Oct. 7, 2008

DEKALB, Ill. -Northern Illinois head football coach Jerry Kill spoke at Tuesday's weekly press conference at the Jeffrey and Kimberly Yordon Center to review last week's loss to Tennessee and preview Saturday's contest against Miami (OH). Joining Kill were free safety David Bryant (St. Louis, Mo./Ladue Horton Watkins), Landon Cox (Calumet City, Ill./Thronton Fractional North) and Mike Krause (Germantown, Wis./ Germantown). Below are excerpts from the press conference.

Head Coach, Jerry Kill:

On the effort against Tennessee Saturday:

"Our kids couldn't have played any harder. Coach Fulmer called me on Monday and we talked for about 30 or 40 minutes. I think that we certainly gained some respect. From the opening play to the end, we played physical and we played hard. At the end of the day it came down to a couple of plays. They had a deep ball and we had a deep ball. We caught ours and went out of bounds. They caught theirs and scored. We played against a great, great defensive football team. We had some different things happen during the game, especially with our quarterback. Our kids kept their composure. I've coached for 25 years, and have won a lot of big games. But I can't really say that I have seen a group of kids that have played harder than the group that was on the field last Saturday. I think they represented Northern Illinois very, very well."

On if the team has improved:

"There's no question about it. No question that we got better. I think we have gotten better every week and that is encouraging. Even with the injuries we've had, we just keep progressing and that is unusual. Our kids are playing hard. When you play hard, good things happen. Our offensive line played better against Tennessee than they have played all year. It's just that we were playing Tennessee. Probably nine of those 11 guys will be playing in the league [NFL]. Coach Fulmer told me that they have one of the better defenses than they've had for a long time. I think our kids got better and raised it up a notch. The key is, can we continue to do that. That's not easy to do. We've played really hard for five games now. You throw the stats out of the way. I've watched the film, and our kids have played hard for five games. We have not won them all, but if we continue to play hard, those things will fall into place."

"It's a great feeling. Its one of those things where you don't have to worry about getting home at three or four in the morning and you don't sleep after a game like that [Tennessee game]. Knowing that you don't have to go out and travel, there are a lot of things that we need to get done here in house. Our kids have been through it. Everybody is saying, `they've been on the road four out of five games and when are they going to hit the wall?' Our job as coaches is to make sure they don't hit it. The kids, to this point, have done exactly everything I have told them to do and it is amazing to me. I compliment them on that. They don't have to do that. It's hard to get your own children to do that."

On the Quarterback situation:

"Danny is very sore. Our situation right now is that he won't do a whole lot of practice today. Chandler jogged around a lot the other day. Hopefully we can get him doing some individual drills. Whether he's going to be ready to play on Saturday or not, I don't know. Right now the guy that I have to put my focus on is that I have to get DeMarcus Grady ready to play."

On NIU being ranked No. 2 in the MAC on defense:

"Our kids really are focusing in on what we are tried to teach them. They've bought in, on the defensive side of the ball, what we are doing. They feel good about it. When you feel good, you play good. Hopefully we can continue that. It's very hard in today's football to do that, but it's a great thing to have some confidence right now. I think our kids are playing with a lot of confidence on the defensive side of the ball."

On the biggest concern with Miami for Saturday:

"Field position. They have a great punter. Not a good punter, a great punter. He can kick it 60 yards with a 4.4 sec. hang time. He's a big time punter. He controls field position. And they can play good on defense. They're aggressive. They're going to blitz you, and they're good at it. Anytime you combine a great punter with a good defense, you are going to have problems. Offensively, they got great skill. They're going to throw it around a little. Anytime you have that it makes you nervous. It's a great challenge for us, as it is every game. People like to compare scores from week to week. The fans do, but they don't mean anything in the MAC. It will be interesting. Right now, all I can say is that our defense has got to continue playing the way that they are. I think they will."

On the running game troubles against Tennessee:

"I feel good. To be honest, I feel that the offensive line played very well. I thought that our running backs ran hard. In some ways, I look back and feel that maybe we should have ran it more in different situations. There's not too many people that, unless you're in the SEC, that can play 2-man and two safety's 14 yards deep, have six in the box and still stop you for a three-yard gain. There's just not that many people who can do that. It's very hard to do. We've got to take our football team where it was at on Saturday, and we've got to continue to progress and move forward to play at that level. That's not always easy to do. As the season goes, you physically wear down. You get a little bit tired. Its college football and you play 12 games. That's why we play a lot of people to this point in the season, and we hope down the stretch it's going to pay off.

On the game overall:

"It was a tremendously, tremendously physical football game. That's what college football is all about. If you are a fan, you couldn't have been at a better football game, you really couldn't have been. As a coach, am I disappointed about the loss, you're darn right. But as far as the team and their effort and the way that they played I am proud. I always tell them that everybody's playing on Saturday and only half of those teams can win. But if you can look at the mirror at the end of the day and say that you gave your best that's all you can ask for. I think we did that."

David Bryant on confidence level of the defense:

"We had a talk with coach Kill right before the Indiana State game and he asked us what we would like to change and add to our groups. We agreed that we wanted to be more physical and work on the little things. As you can see, we've made a vast improvement."

David Bryant on the specifics of what improved with the defense:

"Tackling. We missed a couple of tackles in our first games. We have stopped our opponents from getting yards after the catch and yards after contact. It was pretty big thing for us, defensively, and we worked on it and it has really helped us."

Landon Cox on the growth of the team:

"We definitely grew. Something that we learned about ourselves is that we have great depth. When we can go out after the first half and have DeMarcus Grady step in for Danny [Nicholson] and do a really good job, that just really picks us up because we know that we can back each other up when somebody goes down."

Mike Krause on the physicalness and intensity in the game against Tennessee:

"It was pretty physical and their offensive line was pretty big. We just know that we had to be ready to keep our pads low and take our opportunities. We just concentrated on staying below them to make sure that they couldn't push us out of there and I think we did a pretty good job of that. It was pretty exciting when you get a game like Tennessee, it just gets exciting."

Landon Cox on the loss:

"As a team we came out there, of course, wanting to win, but we left it all out there on the field. When we lost, it did hurt just because we knew how close we were to winning. But all the experience, and what we learned about ourselves tells us that we can play with anyone. We know from this game that we can get even better."

Mike Krause on Tennessee possibly taking NIU as an easy win:

"From what I could tell, it looked pretty normal to me. They were wanting to do what they had practiced on all week, and we wanted to do what we practiced all week."