Northwestern University Athletics
Postgame Quotes: Northern Illinois 23, Northwestern 15
9/6/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
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Northwestern vs. Northern Illinois
Ryan Field
Sept. 6, 2014
Postgame Quotes
Northwestern head coach Pat Fitzgerald
"Obviously, I'm very disappointed in the outcome of the game. I saw a lot of things in the second half that, right now, we have to eliminate from our game. From a character standpoint, I thought we lost our poise, which from there, allowed Northern to do the things they wanted to do. There's a lot to fix there from a penalties standpoint and a poise standpoint. We beat ourselves about doing those types of things. It seemed like every time we made a big play we did something penalty-wise offensively which would just kill any sort of momentum. And then defensively in the second half we put ourselves in some bad situations. We can't let the ball get put over our heads. That was tough; it's tough when you've got guys in position to make plays and they just don't make them. We have a lot of work to do. Obviously this is not the position we wanted to be in sitting here two weeks in. It's going to be an important week for us here coming back, with working hard and improving, and then we'll be looking to come back into a game week the week after."
On Kyle Prater's breakout performance...
"Frankly it means nothing about me, it means everything about him. I'm really proud of him. This week the leadership council met and they said they really felt that they needed a voice from the wide receiver room in that group, and they appointed Kyle to our leadership council. So I think that tells you a lot about who he is and how hard he works and how much he has overcome and the respect level he has from every one of his teammates. That's from them not from me. I'm incredibly proud of him, he's persevered and stayed steady through a lot of negativity, a lot of negativity that was out of his control. I think he's handled it incredibly well since day one. He's been incredibly patient, and he's persevered through it well."
On evaluating position battles and the team going into the bye week...
"Yea, I'm going to have to look at the tape. Obviously from an offensive standpoint today the self-inflicted wounds and penalties are inexcusable. Northern is a good football team. They won four straight championships for a reason. I thought from our standpoint of discipline and poise, we failed dramatically today."
On Justin Jackson's performance...
"I think Justin is a very talented young man. I think he's just going to become more and more involved in our offense. I think he and Solomon are two guys who are working hard to try and make plays, and they haven't even taken a class yet, well, besides summer school. I think both guys are playing well and giving us a chance."
On if the losses offensively have affected the group's attitude...
"When one guy goes down it's another man's opportunity. You've heard me say that for a decade now. And guys have got to step up by just doing their thing. Whatever your strength is, play to your strengths. You know you're never going to be able to replace a guy, you've just got to go out and do what you do best. I'm going to have to look at the tape. Some circumstances changed for our offense toward the end of the week with some guys suddenly being unable to play. I thought our offensive staff did a fairly decent job yesterday and this morning, adjusting some of the personnel groups and giving the guys a plan to hopefully go out and be successful."
Northwestern Players
WR Kyle Prater
On his first career touchdown...
"It was a blessing. I am very humbled. Unfortunately I had to get my first touchdown with a loss, but like I said I'm humbled. I've overcome a lot. We just have to keep building as a team and move forward."
On today's loss...
"It's very tough. Like I said I am very humbled but it's not about me right now. It's about us, the team, and we came up short. We just have to keep building and going from there."
On what they've seen over the past two weeks that makes them think NU will get better... "There's no doubt in my mind that we can turn it around. We have an unbelievable team. We overcame a lot in the offseason. We're a family and we still feel that way. We still have that bond. We're just going to keep moving on. We're just getting hit with a little adversity right now, but it's nothing that we can't overcome."
On being elected to the leadership council...
"It's humbling. Over the past three years that I've been here I never thought that I would be elected to the leadership council and just this past week I was put on leadership. I'm grateful that the guys look at me to lead. I led from the shadows before I was put on there. I always led with my play and not by talking. They see me as a guy that can do that for this team and that's what I'm going to do. In this time right now we need it and I'm going to stand up for my team and have their back. That's what I have to do."
DB Matthew Harris
On if NU should be more aggressive...
"You know we're just there to trust our training. Whatever coach calls we are comfortable doing."
On what they've seen over the past two weeks that makes them think NU will get better...
"Nothing really specific. We know that we can come out on the field and dominate. We just have to put our minds to it and go out on the field and show what we know. We trust each other. Like [Prater] said we're a family and anything we go through we do it together."
On his penalty...
"I was just trusting my technique and I think the ref saw something...I was doing something else, but you know I can't make that mistake again. I'm going to do my best to clean it up."
QB Trevor Siemian
On what they've seen over the past two weeks that makes them think NU will get better...
"I think no doubt we haven't played anywhere near our best football. We haven't seen our best team yet. There's no doubt about that and there's no excuse for it. We have to find it and this will be a good week for us coming up.
Going back to the spring I thought this was the most talented team I've been on...just a lot of self inflicted wounds with this week and last week, but I think we'll be alright."
On Prater's game...
"I'm happy for him. It's been a long time coming for him. He's been battling through a lot of adversity. Any time you see a guy like that put in the work and you see him day in and day out and you see it pay off it's pretty cool to see."
On Prater's attitude...
He's awesome. He's a leader in that room. He's a guy a lot of guys look up to on the team, really positive, really upbeat, easy guy to follow and I'm happy for him. It's good to see that his work is paying off.
On offense's performance...
"I don't think schemes change much. I think, like I said, its self-inflicted wounds. We haven't played well and that's nobody's fault but our own and my fault. As a quarterback I have to take a lot of responsibility for that, but we just haven't played well nothing has changed."
DL Deonte Gibson
On penalties and discipline...
"One of the main things we try to teach is `do your own job'. [There are] 11 guys on the field. 11 guys with 11 different responsibilities. So then when one guy tries to do too much, trying to cover for another guy, we get beat as you've seen over and over again these last two weeks and that's where the poise comes in tact. When it gets hard you have to do your own job. You only have one thing to do. I think we lost a little focus today."
On the difference between halves...
"Personally I probably put about 4 or 5 plays on film of just horrible technique and just the discipline went out of the window because I was just pressing too much. And once again it goes back to doing your own job and personally I failed the team in the last two drives of the game.
It was a little bit of a turn when we gave up a touchdown and we kinda pressed a bit because we knew we could play better. You just have to stick to the status quo."
NIU Head Coach Rod Carey
Opening Statement...
"Really happy with the victory. We came out and played it to 0-0 at halftime. The defense was in control. Their defense was also in control. We came out in the second half and really got some things going and shifted the momentum. I was really pleased with the way we finished."
On the three-quarterback system...
"That was the plan. We knew, and Drew knew, and Matt knew. We told Drew to be on the ready. We didn't know exactly when it was going to come. Matt knew we were going to get him in there. We knew we were going to get him in with the ones in the first half. The plan went well. Drew came in and played great. We have three good quarterbacks. I've been telling you that. It's a good problem to have but nonetheless, it's a problem."
On having room for improvement...
"I haven't ever seen a perfect football game. There won't ever be one. We have a lot to clean up offensively, defensively and on special teams. We made enough plays at key moments that got us the victory today. It's game two. In a perfect world, you would like to play your best all the time, but really as the season goes on, you play better and get things ironed out."
On significance of beating a Big Ten team...
"It is significant. We don't stick our heads in the sand and say this isn't special. It certainly is. But at the same time, you can't attack big expectations unless you have daily work ethic. These guys have it. That's how you have to attack it. It doesn't matter what game is in front of us, it's the biggest game. You know why? Because it's the next one. That's how you go about your business, and these guys are."
On the NIU fans at the game...
"Wasn't that fun? The NIU chant at the end of the game, wasn't that fun? I have great respect for Northwestern and Coach Fitzgerald and what they have done here. They have done an unbelievable thing, but that was kind of fun. Our crowd at that point kind of rivaled theirs. That was fun."
NIU Player Quotes
QB Drew Hare
On the offense's response in the second half...
"We just stuck to the game plan. We knew how they were going to come out [defensively], we stuck to the game plan and just ran our stuff and executed."
On providing another option at quarterback...
"[Northwestern] knew that we have three good guys and I just needed to be ready. "I was just trying to do what I was coached to do."
On the significance of the victory...
"It's good that we get to come in and beat a Big Ten team, [but] again it's just win No. 2 for us. We'll celebrate for 24 hours and then move on."
WR Da'Ron Brown
On returning to his hometown of Chicago...
"It felt good playing in my hometown. I'm not too far from Chicago [in DeKalb], but it felt good"
On Drew Hare's demeanor on the field
"Drew is calm in the huddle, and so are our other quarterbacks. You know, our offense is just calm and ready for the next play."
LB Rasheen Lemon
On trouble getting off the field on third down...
"It was just us getting a feel for [Northwestern], things that they do and their passes. Once we figured that out we were able to ball out."
