Thursday Willingham notes

Published 4:35 pm Thursday, September 25, 2008

Here’s a little bit of what Tyrone Willingham had to say at his Thursday press briefing.

On Chancellor Young, who was on crutches at Wednesday’s practice:

“He had a bruise last week to his knee and that will probably mean that he will be out probably a couple of weeks. It could be a little bit more than that, we’re not sure.”

On freshman defensive tackle Craig Noble, who practiced for first time yesterday:

“Have not done a whole lot with him – slowly bringing him along in some drills. Very cautious because experience has said that when a guy doesn’t have camp to build up with, usually something happens early. So we’re just going to take our time and let him slowly get back into it. This afternoon might be in full pads and we’ll see how that goes and go from there.”

Could he play Saturday?

“I would probably say right now no.

Could freshmen Cody Bruns, Anthony Boyles or Terrance Dailey play this week?

“Those guys are doing very well, but right now I don’t anticipate that they’ll get some time. They could, but we don’t anticipate it right now.”

What’s the latest on Victor Aiyewa’s groin injury?

“It’s moved all over the groin area. It’s been one that’s kind of moved and they’ve pinpointed it and all of a sudden it’s a little different. So he’s tried to work with it, we’ve tried to get consultants on it to do an even better job in pinpointing it. We’ll see where he’s at. Obviously he’s not ready at this point; he hasn’t had the full work with us. As we move forward we’ll see exactly what his situation will be.”

On Chris Polk’s shoulder surgery, which was yesterday:

“We believe that went very well. That should have been yesterday and we anticipate that his release will be today. … I think that the goal was to have him ready for the spring, and we anticipate that that will be the case. You try to target those things to give them every opportunity to get them back with the team and back when they can most function.”

Do they stress that this is a big game?

“We’ve tried to do that with our players because I think I’ve made it clear that we have a very good conference and it’s been good for a long time. But in a lot of those years the champion has had one loss. We’ve got ours already. There’s no room for us to error. So we have to understand that if we’re a team that’s going to get back in this thing, I think everyone would say right now – across the country they’re saying it: SC seems to be the clear leader. Other than that you could say maybe anyone could emerge in those other spots. So we’d like to be in one of those spots.”

Who will start at linebacker, Josh Gage or Matt Houston?

“I think right now Houston might get the nod there, but I anticipate that both of those guys playing.”