Coach Speak(s): Maryland Edition

After the opening statement this is how it starts. Not ideal.

Q. The depth chart, can you give any updates on guys, like will we see Lorenzo this week, do you think?HEAD COACH JEFF BROHM: No Lorenzo Neal. He’ll be out. Who else?

Q. Looks like Sheffield and Rice?HEAD COACH JEFF BROHM: Sheffield’s out.

Q. Rice.HEAD COACH JEFF BROHM: That’s too early to tell. Anthony Watts is out.

Q. What about -- Sparks is still out, too?HEAD COACH JEFF BROHM: That one, too early to tell.

Q. Any chance we would see a Richie Worship?HEAD COACH JEFF BROHM: We’re working hard to get him back. I wouldn’t count on it but we’re working hard to get him and Tario back. They have both been able to practice a little bit. I am hopeful at some point, but no, I would doubt this week.

On the changes coming to the offensive line:

Well, you know, we want to try to still have some competition but definitely try to maybe start to settle on some guys we feel good about. I think Grant Hermanns has the most experience up front, him and Matt McCann. Those two guys have to play well for us in order for us to do well.

Then when you look beyond that, I think Will Bramel is going to be a good player. We want to create some competition there. Eric Miller played a little bit. Those guys will both play at that position. I think at the left guard position, Mark Stickford as of right now will get the nod, depending how practice goes, and Alex Criddle will play, as well. Those guys will rotate. You saw Jimmy McKenna at the very end. We’ll see how he practices this week at the center position.

Victor has been injured all year. He hasn’t practiced hardly at all, and I think he gives us his all during the game, but he can’t function the way he normally would if he was healthy, and it’s hurt us.

So we’re going to let Sam go out there and play as hard as he can and see how that goes and he’ll be backed up by Bramel and Victor, and wouldn’t surprise me if you see those guys play but we’re going to give Sam a shot to go out there healthy.

I think just Victor’s health has hurt him where we want to -- we’ve got to be careful how we practice him, which we have been and we just have to make sure that he’s ready to go, as well.

Q. You had Marc listed on your depth chart --HEAD COACH JEFF BROHM: He’s out. He’s out. He got hurt the first play. He was scheduled to start and didn’t make it to the first play.

Q. Is that long-term or week-to-week?HEAD COACH JEFF BROHM: It’s going to be a while. I don’t know how long it will be, but it will be a little while.

Q. Is Anthony Watts a long-term injury?HEAD COACH JEFF BROHM: It’s at least going to be a while. We’ll know more after an MRI today.

More on the O-Line:

You know, I like our group. They are working hard. They are trying to get better. We are not where we need to be. That’s a fact. I think that early in the game, Matt McCann got off late on the cadence and guy ran around him, you know, because of the noise and the sound count and the building, that got us off to a bad start.

When we got down 28-0, you have to truly pass protect and drop back more than you like to, which we went into the game not want to go do that because we knew these guys were good up front.

We got beat. You know what, some guys do a good job, and it just seems on every play there’s one guy that’s having a hard time and that’s the thing that’s getting exposed. You know, you’ve just got to continue to work at it. I think they are working hard, and got to figure out ways to put them in better positions to succeed. We thought we had a decent plan going into the game of not dropping back and pass protecting the whole game and mixing in a lot of screens and moving the pocket and playaction, but when you’re down that fast, the playaction kind of goes out the window to a certain degree. We still hit a couple of them, but it was a long day and it was not a good day up front.

On the 4 game redshirt rule:

Well, we’re playing a lot of young guys. So there are some that aren’t ready that are getting closer, and yes, they are going to -- there are probably going to be more guys playing as we go through the season. We just don’t want to put them in for a few plays. We want to make sure if someone goes down or that position is really, really struggling, they will go in.

Otherwise, want to continue to get them ready and we get towards the middle of the season, or even now if we need them, they will play, because you can play and sit out a game or two if you have to to still keep that redshirt.

But if guys are going to play, they are going to play and if we need them, we are going to play them. There’s no question about that. But we’re going to be smart with guys that still need some development and you have to be careful throwing out guys before they are ready because you can lose confidence.

Even King (ph), I don’t want him to lose confidence. He’s a really good runner and we haven’t been doing a good job of creating holes and openings for him at times, so I don’t want him to lose confidence. I think you’ll probably see, you know, Hewitt enter the mix, as well, as we get going because we need more guys at that position.

Listen, it was bleak this week. So many injuries. Let’s hope next week there’s better news.