Some news and notes
According to both Ben Ford and Michael Rothstein, Irish offensive lineman Dan Wenger was absent from practice once again on Tuesday. Wenger suffered an undisclosed injury and has reportedly been seen around campus with a cast on his leg. ND head coach Charlie Weis didn’t address this in his press conference on Tuesday, but he did say on Sunday that Matt Carufel looked “decent” playing in Wenger’s place against Michigan State.
Another worrisome bit of news on the injury front comes from Rothstein’s remarks on Justin Brown, who as noted earlier missed the MSU game with an injury:
Defensive end Justin Brown stretched with a trainer again and when the rest of the linemen were doing drills, he was off to the side, clearly hobbled. If we were to guess, we wouldn’t think he’ll be ready for Saturday, but it is still early in the week.
Weis said on Sunday that sitting Brown was a “game time decision,” and that he’d be “able to go” in practice that day. ND is far too cagey about things like this to think we’ll know anything about Brown’s status before the Irish take the field against Purdue.
One other notable thing from Tuesday’s practice reports is that, as Ford notes, it was “extremely physical at the start,” much as it reportedly was through all of last week. Weis spoke to this issue in his press conference on Tuesday, saying that they planned to find a sort of middle ground this week:
Q. Could you kind of outline your practice week in terms of compared to what you tried last week and what you did last week?
COACH WEIS: We still have to have elements of last week in there, because I think last week helped us — what we did last week helped us in the game. So today the first half of practice is going to be dedicated to ones versus ones, full speed, take them to the ground. What I didn’t do was I didn’t do full speed, take them to the ground on Sunday, because I had a bunch of guys beat up. So it becomes counter productive. You have to be objective, too. And you want to be tough, and you want to have a mentality at the same time you want to be intelligent and not do something stupid.
So today, they all know that we’re going ones against ones and it will be the first hour of practice. Then we’ll have a break and we’ll practice special teams. And then after that break, the rest of the practice will be dedicated to Purdue first and second down.
Q. From that point, it’s kind of Purdue the rest of the way?
COACH WEIS: I think it will be a little bit closer to a normal schedule come tomorrow [i.e., Wednesday].
Most of the press conference, as well as what’s been said about practices so far this week, has been pretty standard stuff.
One other bit of news worth noting, though: according to the Chicago Sun-Times, former Irish QB Demetrius Jones has had a brief telephone conversation with Northern Illinois football coach Joe Novak, but he hasn’t been practicing with the Huskies football team and in fact isn’t even enrolled at NIU:
”The last I heard, he’s not [enrolled],” Novak said Tuesday at his weekly news conference. ”He has got a lot of things available to him.”
Jones was listed in NIU’s online student directory two weeks ago, then wasn’t listed last week. To transfer directly from Notre Dame to NIU and be eligible to play in 2008, he would have to have been enrolled by the 12th day of classes (Sept. 12) for this semester to count toward the year he would have to sit out.
He does have the option of enrolling in a school, such as Northwestern or Ohio State, that uses the quarter system and started fall classes this week.
A source familiar with the situation said Jones might have another option to be eligible to play for the Huskies next fall. The source said Jones has accumulated 40 credit hours at Notre Dame and could earn an associate’s degree at a junior college by completing 20 hours by the end of next summer, then enroll at NIU.
This is a bit puzzling, since as the Sun-Times notes it contradicts much of what has been said in the media. It is unclear whether this has anything to do with ND’s refusal to release Jones from his scholarship to play for NIU. Look for more details to come out on this soon.
Tags: Charlie Weis, Dan Wenger, Demetrius Jones, Joe Novak, Justin Brown, Matt Carufel