Just got
off the Big East coaches teleconference with Brian Kelly, and he said we might
know something later today about Tony Pike. He's scheduled to see Dr. Angelo
Colosimo at
Originally,
BK said after the South Florida game that Pike was out for the Louisville game,
but on Friday, I reported that his status for next Saturday's contest was up in
the air. What changed?
"I don't
have my degree," BK said. "Obviously I need to defer to the medical personal
that know a lot more than I do. In my mind, either you're in or you're out and
he was out. My mind goes to the next guy in. The medical staff is going to make
the determination when he can do that.
"Obviously
he's going to have to be able to do the things in the shotgun offense. We can't
put him in there if he can't protect himself. It'd be very difficult to run
no-back, spread offense. If we were an I(-formation) team, we could get away
with it a little bit more. It's just a manner of managing our spread offense."
Depending
on how Pike feels, BK will open the quarterback competition this week to Zach
Collaros - who made the Big East honor roll for his performance in the USF game
- and Chazz Anderson, who did a nice job last year spelling an injured Pike and
helped lead the Bearcats to a win vs.
They'll
practice Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and split the snaps about 50-50. Pike,
if he can play, won't need to take many reps, BK said. He knows the offense
well enough where he can just take mental reps.
"We'll
see which player has really stepped up in the three days of preparation," BK
said.
--BK
did have a nice compliment for Pike's toughness for returning to the USF game
after halftime.
"It sent
a message to our team that this guy is going to get out there no matter what
happens," he said.
--Jake
Rogers was named the Big East special teams player of the week. He scored 10 points and averaged 45.1 yards on seven punts. Two of
his kickoffs went for touchbacks.
--The Oct. 31 UC-Syracuse game
will be a noon kickoff on ESPNU.
