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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

sports football

Media meets with coaches, players

Big Ten Media Days

In a little more than a month, fans in all shades of school colors will fill the bleachers in the heat of a big-action play.

The words of coaches and players from the month before will mean next to nothing. All that will matter is that winning touchdown, that in-the-moment play.

But right now, those “we’re-going-to-a-bowl-game” preseason words are all most fans want to hear.

“A perfect season would be what I’m thinking of,” senior defensive lineman Will Patterson said, when asked what he thinks realistically IU’s team record will be this season. “That’s as realistic as I know how to be.”

Patterson’s “nothing less than the best” mind-set carried over to his teammate and fellow senior defensive lineman Jammie Kirlew.

“My goal is to trump my stats from last year and to lead us to a bowl game,” Kirlew said. “This season I know we’ve made a lot of changes in the offseason. We stepped up our workouts. We stepped up our leadership, and I expect all that to transfer over on the field.

“I expect us to have a lot of success. I expect us to fight harder. We’re bigger. We’re stronger. We’re smarter.”

On the field, junior Ben Chappell has clinched the starting quarterback spot. Although coach Bill Lynch picked former Hoosiers player Kellen Lewis to start instead of Chappell all but three times last year, Chappell said he and his coach’s trust in each other is unwavering.

“I’ve known Coach Lynch for a long time,” Chappell said. “He’s a great coach, and he’s been good to me ever since I’ve been here. It’s one of those things that I feel great about what he’s doing with the program, and I’m just excited to get a chance to start.”

As for a repeat season, Chappell said this entire season will more resemble the Homecoming upset.

“I think that game last year was really the blueprint for what we need to do as a football team to win games,” he said. “You know, we didn’t turn the ball over, our defense played great, and that’s what we need to do to win. We have a football team that is going to be able to compete, and that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to go out there every game and compete.”

Patterson said the team has connected well this summer.

“I think we’re all on the same page,” Patterson said. “That was one focus we had going in – get everybody to believe in the same thing.”

Other media days chatter around the Big Ten included the stumbling Michigan team and its ever-changing roster.

“I think you probably lose a few more players in a transition year,” Wolverines coach Rich Rodriguez said. “But you don’t really worry about them, even though you wish everybody was doing all the right things and you could move forward.”

Purdue coach Danny Hope talked about the Old Oaken Bucket rivalry.

“We don’t like them, they don’t like us, and that’s what makes it fun,” he said of IU.

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