Sept. 12, 2009

Recap |  Final Stats

Postgame Quotes
Northern Illinois vs. Western Illinois
September 12, 2009

Northern Illinois head coach Jerry Kill

On tonight's win:

"I'm proud of the youngsters coming off of a tough loss last week. They worked very hard. Sometimes you can come out a bit stagnant but I compliment our kids for being ready to play. I thought we played hard and learned a lot from the field, good and bad. It's always good to learn with a win. I compliment Western Illinois with how they played. I've coached against (Western Illinois head coach) Don (Patterson) for a long time. Don came out with a few wrinkles offensively and caught us off guard. Don's a very good football coach and a very good man. I compliment his team and they have a bright future in the Missouri Valley Conference."

On the final score:

"To be honest, preparation for this week was probably tougher than it was for Wisconsin. Games like tonight make you a bit nervous because we hadn't beaten Western Illinois the last three times we played them. I know a lot about Western Illinois so it made me a little bit nervous. Our kids did make me feel good throughout the week because we practiced well and prepared well. I had a good feeling going into the game because of our kids. If you prepare well, you won't feel quite as nervous. I was pleased with our effort and we will continue to learn from our mistakes."

On his success against Western Illinois over his coaching career:

"I don't know how many people know this but Southern Illinois lost to Western 18 straight years. I lost the first time I coached against them and we were fortunate enough to win on the last play of the game the next season. After that I was able to get some victories against them. I am very familiar with what Western does but I've always had very close games with them throughout the years. Western has always been hard to prepare for because defensively they are totally different from what we usually see. Don does such a great job offensively and he is very hard to prepare for. Western Illinois has been very good for a long time."

"You never want to turn the ball over and we were very fortunate to get the ball back. We did a very good job of taking care of business over the next four or five drives. We had good execution and we were better on third down this week. Everything we needed to work on we got better at and we got good quarterback play. We got good quarterback play against Wisconsin and Chandler had a good game tonight. When you get good quarterback play, you have a chance to win games. "

On NIU's defensive intensity:

"As the game went on, we got better defensively. In some aspects we could have turned around and played earlier this week because we've got young kids. We were sacking the quarterback in the second half but running past him in the first half. I tell the kids to play hard but we were playing out of control early on. We had to tell them at halftime to play under control. We have such good kids here and they do exactly what we tell them. We have to learn to play under control. As the game went on, our younger kids continued to gain some confidence."

On his team's progress over two games:

"I am pleased. We certainly would have liked to win the first game. I am very pleased with the work ethic from our kids. Again, it all goes back to practice. Our preparation and attitude has been good."

Northern Illinois Quarterback Chandler Harnish

On throwing 8-for-8 to start the game:

"The line did a great job blocking, and they gave me time to throw the ball. The receivers were catching their passes, so everything just kind of worked itself out."

On talking to the team after the fumble:

"I just told Me'co (Brown) to keep his head up, and that I was on his side through it. I wasn't worried about our offense, and I told them not to worry about. The offense came back to score in the next couple of plays."

Northern Illinois Running back Me'co Brown

On coming back strong after the first quarter fumble:

"I just thought about what coach Kill always says, and that is if you make a mistake you just have to forget about what just happened and move on to the next play. As a leader of the team, he always tells me I have to keep my head up and do what I do best, and that is to keep playing. I just went on to play the next play."

Northern Illinois Running back Chad Spann

On his performance in the game:

"We just come out and play as a group. All the running backs put forth a great effort and we did what was called upon us. Me'co had some great runs out there, and I was able to get some great drives. Chandler had some great throws, and it all just kind of came together in the end."

On finding the end zone:

"You have to look at the line up front, which moves those big guys out of my way, and makes it easy for me to get in there."

Northern Illinois Safety Tracy Wilson

On defending the offense and the quarterback:

"The main thing we did was try to move around before the play started. We knew the quarterback had a lot of experience and we knew we needed to move around to get him a little rattled so he wouldn't know where the coverage was going to be. We were able to slow him down a little bit."

Western Illinois Quarterback Matt Barr

On NIU's defense:

"The first play started off like it was supposed to, and then the fumble really hurt us and NIU gained a lot of momentum right there. The defense gave us what we expected, there were not a lot of surprises. I think they just out-executed us today."

On WIU's miscues:

"We made a lot of errors that we take pride in not making. We dropped passes, false starts, we did a better job managing the game clock this week, but there were dumb things that cost us a lot, and at bad times and bad spots on the field. Northern did a good job taking advantage of that."

Western Illinois head coach Don Patterson

On NIU's ability to hold WIU to 7 points:

"The score was a little misleading in terms of how we matched up physically with them and I feel like it wasn't as one sided as the score board, but of course the game is judged on the scoreboard so based on that we got defensively beaten tonight."

On NIU's rushing game:

"{Next week] we are going to tackle better because we will be tackling lesser athletes. Those are good [running] backs. Some of the credit goes to the backs and some credit goes to their offensive line for holding us back."