48 ILLUSTRATED VOLUME 25, ISSUE 3
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Q & A : D A R R E L L H A Z E L L
BY STACY CLARDIE
SClardie@GoldandBlack.com
D
arrell Hazell certainly would have liked more victories
in Year 2. But he isn't necessarily defining Purdue's
season by so black-and-white terms.
Hazell saw improvement — drastic in some ways, con-
sidering the play of the offensive line and linebacking corps
— but recognizes there still is much more that needs to be
done.
After traversing the country on recruiting visits for two
weeks once the Boilermakers' season ended, Hazell sat
down for about 45 minutes with two local reporters.
Here are excerpts of the conversation.
Q: How do you define the 2014 season?
Hazell: "We still need, obviously, a lot of improvement
coming off this season in a lot of different areas. You see a
lot of positive things, improvements, but there still are things
that need to make significant jumps for the 2015 season."
Q: What were the positive things that came out of
this season?
Hazell: "I thought we got better at a lot of positions. I
thought the guys worked extremely hard. I thought they
were closer as a football team. But there's still some things.
We need to teach them how to finish some games. That's
part of coaching. That's part of our staff making sure we do
those things."
Q: What held this team back from getting more wins
or being more successful?
Hazell: "I think if you look at the totality, it's not making
enough plays when we had to make the plays, understanding
situational football probably a little bit better. I thought there
were times where the defense played well and the offense
didn't play as well and then the offense played well and the
defense didn't play as well. We never kind of put it all togeth-
er for whatever reason. There's so many things that you can
see that we can improve upon and make a difference in the
outcome of a football game."
Q: What is the next step in the development of the
program?
Hazell: "I think we've got to get just a little bit mentally
tougher to be able to finish some of those games you're in.
It still comes down to the mindset of believing you can win
Tom Campbell
Darrell Hazell saw strides in the program in 2014 but knows
there are many more to make.
Looking To Finish
Playmakers, mental toughness needed
