The Rodriguez presser boiled down into notes of interest.

Obviously

Steven Threet is your starter for Wisconsin.

Injuries

• Huyge is “getting closer to being able to play”—not a useful comment but whatever—and Ortmann “will be limited this week” but may be available for Wisconsin.
• Later, Rodriguez mentioned that Huyge should be 100% this week or next week.
• Mathews was still dinged, “played more plays than we probably should have played him” (we’re from play!), but should be fine for next week.
• Terrance Robinson “was ready the first game” until his injury; he will be limited this week but may start seeing some snaps against UW.
• Cory Zirbel’s injury is “more than likely” season-ending.
• Freshman Brandon Smith had his appendix out and will redshirt.

Redshirts

As mentioned, Smith will redshirt. Robinson might be a candidate, as well: “there are guys that are right there, like Terrence Robinson, that we'll evaluate in the next two weeks.” It sounds like the only freshman OL with a chance to play are Ricky Barnum and Patrick Omameh(!)—Rodriguez would still like to redshirt them if possible and will only stick them in if the injury situation gets dire. With Huyge and Ortmann getting close to returning, that seems unlikely.

As it stands now:

• Have Played: Odoms, Shaw, Stonum, McGuffie, Martin, Cissoko, Fitzgerald
• May Play: Robinson, Koger, Roundtree
• Probably Redshirting: Smith, Moore, O'Neill, Wermers, Mealer, Barnum, Omameh, Khoury, Feagin, Floyd, Demens, Cox

Despite some offseason chatter that Rodriguez was as profligate with redshirts as late-era Carr, it’s hard to protest any of the guys who have seen the field except maybe Fitzgerald, and given the situation at linebacker even that seems reasonable.

Safeties

You’re welcome to parse this on Stevie Browns every which way:

Some of them might not have been his mistakes, and it might have looked like his mistakes. There were a few plays I'm sure he'd like to have back. He also did some pretty good things.

Charles Stewart is a guy we probably want to play more in the secondary. He's been pretty consistent when he's had his chance in there. Brandon Harrison has been pretty consistent, too.

Also, the invisible Mike Williams was brought up:

Mike is playing a lot of special teams, he's making a few plays. He's getting closer to playing more. He's playing in some of our nickel packages.

We're getting more confidence to get him in there. He's a young guy who has never played. He's still learning some of the defense, but he's getting a little bit closer each week.

Official complaining

Rodriguez questioned the chop block call on Molk—he was asked about it directly—saying “Molk did go low but the guy was grabbing our guard, our guard wasn’t even blocking him.” When asked about the officials he said “there were a few I questioned.”