Northwestern University Athletics
Postgame Quotes
10/14/2006 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 14, 2006
Head Coach Pat Fitzgerald
Opening Statement...
One week of preparing for the third quarter obviously didn't make a big difference and we didn't come out today and accomplish what I hoped we would in the third quarter. But, at the same time, we have a locker room full of guys who trust and believe in each other. We will find a way to get this thing going in the right direction. We're going to find a way to win and we have another opportunity to do that next week here at home.
On the play of quarterback Andrew Brewer...
Obviously we have to make plays. It's not just him alone. The quarterback always gets singled out--he's the hero when we win and when he doesn't have a great performance he gets a lot of things thrown on his shoulders. Andrew is a great young man and he'll continue to battle. We are going to get things going tomorrow and find the right combination of guys out there to give us success.
On a feeling of regret over the last few losses...
Our guys have all the confidence in the world. We just haven't played well. We've had regret in the last four weeks. On Sunday we can put a tape together of about 12 plays that we regret. There could be a breakdown with one guy, maybe we missed a check--those things are what we need to correct. We need to do a much better job of coaching that. When we do that, we'll win. We are going to come back and go to work.
On the play of Sherrick McManis...
Players make plays--that kid is a playmaker, that's the bottom line. Sherrick McManis makes plays in all aspects of what he does. I called him batman in my Monday press conference and that's who he is. He reminds me a lot of Barry Gardner when he hit his groove as a player here. Barry was kind of a garbage man. It just seemed like anywhere there was something going on, Barry was there. That's how Sherrick is right now.
On looking for that first conference win...
It's frustrating to lose. When you have success, you have success as a team. When you go through adversity, you go through adversity as a team. More than anything else, we want to win. Our guys all came to Northwestern to win and we have a great tradition of success. We are going to get this thing turned around and get it going in the right direction. There is no doubt about that in my mind.
Northwestern player quotes
#91 Mark Koehn, DE
On Purdue's offensive line...
"We've got to give credit to Purdue's offensive line. They did a good job of stopping our pass rush. They had only given up 3-or-4 sacks this year and they did a good job today."
On Northwestern's defense...
"The defensive line; we could've done a better job putting pressure on them. We've just got to go make a play. It gets frustrating. There were a lot of third-and-longs and we just couldn't get off the field."
On Northwestern as a team...
"We've got to look forward to next week...
.we've got to get all phases of the defense to come out and play. Once that happens, we should get some W's."
#12 Andrew Brewer, QB
On Northwestern's offensive production in the second half...
"It's on us. Regardless of what Coach calls, regardless of what defense they give us, we're talented enough to go out there and do it, unfortunately we haven't been consistent in getting it done."
On Northwestern's offense...
"I don't mind throwing the ball down the field. I trust the coaching staff to get in the right plays and trust the direction that they want to go. Whatever happens; if we run the ball 60 plays a game, that's fine with me. I just want to win."
#20 Marquice Cole, CB
On the corner blitz...
"The corner blitz has been very effective for us. We're getting a lot of mileage out of it this year so we keep calling it."
On Northwestern's defense...
"Sometimes we look very good; sometimes we look very bad. We've just got to be...
more consistent and go out and make more plays."
#76 Desmond Taylor, OL
On making his first start...
"I was excited for my first start. Hopefully, with time, I'll improve. It's the Big Ten; this is where the top players come to compete. In high school, I was usually bigger than other players and that's obviously not the case now. Also playing tackle, that's not my normal position but I'm working at it and I will improve."
On the offensive line...
"We're a family. We all stick together."
On Coach Fitzgerald...
"I think he did prepare us better. Obviously we didn't come out and execute like we wanted too. He's a fired up man ...
He's very intense. There's no feeling sorry for ourselves in that locker room. On the field he's fired up, inside he's fired up, and that just gets us ready to go back to work tomorrow. I think he's done an excellent job keeping our spirits high."
Purdue Head Coach Joe Tiller
On throwing the ball against Northwestern...
"We thought we would throw the ball with some success because of their coverage scheme. They play what we call Cover-3, which is soft corner play. With that scheme we felt that the outside receivers could make some hay. To counter that they started playing Cover-2 and brought their corners up to press, so then we shifted to the inside receivers. We felt that we could throw the football because we could protect. If you can protect you always have a chance to throw the football."
On Northwestern quarterback Andrew Brewer...
"Their quarterback is a very good runner. He is going to be a very good player, and I told Coach Fitzgerald that. He reminded me of Brady Quinn when we first saw him as a freshman. (Brewer) is a big, physical guy, and he actually runs faster."
On the play of his defense...
"It was nice to see us play a complete game. Even when the subs were in there late they came up with some plays. They had the one long pass and one really long run, but outside of those two plays they did a pretty good job of accounting for themselves."
On Anthony Spencer's play...
"We thought whoever was in there would have a pretty good day. I say that because some of the things we were going to try to do to get a rush out of our front would play into Anthony Spencer's hands. It did not matter who their left tackle was, they just happened to have a different guy. That did not change our plan. We wanted to get pressure on the quarterback with the front without blitzing. We felt that if we could do that it would go a long way against their passing game."
On Greg Orton's play...
"The way we were being defended, the 10-yard out was there. He can make that catch. He made a couple of big plays as well. He almost pulled the ball away from (Northwestern's Corey Wootton) who intercepted the ball and was going the other way."
On his team's response after the loss to Iowa...
"We challenged them pretty well on Tuesday and Wednesday. They were a couple of our better practices this year, but I also thought we practiced well heading into the Iowa game. I thought we were even up on the bit a little bit more this week. Our guys said, `We've got a chance to put out our best effort and stop them.'"
Purdue Player quotes
#13 Chris Summers, K
On accuracy...
I'm just hitting the ball wrong. I need to get back and re-think things.
On confidence...
You know...
it's still there. We've been on the road awhile and we're going home and I need to get better. I'm still kicking off well, so there's positives.
#6 Desmond Tardy
On getting into the starting lineup...
I took not playing as an opportunity to get better, and then one day coach said that we needed to get guys more roles, and I was one of those guys. It was one formation starting off and more and more and I'm just trying to build on it every chance I get.
On making difficult catches...
Watching film, we see how people play, and [the defensive back] played it just like film. I made sure I shielded him off with my back, concentrated, and caught the ball with my hands, absorbing it. I kind of knew he was right there, so I braced myself. I tried to turn around and he tried to strip it, so I fell so we could keep the drive going.
