Sept. 28, 2002

Illinois Coach Ron Turner:

On the turnovers:
"That's what it boiled down to. We'd like to give ourselves a chance to win the game and when you turn the ball over like that and not getting any, you're not doing that. We turned it over five times and got one in the last two minutes of the game. We're not giving ourselves a chance to be competitive and see what we could do. I thought we had tremendous preparation and focus and intensity and we really came in wanting to win the game, but we didn't do anything to give ourselves a chance."

On Beutjer:
"Jon's a good football player. He just needs to learn to run the offense a little better. I don't think he ran it as well today as in previous games. I think he was trying a little too hard and was forcing the ball and trying to do too much. As much as I've tried to convince him that he doesn't need to do that, no matter who we are playing, you don't have to do that. Just run the offense. When you have good talent around you, you have to run the offense. I could see it in his eyes, he was pressing a little. He missed some throws he doesn't miss and some reads he can't miss."

On the importance of this game:
"I still believe we have a good football team, but we're not going to show it until we can take care of the football. We have to keep going. These things run in cycles. If you get on a roll you can do some stuff to gain some confidence. We needed to get a win to get a little momentum going."

On the short week:
"In a way, it might be good. I told our guys already, we're coming in tomorrow with a regular Sunday schedule. We'll address this game and then it will be over. We can't sit here and dwell on the game, regardless of the results. We have a game coming up against a good football team and we need to get ready to go."

On the success of the hurry-up offense:
"We thought about going back to it and to be honest with you, we probably should have gone back to it earlier. We talked about it, but with the way the game was flowing and where Jon was, we needed to settle him down a little bit and just run the offense. We did have plans to go back to it, but once we fell behind in the second half, I didn't think that was the right time."

Illinois player quotes:

Jon Beutjer

On biggest reason for the loss:
"We have to eliminate turnovers, that's the main thing. If we eliminate turnovers we give ourselves a greater chance to win. That's the biggest thing we keep emphasizing in practice."

On whether he was anxious in the pocket "I did a little scrambling, going into the game I knew I would be getting out of the pocket a little bit. But I wasn't anxious, I just didn't execute like I wanted to."

Antoineo Harris

On biggest reason for the loss and the penalties:
"Last week there were a lot of controversial calls. This week we lost it on our own. There is not much to say except we turned the ball over on offense and we didn't get any turnovers on defense. That's pretty much it, the turnovers."

Morris Virgil:

On getting more playing time:
"I'm getting out there a lot more this game than I did last game. I'm getting better and getting used to the playing time."

On his fumble on the kickoff return:
"I didn't have the ball high and tight and the guy put his hand out there and made me bobble it. I ran into my player and knocked it out."

Jerry Schumacher:

On biggest reason for the loss:
"Turnovers, I think that we had six and we only got one. We had the one towards the end of the game and that had really no affect on the game. I think we have to focus on getting the turnovers and we aren't doing it." [NOTE: Illinois actually had five (5) turnovers]

On overall opinion of the teams performance:
"We played well today [despite] what the score shows. We held them pretty good rushing but if we keep turning the ball over that many times it isn't going to help, and with us not getting any [turnovers] until the end, that's not going to help us win at all."

Michigan Head Coach Lloyd Carr:

On his team's overall performance:
"I'm very pleased with our performance today. Our defense came up with some big turnovers, and our offense took advantage of them. I thought Illinois had a good game plan when it came out with the no-huddle, and that caused us some problems at first, but we adjusted to it well."

"What happens in a season is that you learn. When you play good competition, you make mistakes; that's what they do to you. We've played games that have gone right down to the wire, and we've learned from that."

"Illinois had played a lot of zone in the games before this, but they came in and played man-to-man with eight or nine guys in the box. We got some good pass protection early on, and that gave us some confidence the rest of the game."

On John Navarre:
"John Navarre had his best game since he came to Michigan. Five or six times he hit his third receiver. I think he's playing extremely well. Quite a few of our plays were when John audibled us into the right play."

On Benny Joppru:
"The thing about moving the football in game is that a tight end is easy to take out of a game if you choose to, but Benny's just been tremendous. He's a guy with great hands, and he's played the last two weeks with a lot of discomfort. He's the real deal, and he just needs to keep on doing what he's doing."

Michigan player quotes:

QB John Navarre:

On the game:
"We came out, practiced and played well and even with lots of pressure, we got some good passes in there and succeeded. It all works out and catching the ball can't be our concern each week. The jitters were there in the first (half), but we turned it around, came out and played well and with guys like Bennie (Joppru) that run so well, it worked out.

On confidence:
"The confidence was there when we were converting third-down after third-down. We had the right answer for everything they had. We have great confidence after a performance like that, now we know what we have to do. We had a great week of practice and came out here and played well. "

On the crowd:
"We knew if we came out, got control of the crowd and of the stadium, we could do it. As long as we played well and pushed it, we knew the type of ball we had to play to do that."

On Illinois:
"We knew we had a weakness against their defensive line. They have a great defensive line, but we knew we were going to have to go after it. We weren't going trying to bang heads with them right away, we had to wear them out first, throw the ball, and open it up for the running game in the second half."

On his game:
"I felt I managed the game well today and took care of the ball, and answered what they gave us."

LB Victor Hobson:

On the team:
"We had a lot of expectations. We have a good offense and we were able to execute the game very well."

TE Bennie Joppru:

On the game: "When the game started, we got into it. I immediately thought about the Northwestern game three years ago, but we pulled it together and it worked out."