PURDUE UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 19, 2020

Jeff Brohm

Mike Bobinski

Press Conference

MIKE BOBINSKI: First of all, thanks for joining us. I presume we probably have a few more folks than is typical here, but that's this year. That's the way things sort of are.

The events of the last day and a half or so now are not at all what we had hoped for, but I think indicative of the fact that this year is not a linear progression for anybody. It's a year that flexibility and adjustment and adaptability is sort of what it takes in order to get through things, and we've seen that around the country, and now we're in it ourselves here.

First and foremost, I want to express our concern, as it should be and as it will be throughout here, is making sure that Coach Brohm and any other of our staff members or students athletes or others associated in and around our program that have the unfortunate reality of coming down with the virus, that they take care of their health, their safety, their well-being first and foremost, and that will be the first priority. Everything else honestly is secondary to that.

Regarding where things are in an overall sense, we began the daily testing program adopted by the Big Ten on September 30th with daily antigen testing, which is really a surveillance type program, and then to be followed up by a confirmatory PCR test in the event anybody tests positive.

I think the program and the system in general has been really, really well-executed. We appreciate very much Quidel, Biodesix, everybody that's part of our local staff here has done a great job with the testing, and we feel really, really confident in the approach and what's getting done. We also feel really confident in our approach on a day-to-day basis as to how we're trying to be safe.

But nevertheless I think this just indicates how uncertain this circumstance is for all of us, the fact that the virus finds its way to where it finds itself, in ways that you can't predict and you sometimes can't fully protect against. So here we sit.

But again, beginning on September 30th we've done our daily testing and had, to this point, very favorable results, and without getting into things that we can't or shouldn't share publicly, just for purposes of letting folks know, we have had zero student-athlete positives through that entire period of time. No one has -- none of our athletes have had a positive antigen test to this point, and that's a really, really good thing, and that's a testament to the daily protocols and the attention to detail and the cautious way that they're going about doing their business, both in our facilities and away from our facilities. That's not to be taken for granted these days, and we appreciate that. There's no guarantee that that will be the season-long condition, but it's our current condition, and we're hopeful that we stay there.

With that being said, obviously we'll take whatever questions when the time is right, once Jeff makes his opening comments, but we'll provide whatever information we're able to and go from there. Thank you.

JEFF BROHM: I want to confirm that I have tested positive for the virus. It's unfortunate, and it's not ideal, but unfortunately it's the way the world works today. I think our team is in great position now to move forward. We've had a lot of good work up to this point, a lot of good practices and I think our team is ready to play. I applaud our coaching staff for the work they've done to get our guys ready, and we'll continue to proceed forward.

Once I found out I was positive I immediately isolated and have tried to follow all CDC and medical guidelines and will continue to do that, but I will be able to work remotely as much as I can until I'm allowed back with the team and will continue to do that this week and assist our coaches and players to make sure we're continuing to get ready and having another great week of practice before a great opponent in Iowa. That's what we've got.

We've got a great opponent in Iowa who had a great year last year. They're hard-nosed, they're disciplined, they play hard. They had big wins last year against Iowa State, against Minnesota, against USC in the bowl game, and they're a team we're going to have to play well to win, and I know our team has worked hard to get to that point. Now it's really about going and competing and playing and laying it on the line and that's how it's going to be this year.

Every week is going to be different. Things will come up for our team and other teams throughout the season. We've got to adapt to it and move forward and we'll continue to do that, and I think that no matter what happens to our team as we go, we're going to be ready to play. It's about going out there and competing and laying it on the line and having fun playing the game.

From there I'll open it up to any questions, as well, and answer those.

Q. Jeff, as far as the game Saturday, will you be on the sidelines, and if not, how will this all work?

JEFF BROHM: Well, I've asked that question numerous times to try to make that work. It's looking like that probably won't happen. I'm not going to give up hope on any of that, but following the guidelines set forth, I don't think I'll be able to do that.

I will continue to coach throughout the week and be in communication with our coaches constantly and our players, and then when it comes to game time, Brian Brohm will handle the game-time decisions and will be the acting head coach on that day if I were not able to be there with the team.

Q. Are you prepared to announce your starting quarterback today, or will that come later?

JEFF BROHM: Well, we've made a decision on who the starting quarterback will be, but we're going to go ahead and let that go all the way up until game time and not announce that just so that we keep that amongst our team, but we have picked a starting quarterback. It's been a good competition. I think we have three capable guys right now that can go in and compete, and obviously we have to do some good things around them, as well, but we will not announce that until game time.

Q. Just to confirm, when you say you tested positive for the virus, this is the second test that confirmed the first one, correct?

JEFF BROHM: Yeah, so we took the daily rapid test -- let's see, what is today, Monday? We took that on Sunday morning and took the PCR test immediately after that and got the results of that last night and it confirmed a positive test.

Q. Is everybody on the roster healthy? Do you expect everybody to be in action on Saturday?

JEFF BROHM: Well, I think we're pretty close to having everybody ready. There will be a few game-time decisions on a couple guys that I probably would rather not talk about at this point, but we do have about two or three guys that will be game-time decisions.

Q. You never want to put too much on one game, but just how important is this opening game for you this year do you think?

JEFF BROHM: Well, it's extremely important. I think we're looking forward to playing a great opponent in Iowa. This is a team that we're going to have to play well to win. We're going to have to find a way to beat them at their own game, which is playing roles and discipline and not turning the ball over and not making mistakes. This is a team that's going to control the football, not give you a lot of possessions. We're going to have to find ways to get turnovers, and this will be a tough contest. We were fortunate enough in the first two years to hit some big plays over the top against Iowa to find a way to win. Last year they did a much better job against us preventing that, even though we snuck in a few here and there, but we're going to have to be way more consistent on offense and we're going to have to find ways to shut their running game down, make them punt and get more possessions in order for us to win, but I do know that this will be a great test to see how we stack and measure up because this is one of the best teams in our conference.

Q. Has DJ Johnson finally been cleared to play?

JEFF BROHM: DJ, yes, has been cleared to play and has waiver has been approved and he will be fully approved to play come Saturday.

Q. Jeff, as you go through this, how confident are you in the Big Ten's plans to play eight games in eight weeks?

JEFF BROHM: Actually I'm very confident. This has been unfortunate. We've had good results. The daily testing I think our players, we've had great success rate on that. Unfortunately it got me, and it's something that we're going to have to deal with. But there are going to be a few things flare up here and there, but I think as far as testing our guys daily, having the best medical procedures in college football set up for our guys in order to play football, I think we're going about as good as anybody right now in that. So I feel confident, and I applaud the Big Ten for the ability to get this daily testing going.

Q. As a follow-up, do you have any idea or can you give us any sense as to the scope of how contact tracing around you might impact the game on Saturday?

JEFF BROHM: Well, I'm not really for sure exactly what you're asking. I know what it comes to contact tracing, a lot of this daily testing has been put in to try to help eliminate some of the contact tracing within our building, by the fact that we are getting tested daily. They think that sometimes this rapid testing can catch the virus before it starts to spread, whether that's fully true or not I'm not for sure. But we've got to still take precautions, and we are in our building right now. There have been things pop up here and there throughout the last month or two that we've had to be very cautious about. We're going to continue to do that, so while we still do have the daily rapid testing, we have to do some precautions within our building to make sure that even with whatever contact tracing that each state has, which as far as I know that's how it's been determined, each state is different, we've got to be very cautious in who is around who for a long, extended period of time.

Q. What are the kind of concerns when it comes to the false positives, especially late in the week and on the eve of the game? This is maybe for Mike and for Jeff. Is there a desire at all to eliminate some of those game day testing or the Friday testing to -- I guess what's kind of your concerns possibly with late week false positives?

JEFF BROHM: I would say this: As far as -- I feel like the rapid testing has gone very well for our football team, and from what I'm being told, it's about 98 percent accurate. In my case, I did have symptoms. I knew there was probably something going on with me, and they caught it right away, and then it was confirmed in a PCR test. I don't know if we have had any false positives to this point on our team. I know it can happen, but I think the fact that we're able to PCR test right after any positive test, that has been official.

Now, you are correct, once it gets to game day if something like that happens you are not able to do the PCR test, that is a concern, but I think at this point it's better to be safe than sorry, and we want to make sure we take care of the health and safety of our players first and foremost while we're continuing to work hard to try to win.

MIKE BOBINSKI: I would just second what Jeff relayed. We understand the protocol and the system that's in place. I think on game day if you have a positive test on game day, that's just the way it's going to be this year, but to Jeff's point, we have had zero false positives within our football daily testing regimen since September 30th. Any positive that we have had has been confirmed by a PCR test, and so we feel we're very confident in the system and the protocol and believe that it will get us the right results. At the end of the day we don't want to put anybody out there that's positive, and as Jeff mentioned, I think erring on the side of safety at this point is the right way to go.

Q. Jeff, if you could just help us with the chronology, when did you start to feel symptoms? What kind of symptoms were you feeling and how are you feeling right now?

JEFF BROHM: Well, for a few days before the positive test, I was abnormally tired and exhausted and I just thought that I was just tired from work. So I didn't really know for sure what was happening. But it really wasn't until Saturday did it kind of really start to kick in, and that's when the cold chills and the sweating and the body aches and a little bit of the chest tightness, really all the symptoms that you hear about took place, and I knew I was probably not in good shape right then and probably would have a positive test the next day we tested, and did.

So really now it's just about getting healthy. I think that in the next couple days hopefully I'll be over all this. Right now I have the normal symptoms that you hear about, and I think sometimes you just kind of have to -- from my understanding, get a little more rest than you're used to and hope that pounding the fluids and taking whatever medication you need gets you back to normal. But unfortunately it got me, and now I've just got to recuperate as fast as I can.

Q. What do you imagine Saturday is going to be like for you not being able to be on the sidelines?

JEFF BROHM: Well, it's not going to be very fun and it's not something I -- this is bad timing. You work all year long, our players do, our coaches, to play the season. It's an abbreviated season. We've got a great opponent in Iowa coming in, so yeah, I'd love to be at the game and be with the team. I've asked numerous questions to see if that could happen, but I'm not optimistic that that's going to happen based on the rules that we have, which I will follow all the guidelines and the rules that we have.

But I'm confident that our coaches have done a great job to this point. We've been in collaboration, working together to put a plan together. Our players have worked very hard, and now it's about going out and playing, and I don't really think one person makes a team, whether it's a coach or a player. It's a combination of everybody working together, so I think our team will respond and go out there and play hard and play well.

Q. Jeff, in the Big Ten protocols, it says there's a 21-day layout period for student-athletes. Is it a standard for coaches? Is it a matter of you just having to test negative a bunch of times to come back or is there more to it than that?

JEFF BROHM: Well, as far as I know, and this is new to all of us, but as far as what I've been told, it's the CDC guideline of 10 days from your positive test or your first symptom is what I think they go by. I think the 21 days is for players, getting back into participation, into making sure that they go through the proper channels to make sure that they're in shape and physically ready to step back on the field. So I think the 21 days is for players.

Q. You had said Brian will take over as kind of acting head coach; will he call the plays, also?

JEFF BROHM: Yeah, so Brian will call the plays come game day, and Coach JaMarcus Shephard will be in collaboration with him throughout the week, and even our whole offensive staff. I think we've put together the plan for the most part up until this point. I think it's just a matter of getting our guys in the right position to go out there and play. Brian has been with me the last four years. As a former quarterback, I think he knows how I think, and I think he'll go out there as well as our offensive staff and they'll do a good job of putting our players in the best position to succeed.

Q. Contact tracing with your staff, anyone else affected as far as you know?

JEFF BROHM: Well, I'd rather not get into all that. I really don't know what I can say. We've had a few flare-ups here and there from a staff perspective, but right now we're proceeding forward and we're making the necessary adjustments along the way, and anything that pops up between now and game day we'll continue to do that. But we have plans set to proceed forward from now.

Q. Coach Brohm, what are your plans for game day? Are you going to leave it entirely up to Brian? Do you expect to coach via phone? Are you going to be play calling from home at all?

JEFF BROHM: Well, I wish I could do those things. If I could, I would. Right now I'm going to continue to coach throughout the week remotely and just kind of be in contact with our coaches and our players and make sure that we're continuing to proceed forward daily. But I have great confidence in our coaches. They can carry out the plan. Our players can go out there and play hard and cut it loose come game day, and they'll do a great job without me there on Saturday if I'm not able to be there.

As far as right now, it's really about just putting the best plan together daily to go out there and practice, staying on top of those things, adjusting as the week goes on, and then come game day, if I'm not allowed to be at the game, which is what I've been told to this point, our coaches will take it over and they'll do a great job and our players in my opinion will go out there and respond and play hard.

Q. How does your positive test affect the team's momentum before week one?

JEFF BROHM: Well, I don't think it affects their momentum whatsoever. Our guys are ready to play. I think everyone across the country in the Big Ten to ready to play football. They've gone through a lot. Our players as well as probably some other teams have done a great job of sacrificing to make sure they stay healthy, getting an opportunity to play, and to this point we've done a great job with that. Our players have responded and they have made extreme sacrifices to be able to continue to play as a team and make sure that we're not missing many people, and that can always change and you've got to continue to harp on it and make sure we're doing a good job with it. Unfortunately it got me and we have to adjust, but I'm just a coach. We have many other coaches on our team and they do a great job working with our guys on a daily basis and they'll do a great job come game day, so I have great confidence that our team will respond and go out there and play hard against a good Iowa football team.

Q. Just curious what your range of emotions have been over the last several months. You talk about the sacrifices the team has made and that you have made obviously along the way to not having a season to having a season and now testing positive for COVID. Just where are you at mentally as you deal with getting ready for Saturday and not being able to be there with your team and everything that's gone into this whole process?

JEFF BROHM: You know, initially, I'm not going to lie, I was disappointed that the bug bit me and kind of felt like I had let the team down a little bit. But as you guys know, this virus is a mystery, and it somehow catches you when you don't know it is, and when it does, you just have to deal with it and move forward. I thought I had done a good job of protecting myself, but obviously not good enough.

You know, it's one of those things that you learn from it and you move on and you get healthy. Our players have done a great job, and that's what's been so -- energized me is that our guys have really taken this seriously and they really do want to play and they really do want to go out there and compete and get an opportunity to play the game they love. Us as coaches try to do our part to help them achieve our goals and I know hour assistant coaches will continue to do that. We're looking forward to playing football just like everyone across the country. This is a great game. It's a lot of fun to watch, it's a lot of fun to compete. We've got great fans here and a great community, and we want to go out there as a team and represent them by playing the game the way it should be played, and that's with all-out effort and playing to the end and giving it everything you have, and I know that come Saturday our team will do that.

Q. As far as Saturday goes, over the years via social media we've seen some good pregame speeches by you. Any thoughts to coming in via Zoom or another platform and giving the pregame speech before your team takes the field?

JEFF BROHM: Well, I try not to predetermine those things, and to be honest with you, some of the better speeches I think I've had we've ended up losing the game. So I don't know if it really means as much as I thought it did.

You know what, I like to bring a little energy and passion to game day. When you step on the field you kind of have to turn the volume up, each person individually, so if I don't think our team has shown that in warm-ups, I occasionally will try to get it out of them. But you know what, it's the first game of the year; I don't think our team will need it. I think our coaches and players will be ready to play, and I'm looking forward to watching them.

Q. Obviously you're not the first college head coach to contract the virus; do you have any idea how you may have come into contact with it?

JEFF BROHM: You know what, I really don't know for sure exactly. You know, it's something that -- some people in my family did contact the virus. When that happened I isolated immediately and continued to isolate, and unfortunately it got me.

I don't really know for sure. I thought I'd done a very good job of isolating from anyone that I thought had the virus, but come Saturday, I started to feel all the effects that you feel and Sunday tested positive. Unfortunately I didn't win that one.

Q. Obviously you're not the only college head coach to have this; based on your experiences and everything that you've dealt with, especially over the last couple of days, what's your message to college football and the importance of understanding how easily this virus can spread?

JEFF BROHM: You know, I think that's the one thing about this virus that really puts a stranglehold on a lot of us is how easy it does spread, and when you talk about masks, when you talk about keeping socially distanced, when you talk about making sure you're careful where you go and who you're around and the amount of people and you're careful about when you're indoors especially doing that - when you're outdoors I think it's a little safer - you have to take those precautions. Until a vaccine becomes available, we're kind of stuck in this predicament. I think each person needs to do their part. Each person needs to understand that whatever they believe or don't believe, it's important that you not only protect yourselves but the others around you. We all need to do that, especially those that are in an office building. You've got to be careful if you're going to be in an office building with people that you're not around them for a long period of time, you're wearing a mask as well as they are, and you're very cautious when those things happen, and if anyone has any symptoms whatsoever, you need to isolate away from people and work remotely.

So that's the main thing I've learned is this thing is highly contagious, and while I'm not a doctor and understand how all those things work, I firmly believe it's highly contagious, and I've learned that by just watching this virus develop amongst a lot of others around me and then now taking it over on me.

Q. Mike, first of all, have you had any conversations with the Big Ten regarding Jeff's situation? And what are you hearing back from the league regarding this game? Is there any discussion that the game could get canceled if some other things do happen?

MIKE BOBINSKI: At this point, there's been no conversation about potential cancellation of the game. Obviously not ideal to not have Jeff as our head coach available, but that has not been something that triggers a game cancellation or even remotely have we approached that topic. On our daily Big Ten call this morning, I did let everyone know in a wear that I could share sort of where things were with Jeff and what our approach was, and we continue to follow the protocol as it's outlined and we will do so. Obviously if there are any ways to allow Jeff to participate in the coaching of the game on Saturday from a remote perspective, if that is somehow, some way permissible, technology-wise or otherwise, we will explore that in every way possible, but at this point there is no definitive determination on that.

Q. We saw where Nick Saban tested positive initially, then had two or three negative tests in a row. Is that a procedure that the Big Ten and Jeff could follow this week that potentially could maybe get him back Saturday?

JEFF BROHM: It is not. That is not how our process works. We've got a different day-in, day-out protocol than the Southeastern Conference or the ACC or the Big 12. We're doing a different program here that began on September 30th, and the backbone of that is the daily testing. Obviously someone referred to the 21-day sit-down for a student-athlete that tests positive. That is, in fact, the case. But from a staff perspective it is -- we have all agreed across the league to follow the CDC guidelines, which is the 10-day isolation, and then you return once you've had a -- after the 10-day period, assuming you've had a 24-hour symptom-free period, you can then return to activity. That is the program we're following.

Q. Mike, you mentioned earlier that there were no positive cases among student-athletes, so does that mean all the active cases that are listed in the weekly updates are all staff members and coaches? Also, what athletes are actually getting the day-to-day testing? Is it just football and basketball? Is it all fall athletes, or is it every single athlete?

MIKE BOBINSKI: Well, the daily reports cut across all of our -- the weekly reports cut across all of our sports. They are not highlighted by sport, so those are aggregate numbers, so there's a smattering of different -- whether it be student-athletes and/or staff and/or student managers and others. There's a variety of folks that are wrapped up in that, and we don't specifically identify, nor will we. I did mention earlier that we've had zero football student-athletes test positive when we began the daily testing. That continues to be the case, so that is -- that's where we are with that. I'm sorry, I missed the second part of your question.

Q. I was just wondering is it just basketball and football getting these day-to-day tests or is it every --

MIKE BOBINSKI: Yeah. Right now it is just football that's in the daily antigen testing. The two basketballs, men's and women's basketball, will begin no later than early next week. We believe that the additional equipment and testing kits to support basketball should arrive here this week, and then we'll -- we and all the other Big Ten schools will begin testing our basketball programs as soon as everything is in place and ready to go, but that's probably about a week away.

Q. Coach Brohm, you mentioned a couple of times that players have been making -- you praised players' efforts for trying not to contract the virus. Can you talk a little bit about what the players specifically have been doing to make sure that they don't contract the virus?

JEFF BROHM: Well, I think our players really have done a great job. It really is nothing more than making sure that they isolate from big gatherings. It's making sure that if they do happen to go around a group of people, hopefully it's not big, but if there's a group of people you need to have your mask on and you need to make sure that you keep the proper social distance. You need to probably make sure that what you would normally do throughout the course of a fall in college, you're probably going to have to cut back on that activity if you want to make sacrifices and keep yourself healthy and keep your teammates healthy. A lot of those things really you can talk about all you want, but sometimes it's hard to tell your players not to go enjoy themselves a little bit around some people and enjoy the company of others when maybe other students are doing that.

Them isolating themselves as much as they can, them making sure that they're cautious with the people that they're around, unfortunately, until we get over this virus has been very important, and I think by the results of our tests -- I'm very proud of them.

Q. Jeff, will you consider playing two quarterbacks Saturday, and secondly, if you're not on the sidelines Saturday, where are you going to be during the game?

JEFF BROHM: Well, yes, we will consider playing two quarterbacks on Saturday and we'll have a plan for that to happen. Does that mean the other quarterback will go in? Sometimes they don't. If something is going well and we feel good about where we're going and how things are going, sometimes that gets pushed off. We do think between the three quarterbacks competing now for a starting spot, which we have named one internally, the other guys have some different elements that we want to make sure that we have a plan together if we need a spark for the team.

As far as what I'm going to be doing game day, I really haven't thought that far down the road. I think trying to prepare and help our coaches as much as I can this week remotely is what I'm going to do, and then come game day I'll adjust from there.

Q. Jeff, obviously you said you'll be in contact with your coaches and your players somehow this week. What does that look like for you? Are you just going to be at home talking to them via Zoom, call, text? What does that look like for you?

JEFF BROHM: Well, unfortunately, yes, I'm going to be stuck in my house doing those things. I think I've got my laptop here, I'm able to watch practice, I'm able to make notes, I'm able to communicate those notes to our coaching staff. Yesterday I informed our team by Zoom of my situation before our team meeting, before practice, remotely. So really it's just a matter of continuing to study film, continuing to help our staff prepare, and then just really helping them navigating it where they can go out there and do their thing. I have the utmost confidence in our coaching staff on both sides of the ball and special teams, and I have the utmost confidence that our players are going to go out and play hard no matter who is leading the charge come game day. I think normally that's the sign of a good team because it doesn't matter whether you lose one or two or three guys or coaches, you continue to press forward and showcase what you're all about.