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PURDUE UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 21, 2010

Danny Hope

THE MODERATOR: Welcome to week four of Purdue football, the Boilermakers will be taking on Toledo this weekend.

Q. First off, the injuries you're dealing with, any change in that? Anybody getting healthy?
COACH HOPE: Well, Kevin played a lot in the game the other day. Played a significant amount of snaps. That was good, got him back. We feel good about Robert Marve. We'll get to test out Al-Terek and Keith Carlos a little bit this week.
And they're kind of in the same boat that Kevin Pamphile was in last week, where you would test them out and see how sore they get. Give you an idea whether or not you'll have a chance to get them ready to go or not. So I don't know on those two guys.

Q. You mentioned Robert should be good to go?
COACH HOPE: Yes.

Q. And then the way that Henry has produced for you guys, can you kind of talk about that and the way he's come through for you early on?
COACH HOPE: Not really surprised because he did very well in spring. He was still learning the offense, and working real hard on the passing part of it. We went live on him, and he handled it very well. He manufactured drives in live situations and was really cool and calm and had great composure.
So I'm not surprised to see him being successful in the games because we went live on him in the spring, and he was real successful.
He's a great talent. You know, a guy on the team that the other players believe in as well. So when he's in there, that's a good thing. Great to see him get the opportunity. It helps us offensively because he's going to have to play some, and the more he plays now the better off we're going to be.
So was really happy for him, and it helped our football team. Helps us win, and helps us get better for the future too.

Q. You're facing a Toledo team that I think has won two games in a row on the road, they're trying to make it three. They seem to have an opportunistic defense forcing a lot of turnovers. Can you talk about that?
COACH HOPE: They're wide open on defense. They bring a lot of pressure, they do a lot of the same things they did last year. They're just much better at it this year, more of a veteran defense, and very confident and play with an aggressive attitude. They bring pressure from everywhere, and they do it from a lot of different looks.
So it's a real test for your quarterback and your offensive front. Trying to get hats on all the guys that they're bringing and they bring enough to help them manufacture some big plays for them. They bat some balls and they force some throws. As a result of that, they've been on the good side of the turnover part.

Q. Lastly, Michigan State coach suffered a heart attack over the weekend. I know there's been some talk in the past that the stress of the coaching profession can kind of lead to things like that. There have been some issues with Urban Meyer too. From your perspective, is your profession more stressful than others? Does it lead to something like that?
COACH HOPE: Probably so. You guys can be nicer and make it a lot easier (laughing). Just kidding you, just kidding you. We're all amongst friends here.
But it's very stressful. The hours, it's total life consuming. During the season if it was an 80-hour week, a short week, and you usually dip into the 100-hour week. Those aren't exaggerations, those are legit, and it goes on for hundreds of days in a row.
The bigger it gets, the bigger it gets and the more there is. So it is total life consuming, and it is fast-paced, and it's a stressful occupation in a lot of ways.

Q. Have you been in contact with Coach Dantonio in terms of texting him? Are you guys close at all? Do you know him very well?
COACH HOPE: I haven't contacted him personally, no. We sent a message to him.

Q. To follow up how do you alleviate stress on the job? As you said, it's all consuming. What do you do to get away from it, maybe take your mind off of it from bits and pieces here and there?
COACH HOPE: I don't do anything other than work. So I guess maybe the fun that we have on the practice field and being around the guys is an outlet in some ways or a defense mechanism in some ways for me it is.
I like the physical part of the game and the camaraderie part of the game, and the emotional part of the game. I have a lot of fun with those phases of it. So those are an outlet.
But I personally don't do anything other than work during football season and recruiting season. I don't have any hobbies. I will take some time off for some vacation time throughout the course of the year and fish some and spend time with family.
But it's life consuming if you want to compete and if you have the aspirations to be the best. There are always some big challenges. So it's life consuming, no question about it.

Q. More about this Toledo team. At least statistically it looks like a team that's struggling on offense and struggles against defending the pack. Is that what jumps out at you when you watch them on tape?
COACH HOPE: Offensively they're different than they were last year. Last year they came out and they were really hard to stop because they were very polished in the passing game.
They still have really good potential from a passing game standpoint. They're just not as far ahead as they were this time last year. They came out and threw, I think, for 400-some yards of offense against us.
That quarterback is gone, and that receiver is gone. I think he's playing in the league and a really great running back. And they've got some new guys. They're kind of like us, they're learning and growing as the season goes on.
So they're a little different than they were last year from a throwing and catching standpoint, but from a schematic standpoint and what they hang their hat on, they're very similar to what they've done in the past.
They present some problems with the shotgun run game, featuring the quarterback. We didn't defend that quite as well last week, you know against Ball State, so that presents a challenge to our defense. And also with that comes a great opportunity for us to step up some defensively and develop.
I thought going into the game last week knowing that Ball State had ran the power play 53 times in two games, and that's not something that we had fared that well against the last two years. For us to go out there and get after their power game, their power run game and to shut it down to where it was minimal yardage was a big step for our football team.
We got to defend some other things better. So hopefully this week we can shut down the power game and really play well against the zone read, and that's going to be a challenge for us defensively.

Q. After Saturday's game you were asked about continuity and trying to build continuity when you're so injury riddled at certain key positions. Is it next to impossible to build that continuity, and do you just hope certain guys at certain positions learn on the fly when you throw them into the fire?
COACH HOPE: Well, it's more key at different positions. Continuity on the offensive line is really key. That is probably the most critical position on the football team where continuity is the biggest factor, and we play the same five guys almost every rep now since the first day of camp.
So I see us getting better on the offensive line and really developing on the offensive line starting to have some continuity. I think Dennis Kelly is playing way better than he did last year, and I think Peters Drey is a really good center. He's got a great future ahead of him here. Also, Nick Mondek is starting to figure it out. So those guys have been in there and there's some continuity on the offensive line.
The skill positions on the offense, because of the injuries, we've had to shuffle things around and get guys lined up in positions where we could utilize their talents to manufacture offense. But that is the part of offense, anyway.
You usually don't have one guy that goes out there and repeats the same type of assignment or play over and over again at the skill positions offense. So that is kind of part of our offense anyways, multiple groupings and formations style of offense. So that really didn't put us outside of our comfort zone other than we had to take some new guys and put them into positions they hadn't played at before.
But we really believe we can run almost any one of our plays out of any formation that we have in the playbook out of any grouping personnel if you can learn your rules and be able to apply them. That's almost 100% true. That is one of the goals to the back bone of our offensive playbook, the task carryover. So even though it was a task, it should have made sense.

Q. You feel like you won't have quite a big of a puzzle to put together this week because Ross and Edison now have played back there a little bit? You have a few more answers and you can go different directions?
COACH HOPE: Obviously we want to utilize them more. They're very good football players. They bring speed to the field. We have more team speed right now than we have had the last couple of years.
But these guys are low rep guys. They're really good football players. They were good football players the day they stepped on campus. They made plays in practice that made you think they could help your football team right away.
They're players. They're really good players and they bring speed to the field. So we'll try to manufacture other ways offensively to feature those guys some. They've stepped up and proven they can do it.
We have a good arsenal right now offensively with Robert Marve, and Rob Henry and Justin Siller and Cortez Smith and O.J. and Antavian, and the guys that we have we're going to get back here in the next couple of weeks. We have a good arsenal from a potential standpoint offensively.
Our tight ends are playing well right now. They're playing physical on the line of scrimmage. They've been catching most of the passes that have been thrown to them. Haven't accrued as many yards after the catch as we'd like, but they've been very physical on the line of scrimmage. I think that's helped our run game a lot, and it's also helped our protection some because we kept them in a little bit.
So I still think that there is great potential for us offensively. Even though we've done some great things, I'm not concerned about the stats. The development part of it, I see us getting better and better, and I think we can really be high scoring and a potent offense sometime this season.

Q. Can you sort of point to them the first quarter and say this is what we're capable of doing if we have good tempo?
COACH HOPE: Certainly. Want to point it out to them and the whole world. We're really excited to go out there and manufacture the first two drives. I believe we had at the beginning of the game, we had 23 plays, and out of the 23 plays, 20 of them were plays that were consistent for the offense. I mean, we had enough yardage on that particular down and distance for us to consider it to be a successful play.
That is pretty good percentages. You're batting 90-something percent efficiency offense. And that's good against a scout team. That's good if you lineup and run those plays against air. So to do it in a game against a tough, hard-nosed, getting after it Ball State football team I thought was a great sign for the progress and development we've made offensively.
As the game went on, people started getting nicked up a little bit more. Robert got nicked up, and Trent got nicked up, and Danny was having some troubles from a physical standpoint, injury standpoint. We got a little bit disjointed as far as who to get in there to manufacture what it is we came to play with that day from a play calling standpoint.
But they still went out there and did a heck of a job. Had 200 yards rushing the second week in a row for the first time since 2005. So I think it was good. Very good on our offense.

Q. You started to tell us about probably the health status of Dierking and McBurse, can you tell us if they're going to get better during the week here?
COACH HOPE: I think Danny is going to be okay. We'll know as the week goes on, and Al-Terek, and Keith Carlos are in the same boat where they should be ready here in the next couple of weeks.
We'll take them out and practice and see how sore they get. If they get real sore, we'll see how long it takes to cool off. If they can bounce back and do it again and then be cooled off by game time, we'll think about playing them some.
But if they go out and get so sore that they can't get cooled off before game time, we won't play them. We have to test them a little bit.

Q. I know you don't like to look too far ahead, but presuming you get through this week without any injuries, will the bye come for you at a good time, giving these guys that are nicked up a chance to rest a little?
COACH HOPE: It comes at a great time. It's part of helping us get ready to play well this weekend. There is a big light at the end of the tunnel. We talked about how we went about our business, you know, the three weeks after the Notre Dame game, being at home, and we're winning.
So it's so important that we're ready to play and we play well enough to win this weekend. To get three wins that row and be 3-0 at home would help build some confidence and some momentum for our football team.
Then we've put a lot into it. A very demanding summer, a lot of guys here paid a heck of a price this summer. Obviously it was very hot in camp and we were getting ready to play Notre Dame at Notre Dame with 20 guys that have never been in a game before.
The guys really extended themselves. First time being here at school and playing and learning and growing and developing here in the last three weeks. So the bye week comes at a perfect time.
If we can play well this Saturday and stay focused in game momentum. And we have areas earmarked that we have to play better at. And there are simple things, simple things that we did pretty good at in the game last Saturday. But we want to get real good at them, and we know there is another chance this week to take those steps and some of those earmarked areas.
If we do those things and we play well enough to win, then we go into the bye week with a great frame of mind and feeling good about ourselves with a chance to heal up at the same time.
So it is a big week this week. It is easy to get excited about this week. And the weather's going to be good. We've had a bunch of fans out. The players have had a lot of fun with that. We've had great crowds, tremendous following from the student body. They've been out there early and in full force, and our guys have really had a lot of fun with them.
So it's been fun playing football in Ross-Ade stadium here on Saturdays. We look forward to it.

Q. How has Cortez developed over the last year?
COACH HOPE: Well, I thought he was doing great. From the beginning of last season end of last season, he went from a guy that we didn't think would get on the field. We were thinking about red shirting him because he came in physically underdeveloped from a strength standpoint.
He got out there on the field last year, and he had really good control of his body, and good ball skills and had some personal pride about him as far as wanting to be a play maker and blocking and lining up. Doing what he's supposed to be doing and giving good effort.
So he developed fast last year. At the end of the season he developed into one of the better offensive players that we had, better receivers. He really worked hard this summer. Maybe one of the hardest working guys over the summer and developed a lot physically.
He was in great shape when camp started. Then he accrued a couple of injuries, I think he had a bruised tailbone coming into camp. That's not a lot of fun in camp because that's when all the scrimmages and stuff are going on, and bodies are flying around i the heat. And he got stalled up a little bit. Couldn't practice like he wanted to. He still practiced, but didn't practice like he wanted to from a speed standpoint. Then he got the ankle injury.
So I was really excited about what I saw him do the other day. He finished runs and he played fast, and he caught the ball and he turned up field. He didn't look like he was ginger on an ankle or injured anymore. He looked more like we thought he was going to look.
He's faster than most people think. If we get him in some open space some this season with the football in his hand, he'll make some people stand up and watch.
I think he can run in the 4.4's. He's got some speed about him. He just hasn't been able to show it yet. I thought he showed a little bit, some the other day. He was striding out pretty good on that one deflected reception that he had.

Q. Did Robert have an MRI? Was it a tweak thing, or did he get precautionary help?
COACH HOPE: It's a tweak thing. But I can't elaborate on medical procedures and all that kind of stuff. He tweaked his knee.

Q. I don't know if you've had a chance to look at Malcolm Riley at all for Toledo, he's a defensive tackle?
COACH HOPE: Their defensive front is good. They're aggressive. They move their defensive front. They slant and angle their defensive front. They bring blitzes. When they're brings blitzes that allows the defensive line to slant and angle. They're doing a very good job with that.
They have quick feet. He and all the other guys across the front four, they're quick-footed. They have good size. They're 6'3", 280 on the inside. Their ends are athletic. They have athletic bodies that play hard and have good get off.
So I think they have a good defensive front, and he's a good player. They're an aggressive defense playing with confidence right now, so our offense is going to have to show up.

Q. Another question about Cortez. He's a guy that you signed late at the end of the signing period. How did you find him?
COACH HOPE: Well, we'd already been to that junior college and signed one player there. He was a guy that was kind of on the list and called around looking and asking. And some people knew him, and coach knew someone that knew him. They said the right things about him, and he was a good player on film. He just was a little bit underdeveloped.
He's from the same hometown that Gerald Gooden is from. And we asked Gerald about him, and he gave him a good reference as far as the kind of teammate that he would be. But we needed a receiver really bad.
We had some little guys come in, and some little guys and medium-sized guys with speed that we had signed. We knew those guys would be good players.
We knew Gary Bush was going to be a good player, and Antavian was going to be a good player. But we had to get some size in there in the receiving corps as well, and that was one of the things we were attracted to him about.
None of those guys had any experience coming in. The smaller guys or medium sized guys, if you will, that we signed mostly out of Florida a year ago. And the junior college guy can sometimes adapt to it easier.
Max Charlot is a good example. He didn't get here until camp started. We would have liked to have gotten him here earlier. He was able to move ahead of a couple freshmen because he is a little bit older, and stay ahead of a couple talented freshmen.
I thought that happened some for Cortez last year. He was a little older. He got into the lineup, a little more comfortable, more mature. He was able to adapt and start off a little bit better than the younger guys.

Q. When he's healthy, could he be that deep threat that you want out there?
COACH HOPE: I think he can be a deep threat. I don't think there's any question about that. O.J. Ross can be a deep threat. I think that Gary Bush can be a deep threat. I think all those guys run well. I probably left someone off the list.
But those are guys that I wouldn't have any problem sending vertical down the field and believing they can get behind a defender.
Now if they lineup 10, 12 yards off, it's a little harder to get behind them. But these guys have the speed to get vertical. We can have a vertical passing game. Some of it we haven't went to because we didn't want to. And couple times we've gone to it, we didn't connect. But there's been some reasons why.

Q. Is there any update on Ralph Bolden?
COACH HOPE: He's going to start practicing a little bit more. Trying a few more things in practice. Again, it's a little bit different that injury that he has than the injuries these other guys are trying to come back with.
Al-Terek's injury if it's not ready to go, it won't set him back for long. It wasn't a surgical thing or anything like that. Ralph's was a much more serious injury, so it will take him a little longer to test it out.
Again, we don't want to put him out there unless he's fully healthy and can go and that he's going to be comfortable with it from a confidence standpoint. So I don't see him playing any time in the next two or three weeks. I don't see that happening.
I wouldn't rule him out for the season, because he's starting to push himself more, and he's more comfortable with it now and doing more with it. But he's not getting scrimmage reps out on the practice field yet. He's just moving around a little bit, but he looks good doing it. That's how far along he is right now.

Q. You played Reggie Pegram on the special teams, but we haven't seen him in the back field. With all the injuries, is he still a guy that you might turn to?
COACH HOPE: He is, and we might turn to him some this week because he is a physical runner and a good inside runner. Right now if Crank's healthy, he's a physical guy, big, strong, physical running back that I thought did a great job in the game the other day. I thought he came out there and really laid some big hits.
He had come out of the game because of the injuries and then go back in four or five plays later, and didn't slow him down a bit. I thought he was a guy that showed a lot of courage. But we don't have very many big, physical backs right now that are available.
So Reggie, we're getting him ready to go. We didn't need him last week with what we had going with O.J. and Antavian was enough, and we didn't have to play Reggie.
We want to make sure we were hanging on to the football, so we put some more experienced players in the game. But we're getting Reggie ready to go, absolutely. He could play this weekend.

Q. Do you expect Robert to be limited at all in practice in terms of being careful with the knee?
COACH HOPE: I think he'll be a little limited in practice. A bad bruise. And bruises take a couple of days to go away, so he'll be maybe somewhat limited a little bit early in the week. But I anticipate him full speed and ready to go this weekend.

Q. I know it was a quarterback sneak, but any chance you'll reemphasize that whole being careful thing, or have you given up on that considering the type of player he is?
COACH HOPE: No, we won't give up on it. He'll, like any other quarterback, the more he plays, the more he'll grow and develop and the more good decisions he'll make.
There is a lot of different areas from the quarterback standpoint that you love to see them take those steps and the light to come on. You know, getting the ball out of your hand in a hurry, and if you never get your quarterback to take a sack, you're taking a huge step as a quarterback. Then, obviously, teaching the quarterback to protect himself.
I like the way he goes out playing a game. He plays to win. He's a physical player. He finishes runs. He's an emotional player. He plays that way, and that's good for our football team. So I certainly trust him.
We'll continue to school him up a little bit as far as taking care of himself. But I love the way he plays.

Q. Defense has been pretty solid this season. Aside from Kerrigan's ability to pressure the quarterback, what has this defense done on an exceptional level so far?
COACH HOPE: He's done a good job of going out and playing hard. Even though we're not as physical as we want to be yet, we went out and played hard with a lot of young guys. I looked out there the other day and we were playing against a physical Ball State offensive line. It was running the power, trying to run the power play and trying to establish a run game.
We had Bruce Gaston out there who is a freshman, and Justin Kitchens, he's a red shirt freshman, and Kevin Pamphile out there who is another red shirt freshman. So those are three guys that are brand-new. Three big, good looking strong guys. That when we looked at the film on Sunday they had taken some steps in regards to coming off the ball and playing more physical at the line of scrimmage.
They're not there yet, okay. But they made some progress. And when you can make progress in that area again this week. We've been talking about it for the last four weeks with our defensive front, and we're getting a little bit better every Saturday.
But the light's starting to come on. So I think Kerrigan is certainly a dominant player, but I think all of our defensive front is starting to play better. And I've been really pleased with the production of our secondary. It will come up again.
You don't really stop the pass. That's why people do it. That's why you only have to throw 60% completion percentage for the offense to think they're successful. You don't have to stop it; you have to go out there and defend it.
I think for the most part defensively we're doing a pretty good job defending the pass, but I see our young defensive backs making plays and playing hard, you know, tackling, and getting after it, and not making a whole lot of mistakes. Playing pretty close to the receiver a lot of times. And every one of those guys has a role, and they're all making some contributions.
So I think we've made a lot of progress defensively. We disrupted the ball some the other day. We got some takeaways, so that was big. We played pretty well most of the time this season when the field was short, when our back was to the wall a little bit.
We have experienced linebackers that I think can play even better. But I think we're doing a better job playing downhill right now. We've taken some steps from a physicality standpoint, but we're not where we want to be at yet. That's for sure. But we've taken a lot of good steps, lot of good things defensively.

Q. Statistically, kick return, punt return game struggling a little bit. Are you concerned and will there be changes?
COACH HOPE: I don't anticipate any changes other than we have to spread some personnel around a little bit. We did okay the other day. We had two shanked punts which makes your stats a little ugly. We've had shorter shanked punts than what we got the other day, but they're still shanked punts. It gave us bad field position defensively.
But for the most part we did pretty well on special teams. Ball placement-wise we had some touchbacks and guys that sprinted down the field and covered well. Towards the end of the game, we had some guys that maybe we played too much.
You said you got to get more starters on there. Well, we do, but we have to be careful we don't put too many of our best freshmen on there.
All of a sudden you look at a guy like O.J. Ross who is on everything. He's kickoff return, covering kicks, catching the football, playing running back. Because all of a sudden he's emerging as the guy that can be a really special player here. All of a sudden you might go to the well too often.
So I think we need to look and don't ask some of our freshmen that are emerging as top players to be on everything we do out there on the field. Ricardo Allen might be the same way. We have to look and see how much he is not out there compared to some of the others.
I think that will help us take a look at some of those type of personnel adjustments possibly. But that's theoretically speaking. I don't see taking anybody off. I like the effort we're getting. Sometimes we don't always get it done, but we're not that far off.

Q. What has Bruce Gaston done well in his first three college games, including one as a starter?
COACH HOPE: He keeps trying hard. That is the best thing about him, because he has a ton of ability. He's a great kid, comes from a great family, and really has all the intangibles from a work ethic standpoint, want to standpoint.
Really loves to play the game, has a lot of fun being around his teammates. So he has a lot of redeeming qualities or lot of intangibles that I think will help him become a great, great player in his position.
Coming in as a freshman, he's a 300 pounder that can bench press about 400 pounds, and that gets you on the field quicker. When I look back over the years at some of the guys that came in and played really early.
Like Gene Mruczkowski came in as a guard and played really early. But he was a 400 pound bencher, and same thing with Chuck Giacobbe. If you play on the line of scrimmage and you're a 400 pound bencher when you get in the door, you can get on the field quicker.
So he's big, he's strong. He runs pretty good for a 300 pound guy. For a 300-pound guy he runs very well. He has to learn to come off the football and attack the man that he's lined up on a more consistent basis with more force, and more power and more punch. And he's a lot better now than he was a couple weeks ago.
He's young, and there is a lot of stuff that's moving around in front of you. So sometimes it's hard to land on your targets. So there is some room for improvement.
But he brings a lot of things to the table for us from a physical standpoint and from an intangible standpoint. He's a great talent. He'll be a great player here.
He's playing on the D line, in Division 1 football as a freshman. They don't cut block in Illinois high school football. So that is something new to you if you haven't experienced that before.
So there are a lot of things that you have to play through, and fight through, and he's doing a great job with it.

Q. I think you're one of ten schools in the country that hasn't yet lost a fumble, and I apologize in advance if that creates some kind of jinx this weekend?
COACH HOPE: I'll be looking for you after the game.

Q. Just because I said you're one of ten schools that hasn't lost a fumble. Is that a product of the off-season emphasis or experience?
COACH HOPE: I think it's a product of the emphasis, and also guys wanting to win. Our guys put great effort into it. Everybody's guys do, but I think this group here particularly the want to and the effort comes from them. We seldom have to coach effort with this bunch. They want to win.
They came to Purdue to win, and they believe we're going to win and we're going to win big, and they're ready to do their part.
I think it's from the emphasis, and the quality of people that we're coaching. They bought into it, and they do a great job with it in practice. We emphasize it all the time.
It is going to be even more important this week because Toledo is on the good end of the stick in regards to the turnover margin. They have intercepted and recovered fumbles. They're one of the nation's best in the takeaway part of it, and one of the nation's best in the turnover margin.
So it becomes even more important this weekend for us because we're playing a team that's really cashed in on that phase of the game. And that's one of the most important parts and most important factors in winning, you know.
So it's a difference maker for us, and it's going to be big this weekend because these guys are really good at it.
But our guys have taken some pride in it. They really have. We get pictures on the websites and all the stuff that's out there, and we collect them of our guys carrying the football to see where the ball is at. There were a lot of good pictures the last couple days that showed great ball security.
There was one picture that showed Rob Henry diving way up in the air to catch a bad snap somewhere. We print that out and hang that up somewhere. Giving them just the program, guys, look, he caught it and it almost landed back in the end zone.
So there is our daily awareness of it. And the good ones we've got we're putting together on a bulletin board or collage that shows guys the good pictures that come up. So we're having fun with it, and emphasizing it.

Q. I don't think we've asked you for a couple of weeks about Antwon Higgs, is he posed to come back?
COACH HOPE: He is. The problem is for Antwon from a playing time standpoint is there is some competition out there and helped me rearrange the linebackers some because of the number of secondary guys we have, that we feel have a parity from a playing standpoint. We play a lot of nickel, and that minimizes the linebacker play some.
He's kind of caught in that. He came back late. We have some other guys that are ahead of him. Not necessarily just at his position on the depth chart, but when you start ranking your linebackers, who is your best linebacker, who is your second best linebacker, third best linebacker?
Well, if you're not in the top four of those guys, if we're just playing base defense, you might not get in very much. If we're playing nickel and dime defense, it really reduces your odds of getting in.
The type of team that we opened up with was a team that we had to play a lot of nickel and dime with because they were a spread offense football team. So we started the season off that way.
He's buried a little bit in the depth chart. Not due to lack of effort. He's still practicing well. And there are times we think about putting him in there, but there are guys in there ahead of him that haven't played that much. So he's kind of in a catch 22 a little bit.

Q. Just to follow up on that, he can still red shirt. Is that something that's crossed your mind?
COACH HOPE: He can still red shirt. And if he doesn't play by a certain time this season, it's something that will cross my mind a little bit more.
The schedule has been good for us. We're developing a lot of young players, and we played at home. We haven't gotten into the conference part of the schedule yet, they're down the road. If we get some guys banged up, and it starts becoming real physical football, you know, we probably should start playing him.
That's a decision that's a long ways off. It hasn't crossed my mind that he doesn't play. But we're a long ways away to make a decision on that.
We get somebody dinged up and have to go play a really physical football team, we're putting Higgs in there.

Q. Another guy we haven't talked about is Jonathan Linkenheimer. Is he on the road to recovery?
COACH HOPE: Well, he hasn't -- they haven't done anything with it yet. He's been diagnosed, and he has a knee injury. At one point in time -- and there are different types of knee injuries -- we weren't sure he couldn't come back and maybe serve as a back-up kicker still.
So they waited a little while to see. He did to see how it would respond to cooling off. Normally when you have a knee injury, you don't go in and operate on it right away. They used to in the old days and the sooner you got on that thing the better off you were. But you want to let the swelling get down out of it first.
So now guys when they have significant knee injuries and have to have surgery, you wait a couple weeks. So sometimes if you wait a couple weeks it doesn't hurt that bad. You still need to get surgery.
But there was some consideration that you might still serve as a back-up kicker for part of the season. But I don't believe that's going to happen. I believe he's going to get his surgery scheduled and move on with it.
Be glad to get him back and get him going because he's a talent. He won't kick this year. He won't kick this year. We thought he still might, but I think they're going to go ahead and move on with the surgery sometime down the road.

Q. Most of the injuries have been on the offensive side of the ball. Does that put the pressure on the defensive unit to step up and really hold other offenses in check?
COACH HOPE: I don't think so. I wouldn't even come close to making that statement. We're a team and each guy is asked to go out there every day and to lead by example.
You know, Kerrigan's certainly a star. But he doesn't act like one; he just plays like one. That is one of the great things about him.
But we really don't have a team full of stars. We've got a lot of guys that could be stars before it's all said and done. There is some talent out there. But where we're at right now with so many young guys stepping up and some of our key players being out, we're not a team full of stars.
Everybody's got to step up. Everybody's got to lead by example and give a great effort, and our guys have done a heck of a job doing that. Putting the team first, everyone accepting their roles and sharing responsibilities and pulling for one another.
So that is the direction that we've been in and that is the direction we'll stay in, and that direction will allow us to continue to win.

Q. You had mentioned a moment ago Toledo's penchant for generating turnovers. Do you impress upon the guys the importance of taking care of the ball this week?
COACH HOPE: First thing on the list today when we go in there. It's been a difference maker for us so far. This time last year -- I don't know. You guys do the stats more than I do. Sometimes I only look at the scoreboard. You know, just watch them play and coach.
But I think this time last year we were somewhere at the very bottom from a turnover margin standpoint. Right now I think we're somewhere about the middle. So that is the significant improvement.
We're hoping at the end of the season we're somewhere up towards the front. We have to hang on to it and get a bunch more. But it hasn't been a big liability throughout the course of the season like it was this time last year. Great emphasis on it, and the credit goes to the players.

Q. Can you talk about what a pleasant surprise Logan Link has been for you this season?
COACH HOPE: He's a good football player. And a guy that I didn't know a whole lot about because he was a walk on buried down in the depth chart a ways. But he's a really smart guy, and he's always been a great effort guy.
As he's gotten older, he's filled out and he's gained some strength and he's gained some physicality. So he was -- out of necessity, we didn't have hardly anybody that played much at all in the spring, so he got his opportunities in the spring. And he came down and had some hits and he was where he was supposed to be at and broke up passes and made plays.
All of a sudden you realize, well, he's a good player and somebody that we can count on and rely on in the games. There is a big part to that. That is very, very important.
So he's very reliable. He's a great try-hard guy, he's a good athlete. He's got a good body. He tries to be a physical player. You can certainly count on him. He's done very well this year.

Q. It looks like he's pretty good against the run. You like him in the early downs of bringing him up a little bit?
COACH HOPE: We can do that. But he does a good job of reading his keys and pulling his trigger and coming downhill in a hurry. That is a big part of it. That was the big part the other day for our whole defense were the guys that played up on two feet. The linebackers and the safeties to read your keys and get downhill faster with more physical fits against the power play.
Some guys have a knack of doing it better than others. Logan has a little better knack for pulling the trigger quicker and getting him downhill. It make him a good player.
And he's smart. He gives you great effort. He's going to make hustle plays, and hustle plays with his ability and plays because he's smart.

End of FastScripts

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