Notes from Pat Fitzgerald's Monday press conference:
- The depth chart will be released at 3:30 or 4 today, but we did get some injury updates: Kain Colter, Venric Mark and Matt Harris are all day-to-day. Daniel Jones is out for the year and will have knee surgery. Colter, we learned from Trevor Siemian at the post-game press conference, had a concussion. Fitz said today that Mark had a “lower body injury.” On Colter, Pat Fitzgerald said we’ll see during practice when he’s good to go.
- NU is practicing at Lakeside Field again this week. Fitz joked that it’s because he “likes the view,” but also said he likes the built-in distraction of having to bus over there.
- Dwight White looks like the next guy in to replace Daniel Jones. Fitz said White knew he would play in the dime package last Saturday, but was thrust into the starting role. C.J. Bryant and Matt Harris will also be in the mix at corner now.
- Fitz said the alumni tailgate at Berkeley was the largest NU has had since the Rose Bowl. That’s one thing we haven’t noted but should: the number of NU fans at Memorial Stadium was very impressive. They took up a whole corner. We’ve heard, unofficially, that there were around 7,000 NU fans there.
- Cal’s hurry-up offense seemed to take a toll on NU’s defensive line in the second half, and defensive tackle Chance Carter acknowledged that: “Basically, the third quarter, the whole defense played the whole quarter the whole time. We kind of ran out of gas.”
- The defense was on the field for 99 plays against Cal. Carter’s excited for Syracuse, which will presumably slow things down: “It will be good to get back to a regular pace offense.”
- Harris was the only true freshman to play on Saturday, and he got hurt on the opening kickoff. Fitz said it reminded him of when he got lit up against Boston College in 1993.
- Tony Jones on his touchdown: “Trevor really gift-wrapped that one for me.”
- Carter on Ellis: “It’s kind of different seeing those country boys come up to the big city. You’ve gotta love those country people.” As an Iowan, I love when Ellis’s song choices come on the iPod at practice.
- Paul Jorgensen was impressed with the young guards on offense, especially on the first drive. He thought the line played well, especially in run-blocking at the end of the game: “That was awesome to get it done with three minutes left and run the clock down.”