Team refocuses on remainder of season during off week

Saturday, Memorial Stadium will sit in silence. And it won't bother the Hoosiers one bit. Saturday represents IU's only bye of the season, giving the team a week off as they prepare to take on the No. 19 Wisconsin Badgers next week.\n"Off-weeks have become such a common thing in college football that everyone has them," said coach Gerry DiNardo, contrasting his playing days at Notre Dame with the present.\nRotating bye-weeks for each team have been a regular part of the Big Ten schedule since Penn State was added to the conference in 1993.\nIn DiNardo's mind, it could hardly come at a better time.\n"In an 11, 12 game schedule you want it after game five or six," DiNardo said.\nJust because they don't play this week doesn't mean that the team gets a big break in action, though. After one day off Monday, IU was back in pads, sweating and hustling around on the practice field.\n"It's not really an off-week," senior offensive lineman Enoch DeMar said. "Mentally, there's a little less pressure, so we can get back to the fundamentals, which is great for us. Physically, it's at full speed."\nEven though practices will be going at full throttle, senior defensive tackle Kris Dielman said that not playing a game will allow bruised bodies like his own to recuperate somewhat.\n"Everybody on this team is probably playing with some dings," Dielman said. "We can take this week, get treatments and get healthy again."\nWhile having time to rest is vital to the team, there is one aspect of a bye week that may be even more important to their immediate success: extra preparedness.\nLast year, IU had reeled off to a 1-3 start before heading into their bye week. The next week they went to Madison and obliterated Wisconsin 63-32. \n"It gives a little more time to make a game plan for the coaches, and as a player it allows you more time to get educated about what they do in certain situations," senior quarterback Gibran Hamdan said.\nFor a unit that spends nearly every day in the fall together, this week will also mark one of the few times that coaches and players will have a dearth of different agendas. \nOn Monday and Tuesday, seven out of the ten coaches on the IU staff were on the road recruiting at high schools and junior colleges.\n"We're continuing to recruit the guys that have been on our list," DiNardo said.\nThe players already on the roster will be keeping themselves busy in a variety of different ways come Saturday.\nFor Hamdan, the ideal scenario would be to watch his little brother play high school football on Saturday. The native of North Potomac, Md. said travel accommodations aren't likely to let that happen, though.\n"I'm sure I'll be here in Bloomington, just sitting around with some of the guys watching games," he said.\nFor DeMar, the day off will represent a chance to check some items off of his "to-do" list.\n"I'll be running errands that I don't get to run," DeMar said.\nDielman summed up what the feeling will be when he gets to be the one watching the game rather than the one being watched.\n"It'll be nice to have a Saturday as a normal college kid," Dielman said.