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28 ILLUSTRATED VOLUME 24, ISSUE 6 f 'Tough To Beat' Shoop ready for offense to break out BY STACY CLARDIE SClardie@GoldandBlack.com J ohn Shoop hardly can contain his excitement. He knows Purdue's offense did not perform well enough in 2013 — with program-type lows in several categories — but he also realizes how littered the field was with inex- perienced players. They're older now, have been in Shoop's system for a full season and a spring. And with a better grasp shown in the spring and offseason of what's expected to succeed, Shoop is ex- pecting better results in 2014. What will be crucial to accom- plishing that? Shoop sat down with Gold and Black for an extensive interview on that topic and much more. Gold and Black: What can you do well on offense in 2014? Shoop: "Well, we have to, No. 1, protect the football. We did a better job of that in the spring. We can always do better, but we did a pretty doggone good job of that in the spring. That needs to carry over. If we protect the football, that'll go a long way toward winning. "But we need more explosive plays. I think you saw it a little bit in the run game — Raheem (Mostert) and Akeem (Hunt) had strong springs I thought. We were able to find some creases and they had some long runs. We want to make it tough for a team to play us in man- to-man where if we can get to that second line of de- fense, we want it to be a long touchdown run. "Our quarterbacks are working on the mental endur- ance they need to play the position. I think it's in them to throw a bunch of completions. "But we need to get some deep balls. The thing we didn't do this spring as well as we can is get the ball deep. It's not one thing. It's protection. It's route run- ning. It's releases. It's the throw. It's the read. It's a bunch of things. So there's not any one aspect to point your finger, but it's something we're sure going to em- phasize, throwing the ball deep. We are emphasizing it over the summer and once we get back in training camp." Gold and Black: Why do you think having more shotgun and multiple wide receiver sets suit your personnel? Shoop: "I think we have some good players in the wide receivers room. We have some players we want to Q & A : J O H N S H O O P Tom Campbell Offensive coordinator John Shoop likes the pieces he has on offense for 2014, even though the group still largely is young.