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Pat Narduzzi declined to give a concrete update on the status of Dewayne Hendrix and Elijah Zeise on Monday, saying only that the redshirt sophomore defenders are “day-to-day” after leaving the Villanova game with injuries.

“They’re day-to-day,” Narduzzi said. “There’s a couple other guys that are day-to-day. As you probably saw, there were a couple guys that were banged up last week. We don’t really talk about injuries so, it’s day-to-day and we’ll find out.”

Hendrix started at defensive end but left the game on Villanova’s second possession. Zeise started at Star linebacker - the product of a good week in practice after he was listed as the backup on the official two-deep but was also injured on Villanova’s second drive.

Zeise was replaced by redshirt sophomore Oluwaseun Idowu, who was listed as the starter on the official two-deep. Narduzzi said he thought Idowu had some first-game jitters, but overall he was pleased with the North Allegheny product’s performance.

“He played like we thought he would, and he played like a starter, too.”

Idowu recorded three tackles in the game.

Rori Blair was the primary replacement for Hendrix, and he also recorded three tackles in addition to two quarterback hurries. While he didn’t start the Villanova game, Narduzzi said that the staff had a lot of confidence in the junior from Upper St. Clair.

“Since the first day of camp, really coming out of spring ball, we felt good with our depth at defensive end. So whether Dewayne is with us next week or not, Rori Blair has had a good - shoot, if I wrote one note on my Friday-morning notes on practice on Thursday, it was, man, Rori Blair is playing hard. Last Thursday might have been his best practice - at least, his best Thursday practice - just the guy was locked in and flying around. Usually I would see a little slower Rori Blair.

“So we anticipated getting him in the game, regardless; we feel like they’re co-starters anyway, to be honest with you. We’ll be great with both Dewayne and him in there.”

Hendrix’s absence also meant a few more snaps for redshirt sophomore James Folston. Narduzzi said Folston wasn’t perfect in the game, but he was “so much better than he was a year ago.”