October 23, 2001
Will you talk about the tight end situation?
"One of the things going into the season that we thought we would do is run some two tight end sets. Iowa State does that a lot with their offense. We thought that we had two of our better players on offense would be Lonnie Madison and Michael de la Torre. We lost Lonnie in two-a-days. We made a decision to redshirt Tommy Carriger as a defensive lineman. As it turned out Fred Spiller need back surgery. Not long after that Joey Perot had a shoulder that had to have surgery again. By that time we had jumped to the two tight end offense and figured we would wing it with one tight end and train Jami Hightower to strictly block at that position. We needed him desperately on our goaline offense for blocking purposes. And then last week the thing happened with de la Torre. Now we are down to one tightend with Hightower as our back up on the weak side. He is our starting tackle right now so that makes the situation ever more difficult. I cannot recall a year where we have been down this far with injuries, especially like now where we have an unusual set of circumstances."
Can you talk about Thomas Carriger?
"He is a strong guy and a big guy. I think has done an amazing job for someone that is from a small high school. He stepped out there the other day and did an incredible job. We have to do a better job of showing him certain techniques to help him in situations. Right now we have no alternative but to keep him there. We have to use the rest of this year to prepare him for the upcoming seasons. If we have four or five tight ends then we will move him back to defense."
How many plays did you have to toss out because of the situation?
"I do not know how many exactly, but quite a few. It limits what you can do because you have to spread everyone out. You cannot run much power sweep kind of runs. Carriger can catch so could be a threat that someone has to cover. Carriger is a great kid so he takes all of this in really well. In some situations we would put Greg Porter in there and flex him out from the tight end position, but asking him to block against those 290 pound defensive linemen is not going to happen. Tight End is by far our highest priority now."
Can you talk about Iowa State and their program?
"They have made a lot of progress, they have gotten better every year. They have had good backs and they went to junior college and got a good quarterback. I saw a stat the other day that said they completed over 50% over their third downs and a lot of that goes to him. He is one of the best quarterbacks in the league. If he stays healthy this year he could be something special next year. This guy is a quick accelerator that has a good arm."
Why is Ennis Haywood so good?
"He is a hard runner and has got a great feel for what he does. He is tough runner that gets a lot of carries. Another amazing stat I heard about them the other day was that in 1,700 touches of the football they have had only 3 fumbles. That is amazing. I have never heard a stat like that before. That is from the tailback position alone."
What are you going to try to make Iowa State do?
"That is a hard choice, because they are truly a balanced offensive team. We gave up a lot of rushing yards in the last two weeks so it will be a tough decision to decide how we will play them defensively. If you look at them they have lost one game so far and it was to the number two team in the nation. They are a really good football team. And as a coaching staff we have a lot of respect for them."