On Nebraska:
“I give a lot of credit to Nebraska and (head coach) Mickey Joseph. When I popped on the film and saw the way they played against Indiana coming out of a bye week, I knew we would get their best shot. Obviously, the crowd here was what the Nebraska crowd always is, so I give Mickey and his staff a lot of credit. Our guys, we knew we were going to get their best shot. I thought they weathered the storm.”
On the road game:
“I just kind of preach it to them. One thing I’ll say as these guys take everything in that we talked about, I talked all week, ‘You have to buckle up, buttercup.’ This is going to be a tough game, going to be a road environment. I’ve been over here. I understand how hard it is to win here. The bye week, they did what they did against Indiana, and I knew they were going to come out. I’ve known (Nebraska offensive coordinator Mark Whipple) for a long time. Some of those play concepts and designs were really, really well designed to take advantage of looks that we gave them. I just think our guys prepared all week.”
On Sydney Brown and his performance:
“Great question. I know Chase (Brown) gets a lot of attention, but (Sydney), what he brings to our defense is tenacity and power. When I talk to the NFL scouts, I talk a lot about I had a player in my past, when I was at Iowa by the name of Bob Sanders. Bob had a unique ability to generate a lot of power in a short amount of space, and that’s what Sydney does. Sydney can make a lot of power in tight windows. He can play the high ball. I put him on more and more special teams. He’s very, very opportunistic. He’s got all the same gene pool. Sydney and Chase, you take them out of the game of football, and they’re everything that you want. It just happens to be that they’re both great players.”
On Devon Witherspoon guarding Nebraska WR Trey Palmer:
“(Witherspoon) is one of those guys. (Witherspoon) loves competition. We go good on good. You either go ones versus ones, or you go ones versus twos. If I yell ones versus twos, he’s always screaming at me. He’s like ‘no, no, no, ones vs ones’ and I’m like, ‘shut up, Spoon.’ He’s just competitive. I remember there was a play in fall camp where I got after him a little bit because he shoved Isaiah (Williams) on the sideline. He and I got into it, and then he was mad at me for like two days. I said, ‘we good yet?’ That’s just his competitive nature. He just loves to compete, and today was a great example of that.”
On the talks of coach of the year or other coaching jobs:
“Great question. During the bye week, I was on the road on Sunday and Monday. I got back Tuesday, worked with our guys Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I got back on the road on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I had a lot of time on the plane, and I said, ‘You guys work on Nebraska. I’m going to work on Illinois.’ We went, and we had some success this week in recruiting, and I really have to forecast what our roster is. When Josh (Whitman) and I first got together, literally the first phone call was about sustained success. Not just success, it’s sustaining it, and I think that’s what we’re clawing at right now. Everybody wants to focus on this year. And believe me, I’m focused on this year, but it’s really exciting to think about where we can go. There are guys that we have in our program that are young developmental guys. There are guys we’re signing right now, that I think when we bring them in – like last year when we got Isaiah Adams and we got Zy Crisler to commit, I knew what those guys could be. That’s the stuff as we start to add people. I think we’ll get one here in the next 24 hours. Those are the people that I’ll be like, ‘These guys are going to change Illinois, hopefully for a long time.'”
