Northwestern University Athletics
An Update from the M*A*S*H Unit
11/10/2009 12:00:00 AM | Football
Nov. 10, 2009
By SKIP MYSLENSKI, NUsports.com Special Contributor
• Quarterback Mike Kafka appeared unfettered at Tuesday's practice and later, when asked about the hamstring he injured against Penn State, he said, "It feels good. It feels real good. I'm running around, I have no pain, so I feel good. I've been scrambling around, doing things I need to do."
Is there a twitch or anything like that?
"No. I haven't experienced anything in the last week-and-a-half, ever since it happened. So I'm real positive. I feel great."
So was limiting him last Saturday against Iowa merely a precaution?
"No. Iowa was giving us a lot of QB run stuff and Dan (Persa), obviously, was the healthiest between me and him. He's a fast kid, he can run real well, we put him in there and he did a great job."
Pat Fitzgerald said Monday he expects Kafka to run the offense on Saturday at Illinois. Does he expect the same?
"Oh, yeah. No doubt. No doubt. Yeah. There's no question about that."
• Persa, in contrast, was held back in that practice, choosing instead to nurse the right hand he had injured against the Hawkeyes. Still, he later reported, "I'm fine. I'm fine. Just a little bruise. I'll be back soon."
Can he grip the ball, can he throw the ball?
"Yeah, yeah. It feels good."
So limiting his practice time was a precaution?
"Yeah, yeah. We didn't know how it was going to feel. So we got a feel for it earlier in practice and we'll rehab it more this afternoon. It feels good."
• Then there is offensive coordinator Mick McCall. He is not nicked up, but here he must game plan with at least some air of uncertainty surrounding his quarterbacks. "Our plan gets expanded a little bit. And yet, you've got to be prepared for anything in a game no matter what you go in with and maybe what happens in the middle of a game as well," he said when asked of that task. "Our system is our system and then the experience of the quarterback, the guy that's going to play, the experience level of that guy, you've got to squeeze that plan down and sometimes it changes when you're in the middle of a game. You pick and choose a couple things that he can do in the game plan and that's what you do."
So there are sets of packages?
"Oh, yeah. We'll have things we know we can do with somebody who can go ahead and run it. But Mike and Dan, similar packages. There are little variances we'll go into with them, but they're very similar. If it gets to Evan (Watkins, the freshman quarterback) it wouldn't change, but it would minimize a whole bunch."
So there are more plays-
"Probably than before, a little bit, because we've got to be ready for certain things. But we kind of know the direction we're going this week, and this week is of course different because of the way things happened, and we kind of know the direction we're going in and what we're dealing with. The good thing about it is these guys, the quarterbacks, are pretty up front with us about telling us exactly where they think they are and they're pretty right on. I have great trust in them. So I know what they're going to be able to do and what they're not going to be able to do and we talk about that during the week. Even if they weren't hurt, we do that. But having that trust factor helps."
So if all of a sudden on Saturday Mike can do more than he originally thought-
"We can expand it. Sure. Sure."
