Here are my live notes (not verbatim) typing while they talk. Transcripts will be up in a few hours.
Jerry Kill:
• We’re looking forward to moving on, which you do in sports. Colorado State is a big challenge for us, they have a lot of people back, a great WR, receiving core is good all around, and we go on the road. I’m not going to say anything more about TCU – Our kids played very hard, and were a little beat up. You can’t fumble the ball on the 2 yard line and you need to protect your QB.
• Defensively CSU is very strong, no huddle, great receivers, they’re explosive, there’s a reason they were 10-3.
• Josh Campion practiced for the 1st time yesterday, Lauer did not. We’re banged up a little bit, part of winning is being healthy.
• Jonah Pirsig is playing well, will likely remain at LT. If Josh Campion comes back, he’ll play RT with Foster Bush.
• Our D-backs vs. their WR’s? They’re athletic, similar to what TCU has. Higgins is a special guy, that TE they got back that didn’t play a year ago is good. They’ll be good.
• Sid: How do you think you played against TCU? Kill: We played hard, very hard. I told you all a week ago, with 2 turnovers, we’re not going to beat TCU, and we had them.
• Sid: You’d have won the game if it wasn’t for the TO’s? Kill: That is correct.
• Sid: That freshman RB did well. Kill: I should have played him more. He’s the only back I’ve had in a long time that played 46 plays with no errors
• I’m not going to talk about it (the elevation). You do one of two things, you go out and stay a week, or go out there and stay longer than 24 hours, that’s what we’re going to do. Not talk about it.
• On Mitch’s production? Not as good as we needed it to be.
• I think they’re a little better than they were a year ago, and we’re a lot better than we were a year ago, but it doesn’t matter because we didn’t win.
• We’ll see if it pay dividends for playing TCU. Sometimes it presents a lot of injuries. I think us and WI we played 2 very good football teams, we got some guys banged, and they did. That’s part of it. We learned that we can do some things. Doesn’t matter at the end of the day, they’re on the schedule, we had a tremendous crowd, great atmosphere, that helps. Our people at MN want to see good football teams coming into our stadium, hopefully we’ll continue to build that environment. It was a tremendous boost for our program. They want to see those games, MI on Halloween night. It was the largest crowd we’ve had. We need to create the atmosphere that other schools do. You’ve got to play people that people want to see, and we did that.
• When we don’t win there’s 2 guys that are going to be critical all the time, head coach and the quarterback.
Tracy Claeys:
• We’re still going through the process and preparing, confidence is a lot better to have than not have. I expect them to work hard and get ready to go.
• Except for the opening drive of the 3rd quarter, I thought that was one of the best offenses in the county, QB puts you in conflicts, they work at a high speed. I thought our kids gave us a chance to win, if we didn’t miss a couple of assignments, we could have been closer to the 17 point range, which is our goal.
• The running backs made a lot of plays, and receivers did, the no huddle…you’ve got to find a way to work on the 2 back running game. The challenge will be, dealing with 3-4 personal groups. We’ve studied off a lot of Georgia’s film in the off season. A lot of time OC get to be HC’s and they didn’t get to do certain things at the previous school. We should be able to make the adjustments.
• We have a goal of 3 TO’s a game, offensives have a lot to do with that. Rather than TO’s in general, the ratio matters more. Teams are good at taking care of the ball, it’s difficult to get them. I want to rely on good fundamental D, not rely on TO’s to bail us out all of the time.
• We didn’t give up any plays over 30 yards, they got one more 3rd down than what our goal would normally be. We can run with them, I think confidence is a great thing.
• We didn’t have a chance to play a lot of young kids, so you lose a game and chance to develop young kids. I would have liked to get in all of the young kids – we went with the more experience kids, it’s not a game you use to develop them.
Matt Limegrover:
• Sid: You gonna have Campion back? I hope so, that’s up the medical staff.
• Rodney is the son of a coach, he’s been around it his whole life. He gets more frustrated if he missed a block than a cut.
• On Leidner – like the entire team, he had some ups and down. He was proactive and being self-critical, Before we got together, he watched the film on his own. It was more of an interaction, than coach talking and player listening. There were some things he wasn’t very happy with. I don’t care who it is, if they don’t feel comfortable, they’re going to struggle.
• On Rodney Smith – I think he’s proven that he can be a 3 down back. He’s done that all fall camp, that wasn’t surprise to us.
• On Jeff Jones – Jeff is still learning. Everybody wants Jeff to be a Heisman finalist right now. He played a little WR in the spring, but there are some guys in that younger group that have played that position longer. He does some good things, but there are things that if he does what he did at practice, we’re in trouble. When we feel like he is the best guy out there for that situation, we’ll put him there.
• When you have a center you don’t have to talk about, that’s a good thing.