Nov. 22, 2008

Illinois Head Coach Ron Zook

Opening statement...
"First of all, you give Northwestern credit. They came out and played a great game today. They had a great year. They did a great job. The situation's basically just reversed from last year for the two teams. I thank the seniors. I thank all that they've done. I feel bad that we didn't get it done. As I told them, 'Blame the coaches, blame me.' That's our job to get these guys to play the way they're capable of playing and we didn't do it. I'm not going to go back on what I said before. This is a good football team, but for whatever reason we're not playing the way we should be playing. That's our job as a coaching staff and mine as the head coach to get that fixed. We'll do it. There's no doubt in my mind. It's a great football team coming back. We'll get back to work. We always seem to, for some reason or another, play better from behind. In the second half, we talked at half time and they had a good look in their eye. I thought that if we could get close in the second half, that we'd have a chance. Obviously the punt return is the thing that took the wind out of our sails and that's something you just can't have."

On what the missing element from the program was this season...
"I wish I knew the answer to that question. I really do. There's no question there's something that's been missing. We worked hard. They gave effort. They did everything that we asked them to do. I think part of it is that we had an awful lot of young guys. There are two classes, the freshman and sophomore classes, that haven't been through the tough times. What you need to do is you have to go through hard times to understand how hard this game is to get where you want to get to. That's something that we'll continue to improve on. People are going to say the program slipped back. It didn't slip back. I promise you this program's still running full steam ahead. Now is when we're going to find out what we're made of. This is a good group of guys coming back. I wish I knew what the difference is. They're good kids. They worked hard. Schematically we're doing basically the same things. We tried to do things that gave them the chance to be successful and for whatever reason they weren't."

On the lack of offensive success against Northwestern...
"Number one, their defense has really done a great job. Their front four has impressed me. I've said it all week that they've impressed me. They play with great intensity, great enthusiasm. They're the same group that we played against last year. What's the difference between their attitude and our attitude? I think that's what losing does to you. That's what we have to curb. You begin to question yourself maybe. They played well and we didn't. We didn't do the things we had to do to be successful."

On the next steps for the program...
"We're going to meet tomorrow and set our plan out. Obviously recruiting, it's paramount that we get out and hit the road. We're still going to continue to recruit the way we recruit and we're still going to have the success that we have. The biggest thing I think we have to do is we've got to try to put our finger on 'Why?' Everyone wants to know why and no one wants to know why more than myself. It's our job as a coaching staff. It's one of those things where we may never find out. The Thursday before the Ohio State game, I told everyone that was not in that locker room last year to stand up. When they all stood up, I almost walked out of the room. I said 'Oh my gosh.' You've got a bunch of guys that haven't been there. I said this the first two years, 'There's only one way you get experience and that's to play.' You can't buy it. You've got to play and learn to take your lumps and bumps. Maybe that's part of it, but once again we're going to evaluate everything that we have."

TE Michael Hoomanawanui

On why the season did not go as expected...
"Not playing as a team, not making plays when we needed to. Stuff we have got to work on. We'll come back next year strong. As seniors, Coach Zook's first recruiting class, we need to take it upon ourselves to work harder."

On if the expectations were a problem for the team...
"We had too many young guys who didn't understand what it took. There is no excuse. We are here to do a job. We are here to get wins."

On the emotions about not getting into a bowl... "We're disappointed. My expectations are high, just like the coaches. For whatever reason, we had missed assignments here, missed assignments there. We just didn't make it."

QB Juice Williams

On emotions about not being bowl eligible...
"We worked so hard to come out and be successful and to be one game short of being bowl eligible, that is a feeling that you can't even describe. It is a feeling that is going to eat at you. We aren't going out there and showing what we're capable of doing."

On the lessons of this season...
"Good teams come out and show their talent on Saturday. We can't be inconsistent. We have to come out Saturday and perform. We are going to attack next year."

On Northwestern's pass rush...
"Northwestern did a good job applying pressure. A lot of teams sit back in coverage and have trouble with our offense. Applying pressure allowed those guys to come up with big plays."

On the expectations for next year...
"We know the talent that we have on this team. We know that we have the capability to come out and be successful. It is going to start early in spring ball and with team chemistry."

DL Will Davis

On what went wrong this season...
"It was just a bunch of little things. Everybody played hard. We practice hard during the week. The older guys did a good job of picking up the young guys and making sure they did play hard. It was just a bunch of little things like missed tackles. In hard games those things build up."

On the emotions of the last game of the season...
"It's emotional. For a lot of guys it's their last game. This group isn't going to be together again. The seniors are still going to watch the game and hope for the best. You just have to go to practice and hopefully get stronger next year."