A quick recap of Weis’ press session on Thursday:
* Dan Wegner missed practice earlier in the week, but he’s clear to go for the game this weekend.
* No new injuries to report, although James Aldridge isn’t ready to go yet. “I don’t think he’s ready to hit somebody with his shoulder yet,” Weis said. Mr. Floyd is “normal,” and Armando Allen should be good to go as well.
* Defensive emphasis this week was on stopping the run. Weis even had the #1 offense run Michigan State plays against the #1 defense, a pretty rare occurrence. It’s clear that the coaching staff is dead set on stopping the Spartan’s run game.
* Weis commented on the depth of the defensive line for Michigan State, noticing that they played 8 or 9 guys on the defensive front. With that volume, the guys they were playing were giving maximum effort and the Spartans were just “rolling guys through.”
* Weis talked about why he brought Jon Tenuta in to coach at Notre Dame. Even though he might have “known what was coming,” he liked the fact that Tenuta’s defense forced you into an “all or nothing” mentality, dictating to the offense what mentality you needed to play.
* Weis talked about his workload and the workload of his coaching staff. He’s usually the second guy to arrive in the building around 4:30 or 5:00am, and leaves some time between 9:00pm and 11:00pm. Weis also mentioned that his assistants often stay much later than he does. Weis pegged the average time per day of the coaching staff at around 17 hours.
* Finding the message this week was easy for Weis, pointing to the winless streak against Michigan State at home as motivation. That said, the coaching staff tries to find a different message each week, something different and team-specific to motivate the team.