Here are the notes from Jerry Kill's press conference following the bye week, and getting ready to play Nebraska.
• I appreciate everyone coming today, we've had an off week and practiced on Sunday. We're trying to get better, prepping for Nebraska and recruiting. We're ready to take a step forward.
• The bye week gave Gray time to get repetitions, some of our older players that are trying to get better mentally through the tough times, they mentally were able to get where they need to be. It gave youngers players time to get more reps to get better. We didn’t go for drudgery. It worked out pretty well. I think the kids enjoyed the process of that, and got to see a lot of young people.
• No one really stepped forward (younger guys that may play), they're already all playing and they're all young. Right now, we're down to 2 tailbacks. We're already playing all of our young guys.
• Nobody has been able to keep Nebraska's offense under wraps. They're running option football anyway you want to slice it. Their 11th in the country in rushing the football, that's who they are. They have a great return man too. Fall into the offensive structure. Pelini is a hard nosed tough guy, and that's what the team represents.
• They are a good fit for the Big 10. Nebraska football is important there, people follow it. It makes the Big 10 better, physically.
• The bye week probably came at a good time. If you have one, you could say it came at a good time, we got a lot of work done. It was good in the situation we were in and for everyone.
• Down to two tailbacks, Wright and Cobb are questionable. Edwards has not been moved back to running back. Lamonte could take some reps, we'll see how that goes, if we have to play him both ways we will. Kirkwood has had a good week of practice, hamstring has held up.
• Troy Stoudemire is going to undergo an x-ray on his wrist this afternoon
• I shut everything else out and worry about the kids. When you look at the border programs, they are good programs. Coaches are about the only friends we've got, we compete against each other and then get fired. Ferentz was 1-10 his 1st year at Iowa. Anytime you go into these battles, it's tough. The schedule is what it is. Through the next 6 games, you don't know what's going to happen. Football can change in a heartbeat. Michigan lost their QB in one game. No one would be more important than for WI to lose that guy (Wilson). There's a lot of things that can go into this.
• You want to see who's mentally tough. See who's going to make it and who's not going to. We may find out some kid a
• I'm not going to worry about the Nebraska fans coming in, it's not going to change our preparation. It's part of college football. I've played in front of 110K at Michigan and didn't do well. If you're a focused football player, and you're a good football player and coach, you never hear anything anyway. The only thing you run into, is when Nebraksa goes to the line of scrimmage, and Martinez calls a play, if you have tons of crowd noise, and they can't hear the call, that's when it comes into effect. We need to get our crowd involved in it, so we can create that. You see all the no huddle offense, that's why you see that. The crowd has a lot to do with that, for check purposes, you can't hear.
• Martinez is more of a guy that will run the football, and will plant that foot and go vertical. Robinson is going to shake 2-3 times, and shake you, like Barry Sanders playing QB. The tailback's a heck of a football player, Martinez is good, but that tailback makes good plays. You don't want to kick it to their returner, he's good. They've got good players. That's a great challenge for us, and our coaches, and look forward to it.
The only way to stop option football is to play 12 people (on defense)
• Marcus Jones came in at the semester last year, we recruited him at Northern IL - he's on the board academically. He's a 3.5 or above, very smart young man. We've been impressed with his progress, and he's gotten bigger
• Royston's off week will help him, he's a little banged up. 6 years in the program, been at WI and here, he understands things. He's got a good perception of what we need to do.
• We'll know over the next 5-6 games what kind of progress Gray is making. When you don't play, it's hard to get better. He wasn't able to take many reps until Thursday.
• Offensive Line - we've had Olson that's been hurt, Gjere had a concussion, there's just been injuries, so you move people around and there's not a lot of continuity. The good thing is, we've gotten to see how some other guys have played. The only way to get better is to play. We're trying to do some things to make it easier for them, where they don't have to think a lot.
•Tommy Olson during his 1st game, he did okay. He played like a freshman, but he's going to be a good player. He did some nice things, and he'll learn from mistakes. They're learning the hard way, you can't sit there and scream and yell. Gotta keep him healthy and getting better.
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