Sept. 29, 2012

Recap |  Final Stats |  Notes

NORTHERN ILLINOIS FOOTBALL 2012

NIU vs. Central Michigan – Sept. 29, 2012

Huskie Stadium – DeKalb, Illinois

Central Michigan Head Coach Dan Enos

On the game overall…

I thought their offense executed very well, and we obviously didn’t play very well on defense.  The score was 27-21, we had the ball in the redzone, we had a guy open, and they had a great play to tip the ball and pick it. After that, the ballgame was over. I thought their offensive line, their quarterback, and, their runningbacks were the difference in the game.

 

On how bad the two turnovers hurt…

That’s the difference in the game when you play against an offense like that. You can’t give them extra turns and you can’t give them short fields and we did that today.

 

On the fake punt and fake field goal…

On the fake punt, it was a mental error by one player and the same thing on the fake field goal.  It was a mental error by one guy, and you can’t have that. You have to give them credit. 

 

On what makes NIU’s offense so hard to stop…    

It’s the players.  The quarterback is the main reason, but I was very impressed with their offensive line. Coming into the game, I didn’t quite know how good they would be. They’re very good.  I was very impressed with their offensive line and tight ends.

 

Northern Illinois Head Coach Dave Doeren

On Leighton Settle…

To see Leighton what we’ve seen in practice, finally in games; those cutback runs.  He had a couple of them; earlier in the year he had one.  Now he’s finishing those things.

On the trick plays…

Every week that’s what we do; we watch film to see if there’s anything we can take advantage of.  Every game we have a fake punt and fake field goal available. But it’s usually not there. It’s just certain situations.  But today, both looks we wanted they came out in and they were in multiple times.  Last week we had a fake called, but they gave us a different look and we got out of it; we just punted the football.

We’re going to take advantage of looks people give us. Offense, defense, and special teams if we feel like we can. Today we got what we wanted. Excellent execution by the holder, flipping it over the shoulder and Sims showing that 40 time. Fastest kicker in the Midwest. It was fun. It’s part of us being aggressive, and we’re not going to give up the streak at home without fighting for it.

On the offensive line…

We’re playing a lot of guys in there.  All are getting in there, competing, and staying fresh. When you run for 400 yards, I don’t know how you can’t be happy. We’re protecting our quarterback. He’s not getting hit a lot in the pass game. I think coach Carey does a phenomenal job just mixing up things with the launch point, different protections, and making it tough defensively. Can’t blitz a lot with the run game we have. We’re ahead of where I thought we’d be at this point.

On the team’s mental toughness…

It’s funny – we were up by ten at half, and everyone in the locker room was mad. We felt like we hadn’t played our best yet. We have a group of guys that doesn’t want to underachieve. They want to play at their utmost best, all the time. We left a few plays out there in the first half, and we knew it.  Unfortunately, we started about as bad as we could there in the third quarter. We had a great kickoff coverage, they clipped us, then we gave up a 92-yard pass.  We can’t do that; we can’t be a big play defense.  And we won’t be. But very happy with the focus and how we react to negative plays.  What happens after bad things. We scored with a long drive and forced a turnover.  That’s the mental toughness of our team.

Northern Illinois Player Quotes

Sean Progar

On the defense getting two turnovers in the game…

It’s definitely something we’ve been emphasizing in practice. We’ve been talking about it as a defense and, as Coach (Doeren) said, those were two big turning points. We thought the momentum shifted on both those plays. It was definitely big for the defense and the team as a whole.

 

On finally getting those turnovers after not getting many in the first four games…

Obviously (we’re excited), a little bit, but we’re not going to be satisfied. We want to get more turnovers every game. We’re just going to continue to work at it in practice and it will keep turning over in the game.

 

On the play of the defensive line…

I think our defensive line played well. I think they did a great job not dropping their quarterback as far as we saw in film. Their pass protection up front was a little different than we saw on film. Obviously, they did a good job on that. We got some hits, though. We would have liked to get a little more pressure on the quarterback. He was throwing quick passes, but, at the same time, we’ll watch the film tomorrow and learn from it and make the changes we have to.

 

Jordan Lynch

On lack of turnovers helping offense’s productivity…

I felt like that’s how we got our first loss against Iowa by turning the ball over. Just like we said, if we don’t turn the ball over, we won’t beat ourselves. We have a lot of playmakers and a great group of guys. Just don’t turn the ball over (and) we’ll be fine.

 

Mathew Sims

On taking a hit at the end of his touchdown run…

I’m fine. After I finally realized I scored and didn’t fumble, I was happy. I didn’t really feel the hit anymore.

On going over the fake field goal in practice…

Coach told me that we were going to run it and we got two field goals before that, so I knew he was going to give us the opportunity to run it. We ran it a lot in practice. (Ryan) Neir gave me a great toss and then (Jason) Schepler gave me a great block outside. We were able to score and get some more points up on the board instead of a field goal.

 

Leighton Settle

On being defined with both power and speed…

Definitely. We work on that a lot in practice. Like I’ve said before, it starts with the men up front. If they can hold their blocks, it’s an easy job for the running backs to find the right holes and go for a long run.