Northwestern University Athletics
Postgame Quotes: Northwestern 24, Western Illinois 7
9/20/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
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Northwestern vs. Western Illinois
Ryan Field
Sept. 20, 2014
Postgame Quotes
Head Coach Pat Fitzgerald
Opening Statement...
"Great team win. I'm pleased with the way our defense was able to keep them off the board, especially with the way their output was for two of their games. They put a lot of points up and put yards on everybody. Defensively, I thought we played pretty well. We did a great job with turnovers. Same thing from the kicking game. I thought our guys played pretty darn well. I am very pleased with that. From the standpoint of where we are at -- obviously, to get a win is great. I saw a lot of improvement in some areas and a lot of room for it in others. That will continue to be our focus as we move forward to get ready for Big Ten play here in a week against an outstanding football team. We have to continue to accelerate the growth of this team in all three phases. Practices have helped but we are far from where we need to be.
"Class of 2018 was awesome to see. We will be back here in a couple weeks, and all the students will be here for that. It will be fun to see."
On the play of the special teams...
"To go down and get that block was terrific. We talked about pitching the ball. We have practiced it, and Chi Chi [Ariguzo] pitched it to their offensive lineman instead of outside to Matthew Harris that would have probably gone up the sideline, so we have a lot of work to do there. That's why stats are for losers. That counts as a fumble against our football team off a blocked kick."
On Northwestern's passing game...
"I think Trevor is pretty close to being healthy. We were 15 of 25. I saw one overthrow on Danny, and one up the sideline where I thought a guy was open and we sailed it a little bit. We have been a different wide receiver unit every week it seems like, since about midway through camp. I don't think there is enough trust and continuity in that group. There are a lot of things we have been working in practice, but obviously we are not there yet. The drops were down. The effort level was better. I think there is some room that we will feel good about, but at the same time there is a ton of room for improvement."
On the running backs...
"All three of the guys ran the ball pretty well today with authority. I think the two young guys are very talented football players that are continuing to learn and grow in the offense and the way to play. They start class here on Tuesday, so now everything changes for them. At the same time, I think all three guys that carried the ball today did some good things, but we have got to be stronger and better at the point of attack if we want to run the ball consistently in the Big Ten."
On facing Christian Hackenberg next week...
"We have to look at what Penn State does schematically and try to do things to disrupt Christian. I think, if not the best in our league or the best in the country, he is in the conversation. He is a terrific football player."
On team mistakes...
"We are trying to eliminate [mistakes]. I think we ended up with five penalties for 35 yards. There was one on the defense for being offsides. That is unacceptable. The other ones, we just cannot have. We can't fumble the ball and throw the ball away with points on the board. We are far from where we need to be."
Northwestern Player Quotes
CB Nick VanHoose
On the play of the NU defense vs. WIU...
"It was huge day for the defense with all the turnovers we caused. It was definitely a big morale booster and is something that we know as a defense that we can come out and do that to some teams. And finally today we came out and did it."
RB Solomon Vault
On scoring the first and second touchdowns of his career...
"It felt good, but most importantly it felt good to get my first win. You know, all that would have been in vain if we lost but we came out and we handled business. So I'm really glad we got that first win."
On sharing carries with Justin Jackson...
"Of course we've bonded. We're with each other all the time. As freshmen we have to stick together. It's tougher for us so we have to be there for each other. I consider Justin a good friend."
RB Justin Jackson
On playing a big role as a true freshman...
"I just expected to come in and compete and to be ready to play if I needed to. So when they put me in I'm ready to go out there and play my game. I'm here for a reason. I just try to go out there and play hard for my teammates and for my school."
On his relationship with Solomon Vault...
"It's awesome. I haven't really had another back since my sophomore year when I had my brother. It's really awesome when someone else scores and you're just as excited as if you score. It's definitely nice, we're becoming better friends throughout the weeks, and it's awesome to see him doing well."
Western Illinois Head Coach Bob Nielson
Opening Statement...
"I'm really proud of the effort that our guys displayed today. We really believed we could win and we came out and played like we could win. When you play teams of that caliber, you can't make the kinds of mistakes that we made today. When you're minus-three in the turnover margin and you're having kicks blocked, you're going to have a hard time beating anybody. And that was the disappointing thing today, those kinds of things; I was never disappointed in our guys' effort or in the way they competed."
On Northwestern pressure on the quarterback...
"I think their front four is the strength of their defense. They've got big, physical, experienced guys that do a good job rushing the quarterback. And we have two tackles who are playing some of their first football at this level. We knew that was going to be a struggle. We got ourselves into situations where they knew we had to throw, and we had to throw. That allowed them to pin their ears back and really get after the quarterback, and they are good enough players that when they can be one-dimensional like that they're going to cause issues for a lot of teams, especially one with a couple tackles that are gaining experience each week. What we were able to do in the beginning of the game was keep them off-balance, with the ability to run the ball and get some passes out on the perimeter so they couldn't just tee up and rush the passer. That was really the difference in the fourth quarter and why they were able to get pressure on us. We were two scores down and had to get the ball into the end zone."
On struggling in the battle for field position...
"We did that to ourselves. Certainly field position is always a big part of football. And that's where the turnovers, the mistakes, the blocked kicks, and with the wind there we could never really get the field position flipped around in the third quarter. Coach Fitzgerald does a really good job with that. When you look at Northwestern football they don't really make a lot of mistakes. Controlling field position is a big part of that. We try to pride ourselves as a team that doesn't make a lot of mistakes too, and today we made too many."
On mistakes, such as bad snaps...
"That's one of the things I just said to our guys in the locker room. I don't usually say a whole lot after the game, but I just said `Hey that's how close we are.' To beat a team like that we have to play closer to perfect than we did today. And turnovers, mistakes in the kicking game, things that you're talking about, like three snaps today that we ended up losing yardage on and were basically wasted plays, those all impacted those conversion situations."
Western Illinois Player Quotes
WR Lance Lenoir
On what he did to step up for Trenton Norvell...
"I worked hard in practice. Me and Trent talked, we've got good chemistry, and we just went out there and worked hard. The plays came down and we made them."
On knowing they had opportunities today...
"It's a tough loss, but at the same time we know we worked hard and we came out ready to play. We were just one or two plays away from getting there."
LB J.J. Raffelson
On his key stops today...
"It was very important, making some big fourth-down stops and getting the ball back for our offense, getting some good third-down pressures. It really just came down to executing and playing together and I feel like we did that pretty well."
On the offense putting them in tough situations with turnovers...
"On defense we take pride in sudden change. When things suddenly happen it's our job to go out there and stop them, and we just have to do that all the time. Whenever that situation arises it's our job to go out there and make a big stop and we thrive on that."
QB Trenton Norvell
On throwing sharp in the first half...
"We knew going into the game that we were going to try to pick apart the secondary. We've worked on it all week - trying to get the guys outside going, trying to get the running game going so we could open that up a bit and coming into this game we knew that was something we wanted to focus on and we definitely did that."
On the difference between last week's game and today's...
"The receivers did a great job coming back to the ball, making plays outside. Every week we make good improvement with the offense and as a quarterback, it's awesome to see everyone just meshing together and everyone still moving forward."
LB Kevin Kintzel
On gaining momentum...
"Momentum is huge in any game and one play can swing the whole game, so defensively we pride ourselves on making those key stops when they're presented because that can give our offense a huge boost."
On where the team is now...
"I'm happy with where we are. We still had too many mental breakdowns in key situations as you could tell. What we really need to focus on right now is communicating with each other and getting on the same page, but otherwise I'm very happy with the physicality, our speed, our talent we all have. All we need to do is communicate."
