No notebook today, so thought I'd do a post here about the press conference:
Injuries and suspensions: Lovie and Rod both said that A.J. is getting better, still didn't hint at him playing Friday. I heard he practiced fully today, so take that as you will.
Asked Lovie about the statuses of JAMAL Milan (said James Milan in the presser, running on a couple hours of sleep lately) and Sydney Brown. Said those guys are getting better, but just from the way he answered, I wouldn't expect either to play Friday.
Lovie didn't give any hint of the suspended players returning against Penn State, today. So I'm still going off what he said Saturday ("We're hopeful to get some guys back next week" with a smirk on his face, if I remember correctly). He said the players have been practicing with the team. My prediction is that they will play Friday.
I know you guys were very curious about the offensive playcalling on Saturday (mainly in the second half), so I asked Rod some questions about it today.
Rod on the run-game:
"We tried to get some things cleaned up in the run-game. All along we wanted to make sure we established our run-game, that was a point of emphasis the entire game, so we would've tried to control that if we could, thought we did an okay job at times, could be better.
Rod on hesitation to go with the deep ball against USF:
"Well Ricky (Smalling) wasn't quite a 100%. He played but we're still making sure we're okay with him. Physically, how we match up with those guys, they can run pretty well, so that was a concern and how we can block them as well because they were pretty stout up front with two tremendous defensive ends who were explosive. There were some concern in pass protection, concerns if we could get separation enough (from their DBs) and we got a young quarterback on top of it in a pretty big game and setting. We were trying to be a little cautious with that, probably a little more than usual, but at the same time we have to keep getting better so we don't have as much caution going forward."
Injuries and suspensions: Lovie and Rod both said that A.J. is getting better, still didn't hint at him playing Friday. I heard he practiced fully today, so take that as you will.
Asked Lovie about the statuses of JAMAL Milan (said James Milan in the presser, running on a couple hours of sleep lately) and Sydney Brown. Said those guys are getting better, but just from the way he answered, I wouldn't expect either to play Friday.
Lovie didn't give any hint of the suspended players returning against Penn State, today. So I'm still going off what he said Saturday ("We're hopeful to get some guys back next week" with a smirk on his face, if I remember correctly). He said the players have been practicing with the team. My prediction is that they will play Friday.
I know you guys were very curious about the offensive playcalling on Saturday (mainly in the second half), so I asked Rod some questions about it today.
Rod on the run-game:
"We tried to get some things cleaned up in the run-game. All along we wanted to make sure we established our run-game, that was a point of emphasis the entire game, so we would've tried to control that if we could, thought we did an okay job at times, could be better.
Rod on hesitation to go with the deep ball against USF:
"Well Ricky (Smalling) wasn't quite a 100%. He played but we're still making sure we're okay with him. Physically, how we match up with those guys, they can run pretty well, so that was a concern and how we can block them as well because they were pretty stout up front with two tremendous defensive ends who were explosive. There were some concern in pass protection, concerns if we could get separation enough (from their DBs) and we got a young quarterback on top of it in a pretty big game and setting. We were trying to be a little cautious with that, probably a little more than usual, but at the same time we have to keep getting better so we don't have as much caution going forward."
