Sept. 8, 2009

Opening Statement:
"What a difference a week can make. I told our football team last night we are sitting here and I said 'what's the difference between how you feel right now and how you felt four weeks ago when we started?' As a coaching staff, we still feel the same way we felt four weeks ago. Obviously, the feeling that you have when things didn't go the way we wanted them to go or the way they were supposed to go, or the way we felt they would go. Do we have to coach better? Absolutely. Do we have to play better? Absolutely. But this is still the same football team that we said four weeks ago had a chance to be a good football team, and we still do. I think when you talk about adversity- you are going to have adversity. Things are going to go wrong. People sit out there and thought we were going to go undefeated this year and obviously we have some things to correct. We'll get them corrected. But personally that thought never crossed my mind. You take one game at a time. Obviously we didn't play this past game the way we wanted to play. There's going to be adversity- there's going to be adversity during the game, there's going to be adversity during the year. I really believe that how you handle adversity, how you stand up and come back from adversity is usually going to be the determining factor on the type of football team that you are going to be."

On player suspensions:
"That being said, we had two players that violated team rules and are not going to be with us this week- Mikel LeShoure and Ashante Williams. They are suspended for violating team rules and that's all I'm going to say on that."

On changes needed to be made:
"Do we need to make a few changes? Absolutely. There's going to be some changes made, there's going to be some guys that are going to be challenged. I don't want this to come out like we are upset with our players. As I said in the opening here, I feel the same way about this football team as I did four weeks ago. But we got to get some guys to play the way they need to play. On offense, Cordale Scott is going to play. CJ is going to play. 82, Fred Sykes, is going to get in there and he's going to play. We are going to do some things there. They have worked hard, they deserve it, they are good football players and they deserve the opportunity to play. On defense, we are going to look at Dere Hicks some at the nickel. Our safety spot is, I don't want to push the panic button, but we have to play better at the safety spot. I think for the most part Donsay (Hardeman) will- he understands that he can't make some of the mistakes that he made. We will get better there. One thing too we are going to look at Walt Aikens a little bit at safety and possibly Terry Hawthorne. These two guys are freshmen and you get a little concerned when you have young guys back there, but these guys can run and make some things happen. We'll take a look at them and see what we can get back from them."

On player injuries:
"In terms of injuries, I feel pretty confident that number nine will be back there- he was out there running around yesterday, catching the ball and so forth. Jason Ford and Daniel Dufrene will both be back and ready to go from there. Other than that, we are fairly happen. Martez (Wilson) had a stinger and we will probably hold him tonight and make sure he's okay for down the road."

On the team's attitude:
"Once again, I like the attitude of our football team last night on the practice field. Those guys understand that the Illini nation is upset, and they should be upset. I don't blame them. I know this is their program and I've said it a thousand times that they deserve better and we can play better. That's our job as a coaching staff to get them to play better. It's their job as players to play better. We have to push the ball down the field and we can't be afraid to run the ball more with Juice (Williams). We're going to do the things we feel we can do best and get better at that. Obviously it's a good football team we played, but we didn't play very well. I'm going to tell you something- we have a test coming up for us this week. Two things that are our biggest emphasis for this week are: number one is making sure we get our football team corrected- get things corrected that we need to get corrected. We need to understand that Illinois State is coming from the same league as the team Iowa played last week and had to block two field goals to win the game. This is going to be a hard football game. We are going to have play. We are going to have to play the way we are capable of playing. I feel like we will, but we will find out on Saturday."

On the running backs:
"I think right now particularly with Justin (Green), he's showed us he can play. Justin said at the beginning that he felt like he would play. Troy (Pollard) had a nice game. He did a nice job. I don't have any qualms with Troy being in there and like I said, I think were going to be in pretty good shape with out running back depth. "

On trying new things against Illinois State:
"I don't think you try things, I think, once again, you can sit and expect it to change, or change it. I've come to the philosophy, if there are some things I think we need to look at, that's my philosophy I'm not one to sit around and wait. You know what with the next game and the next game and the next game, were going to continue to change and do things that we have to do. As I mentioned, Illinois State will be a football game, and we better be ready to play.

On the suspended players:
"Like I said, it's disappointing. I always ask myself, if they were my sons, how would I react as a parent. And you try to treat them like a parent and they are going to be punished like they should be but once again we go off and learn. You go on and rise up. It's one week for right now for violating team rules."

On running more with Juice:
"I think that if you were to ask Juice what he'd want to do for his first play, he'd want to run the ball. I've said this many times last year, a lot of times quarterbacks need to get going. If you ask Juice what he wants to do, he wants to run the football. That is something he does well. Obviously were going to be smart but we have to use all our weapons."

On the receivers' performance on Saturday:
"Number one, there were three balls that were dropped. That doesn't mean those guys aren't going to play doesn't mean were done with them or anything like that. I just think that players play. Competition is what makes you better as a player. I really believe this when I talk to players and they don't want to go to a school because someone else is there. To me if you want to be a good player, you go somewhere where you're going to have to compete because that is going to stretch you and make you the very best you can be. Now that doesn't mean were done with those guys at all, but you know what were going to keep moving things around till we make sure we can get those things taken care of. Things we said all along is two things we couldn't have. We couldn't have turnovers, and we couldn't give up big plays. Even though there is a lot more good on the defensive side than bad, those four big plays are things that you can't have if your going to be the kind of football team that I feel like we can be."

On responding to the noise from outside:
"Our football team feels bad. They are embarrassed and believe they are a better football team than what we played, as we do too. I think you have to give a little credit to Missouri they are a pretty good football team. I said going into it that their quarterback was going to be a lot better than what people thought. It is what it is. That's part of college football today, that's the way it is. If there are things that you can't handle or things that bother you, then you probably have to get out of the profession or this level. That's part of the great thing about having the opportunity to play in the Big Ten. I said to Coach Guenther this morning: five years ago, no one cared, it didn't make any difference. The expectation level has raised and that's what we want. I want it and I want our football program to be as good as anybody else's. I better be able to take the bad with the good. Like I said I think that's part of it.

On needing to prove something to the fans:
I think you win football games. I'd rather be on the end of a bad win, than a good loss. I think I'm part of the fans. I want our football team to play the way they are capable of playing, I think that's what our fans want. They want our football team to play with the energy, excitement, and enthusiasm that we talk about, so we go out there and we play, we play hard.

On this week's practice:
"I don't think you make change just to make changes. I've gone back and I've looked through everything, how we went through the whole camp. For gosh sakes, those of you that have covered us, those of you that have been out particularly at camp would have thought we would have played. There are certain plays, it's not a 150-160 plays that we have in the game and they were not bad, there were a lot of good things. If we are going to be the type of football team we want to be, we can't have the bad plays or as many anyways.

On Troy Pollard:
"He has great vision, great hands on the backfield, I love him. He is a good running back, he really is. He gives the little steps a lot of times. He looks like he is taking those real small steps when you watch him run, and somehow he has a way that is different when you come into tackle him than what it looks."

On Donsay Hardeman:
"With Donsay if you could take all the good plays that Donsay's made and all the not so good, you'd probably have a lot more good plays than bad plays. Donsay does try extremely hard. He does get hyped up a little bit. If you think about it, he only played eight games last year. That was his ninth game; he hasn't played a whole year of college football. In his first two games of college football, he played in front of 218,000 people. I bet that no one in college football has ever had their first two college games in front of 109,000 people. Donsay understands that he has to get better and can't give up big plays. Who would have ever thought he'd miss that one tackle, the way he hits he's not going to miss a tackle. The personal foul, I talked to him about that. Was it a personal foul in my opinion, it was not, but they are going to call that. That's the emphasis this year. He hit him in the shoulder pads. He did not hit him in the head, there was no head to head but if there is any question, and they've told us that, that they'll call that, and I've told him that. He has to be smart about those things.

On Anthony Santella:
"I was very pleased with Anthony. The last few weeks I've been very happy with him. Once again that is one of the things we talked about early in the year that we had to be better at, and that's our punting game. I feel like for the most part our special teams have played pretty well and we have to continue to improve and get better there. I thought Anthony had a good game."

On Arrelious Benn returning kicks:
"That would be a game time type thing, I think once again obviously you have AJ (Jenkins) and Troy (Pollard) and Jarred Fayson for that matter can be back there. We'll just have to wait and see how his ankle is."

On Terry Hawthorne adjusting to defense:
"We might look at him as safety but definitely are going to give Walt (Aikens) a little more time. Terry just wants to play; he'd play left tackle, that's the thing I like about the guy. I think with these young guys it's so hard. They want to play and they are used to playing and that's what you want that frustration and if you use it in the right manner that's what makes you better. You work harder, you push harder, you put more into it. He made a play last night in practice that he jumped up and grabbed a ball with one hand. He is pushing himself to the best he can be."

On Terry playing cornerback:
"That's the thing, we've put two weeks into him at corner now and he is getting a feel there. Of course it's not easier in what you have to do but it's easier in terms of the checks and what you have to do that way. Now you start moving to safety, now all of a sudden the wheels start turning and the moving slows down and reactions slow down. We have to make sure we do the right thing there."

On the cornerbacks:
"Travon will be a corner; right now you'd have Travon (Bellamy) and Tavon (Wilson). It's a little hard to run a bubble screen on a big corner. Although after that second and third time Dere (Hicks) played pretty well, he has to be able to get off the big receiver the blocks."

On Juice lining up at receiver:
"That is a package that we will expand as we go along. Once again we know Eddie can play and he is a competitor he wants to play. Back in the day when the Steelers played slash, they did a lot of things with it."

On the performance of the offense on Saturday:
"If we had run for four hundred yards you wouldn't have asked that. I think it is one thing were going to push the ball down field I think it is something Juice likes to do also and he does pretty well. Do we need to push the ball down field? Probably and I think we will. I would call it cautious.

On Illinois State Head Coach Brock Spack:
"He is a great football coach. I think that everybody originally thought he was going to be the next head coach at Purdue. He has done a heck of a job where ever he has been. Obviously you can see his flare of defense as you watch him on tape."

On the Red Grange statue:
"I was fortunate enough, maybe in spring when I saw the replica of it. It is an unbelievable statue. I can't wait to see it. If you follow where they did the foundation, it must be ten feet down there. You can tell a strong wind won't blow it around. Arguably, he is one of the greatest players that played the game of college football. I think it is a great tradition, great symbol and you're honoring a guy that was a great football player.

On the players visiting the Red Grange statue:
"They will one time absolutely. They'll see it when we walk up the Illini Walk and so forth. I don't think there is any question they'll go over and look at it. Sometimes young people I don't know why this is, young people don't follow history. They assume everyone lives in the now. We are older guys and we seem to look back a lot. I remember talking a lot about the war. We will walk up Illini walk it isn't actually by it but we'll be able to see it. I haven't thought about that to be honest. They all know who he is because I've talked about him. They all know who he is. Before we got here if they are from outside the state of Illinois, then there is a chance they didn't know. I remember when I was at Ohio State I recruited a guy from out of state and the dad loved Woody Hayes. We were talking about Woody Hayes and ten minutes into the conversation the kid looks up and says who's Woody Hayes. That's the way it is sometimes. I've talked many times to our football team about arguably two of the best players that have ever played the game of college football went to school here, with the other of course being Dick Butkus."