Alvarez Addresses Media During Monday News Conference
October 22, 2001 | Football
Wisconsin head football coach Barry Alvarez spoke to the media on Monday during his weekly news conference. The news conference was in preparation for this weekend's UW homecoming game against Michigan State.
Alvarez talked about the Badgers' loss to Illinois and upcoming opponent Michigan State. A partial transcription of the news conference follows.
On Brooks Bollinger's status: 'It's a day-to-day thing. If we practiced today, he wouldn't be able to go, but he has shown some improvement.'
On Delante McGrew's status: 'He'll be out for the year, he'll have surgery. He really has played very well. I really was pleased with everything about Delante and how he has matured and handled himself both on and off the field. I'm really happy with his leadership and just the way he 's handled some of the younger kids and helped them and directed them. It 's a shame, it was kind of a fluke how he hurt it, it didn't get tangled up, it wasn't a real vicious hit or anything like that. It's just a shame that it happened.'
Thoughts on the officiating: 'Several things concerned me. The fumble, touchdown reception, no calls on the return, I'd like to see some consistency in pass interference calls. It was just a number of things that I wanted to review with him and he was anticipating the call'I didn't see the fumble although my guys up in the box did and I certainly could see it on the film'I just wonder, as much throwing as there is, and you talk about isolating players in the open field, there's probably more things that you have to see now'I don 't know what to tell [young defensive backs]. You can jam [receivers] all you want as long as they're in front of you, but when they're running next to you, I see jostling at times, sometimes you see flags. There are just some inconsistencies and it's hard to teach, it's just like holding in the offensive line.
It's hard. I'm certainly not making any excuses, I 'm not questioning anybody, there are just some things that we're going to have to come up with and find some answers so there's some type of consistency with how the game is called in general, not just our one specific game.'
Bowl thoughts: 'I worry about one thing, I know it 's an old coaching cliche, but our approach is let's concentrate on this game, let's concentrate on this practice, let's concentrate on your next play. I've got college students, they're all smart enough to figure it out and you guys can figure out your odds. It doesn't make any difference what anybody thinks, it's what you do.'
Thoughts on Jim Sorgi: 'I think his timing was a little off early, I thought in the second half he really got his rhythm back and threw the ball better. But he wasn't real crisp when he first came in'I think it took him time to get into a rhythm.
I thought he played well in the second half. I thought he had a rhythm, thought he was playing with confidence, throwing the ball on time, putting the ball where it had to be, had control of the huddle, I thought he handled himself very well. '
Thoughts on Michigan State: 'No. 1, offensively they 're loaded. Everybody knows about [T.J.] Duckett. We saw him as a true freshman coming in here and breaking a long one against us. He's a big physical back, he 's shifty, he's hard to bring down, a lot of people rub off of him because he's so thick. [Herb] Haygood and [Charles] Rogers, the wide receivers, are big wide receivers, they have speed, they can run with the ball after they get it in their hands, make big plays, they'll be the same caliber of receivers we saw last week. The tight end is a very productive tight end, I see every game somebody rubs off of him and he gets a big run. They play three quarterbacks and I understand one of them is injured but they present a lot of problems, they've got a lot of weapons to go to. '
Thoughts on MSU's coach Bobby Williams: 'He took that team over when [former coach Nick] Saban left and I think that said a lot for him and what his staff thinks of him, the fact that everyone stayed. They all had the opportunity to pack up and go to LSU and they all stayed because they wanted to work for Bobby. I think that's a tremendous compliment to him and I think the players rallied around him 'he's recruited very well, they had a few tough losses last year that kept them from going to a bowl game, and I don't know him real well, but he just seems like a players' coach and a guy that's easy to get along with and he's doing an awful nice job.'
You're on pace to have a 1,000 yard rusher and 1,000 yard receiver. Do you feel you have maximized their production' 'We 've gotten big plays. We haven't moved the ball consistently. We 've gotten yardage in chunks, but for the most part we haven't been able to hang on to the ball for a long period of time. I think the Penn State game was probably the best one where we were able to move the chains and hang on to the football and get first downs. I like to play that way, I think it's good for defense, it lends well to how we think and what we like to do. That's why sometimes statistics are misleading.'
