Bielema Addresses Media Ahead of First Practice of Fall Camp

Head coach Bret Bielema met with the media on Thursday morning ahead of the team's first practice of fall camp on Thursday night.

Opening statement:

"It's obviously a very exciting day. We've been waiting for this one for a long time. I know our guys are excited. We had a great meeting this morning. We're actually practicing in the evening; five of our first eight practices are in the evening since four of our first six games are in the evening. We're kind of balancing that out between day and evening. 

"I also realize we don't have a bye week until bye week nine, so I'm doing a lot of different things to get to that point through our first three weeks of fall camp before classes started. Obviously, we'll get two full weeks of game prep when we start school, which changes the rules because that would change to a different set of NCAA rules, allowing 20 hours per week and everything. 

"With the start of fall camp, we're actually pretty healthy. We have three guys that will be out of practice tonight. Matt Bailey, first off. He's got a checkup here in a couple of days. If that gets all cleared, we'll see where he can go, but I expect him to be back two to three weeks out from our opener. 

"Jared Badie, unfortunately, just got a soft tissue issue that he's been dealing with in the past. He's starting limited, won't be up here today, but expect him back sooner than later. 

"Dez Schuster has reported and is fully able to go from a compliance standpoint and all that goes into it. There are some follow-up things he has to do to be fully able to participate in our practices, and that's just strictly a physical thing that we're waiting on and trying to get some clarity. 

"We'll have more on that as we go forward, but other than that, we should be good to go."

On the team's improvement heading into year three:

"One of the things, as the head coach, you're always guarded against is just outside expectations and optimism. It's good to have it. I pointed out that my first year, I used to put on the beginning and end of every meeting, 14 of 14, where the media picked us to finish 14 of 14 that first year. 

"Obviously, the math has changed a little bit, but I've always told those guys, 'Listen, not one tackle, not one touchdown, not one yard gained or lost carries from last year to this year.' It's about the 12 guaranteed opportunities we have in front of us this year. 

"I think our guys are excited about it. I know there's a lot of outside expectations, but I tell the guys, 'The expectation in this room is what matters.' For me as a head coach, I hope their expectations are even higher than mine."

On the decision to lean into night practices during fall camp:

"The biggest thing that's easy to identify is it's just a different game catching the ball under the lights. Not just the receivers, but with the kick returners, punt returners. It just can't be simulated.

"The night games, when they're scheduled, we really have no control over that. I do know that we talk to our players a lot about how they approach the idea of a night game versus a day game. 

"The biggest thing we're going to do is with our two scrimmages. They're going to be at night. We'll do our pregame meal four hours out before the game, like we do for all games. The other thing is because we have new uniforms, we'll actually put our players in their gameday uniforms for those two scrimmages. The first scrimmage will have offense probably in the home and defense in the away, and then we'll flip it for the second one and make it as real of a gameday situation as we can under the lights."