Illinois head coach Bret Bielema spoke with the media in advance of the Illini's Week 6 home game vs. Iowa.

Opening statement
"Obviously a lot of good things came out of Saturday. One of the things we talked about doing was being able to take the current team that we're in and, you know, honor the past and move forward. I thought our guys put in a good week of prep and to see it materialize on Saturday was good. We came out of it pretty healthy, because I know you guys are going to ask that question, so no one, really, that went over there with us was affected in any way. Josh McCray continues to go forward, I know he did really well on Sunday. Yesterday, the doctors were upbeat, I meet with the doctors every Sunday, and I hadn't seen Josh because he didn't make the trip, but they were happy with where his running was on Sunday, so we'll wait and see where that goes; it's going in the right direction. I know he's excited but we want to make sure. We think Josh has a really bright career, not only this time in front of us but in the future so, we'll see where that is, it's in the doctor's hand and Josh's recovery.

A couple things that jumped out to me. So we award guys MVPs, and do ti in three phases: offense, defense, and also look-team. The guys that went in on look-teams are a lot of the times guys that, you know, their aspiration wasn't to come to Illinois and become a look-team MVP, but Jordan Anderson was on offense, and I thought that over the course of the week last week, the things he showed during practice really gets me excited about what he's going to be in the future. Luke Zardzin is a non-scholarship player that comes in and proves everyday that he can probably eventually play at this level and do some really good things. Owen Anderson on offense as well, there's just a lot of players. You see guys getting better.

We gave Palcho [Alex Palczewski], we gave four or five guys, I think Pat Bryant, Isaiah [Williams], Palcho, Tommy [DeVito], and Chase (Brown) were our offensive MVPs but when I was watching the film I thought Palcho probably played the most complete football game since we've been here.  And a year ago when we made a request to the NCAA to get him a waiver to play with us this year I know it's a big deal but it was a big deal for me for one reason: I thought we could take his level of play to different level. He's had the most career starts in college football probably, when it's all said and done, but I really thought - because we didn't have that first year with him in development phase through winter conditioning and spring and summer because of his injury - we could maybe take him to a different level of play and that's exactly what's happened. But playing right next to him is a guy by the name of Zy Crisler, and Zy didn't join us until January and he just played his best game on Saturday. I really challenged him during the course of the week. He's very athletic, very strong, a very good football IQ, but is a guy that I thought, through four games he had just stayed at a status quo. I thought he could take it to another level and for him to do what he did on Saturday, it gets you really excited. I think it's another great indication to what's happening in our program, maybe not from news articles, not for everybody to get excited in the outside world, but for me as a head coach, there's all kinds of those little things going on. It affects recruiting, so I can call up a transfer guard and talk about a guy that I got in January, we took him from 360 to 330. And he's playing in a way that a year from now he's probably gonna have to make an NFL college decision.

It affects us because, in this new world of NIL, the things that are being afforded to our offensive and defensive linema that are here on campus, and then I can go then into a recruit and say, 'Hey, I can't promise you this, but this is what our players are currently getting, you know. A $12,000 here or $5,000 deal there.' It's like very, very positive things that just continue to help our program in so many ways. When you win games, good things happen.

So the byproduct of that is there's excitement, right? I meet with Brett [Moore] every day about, you know, opportunities for media. And it's just steadily increased from that first week to where we are today that now you have to start saying 'No', and it's my job as a head coach to teach our guys you know, with success, brings this, you know, people that want to be around you, they want to talk to you. But also because of that there's a cousin that creeps in this world called complacency, and you just think these things are gonna happen. And that's what, that brings victims out of all of us, right? So with our coaches, our players, anybody that speaks on it, that's our big challenge.

And the other big challenge I know we've been engaged, I'm sure you've seen on social media, for the first time in my career. Here in Illinois, we've won a couple games back to back several games in a row here at Memorial Stadium dating back last year to Northwestern; a 6:30 game I think it's only the third third time since 2014 or over the last 14 years wherever it was that there's gonna be a night game, Big Ten night game here in Memorial stadium. So a lot of reasons to get excited and I would really encourage people, you know, if you haven't bought a ticket yet, if you're thinking about it, bring a friend, bring a buddy, bring a couple buddies, bring a bus, I don't care, show up and let's be loud on Saturday because I think it's gonna be a great environment of college football."

On beating Wisconsin 
"You know, Wisconsin is behind us, right? Obviously, I understand the news that happened, you know, reached out to Paul [Chryst] this morning, had a conversation with him. And you know, just probably a realization in today's world of college football, you never truly know the moment that you're living in. But for us, we really turned the page on Wisconsin yesterday. And that includes me, I did share with the team last night, you know, everybody wants to make a big deal of my history of Wisconsin, I probably have more history in Iowa, right? I was a player, I was a graduate assistant there, I got my first coaching job there. I was part of two staffs there, was part of the staff there now. I think I probably actually have a little bit more history because it's a little bit different look at Iowa, but that doesn't factor in anything. I got the tattoo right, the famous tattoo, hell of an idea when you're 19. You know, so that's just part of it. I think our guys were into the moment, but I quickly asked him to turn the page yesterday. We specifically put the game to bed on offense, defense, special teams. We had a team meeting on the front end and I talked about the game that we played, we watched the film we came back in and then I introduced the Iowa schedule and what we're going to do this week and then we went into a meeting, offense, defense, special teams about Iowa. And then we had our victory meal and then the day they have it often tomorrow we'll jump into our on the field preparation so that I get the question, but it's really not any different."

On improvements of defense
"You know, as a head coach, one of the vantage points I have is just geography. I get to watch my coaches, watch, watch my coaches work. And then I get to watch the reaction of those players who are working with them. And when a coach walks away, he may be headed in that direction look that way and his players look right at him and the player will do one of three things: he can either roll his eyes, or just kind of like give it a head nod or he might give it another expression right. I watched those things to see how well they're taking the coaching they're being given and our kids, it's like they're at a Golden Corral 24/7, They just want to eat man they just like they love they love the knowledge."