Press Conferencin', Illinois Week

Highlights from Rodriguez's Monday press conference and Wednesday brief media-talkin' time.

Injuries

• Junior Hemingway (mono) and Carlos Brown (sprained foot) are out for at least the next few weeks. Yes, this comes about one freakin' game after a guy like Hemingway could have applied for a medical redshirt. Woo.
• Mark Huyge is back and available should the need arise.
• Shaw and Minor are supposed to be fully healthy, but they were supposed to be fully healthy last week and didn't see much time, Shaw especially. RR on Shaw:
  

  Michael will play a lot more this week. I think he's close to back to 100 percent.

  I thought that was the situation last week, but these groin things tend to linger.

• Johnson, Warren, and Taylor are all in light contact green jerseys but are expected to play.
• Dorrestein "will be healthier" and this provides options.

Options

It sounds like Dorrestein will start at LT against Illinois with Ortmann sliding inside to replace McAvoy. I've been UFRing this stuff all year and McAvoy hasn't been notably bad—he's been bad, but many of the other OL have had their doh(!) moments as well—but they're clearly not happy with his performance after trying Ferrara out in the first half last week.

Other linemen

Moosman "played his best game to date" against Wisconsin—really?—and is "playing at the highest level" of any of the OL. Schilling "pretty consistent"—paging the Fiutak—and Molk "did some good things." Again: really?

The line men came in for something of a buffeting in what was ostensibly a discussion of McGuffie, though:

He didn't have an opportunity to get to the second level. That was the thing. Any coach will tell you, in the run game, we've got to secure the first level, the down guys, and get to the second level. We couldn't even get to the second level. It was embarrassing.

Non-Injury Item That Certainly Didn't Come From A Press Conference

Darryl Stonum might be limited next week and maybe a bit further for something that's not an injury. It's also not the end of the world; just don't be surprised if he's inexplicably on the bench much of Saturday.

LOLCoachspeak

This is an excellent way of saying "Juice Williams is no longer the worst passer in Big Ten history":

Juice isn't underrated anymore as a thrower, because people see he can throw.

"…Every eight attempts or so."

It's Always Sunny in Richadelphia

I'd like to say there won't be any more moments like the bad first half, but there may still be that. We're still in the middle of the process. We're still grinding away, every practice. We get frustrated every day. … We're going to have a lot of moments this year where we're still going to be grinding away.

It's not a lot of fun. You'd rather everything go smoothly, but that's not where we're at right now.

Well, at least he's realistic about this stuff, and honest.

What's the opposite of a superlative?

On the fumbles: "It was ridiculous." On the kick returns: "awful."

Sigh.

Rodriguez talking about talking to his players:

'I hope you enjoyed it for 24 hours, maybe people will be patting you on the back and all that, but that might have been the same folks booing you at halftime.'

Next time please just be discontentedly quiet. Also: there's no need to turn the comments into a flame war about this tiny section.

Adios Mr. Butler?

It was plausible that Carson Butler missed the Wisconsin game because of the punch he delivered to a Notre Dame player at the tail end of that fiasco, but this is probably not suspension-related:

Koger and Massey will be our first two tight ends again this week, and that's just basically based on coaches' decision, what we think is best for us right now.

I kind of doubt Butler will be around next year.

Eeee

I felt we were a little faster at the end, we were playing faster at the end, and part of that is due to execution. That's always the key on offense and defense. If you're executing well it looks like you're playing faster; if you're not, it looks like you're not.

At the end of every ball game this year, I at least felt we'd be able to go on. At the end of the game I felt we were still fresh enough from what I saw that we could go on. I couldn't speak for their guys; I thought they were playing pretty hard at the end, too. I don't think any team we played has not been in shape.

I agree

Stevie Brown, who had struggled in some of the other games, played better.

More in UFR, obviously.