Postgame Quotes vs. Bowling Green (9/16/2017)
Northwestern vs. Bowling Green
Ryan Field
September 16, 2017
Postgame Quotes
Northwestern
Dan and Susan Jones Family Head Football Coach Pat Fitzgerald
Opening Statement
“I want to congratulate my good friend Lisa [Byington]. It’s amazing that there's still some ceilings to break through, and to have her have that opportunity tonight has been hard earned, and couldn't happen to a better woman, to a better friend of mine.
I think we responded really well, and had a great week on campus. I think they showed up. I talked to them at the end of the week about getting up off the mat. We got knocked down last week. We played a team that's 3-0 and they played well and we didn't. It was a perfect storm. The only thing for us to do was to get up off the mat, and tonight we came up swinging. It’s one thing to get up, it’s another thing to go out and make plays, and I think we did.
On the big win...
“I walked into the locker room last week, and I didn't feel like I was walking into a funeral. I thought the guys’ attitude was 'we just got fanny whipped, but the things we did wrong, we can go out and fix in practice.' Credit goes to our guys, they did a great job of coming back.
On Thorson, coming off of last week...
“His response was outstanding. A game that you can't have back last week, but he could do something about it and obviously he did today. 23 out of 30, and I think we had a couple of drops in there. I thought he really bounced back well.”
On Garrett Dickerson's big game...
“Clayton took what they gave us. Garrett is always part of the offense. Today he was able to get himself open, and he had a great day. He's been really consistent in our program throughout his whole career, and to have a night like tonight, hopefully it’s one of many. That would be great.”
On changing from pants to shorts at halftime...
“I'm still sweating. It was just warm. I was kind of ticked off at myself that I didn't go with shorts. Pregame, I thought it would cool off. I thought that we had a nice breeze, and it would be good. Maybe it was all the hot air from all those fans, but it was a lot warmer down on the field.”
Quarterback Clayton Thorson
On the team state ahead of Wisconsin…
“There’s always stuff we can work on. You saw the way we started the third quarter there. Two fumbles and a punt, that’s a horrible way to start the half, doesn’t matter if you’re winning or losing. If we play like that we’re not going to win games, so I think there’s a lot to work on. They came out ready to start the half and we didn’t.”
On if he knew he was going to have a good outing…
“You always go into a game thinking you’re going to do well. That’s the goal, and if you go in timid, then you’re going to do poorly. I felt confident going into last week against Duke, and obviously didn’t get it done. But I felt confident going into tonight, knew we’d be able to move the ball. They made a couple plays early on and then also in the second half, but our receivers did a great job catching the ball, and our O-line did great as well.”
Superback Garrett Dickerson
On improvements before the trip to Wisconsin…
“There’s always room to improve. Once we get on the film we’ll see where we need to improve at. But I think defensively today it was more of a confidence boost, and we just need to take that momentum into the Big Ten games.”
On his career high of 150 receiving yards…
“Well I wouldn’t have had any of that without our O-line and without Clayton. A lot of it was what the defense was giving us. We saw some checks, changed some plays, things like that. I had my opportunities to make plays, and I was just doing my best to go out and do that. But without Clayton laying it on me like that, it would not have been the same.”
Defensive Lineman Tyler Lancaster
On improvements ahead of the trip to Wisconsin…
“We came out kind of dead in the second half and that’s definitely something we need to work on. But with how we played today it’s definitely a little bit of a confidence boost, something that we needed after how we played last week.”
On the mood shift from last week to this week in the locker room…
“It’s definitely a high coming off a great win, going into the locker room being confident like that. But we have to respond whether we do poorly the week before or we do great the week before. We have to treat next week like it’s our Super Bowl, and we have to treat every week like that. We also need to respond well to positivity, we can’t dial it down at all.”
Safety Godwin Igwebuike
On the secondary’s performance today and how they responded to injuries this season…
“We’ve faced some adversity. I think it was cool because we are pretty deep. We came into the season really deep and that paid off because if that wasn’t the case, I think it would be pretty bad. But we still have veterans back there, we still have guys like Kyle [Queiro], Jared [McGee], Montre [Hartage], Trae [Williams] who’s had a year of experience as well, and myself. We got a lot of young guys who are talented and got some action today. I think they’re doing a great job of bouncing back and just fighting through and just trying to remain the ‘Sky Team.’ Trying to still make plays, trying to still be the energy and just the life of that D.”
On preparing the younger players to play in a raucous Wisconsin atmosphere…
“I think it’s important to stay engaged. I think it’s harder to play in places like Duke that have limited fans, it’s hard to get juiced, hard to get riled up. Going into a place like Wisconsin, I mean it’s one of the best stadiums to go to, I think it’s an opportunity honestly. Bringing limited guys and go in there strong. Every guy has got to be ready to play, every guy has got to be locked in and engaged and using the energy, everything inside of there, to our advantage.”
On if his fumble return brought back memories of him playing running back in high school…
“It did. You know as soon as I picked it up I had some flashbacks, I had to remember what I had done. And I picked it up and made a little cut there, a little juke. I thought I had the hole, and someone got me from behind. But it felt good.”
Wide Receiver Bennett Skowronek
On catching his first two touchdowns of his career tonight…
“Our O-line, they blocked great, they gave Clayton great time back there. They were both just go routes down the sidelines. Clayton threw perfect balls both times so credit goes to Clayton and the o-line.”
On the difference between last week vs this week on the sidelines…
“Obviously when the offense is converting, when things are working, you know the energy is going to be there. This week it was great, we responded. We had a great week of practice all week, it was probably the best week of practice we’ve had since I’ve been here. So really all of those things combined, the energy on the sidelines was just great. It was fun playing today.”
On facing single coverage on both of his touchdowns…
“As a receiver when you see that it just goes down to competition. It’s you vs the man across from you: who’s going to win? Justin [Jackson], he opens up those opportunities for us, our O-line does. And that running game, I think we ran for over 300 yards today. That’s why we have those one-on-one matchups, because of our run game.”
Bowling Green
Head Coach Mike Jinks
On inserting QB Doege into the fourth quarter…
“We needed a spark. We had talked throughout this week, and if we continued to have some of the same struggles as we have, that we would look at starting him. He’s performed well in practice, and he deserves an opportunity, and looking forward, we’ll have a competition.”
On determining the next starting quarterback…
“That’ll play itself out, consistency, a rhythm in the offense. Not making the big, wild play, but making the ‘every down’ play. We’ve got some guys winning, and we have to do a better job of getting them the ball.”
On the fumble…
“That was huge. We’ve got to respond better to adversity. We wanted to give Clint a little bit this week, but as you can see, Clint is not the Clint he was in 14-15. He’s working his tail off to rehab, and he’ll get there, but we’re going to need him moving forward, so we’ll continue to try to spot play him until he’s ready to go.”
On the defensive struggles…
“They kind of did whatever they wanted to do, so I’d say we struggled in each possible area. We were missing tackles, and there is not much the defensive staff can do about those things. But on the same side, we’ll look at the tape and I’m willing to bet there are some things we could have done from the scheme point as well. So, we have to look at it and we have to continue to make sure we’re giving these guys a chance to be successful.”
On improvements from previous games…
“We ran the ball better. I think on our first drive, Lorenzo [Taborn] was bull rushed a bit, and then he kind of settled down into the ball game and we were able to run the ball. Josh Cleveland provided a spark. We need to continue to build on that and continue to commit to the run, and allow this quarterback situation to take care of itself.”
On putting new players in…
“When 44 [Dirion Hutchins] had his eyes in the wrong place, we can’t have that. We got Malik [Brown] in there a little bit and moving forward, we can’t have guys in there that aren’t being disciplined. We have other players, we have to put them on the football field.”
On the offensive struggles and his concerns with how James played…
“We need James [Morgan] to sustain a rhythm, and that’s on the quarterback. I thought there were some situations where we called in some substitutions on and off the football field where we could have gotten some cheap yards, some cheap first downs. We have to be able to do those things. We have to be able to see those things. And the fumble didn’t help at all. But really, other than that, I just thought we were kind of flat. We knew what they were going to be, and the offensive guys did a decent job of scheming them. But we’ve got to make plays, and make quicker decisions.”
On improvements in the future…
“We’ve got to improve in a lot of areas. We are who we are right now, and all you can do from a coaching standpoint is put the guys in, give them a chance to play, and maybe you find something. Other than that, recruits. We played better in the second half, we continued to fight, but we’ve got to get better.”
On his feelings after the game…
“Drained. But I’m the coach, I’m the face, I have to be resilient and get back up, and get on the videos as we’re driving home for the night, and come back and come up with a good game plan again on Sunday. Our kids, they have some resiliency about them, and when we put them in the right situations, they’ll respond.”
Wide Receiver Scott Miller
On the change at quarterback…
“James Morgan did a great job tonight. I thought the receivers let him down a little bit. I had a big drop on 2nd and 10 that hurt us. But I feel confident with either one of them in the game. All our quarterbacks do a great job. So whoever the coaches go with I have great confidence in.”
On offensive struggles…
“I thought we were doing okay at the beginning. We got things rolling…that touchdown drive was our best drive in a while. But then we had turnovers, I had a big drop on 2nd and 10 that killed us, I’ve got to make those plays. After that we kind of fell apart. Once we were down 21-7, it just got worse and worse and we couldn’t climb back in it. If we don’t make mistakes early and stay in it, it’s a different game.”
On BGSU’s early season struggles…
“It stinks. I hate, hate, losing. There’s nothing more I want to do than win. I love competing, and I love winning. We’ve got the guys to win. We have a lot of talent. The coaches are great. We’ve just got to make plays and be more consistent. I truly believe if we fix a couple of things we can bounce back. We can beat Middle Tennessee and do what we do in the MAC. I haven’t lost confidence in this team. We just have to bounce back, right now. We can still accomplish our goals. We cannot give up. We’ve got to have a great week of practice and go out and get the W.”
On the team’s confidence moving forward…
“Everyone’s going to keep playing hard. I think everyone’s going out and trying to win with their hearts, but we’re just making mistakes. We’re not executing what we need to execute. At the end, we started to get into a rhythm and execute a little bit, but we need to do that for a complete game. We’ve got the talent. We’re going to keep fighting.”
Ryan Field
September 16, 2017
Postgame Quotes
Northwestern
Dan and Susan Jones Family Head Football Coach Pat Fitzgerald
Opening Statement
“I want to congratulate my good friend Lisa [Byington]. It’s amazing that there's still some ceilings to break through, and to have her have that opportunity tonight has been hard earned, and couldn't happen to a better woman, to a better friend of mine.
I think we responded really well, and had a great week on campus. I think they showed up. I talked to them at the end of the week about getting up off the mat. We got knocked down last week. We played a team that's 3-0 and they played well and we didn't. It was a perfect storm. The only thing for us to do was to get up off the mat, and tonight we came up swinging. It’s one thing to get up, it’s another thing to go out and make plays, and I think we did.
On the big win...
“I walked into the locker room last week, and I didn't feel like I was walking into a funeral. I thought the guys’ attitude was 'we just got fanny whipped, but the things we did wrong, we can go out and fix in practice.' Credit goes to our guys, they did a great job of coming back.
On Thorson, coming off of last week...
“His response was outstanding. A game that you can't have back last week, but he could do something about it and obviously he did today. 23 out of 30, and I think we had a couple of drops in there. I thought he really bounced back well.”
On Garrett Dickerson's big game...
“Clayton took what they gave us. Garrett is always part of the offense. Today he was able to get himself open, and he had a great day. He's been really consistent in our program throughout his whole career, and to have a night like tonight, hopefully it’s one of many. That would be great.”
On changing from pants to shorts at halftime...
“I'm still sweating. It was just warm. I was kind of ticked off at myself that I didn't go with shorts. Pregame, I thought it would cool off. I thought that we had a nice breeze, and it would be good. Maybe it was all the hot air from all those fans, but it was a lot warmer down on the field.”
Quarterback Clayton Thorson
On the team state ahead of Wisconsin…
“There’s always stuff we can work on. You saw the way we started the third quarter there. Two fumbles and a punt, that’s a horrible way to start the half, doesn’t matter if you’re winning or losing. If we play like that we’re not going to win games, so I think there’s a lot to work on. They came out ready to start the half and we didn’t.”
On if he knew he was going to have a good outing…
“You always go into a game thinking you’re going to do well. That’s the goal, and if you go in timid, then you’re going to do poorly. I felt confident going into last week against Duke, and obviously didn’t get it done. But I felt confident going into tonight, knew we’d be able to move the ball. They made a couple plays early on and then also in the second half, but our receivers did a great job catching the ball, and our O-line did great as well.”
Superback Garrett Dickerson
On improvements before the trip to Wisconsin…
“There’s always room to improve. Once we get on the film we’ll see where we need to improve at. But I think defensively today it was more of a confidence boost, and we just need to take that momentum into the Big Ten games.”
On his career high of 150 receiving yards…
“Well I wouldn’t have had any of that without our O-line and without Clayton. A lot of it was what the defense was giving us. We saw some checks, changed some plays, things like that. I had my opportunities to make plays, and I was just doing my best to go out and do that. But without Clayton laying it on me like that, it would not have been the same.”
Defensive Lineman Tyler Lancaster
On improvements ahead of the trip to Wisconsin…
“We came out kind of dead in the second half and that’s definitely something we need to work on. But with how we played today it’s definitely a little bit of a confidence boost, something that we needed after how we played last week.”
On the mood shift from last week to this week in the locker room…
“It’s definitely a high coming off a great win, going into the locker room being confident like that. But we have to respond whether we do poorly the week before or we do great the week before. We have to treat next week like it’s our Super Bowl, and we have to treat every week like that. We also need to respond well to positivity, we can’t dial it down at all.”
Safety Godwin Igwebuike
On the secondary’s performance today and how they responded to injuries this season…
“We’ve faced some adversity. I think it was cool because we are pretty deep. We came into the season really deep and that paid off because if that wasn’t the case, I think it would be pretty bad. But we still have veterans back there, we still have guys like Kyle [Queiro], Jared [McGee], Montre [Hartage], Trae [Williams] who’s had a year of experience as well, and myself. We got a lot of young guys who are talented and got some action today. I think they’re doing a great job of bouncing back and just fighting through and just trying to remain the ‘Sky Team.’ Trying to still make plays, trying to still be the energy and just the life of that D.”
On preparing the younger players to play in a raucous Wisconsin atmosphere…
“I think it’s important to stay engaged. I think it’s harder to play in places like Duke that have limited fans, it’s hard to get juiced, hard to get riled up. Going into a place like Wisconsin, I mean it’s one of the best stadiums to go to, I think it’s an opportunity honestly. Bringing limited guys and go in there strong. Every guy has got to be ready to play, every guy has got to be locked in and engaged and using the energy, everything inside of there, to our advantage.”
On if his fumble return brought back memories of him playing running back in high school…
“It did. You know as soon as I picked it up I had some flashbacks, I had to remember what I had done. And I picked it up and made a little cut there, a little juke. I thought I had the hole, and someone got me from behind. But it felt good.”
Wide Receiver Bennett Skowronek
On catching his first two touchdowns of his career tonight…
“Our O-line, they blocked great, they gave Clayton great time back there. They were both just go routes down the sidelines. Clayton threw perfect balls both times so credit goes to Clayton and the o-line.”
On the difference between last week vs this week on the sidelines…
“Obviously when the offense is converting, when things are working, you know the energy is going to be there. This week it was great, we responded. We had a great week of practice all week, it was probably the best week of practice we’ve had since I’ve been here. So really all of those things combined, the energy on the sidelines was just great. It was fun playing today.”
On facing single coverage on both of his touchdowns…
“As a receiver when you see that it just goes down to competition. It’s you vs the man across from you: who’s going to win? Justin [Jackson], he opens up those opportunities for us, our O-line does. And that running game, I think we ran for over 300 yards today. That’s why we have those one-on-one matchups, because of our run game.”
Bowling Green
Head Coach Mike Jinks
On inserting QB Doege into the fourth quarter…
“We needed a spark. We had talked throughout this week, and if we continued to have some of the same struggles as we have, that we would look at starting him. He’s performed well in practice, and he deserves an opportunity, and looking forward, we’ll have a competition.”
On determining the next starting quarterback…
“That’ll play itself out, consistency, a rhythm in the offense. Not making the big, wild play, but making the ‘every down’ play. We’ve got some guys winning, and we have to do a better job of getting them the ball.”
On the fumble…
“That was huge. We’ve got to respond better to adversity. We wanted to give Clint a little bit this week, but as you can see, Clint is not the Clint he was in 14-15. He’s working his tail off to rehab, and he’ll get there, but we’re going to need him moving forward, so we’ll continue to try to spot play him until he’s ready to go.”
On the defensive struggles…
“They kind of did whatever they wanted to do, so I’d say we struggled in each possible area. We were missing tackles, and there is not much the defensive staff can do about those things. But on the same side, we’ll look at the tape and I’m willing to bet there are some things we could have done from the scheme point as well. So, we have to look at it and we have to continue to make sure we’re giving these guys a chance to be successful.”
On improvements from previous games…
“We ran the ball better. I think on our first drive, Lorenzo [Taborn] was bull rushed a bit, and then he kind of settled down into the ball game and we were able to run the ball. Josh Cleveland provided a spark. We need to continue to build on that and continue to commit to the run, and allow this quarterback situation to take care of itself.”
On putting new players in…
“When 44 [Dirion Hutchins] had his eyes in the wrong place, we can’t have that. We got Malik [Brown] in there a little bit and moving forward, we can’t have guys in there that aren’t being disciplined. We have other players, we have to put them on the football field.”
On the offensive struggles and his concerns with how James played…
“We need James [Morgan] to sustain a rhythm, and that’s on the quarterback. I thought there were some situations where we called in some substitutions on and off the football field where we could have gotten some cheap yards, some cheap first downs. We have to be able to do those things. We have to be able to see those things. And the fumble didn’t help at all. But really, other than that, I just thought we were kind of flat. We knew what they were going to be, and the offensive guys did a decent job of scheming them. But we’ve got to make plays, and make quicker decisions.”
On improvements in the future…
“We’ve got to improve in a lot of areas. We are who we are right now, and all you can do from a coaching standpoint is put the guys in, give them a chance to play, and maybe you find something. Other than that, recruits. We played better in the second half, we continued to fight, but we’ve got to get better.”
On his feelings after the game…
“Drained. But I’m the coach, I’m the face, I have to be resilient and get back up, and get on the videos as we’re driving home for the night, and come back and come up with a good game plan again on Sunday. Our kids, they have some resiliency about them, and when we put them in the right situations, they’ll respond.”
Wide Receiver Scott Miller
On the change at quarterback…
“James Morgan did a great job tonight. I thought the receivers let him down a little bit. I had a big drop on 2nd and 10 that hurt us. But I feel confident with either one of them in the game. All our quarterbacks do a great job. So whoever the coaches go with I have great confidence in.”
On offensive struggles…
“I thought we were doing okay at the beginning. We got things rolling…that touchdown drive was our best drive in a while. But then we had turnovers, I had a big drop on 2nd and 10 that killed us, I’ve got to make those plays. After that we kind of fell apart. Once we were down 21-7, it just got worse and worse and we couldn’t climb back in it. If we don’t make mistakes early and stay in it, it’s a different game.”
On BGSU’s early season struggles…
“It stinks. I hate, hate, losing. There’s nothing more I want to do than win. I love competing, and I love winning. We’ve got the guys to win. We have a lot of talent. The coaches are great. We’ve just got to make plays and be more consistent. I truly believe if we fix a couple of things we can bounce back. We can beat Middle Tennessee and do what we do in the MAC. I haven’t lost confidence in this team. We just have to bounce back, right now. We can still accomplish our goals. We cannot give up. We’ve got to have a great week of practice and go out and get the W.”
On the team’s confidence moving forward…
“Everyone’s going to keep playing hard. I think everyone’s going out and trying to win with their hearts, but we’re just making mistakes. We’re not executing what we need to execute. At the end, we started to get into a rhythm and execute a little bit, but we need to do that for a complete game. We’ve got the talent. We’re going to keep fighting.”
