, and it is always good because you are living out of a hotel and eating fast food and junk food, so any time you can sit down with a family and have a great home-cooked meal, there is nothing like it.��� Kurt Lahrman Darrell Hazell discussed recruiting, coaching philosophy and more as a guest on ���Gold and Black LIVE,��� a webcast that airs each Friday during football and basketball season, on Feb. 8. Gold and Black: What is the protocol in recruiting? If somebody puts something on the plate that you refuse to eat, say they throw a squid on the plate and you don���t want to offend anyone in the room, can you politely decline or does that run the risk of costing you the kid? Hazell: ���I think you have to try to eat it. You have to try to get the squid down.��� Gold and Black: Looking back at the timetable from your hiring on Dec. 5 to signing day, how did that work? Hazell: ���It was hard. That was a hard transition, traveling back and forth from Ohio to Indiana every couple days, trying to not cheat either program. It was little harder than I thought it would be, but it all worked out and it is going to be great going forward.��� Gold and Black: Did you feel like you have had enough time to really create that bond with guys in this recruiting class due to the time constraints? During your signing day press conference, you mentioned you like to have as much detail as the dog���s name. Hazell: ���I would have liked a lot more time than what we had, but you do what you have to do. I like to know the dog���s name, so he doesn���t bite me and I can call his name when I walk into the house. As much time as you can spend with the family, and getting to know the brothers and the sisters and the ages and all of those things, helps you communicate when you get into someone���s house and they feel like, ���Hey, this guy is invested in me.��� ��� Gold and Black: What is your philosophy on redshirting? Hazell: ���I think the biggest thing for us, as a staff, we tell everybody to come in ready to play and get your mindset right to play. Get your body ready to play and then we will make a decision as a staff, after camp is over and maybe even two or three games into the season. Hey, if you are in the two deep, you���re probably not going to redshirt. If you are not, there is a good chance that you might redshirt. We want them all to think that they are going to play when they are coming in.��� 10 ��� Gold & Black IllustrateD ��� volume 23, issue 4 Gold and Black: How do you want to win games and how does this class fit into that template? Hazell: ���I want to be a tough football team. I want to be a disciplined football team. I want to make sure we take care of the football. I want to absolutely be a team that believes in themselves, the last three minutes of the game, the last four minutes of the game, no matter what the situation is, to learn how to finish football games.��� Gold and Black: How do you figure that out in the recruiting process? Are there any indicators that tell you that? Hazell: ���I think there are certain guys up there that are natural winners and fighters and those are some of the things that you look for, but you have to instill that into the whole football team, from the first guy to the 105th guy. They all have to believe the same thing. There is a minute to go in the game and you are down four, how are you going to win the game? They have to have that belief system in place and that is something we have to do as a staff to make sure that gets across.��� Gold and Black: Who are a couple sleeper recruits, guys that are maybe under-recruited or didn���t maybe get the attention they deserve? Hazell: ���I think if you look at Johnny Daniels, he is a guy that I think is going to be a great football player. He is a little bit undersized right now upstairs. He is 255 pounds, a very athletic guy, and a guy that can rush the passer. ���Probably the other guy is Dezwan Polk-Campbell, a linebacker that is a little bit undersized. He comes from a program that is well-coached, but he is not getting the nutrition that he needs, and the meals that he needs, and the weight lifting that he needs, but I can see those two making leaps and bounds here in the next couple of years.��� Gold and Black: Polk-Campbell is interesting as he is one of five Ohio kids. I assume you are going to use your ties in the Buckeye State. Hazell: ���There are so many schools in Ohio, that is where it starts. As I said before, I want to take 75 percent GBIprint.com GoldandBlack.com