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PURDUE UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 16, 2010

Danny Hope

THE MODERATOR: We'll go ahead and get started. Why don't you get us started.

Q. Hey, Danny, first off, the overall problems of Michigan State, the problems they present both offensively and defensively?
COACH HOPE: They present a lot of problems for us. They're a very good football team, and they don't make very many mistakes. We've turned the ball over some. We have to execute better in order to compete with a team that has a really good players like Michigan State does and a team that doesn't make very many mistakes. Really strong in the run game.
Their quarterback is a heck of a player. He's very accurate with his passes. He makes very few mistakes. A lot of good strong players up front in their defensive front seven. Play a lot of big, good defensive linemen. They're a fast football team and a physical football team, and they play very well in special teams. They're a very good football team. Probably one of the best teams that we've played to this point in time this year.

Q. What has Cousins shown this year? You mentioned his accuracy. He's just really emerged as a leader, hasn't he?
COACH HOPE: He has. I think he's always been that way. He's just more experienced and accomplished now. Really understands the offense. It's obvious he has a great handle on the play-calling and the execution of the offense and the -- to the detail of the letter. He's very accurate with his passes. They make very few mistakes. He makes very few mistakes.
They have big receivers that are fast, you know, I think, from a throwing and catching standpoint. It's going to be a challenge for our defense because from a physical standpoint they're very talented with what they have to throw and catch it with.

Q. And you mentioned the running attack. I know that Edwin Baker is averaging 6 1/2 yards a carry, which is among close to the best in the Big Ten. What does he do? What are his attributes?
COACH HOPE: He's a physical runner. He has a good offensive line that they execute what they do very well. I think the fact that they are a real threat from a passing standpoint. They can spread the field if they want to. You have to spread out and cover them, and it's harder to really load the box up against these guys because they pose such a threat as a passing team, and I think that aids his efforts as well. He secures the football well. They don't turn it over very often. He's patient with his reads and has good size and speed.

Q. And then with your quarterback, with Sean Robinson, he's -- obviously, he's struggled a little bit. Well, really he's put in there a little bit before his time. Is it tough to keep his spirits up, or is he self -- you know, that type of self-reliant anyway? How does he hold up knowing that in a lot of ways he really wasn't ready for what he's facing?
COACH HOPE: Well, he's more mature than a lot of other true freshmen football players that I've been around, and he worked really hard to prepare himself. So he doesn't have to look back and second-guess his efforts. And he's also mature enough to understand the quarterback position well enough to know that experience is a big part of it. We can't help the way it went down from an injury standpoint, and he prepared hard and did the best that he could, and he got better as a player.
He's still improving. We still have two games to play. He'll continue to play throughout the course of this season. So I think he should be encouraged by the great experience he's gotten this year. Never could he gain what he gained from this year with a redshirt season. I think he's grown a lot, and in the end result, he'll be wise beyond his years.

Q. Thanks, Danny.
THE MODERATOR: Cliff?

Q. Coach, can you talk about the mentality of your team heading into this game? Obviously, you've got to win these next two to be bowl eligible. What are you sensing from the guys at this point in terms of their approach to this, knowing what's on the line and where they have to go to get there?
COACH HOPE: I think we've been excited to play and ready to play against the quality opponents that we played the last couple of Saturdays, and they've really gone out there and played to win and played with a lot of heart and a lot of energy.
I think it's really obvious from how hard that we're playing on Saturdays that we want to win. We go to every game the second half of this season as a must-win situation. It won't be a whole lot different this weekend than it was last weekend or two weekends ago. It's a game that we have to win, and we know what we have to do in order to win. We just have to get those things done.
We've made some real progress as a football team in a lot of key areas that gives us some confidence that we can play and match it with anybody and have a chance to win on Saturdays. We'll get some players back and be able to create some continuity this week offensively, I believe, and I think that will be a huge shot in the arm for our football team.
So we're probably in better shape now, in regards to winning, even though the competition has gotten tougher again -- but it's been pretty tough the last couple of weekends. We played a great Wisconsin team, a really good Michigan football team, one of the top offensive football teams in all of college football, and we rose to the occasion. In spite of some real struggles that we've had due to playing a lot of different guys at the quarterback spot, we have still been in position to win. And I think we're in better position now than we have been the last couple of weeks.
So we're encouraged. I think the mindset of our football team is good. We've been playing to win. We haven't had some of the firepower to get that done, and we'll play this weekend believing that we can win.

Q. Is it safe to say that Rob Henry is ready to go?
COACH HOPE: Rob Henry is ready to go now more so than he has been, obviously, the last two weekends. He was injured in the Ohio State game, and we thought that he would be ready to play in the next game. So we -- he was cleared to play, but yet he really wasn't able to perform, and we held him out against Wisconsin.
Then we had plans to play him a lot in the game this past Saturday, not as much as a passer. We thought that he passed the ball well some in practice, but we didn't use him -- didn't pass the ball a whole lot in practice this week but passed it some and thought he was doing okay.
We think he's further along now than he has been, obviously, since the Ohio State game, and feel a lot better about him to go out and execute the run offense as well as a pass offense this weekend. That hasn't been the case the last couple of weekends. We haven't felt that he was healthy enough to execute the pass offense the last couple of weekends, and that made it difficult from a play-calling standpoint. But we feel a lot better about that now.

Q. Having the chance now to kind of digest Ryan Kerrigan's effort on Saturday, where does that rank in terms of great performances you've seen by an individual defensive player?
COACH HOPE: It was a great game, a great game. Ryan always plays great. I think one of his strongest attributes -- he has a lot of redeeming qualities, obviously, physically, things that they can measure. But the one thing that sticks out in all the NFL scouts that come by and watch all of his game film is how hard he plays and for how long he can play hard and how relentless his effort is down after down on a consistent basis, and that really showed up Saturday.
He realizes there's only a few chances left, and he is laying it on the line, doing everything he can in order to help us win. He's a great guy to have on the football team and a lot of fun to watch play on Saturdays. But he sure is a great example for the other players on our football team in regards to how to go about playing the game and how to go about living your life.
So Ryan Kerrigan is doing outstanding right now.

Q. My last question is -- and I apologize if you've addressed this already at some point. But exactly what is the situation with Justin Siller? What's the prognosis? What are we looking at from him?
COACH HOPE: Believe me, it's hard to tell. You know, obviously, from the way it's gone throughout the course of this season, there's no telling what will happen. But I don't anticipate him being back the next couple of weeks.
You know, he had a bad sprain in his foot, a very bad sprain in his foot, one that held him out for several weeks, and he was cleared a couple of weeks ago, and he's been throwing in practice, and he's thrown well in practice. We had one quarterback that we were preparing for the games as a passer. That was Sean Robinson. So we took the last couple of weeks and really worked hard with Justin Siller to prepare him as a passer and thought, as we went into the game last week, that he'd be able to run well enough in order to be able to play in the game. But in pregame warmups we didn't feel good about it. We wanted to protect him, so we didn't play him.
We felt better about this week, and he just didn't hold up. So it's regressed. We've looked at it some, and it's not -- didn't make it a whole lot worse, and he should be fine. But I don't anticipate him being back here in the next couple of weeks.

Q. Thanks, Coach.
THE MODERATOR: Okay. Doug?

Q. Hi, Danny. I know you're optimistic heading into Saturday's game. Is a lot of that optimism centered around the way your defense is playing and the belief that defense gives you a chance to win no matter who the opponent is, especially if you would keep your turnovers to a minimum?
COACH HOPE: Absolutely. We're really not that far off from being able to win big game. Played Wisconsin really close, had the lead. You know, it was out of sync real bad on offense at times and still had a chance to win the ball game until late in the fourth quarter. So we're playing well enough on defense right now, you know, consistently, the last two or three weekends, against some quality opponents, and I feel like we can do the same thing again this weekend.
They'll make plays, and Michigan State's a heck of a football team with a lot of weapons. But we're -- we have developed into a good defensive football team. So we think we can go out and play good football Saturday and give ourselves a chance to win with some effort from the defensive side of the ball.
We also feel like we're in better shape offensively now than we have been in the last couple of a weeks from a quarterback standpoint, as Sean Robinson has had some reps and some experience in the games. He's had more time to learn the offense, and we're getting Rob Henry back much healthier than he's been in a long time. So that's optimistic for us.
And also from a special teams standpoint, we have great potential special teams-wise. We didn't punt the ball as well on Saturday, and it hurt us in the game some. But other areas of our special teams, I think, has played really well. We have two specialists that, when they strike the ball well, they're as good as anyone in the country.
So we have good players, and we have a lot of reason to think that we can win and play well and have fun and be successful. The defense is certainly one of the strong suits of our football team right now. And as well as they're doing, they could still do better. There are still plenty of things on film that you look at that we can do on a more consistent basis that will allow us to take another step defensively, and we can be awfully good. So it's not a finished product.

Q. Do you think you'll have O.J. Ross back this week?
COACH HOPE: Not this weekend, I don't. Maybe not for the season. I don't know. He hasn't done anything in practice.

Q. And then I was going to ask you, is your mindset that you really have to manufacture points any way possible? I mean, we sort of saw that the first play at the Wisconsin game where you tried that onside kick. I would imagine at this juncture, given the fact how injury-riddled your offense is, you'll try anything and everything, right, to put points on the scoreboard?
COACH HOPE: Well, I don't know about anything and everything. I do have a little shame. Obviously, we're going to have to do some things to try to manufacture some big plays in the kicking game as well. So we made some attempts last week. We tried to get ourselves in position to kick a field goal before the half. We weren't able to. With a guy like Carson, you could strike from anywhere. You have to be careful on how you manage the clock, in case he doesn't make a long field goal, that you don't turn the ball over at midfield.
But we're not desperate. We need to execute the offense. It's hard to execute the offense when you don't have the key components of the offense healthy and able to practice and perform on a regular basis for any length of time at all. If we can execute our offense, that will manufacture a lot of points. But, obviously, we want to take each game with some attempts to make big plays, you know, some attempts to make some big plays out there that could change the course of the game. And we'll do that again this weekend as well.

Q. In talking to Carson at the end -- or after the game Saturday, he said that he was getting ready to kick a real long field goal. That was your thought process, right? I mean, how long would you have tried it? He said something about that he hit over a 70-yarder in warmups.
COACH HOPE: I wouldn't have gone a whole lot further than 70, but we felt like, if we could get the ball to midfield, that was certainly within his range. If we had to back it up a little bit, he could make that. He hit a 70-yarder in pregame that had three or four yards to spare. We talked about it way before the drive starts, that we were going to try to get the ball midfield, get some points or get it down there close enough to attempt a long field goal.
So there were two or three things going on there. A chance to get it close enough to make an easy field goal for him, which is a long one, or maybe a chance to attempt a record field goal. He hit a big field goal last year, I believe, right before the half against Ohio State. It was a personal best for him and a school record and a lot of fun. It was a chance to set the stage for something very similar.
I probably wouldn't have gone a whole lot further than 70 yards.

Q. Last thing from me. How strongly do you feel that Ryan Kerrigan should be the Big Ten's defensive player of the year?
COACH HOPE: Out of all the film that I've looked at on the defenses in the league, he's the best defensive player I've seen.

Q. Thanks a lot, Danny.
COACH HOPE: I don't know that I've seen anyone -- I don't watch a whole lot of college football because we're always watching our opponents and us, but I don't see anyone on the line of scrimmage that's played as good on a consistent basis either. I couldn't tell you about the back half as much.
THE MODERATOR: Anything else? Brian, do you have the microphone? Get started with you.

Q. With your background at Purdue, how would Ryan stack up to a lot of the other guys they've had at that spot here before?
COACH HOPE: That's a really tough question because all those guys are great players, and they've all gone on and gotten it done in the National Football League. I thought Roosevelt Colvin was really relentless from an effort standpoint. Every down he went wide open, and regardless of the odds, he found a way to make a play. When you needed a big play, Roosevelt came through. I think he has that type of relentlessness about him that Roosevelt had, but he's a lot more gifted physically. He's a lot bigger and a lot stronger.
So I don't know how he would stack up or compare against any one of those guys, but I think he's certainly one of the very best I've been around because he can do so many things. He can overpower you. He can get up the field and beat you with a speed rush. Very seldom does he ever wear down. I think that makes him a little bit novel in a lot of ways.
That's the comment I get from a lot of the NFL scouts that come from watching all of his game film who then come out to practice and watch him practice. They're always impressed with how hard he's able to play late in the games regardless of the number of snaps he's gotten prior to the end of the game. So I think he has a great motor. He's certainly one of the best that I've been around.

Q. How many scouts have come through this year? You don't know?
COACH HOPE: We've got a count somewhere, but there's some there every day. Every day there's scouts, every day. I don't know about Sundays. I'd have to check and see, but there's always scouts out there. I've quit talking to them there's so many of them.

Q. Just when you go back and look at the game Saturday, one of the positive things is it just kind of some further verification you have three pretty good young corners?
COACH HOPE: I've been real pleased with all of our secondary players this year. Albert Evans is coming back, has been a huge shot in the arm for us. Our corners are playing really well. Ricardo Allen shows up a lot. He's a heck of a player today. He steps out on the field, and he has a real knack for playing his position.
I think our speed is showing up on the defensive side of the football. We have a lot of our best skill players on offense are out right now. Our top skill players are out on offense. We still have some fast guys and good players on the offensive side of the ball, but we haven't weathered, from an injury standpoint, on the defensive side of the ball with regards to the fast people.
There's a lot of times in the course of the game against some of our quality opponents, against some of the best players in the league, we're able to show closing speed, you know, with some of our defensive players. Will Lucas, Josh Johnson, Ricardo Allen, those guys can really run, and they demonstrate a lot of closing speed. I think that's exciting. Both of our corners have played well.
Ricardo is a physical player, makes big plays. He'll take some chances. He's really mature. He's had a great year. I don't know how they do the accolades at the end of the season, but he'll probably be one of the stronger candidates in regards to a defensive newcomer in the Big Ten this year. If they had such an award, I think he'd be a great candidate for that. A lot of great pickups and a lot of great tackles. He plays great on special teams. I think he's our second highest point scorer on special teams. He's really a great player.
I think Josh Johnson has started to become a better player at his position. He's got a great physicality. I think he's probably on the same level as Brandon King. I'm real happy with our players. I'm real happy with our secondary play, and really happy with our two young corners right now.

Q. And Normando Harris made that nice breakup down the field. How's he holding up?
COACH HOPE: He's doing well. He's a guy that is a talented player and a very good football player. He can help us a lot on special teams. You know, covering a kick standpoint. He plays well in space. He's a really good tackler. He's aggressive. He has some confidence about him.
He wasn't here this summer. He didn't come early like some of the other young defensive backs did, and he's a guy that played a lot of different positions in high school. He played some at receiver. He was a great wrestler. He was one of the top wrestlers in his weight class a couple years in a row down in Florida. He placed in the triple jump.
So he wasn't really polished up at any one position, just a really good football player, and he wasn't here this summer. And he's a guy that wasn't really -- we didn't think he was going to play this year, that he'd be redshirted. And about halfway through the season, we decided we needed to play him more, he was that good of a player. So he's behind in some ways, but he's done well on the field, better than I expected for a guy that we didn't put any more preparation into before he played on the field. He's a good prospect.

Q. And just the only other thing I wanted to ask about -- and I understand this is probably kind of random. But I was just curious, how are your two young offensive linemen who are redshirting doing? Jack De Boef and Josh Davis?
COACH HOPE: That's a good question. De Boef is how you pronounce it. They're both doing really well. They're smart guys. Sometimes during the recruiting process we have guys we refer to as line subjects, guys in the past we thought had a chance to play defense and are good enough to go to offense. Sometimes they're straight D-line prospects, and sometimes straight O-line prospects.
When I first evaluated Josh Davis, either as a sophomore or a junior, he was playing defense. He was a really good player with a big body. I thought he'd be a heck of an offensive lineman. He did really well in school, had great test scores. And he came here, and he's being redshirted. But he's changed his body around a lot already, moves his feet really well, gets after the defensive linemen. He looks like he's going to be a heck of a player, a guy that might be able to help us next year.
And the same with Jack De Boef. You know, tall, a little lighter build than some other offensive linemen, but now he's about 280-something pounds, and he's been in the weight room some. He looks like he's going to be a great, good offensive tackle. He's tough and got some nasty about him, and he's fun to coach.
Both of those guys were good gets, and both of those guys will probably be three or four-year starters or players at Purdue while they're here. They're good gets, and they've done really well.
It's a really good freshman class. There's other guys in that freshman class that could be playing right now as well, and there might not be a whole lot of drop-off from the ones that we have chosen to take the redshirts off of. There's other guys that could be playing in the games right now too that are true freshmen that might be able to help us win. I don't want to take the redshirt off of everyone if we can help it, but it's a really good freshman class.

Q. With how good Michigan State has been defensively, both against the run and the pass, do you need to do anything different this week to kind of open things up?
COACH HOPE: We're going to do a lot of things different because we haven't really executed on offense. We haven't been in position from a quarterback performance standpoint to really execute our offense. We've had, you know, trouble over at the quarterback position, and we've lacked some continuity. We've gone three games this year where the guy that was going into the game as a starting quarterback didn't make it to the second quarter. So we've really struggled to execute and develop any continuity at all on the offensive side of the ball in the last three or four weeks.
So that part has been tough. We need to execute the offense first. There's a lot of things we need to do. We need to open up the passing game and be able to complete some passes so they can't put so many defenders around the box. Right now I think we have a chance to be a pretty good run football team with the players that we have to play with on Saturdays and our offensive line has gotten a lot better this season. They're very good pass protectors. So we need to be able to throw the football some because the throws are there. We haven't taken many shots here the past two or three weeks because of the turnover at the quarterback position.
So we need to continue to execute well in the run game, and we need to open up our passing game because it's there. We have the linemen that could protect, and the routes are open.

Q. As a follow-up, you were talking about your true freshmen. Some of your true freshmen had to play because of injuries, but there's also like Bruce Gaston and Will Lucas, and you talked about Ricardo, guys you wanted to play from the get-go, the impact of those guys they've had on the team this year.
COACH HOPE: They've given us a chance to win here at the end of the season, when we've fallen real slim from a personal standpoint. Some of the guys we pulled the redshirt off as a result of injuries to other players, they were guys that were doing really well, and we were trying to make that decision anyway.
We've been talking for weeks about getting Ryan Isaac and putting him in the game. He's a really wide open guy. He's a big tough guy, got a big frame. Runs really fast. He's tough. He likes to get after it. He likes the physical part of the game. And he's a guy that, ever since camp, we were back in camp, we've been in Coach Emanuel's ears, the defensive coach's ear, this guy, we can't slow him down. The injuries helped him get on the field, but it was hard to keep him off the field anyway.
Some other players, it's the same way. They've impacted our football team tremendously this season when things got lean from a personnel standpoint. We had lots of good young players, O.J. Ross and all those guys. Even though they're injured now, the wins that we got, those guys were major contributors in. We've got 20 freshmen, about 20 freshmen, guys that have three years of eligibility left when this season is over, that's in our top two deep of 44 players, give or take a guy.
So we've got some great experience, and it's really going to impact the future of the program.

Q. Just talk about Bruce Gaston and how he's been able to hold up at the defensive tackle spot all year.
COACH HOPE: If he wasn't so big and strong coming out of high school, then he wouldn't have been out there playing as a freshman, and that's usually the difference-maker if you're a guy that plays in the interior on the offensive or defensive line is being big or strong when you get here as a freshman. Then you have a chance to get on the field right away. If he was a guy that wasn't a 400-pound bench presser and weighed 300 pounds with a good body, then he wouldn't have been on the field this year for us. Physically, from a numbers standpoint, he can match up with Big Ten offensive linemen right now.
He's made great progress. He's just like a lot of those other freshmen defensive linemen we've played this year. At the beginning of the season, he did a good job of getting in the stance and getting lined up and trying to play some. As the season progressed, he started taking on the offensive linemen and knocking them back and holding point and not getting knocked back off the ball. Then he started coming off the ball and attacking the offensive front and playing his gaps a lot better. Then he started coming off and making plays.
I think he's made great progress, he and his other young defensive line teammates have made great progress through the course of the year, and I think Bruce Gaston is going to be a heck of a player here at Purdue. He's having fun playing right now too.

Q. Just with the quarterback situation, you mentioned Sunday that the preference would be to go with Rob Henry. Is that still the preference today?
COACH HOPE: I think he's far enough along to make that guesstimate, you know. I wouldn't etch anything in stone right now, right here, on that spot in particular. But that's the way we feel the direction it's going to go in.

Q. Have you been told that his finger is healing properly?
COACH HOPE: It's been healing properly all along. It just was really mangled up a couple weeks ago. They thought he would be able to do. He tried to go, and he couldn't. Then we realized, when he couldn't against Illinois, we held him out against Wisconsin, you know, and then felt like he'd be able to go some the other day and did pretty good in practice. He felt pretty good in warm-ups. And as the day went on, he didn't throw it as well.
So it will hold up longer and better this week. It was much better on Sunday than it has been at any point in time. So we think Rob's going to be ready to go.

Q. If you had to play guys who were only 100 percent, how many would you have?
COACH HOPE: That's a tough question because you have to qualify what you mean by 100 percent.

Q. I know. I did the air quotes.
COACH HOPE: Yeah. A lot. A lot more than what you'd think.

Q. Really?
COACH HOPE: Yeah, because you only hear about the injured ones. We have 100-something guys out there. You're not hearing about 100-something people being injured. Everyone's got something done, just like you all do. You've got your ails and your illnesses and different complaints, nothing different from them.
Other than the guys that you read about, everyone else is doing fine. You're never as fresh as you are at the beginning of the camp. I think we've done a pretty good job keeping our guys fresh this year. That's one of the reasons why we've been excited about playing on Saturday, to play fast and physical and aggressive and have the energy to try to win is because we've been able to manage them some so they're still fresh here at the end of the season. Sometimes you can really be wore out this time of year.
To me that's just as debilitating as anything else to your football team if you don't feel good.

Q. I was just curious, from a coach's perspective, how difficult a task it can be going into a week if you're thinking about playing a guy who you know is -- Rob Henry, for example. You know he's not as good as he could be, but you still have to balance the fact of, okay, do we play him despite this or not play him? Just kind of what goes on in your mind when you're looking at those injuries? Are they injured? Are they hurt? Those kinds of things.
COACH HOPE: It's tough. That's why dialogue is important. You talk to a lot of people. You talk to the player and the trainer and try to get everybody on the same page from a communication standpoint. Sometimes the timing of it complicates things, you know, where three weeks ago you didn't have anyone ready to play quarterback. Robert Marve was out, Rob Henry was injured, Justin Siller wasn't ready. It's tough to make a decision when you talk about which of those guys may or may not be ready. Now there's not a lot of decisions being made.
Sean Robinson has played well. He's healthy. He understands the offense. He's done a good job growing and developing. He's not as ready as we'd like him to be, but he's done a great job preparing himself. And Rob Henry is as far along as he's been since the Ohio State game. It's a little easier now than it was three weeks ago.
You can never imagine how complex and complicated it's been trying to manufacture game plans. If this guy's ready, then this guy's ready, and this guy could do that package. And try to have that ready every Saturday, and the personnel's been different every Saturday.
It's been a great challenge. There's been a lot of thinking going on and a lot of preparation by the offensive staff. It's been a heck of a thing to witness. But it's been difficult.

Q. So just generally, though, not specifically about Rob or anything, you just talk to the trainers, you talk to the players.
COACH HOPE: Every day.

Q. It's just a discussion, kind of ongoing, as to how are you feeling? Can you go?
COACH HOPE: Every day and all day long, you know. Just -- that's all we've done for I don't know how many weeks in the season, more so this season than ever. That's the biggest part of it. Injury is a part of it. You become callous to the injury thing after a while. Pretty soon, just based on the diagnosis and prognosis, you come up with a plan and just move on with it. This year it's been hard to figure out where we're really at with key players. It's been very, very difficult.

Q. Just continuing the theme of talking about some freshmen, Will Lucas has played a lot more here over the past couple of weeks. What has he -- now that he's gotten more experience, what has he sort of done to show some improvement?
COACH HOPE: Makes a lot of plays. Makes a lot of plays. He comes downhill fast and in a hurry. He does a good job of deciphering the play in front of him. He has a lot of closing speed. He's really compact. He's got some wallop to him when he tackles you. He's an aggressive player. He really, really loves football. He puts a lot into his football.
Also, this past week we were playing against a team that was a real spread offense. I mean, they're the epitome of the spread offense, you know, by design, and that's also an opportunity where you might want to play more defensive backs and/or smaller, quicker people in the game on the defensive side of the ball. And Will would fit into that mode as well. He's a good physical player against a good physical football team, and he's a fast quick good player in space against a spread football team. He's a heck of a player.
We loved him on film. His film spoke for itself. He didn't pass the eyeball test. He's only about 5'11", but he's 220 pounds. He's really packed together. Most people like their linebackers a little bit taller. He's such a good player, we felt like he could come here and be an impact player at Purdue. He can, and he has already.

Q. Has the experience helped him just from a know-how type of thing and diamond point of view?
COACH HOPE: All of them have gotten better. Our linebacker corps is playing well right now. All those guys are making major contributions. In the game last week, we were playing a lot of nickel package because of the spread offense, and we had two sets of linebackers that we played in the game, and one set of linebackers was Will Lucas and Dwayne Beckford, and both those guys are playing great right now. And the other set of linebackers was Jason Werner and Joe Holland, and they're playing the best they've ever played, in my mind, since being back at Purdue.
We're getting really good play from our linebackers right now. We have some fast linebackers. Joe Holland can really run. He has some closing speed. Werner has done a good job of coming down and being a physical player. A week ago, when we played Wisconsin, they were a power run football team. We sent Jason downhill on some blitzes to penetrate across the front, he was a reckless player. I think all of our linebackers playing in the games right now are playing very well.

Q. And just to follow up with what Brian was asking about some guys who are redshirting. You'll need probably one or two young defensive ends, I would imagine, next season. Just talk a little bit about Frazier and what you've seen out of him while he's redshirting this season. Obviously, a guy who came in with just a little bit of experience, but has the year helped him a little?
COACH HOPE: The year's helped him a lot. He has a good body, and he can be a good strong defensive end. He was kind of a natural at it, the little bit that he played in high school. It really spoke for itself. He's a heck of a player. He had a great highlight film. He brings a lot of things to the table from a talent standpoint.
He and Ryan Russell are big work ethic guys. They like the weight room. They have big frames, so they can be big defensive ends. That's not always the case. A lot of times when you start putting your team together and the guy that has the opportunity to rush the passer, sometimes it's really scaled down from a size standpoint.
These guys are not giant defensive ends, but they have good bodies and good frames. They're good-sized defensive ends. They've really worked hard in the weight room. They're aggressive, and they've done a really good job on the -- we call them the 1-As which is kind of our souped up version of our scout team, rather than the guys that never play in the game. We take some of our top backup guys and some of the guys that play a little bit less in the game and make a show team out of those guys. And those guys have been on the 1-As and done a heck of a job matched up against our varsity tackles.
So we're encouraged by those guys. And they're tall guys, 6'4", 6'5" guys.
THE MODERATOR: Do we have anything else?

Q. Actually, I had a follow-up to what Stacy was asking about, you know, getting injured guys ready to play. In some sense, wouldn't it be better to get your healthy guys ready? Like the quarterback position, for example, with Sean, maybe giving him most of the reps, and then if Rob Henry is ready to go, that's kind of a bonus come game time?
COACH HOPE: Well, it would seem that way, but it wasn't an if he was going to be ready. We were told he would be ready. So get him ready. Then we got out there in warmups, and it doesn't go right, and we've got to have a plan B. He was supposed to be ready last week against Wisconsin, and they weren't. So we thought, surely, this will be the day, and we felt that way.
I thought Rob was able this week to do what we wanted him to do. We thought he'd be limited from a passing standpoint but be effective as a passer. As the game went on and he became more sore, would he be able to pass it as well as he could at the beginning of the game? We didn't know that part of it, but we felt pretty sure he was going to be able to play in the game.
0and Justin Siller had thrown very well and passed all of the physical tests and the workouts for us to believe he was going to be able to run fast enough to protect himself in the game. He threw the ball very well the last two weeks. Those two guys were the two guys we had the best chance to score a lot of points against Michigan if they'd have stayed healthy.
So it wasn't a guess. They were cleared. They were supposed to be ready to go. They didn't hold up. The injury didn't hold up. Robert Marve was cleared, ready to go. Got him ready. You had a backup plan just in case something wasn't going to go right in pregame or had an issue with it and didn't hold up. That's how it's happened. That's what makes it difficult.
We're not going out there and giving all the reps to someone we don't believe isn't going to be ready. I promise you we don't have that mindset in preparing our football team. We give the reps to the guys we believe are going to be ready to give us a chance to win the football game. You've got the wrong perspective of it.

Q. You mentioned a couple moments ago how well the linebackers are playing. I wanted to ask you specifically about Dwayne Beckford. You mentioned him. How much better has he gotten as the season's gone on?
COACH HOPE: He's gotten a lot better as the season's gone on. He went the same pace last year. Started off slow and got better as the season went on. This year he started off slow, but he got a lot better real quick. He's one of our better players. He's had several games where he's had double digits in tackles. He's a physical guy where, when he gets his arms wrapped around you, he can get you on the ground. He's a very good tackler.
He's spent a lot of time focusing on his run reads and his run fits, and I think he's playing very well right now. We've done some things that's freed him up some in some of the blitz packages, and he's cashed in on those opportunities, and he gives a great effort. Football is important to him, and winning is important to him, and being a good football player is very important to him, and he's playing that way right now. Puts a great effort into it. I like his pursuit effort. He's showed some closing speed.
He's a little older now. Dwayne was only -- he was behind age-wise when we recruited him. He was only 16 years old in his senior year in high school. He took another semester to get him squared away from an eligibility standpoint. That's probably a real blessing in disguise because, when I went to Dwayne's house to recruit him, he was 16 years old and had that great body, but he really wasn't ready to play Big Ten football yet.
I think he's really matured a lot since he's gone to Purdue. I think he's a heck of a player right now.

Q. Answer one more thing about Ryan Kerrigan. I do not ask this in any lighthearted fashion. Factor in all the offensive injuries and the kind of condition that he is in, how well he plays late in the game, ironically, one of the awards he's nominated for is the Chuck Bednarik award. Is there any possibility, if the situation dictated in a certain situation, that we could see Ryan Kerrigan on offense before the season's over?
COACH HOPE: Probably not. Probably not. Because we wouldn't play him as an offensive lineman, and we're not going to -- not a running back. And we can utilize the tight ends that we have. He is a difference-maker in every football game where he is right now. We're not going to go negate that. And we don't want him to get injured doing something he's not used to doing. So that's not going to happen.
He's not a quarterback either. Somebody said he's going to quarterback. No, he's not going to quarterback.
THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you very much. Appreciate you coming.

End of FastScripts

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