Iowa Week Press Conference

Coming off of the OT win this week the normal Tuesday press conference was held on Monday. Something to do with fall break I’m told. That just means it’s Christmas come early! All the Darrell Hazell quotes you can handle!

Opening Statement

Obviously a good win for us on Saturday afternoon. I thought our guys handled a lot of different situations pretty well. There are always things to improve upon, but they really responded when they had to to be able to get the victory. So I was proud of them.

Looking forward to this one. Iowa is a good football team. Well-coached, very disciplined, physical. We're going to have to beat them. They don't beat themselves. They're a good football team. Looking forward to it.

Captain's breakfast for us, our fourth annual captain's breakfast, so we'll have about anywhere between 30 and 40 captains back.

Looking forward to kicking off 12:01 on Saturday.

An update on Domo Young

Domo, we still haven't been able to get an MRI on him. He's still in a little bit of pain, but his spirits are good. Soon as we get an MRI we'll know for sure where he is injury-wise.

An update on the other injuries to Jones, Lankford-Johnson, and Mosley

Yeah, be they're doing well, really well. It's still early in the week, but as they come in and get treatment and check in, we feel like they're all in pretty good shape right now.

Specifically on injuries to Jones and Bentley

We'll probably have them.

On the weekly award winners Lankford-Johnson and Dellinger

I was really happy for both of those guys. Obviously Lankford-Johnson had to step up in Markell's absence and did a nice job. I thought he really did a good job with some patients in the hole and then being able to make a couple bursts. Made some guys miss. I thought he ran physical enough for us and he did a good job stepping in.

J.D., can't be more happy for that guy. He's had some struggles this year already, and he went out there and hit that last one with a lot of confidence and hit it right down the middle. He was jacked up after that kick.

How do you handle a struggling kicker?

Well, I asked him last week after the Maryland game what happened on the kick that he missed there. He started giving me a bunch of details. I said, J.D., you're a good kicker; just go out and kick. That's what he did. He's made those kicks hundreds of times in practice with a lot of confidence all over the field, from the hashes, from the middle of the field, from different distances, so I was happy to see him be able to step up and bang that one through.

On the wildcat formation Purdue ran

Ours is called the Amtrak, not the Wildcat, but always be in the package each week.

How you handle those late hit penalties

Yeah, they have to understand, which they do, that the white hat is going to protect the quarterback at all costs. If it's close, they're going to call it. That's been the talk for the last two, two and a half years in all the officials meetings and Big 10 head coach meetings. They are going to protect the quarterback.

If there is ever any doubt, just going to pull off. That's what you have to do that better.

Obviously crossed the line there, and so Coach Melvin pulled him out and we held him out. He was in for one play, I believe. I think it was the field goal block that he came back in for. We took care of some things last night as a team for those types of things.

What will the team do with The Cannon?

Yesterday at 4:30 or so it was in or DFO's office. We're trying to figure out the exact place we need to put that, but it was good to have it in our building, that's for sure.

What does having Bilal in the “Amtrak” do for the team?

I think it gives a couple things: One, he's a good player with the ball in his hands. We know that. I think it also makes defenses prepare for something else. If they can take 10, 15 extra minutes preparing for the Amtrak, that means they're not preparing for other parts of our offense.

I think that's part of he element of having that in our package. But we can do some things because he can throw it. He was a quarterback coming out of high school. We know he can run it. He had a great run the other day. That second down run was big. I thought he was trapped for a two-yard gain, and he ends up getting nine on the play.

It was a big run for us.

Assessing David Blough

Missed a couple easy ones that he has to hit. Missed a flat throw on a big third down to Brycen/Bryson. [Phonetic] he missed a, for the lack of term, an outcut to Yancey to their sideline. He missed a couple other easy ones.

I felt like he was calm the entire day. He just missed them. He's doing a nice job for us. I really like where he is. Got to hit those shots though.

Name of the formation with the two lineman out wide

What's it called? Polar Express. No idea why we call it Polar Express. It's another train, right?

Nice train theme they having going on here.

Uniform choice for Saturday

Going to wear gold helmets, black shirt, and gold pants.

Update on Martesse

No, I can't tell you anything right now. Hopefully at some point in time we can give you some news, but I don't know anything I didn't know three days ago.

Playing in tight games

I think next seven games are going to be exactly the same. We're going to be in tight battles, three minutes left in the game, two minutes left. It was great to see us be able handle that situation.

That game of the crazy the last three minutes of that football game. We stop them; we get it back. I really feel good about our two-minute situation that we always work every Wednesday. We're going to go down to be able to kick a field goal.

All of a sudden we get a deflected pass. It's picked off. Now you got to play defense at mid-field. They make a couple first downs and get themselves in field goal position, and we come up with a big stop there.

It was a great effort on that field goal block unit, by the field goal block unit that they missed. Great effort.

Then you go down and make a couple big runs with Richie and then you kick it into overtime. I think that's the way it's going to be. I just really do. We got to handle all those situations and stay calm and be able to close the game.

So there you have it. Nothing extremely enlightening but the injury updates are much appreciated.