George Conditt includes Illinois in final three schools.

Welcome to the Orange Minute for Tuesday, September 5. We hope you had an excellent Labor Day and are excited for the four-day work week, which will end with big Illini volleyball and football games in Champaign this weekend.

Here’s everything you missed from yesterday.

Lovie Smith held a press conference.

That’s not the news. He holds one of those every week.

The real news comes from his praise during the press conference of linebacker Del’Shawn Phillips and freshman halfback Mike Epstein. Smith said Epstein did not “play like a freshman” and that Phillips can “handle the adversity” associated with having to carry a young, depleted defense.

For the full video of the press conference, visit The Champaign Room on Facebook. We did a Facebook Live of the presser, and we’ll be doing that every week.

But Lovie was not the only Illini coach holding a press conference in the Memorial Stadium press box Monday afternoon...

Chris Tamas held a press conference.

Does that name not ring a bell yet? That’s okay.

Tamas is the young, hip head Illinois volleyball coach that has taken over the program after former headman Kevin Hambly left for the job at Stanford during the spring.

How many other D1 coaches would tweet something like this?

To see the entire press conference, head over to our Facebook page again.

Speaking of Kevin Hambly, he will be making a return this weekend during “Stuff Huff.” The Illini (6-0) and the No. 4 Cardinal square off Friday night in what could be a monumental victory for Illinois volleyball.

Back to football!

Everyone likes to argue, and there is no better type of article to argue over than power rankings. Here are ours after one week of Big Ten games.

Specifically for Illinois, there are some takeaways the Illini can have from their meeting with Ball State, including that the field is littered with youth — 24 (TWENTY-FOUR) freshmen made their debuts against Ball State and three true freshmen started for the Illini.

George Conditt narrows down his options.

Corliss High School senior George Conditt narrowed down his options for where he will be playing college basketball next fall. Conditt included Illinois in his final three.

We’ll have more coverage regarding Conditt and what he can bring to State Farm Center over the next week.

So, until next time, that was the Orange Minute. Have a great day!