Northwestern University Athletics
Postgame Quotes
11/7/2009 12:00:00 AM | Football
Nov. 7, 2009
Northwestern Head Coach Pat Fitzgerald
"We fully expected if we could put together 60 minutes of Wildcat football together in all three phases we'd have an opportunity to compete, and to our young men's credit, we did. Especially as the game went along, I thought we continued to get stronger and the credit goes to our players. They worked their tails off in the off-season and throughout the year to try and improve and get better. We thought today would be an advantage for us with the heat. We feel like we're a team that's in great conditioning. We had guys go down, we picked up the flag again and kept on moving. I have to give a lot of credit to Kirk, his staff, and the young men in the Iowa locker room. It's a great football team."
On any game plan change after Stanzi leaving the game
"You never like to see that happen, it's unfortunate to see Ricky get injured. He's been having such a great year, it's been a magical ride and you never want to see a competitor get injured. I hope he's well and he comes back and plays as the season moves forward. As a big momentum play, not only getting the sack and causing the fumble, but getting the touchdown, that play was critical from a momentum standpoint. On one hand, you don't want to change the game plan too much and you're all of the sudden out of what you practiced all week. It's kind of a double-edged sword. Obviously, that was Vandenberg's first big experience of the year. It was great to watch the way our defense went out, battled, and made some big plays down the stretch."
On the two-quarterback system
"We stuck to the plan really well. Mick McCall and our offensive staff did a great job this week coming up with a plan how to utilize both guys' strengths. I thought we executed the plan really well. In the second half, we did expect both quarterbacks to play, but we would have liked to play (Dan) Persa more if his hand wasn't injured."
On Senior DE Corey Wootton's performance
"Cory is just continuing to get closer and closer to finally getting over the hump of him becoming the player he wants to be. The expectations we have of him are the ones he sets for himself, and they are very high. I could not be more proud of him. He's stayed the course, he's battled, he's persevered. It's not been great for anyone on our team, but he found a way to get the job done today. It's a credit to him, and it's because he's from a great family. He's been that way his whole career and I couldn't be prouder of the young man."
On end of the year momentum
"I think we're starting to play our best football of the year. It has nothing to do with Iowa, it has everything to do with us. I really believe we're starting to hit our stride. Like I said earlier in the week, we have the utmost respect for this Iowa program and everybody in this league. We put our focus inward, and we have not put together four quarters of three phase football yet, and for the first time all year we did. I said it after the Syracuse game and I'll say it again, we're a dangerous team when we do that, and that's on us as coaches to consistently get our players to play with focus and discipline, and to their credit, they did."
