Jeff Brohm Syracuse Game Week Press Conference

After a beatdown of epic proportions against Indiana State Purdue is now in preparation for their next game against Syracuse. So, Jeff Brohm stepped up to his contractually obligated press conference yesterday and faced the media. Here is just a sampling of what he said. If you’re so inclined you can read the whole transcript.

On the chemistry between AOC and Chuck Sizzle:

Well, I think those two have proven that they can make big plays. They are a big part of the offense. Just being consistent all year is going to be the key for them, and staying healthy.

You know, I think in order for us to continue to improve we got to get more and more guys involved and make sure that numerous guys can step up and make plays in key situations.

You’d love for another receiver to break through in a game and have over 100 yards receiving or something similar to that. I think they’re working hard, so we just got to continue to work through it and get guys as healthy as we can and go out there and try to help them make more plays.

On the D-line getting into the backfield and making plays:

Well, we got to continue to work through that. I think Branson Deen has the most experience. Had a pretty good game the last game, so he’s got to continue to make plays for us.

Jack Sullivan was able to make some plays as well. Kydran Jenkins has been a strong point to our defense. He is solid on the weak side of the defensive line, so any time he can create some big plays will help.

And then I think Scotty Humpich, probably wasn’t his best game the last game, but he has shown signs. He needs to emerge as a playmaker for us.

Then Nic Caraway, a bright young prospect. I think just the more he understands and plays the better he can be.

Injury updates to Broc Thompson and Mershawn Rice:

I think the status of those guys are about the same. Broc is going to be somebody we’ll have to manage all year and hope that he gets healthy.

He did the first game, kind of, you know, reinjured his knee a little bit, and that’s what he worked through. Wasn’t able to really go the last game. Played a few plays and had to take himself out.

Hopefully that can get better this week. You know, Mershawn Rice is getting healthier and he was able to play, and Semisi, we’ll see. Won’t be able to tell that until later in the week.

How does Purdue replace Jalen Graham:

Well, that’s the challenge we have right now. Jalen is a big part of defense. Done a great job for us. Probably our most valuable player on that side of the ball.

You’re able to kind of play a lot of different personnel sets with him in there because he’s a big athletic body that can play the run and the pass.

So right now we don’t quite have that type of body, so we’ve got to have a couple different ways to use that position versus teams that spread it out, versus certain personnels that mostly like we throw the ball.

Which I think we have some okay answers for that that I think will help us and get better that we were able to use in the last game. Now when we face running sets in personnels and have to get bigger, that’s where we have to have a good plan to — whether it’s moving Jacob Wahlberg over to that the Sam position, possibly Ben Kreul, or even Semisi if he’s healthy.

Right now just getting him back healthy will probably eliminate him from at that position.

That’s going to be the key, clogging things up in the run game with a bigger body.

Expectations of Chucky McSizzle when he committed from Iowa:

Well, fortunately for us, when we found out that Charlie was leaving Iowa, biggest advocate was Aidan O’Connell, so trusting what Aidan knew about Charlie was the best information we had. Aidan came through on what he said.

There wasn’t — it wasn’t like we were extremely smart and knowledgeable on the situation. We had watched some quick video of Charlie and his punt returns, he was really good on special teams, but there wasn’t a whole lot of video at receivers, but a few catches here and there.

But Aidan has a history with him. I guess maybe trained with him before and grow up around him and just kind of knew him very well. So we trusted Aidan’s past history with him. Really didn’t get him here until late, so not like we got a great look at him in spring.

Got him here late in the summer and he’s come in and done a really good job.

What can we expect from Syracuse and their 3-3-5 defense?

Well, that’s the issue. Their defense presents a lot of problems because it’s unique. It can have three guys on the line of scrimmage and a bunch of guys playing at different levels and bunch of guys attacking and blitzing from all over and just gives you a lot of looks.

If you look at the history of that defense and where it originated from, they’ve always given people problems. That’s going to be a challenge for us, is you’ve got to be able to see things after the snap, got to be able to see moving parts, block moving bodies. They’re not just going to be a traditional front and look that you can work against every week.

You’re going to have to work against what you’ve seen. But they have a lot of movement, and that normally presents problems for offense in general, especially offensive linemen.

Yes, it is a challenge, and you have to find a way to figure out a few big plays it create, but at the same time, you can’t have a bunch of negative plays. You’ve got to be patient enough to just work through it and get slight chunks of yards and hopefully get bigger chunks at times.

It will create problems for us.