• I appreciate everybody coming out, I’ll address a few things here kind of quickly
• Our focus today, is that I appreciate everyone’s thoughts through the weekend, but the press conference is about the football team.
• This game is not about a head football coach, it’s about the players.
• I’ll be glad to answer other questions, at the appropriate time. I will give you some one on one time, at the appropriate time.
• Haven’t made the decision on who to start as QB. On Sunday, Nelson wasn’t moving around well. He’s 65-70% now.
• We had a 2 QB system at Northern. If the QB takes some hits, we knew our backup could come in and take over. We felt comfortable with it.
• Mitch runs pretty well, people don’t realize that he and Phillip both run a 4.6
• Right now, we need to play the healthiest person that’s ready to play at QB. We need to stay healthy to be successful.
• Cedric Thompson had a situation in practice that took him to the ER. He got cleared on Friday, but our best interest in a coaching staff is trying to win a football game. But after not being able to practice, we didn’t play him. He will play this week.
• Would you ever consider coaching from the press box. Kill: “No. Wouldn’t make much of a difference. I haven’t ever thought about it”
• You prepare your players during the week, so they are ready to play. Sometimes they aren’t ready, and they could get hurt and are not ready to play.
• The least penalized team in the Big 10 – through my years, you have a lot of penalties, false starts, etc., you just do. As you move on, you just emphasize that more and more. Silly penalties and turnovers will get you beat. We played 2 teams that were fast paced, W. IL coach did the exact opposite. He would run the clock all the way down to 1-2 seconds, he shortened the game. He did everything he could to win that game. A good strategy. He shrank the game.
• Reusse asked if he considered wearing a white shirt and tie. Sometimes Pat, we’re just who we are. I think my cheeks my hang over that tie. I may be better fit in blue jeans.
• We’re not going to give our gameplan away. We have a lot of work to do. We’ll have to step our game up. They won 11 games last year, and went toe to toe with Stanford. We’ll know a lot more about our FB team than what we know now.
• San Jose State is coming off a bye week, and it’s always an advantage to have 2 weeks to prepare
• Berkley Edwards has been cleared to practice. He’s a freshman, and we’ve got 3 backs playing pretty well.
• On play calling in the 2nd half of his coordinators. I should bring you all in and put a free clinic for you all, and put you through what we do. Our coaching staff has been together a long time, our decisions are group decisions. No different yesterday. It’s not a deal where Jerry Kill tells you the way we’re going to do it. We talk about strengths, and we work things out as a group, and that’s why we’ve been successful. I haven’t won a football game in 30 years, it’s all a team effort. The bottom line is, I have a lot of good people around me my whole life. I’ve been fortunate to win some games.
• We’ve had a lot of things happen in our program, form Gary Tinsley…they are relentless, they listen. We talk about adversity, and what you have to deal with in life. For the most part, they listen. That’s the way life is.