Rutgers Head Coach Chris Ash
CHRIS ASH:
We'll go ahead and start. Appreciate you guys coming. First I'd like to thank the fans that were there today for their continued support, their energy in the stadium. At times they were into it and helped our football team and can't thank those guys enough.
I'd like to give credit to Northwestern. You know, they played the plays down the stretch to win the game.
But I love our team. You know, and want to thank our players for showing up this week and having a great preparation, great practices. The attitude and the effort and the fight by this football team hopefully was evident today. You know, there's no quit. These guys continue to work for each other. They love each other, love the game, and they are competing to be the best they can be and just love that about the guys.
You know, the goods, I thought defensively, we played our best game this season. We had I think three sacks. We had a take away. Just our overall energy, you know, on defense I thought was where it needs to be, and wish it would have been, you know, earlier in the year.
Just didn't make enough plays. In the special teams we got the opening kickoff return, muffed it, put us in a bad spot right away offensively. We just had plays there. We just didn't make them. A couple penalties in the second half put us in bad situations behind the sticks.
Again, I love our team and they will keep fighting. So I'll open it up for questions.
Q. Was the defense worn down? Is that why you think they got the one stop in the final six minutes?
CHRIS ASH: We had an opportunity to stop them and we made a mistake. On third down, we had the opportunity to make a play and we didn't.
Q. So it wasn't anything about being gassed?
CHRIS ASH: We were tired but that's football. We still have to go out and stop them. It felt like we had the opportunity. We did a good job of getting the jump off side and made it third and five, and I felt really good about our opportunities there and could have made a punt. Got the ball back with a couple minutes to go and unfortunately didn't work.
Q. Pacheco had such a solid first half. Why only one carry in the second half?
CHRIS ASH: That's a good question. I'm going to have to talk with the offensive staff about that. I know Blackshear came back and in the second half he was healthy and fresh. We weren't running the ball great. He had the one long run that made it look from a numbers standpoint really good. Isaih is doing a lot of things and he'll continue to get more and more carries.
Q. The passer penalty -- what's your thoughts on that?
CHRIS ASH: They called it, you know, it's like anything else. Sometimes they call penalties you don't agree with and until I watch the film and look at it -- I saw the replay, but that didn't lose the game.
Q. Do you think you deserved the penalty that followed?
CHRIS ASH: Honestly I don't care. I've been fighting for our football team and you know, when you see guys out there fighting and scratching and clawing and trying to do things right, you get caught up in the heat of the moment. But I'm going to fight for our team and our guys.
Q. What did you think of the way Art played --
CHRIS ASH: I'll have to watch the film. Again, you look at the stats and the stats aren't great from a passing yardage standpoint, but we're banged up on the offensive line today. We had a couple guys not play. Venesky got his first start. Again, I'll wait till I watch the film to make any judgments on how the O-Line played or how Art played.
Q. The defensive effort, was that what you were looking for when you took the added responsibility and control?
CHRIS ASH: I was just trying to fix some issues that we were having. You know, just change it up. I think the players deserve the credit for the energy that they had out there today.
I think the defensive staff did a good job with their players to continue to get those guys to fight, and that's what it's about. You know, it's not about me. Had nothing to do with me. Has everything to do with the players and them sticking together, continue to work.
Q. But you feel that those mistakes sort of eliminated some --
CHRIS ASH: Yeah, I think the players did a good job of executing the game plan.
Q. How much was the wind a factor going in two different directions?
CHRIS ASH: You know, it was a little bit. There was some gust a little bit. It wasn't as windy as it has been in the past here, but yeah, it was a little bit of a factor.
Q. Do you take solace in playing more competitively and keeping this a lot closer than some recent --
CHRIS ASH: Yeah, again, we've talked about that before. You know, guys, we want to -- I feel for our players because they really want to be able to celebrate on a Saturday. I really want that for them. Disappointed.
I am really happy about the competitive spirit that our team displayed today, and I'm disappointed that we weren't able to make the plays we needed to to let those guys celebrate in that locker room. That's a good football team we played today. They are well-coached. They compete and they have guys that can make plays, too. I'm just hurting for our guys.
Q. Big picture going forward putting together an effort like, this do you feel confident maybe in November, despite what everyone thinks is going to be a terrible November, that maybe, you know --
CHRIS ASH: You know, I can't control what everyone thinks -- the only thing I can control is my attitude and my effort and my actions to help our football team get better and that's it.
You know, November is what it is. We've got some good teams coming up. That's the league and we've got a bye week coming up. We need this bye week to get some guys back, get some rest. I'm not worried about November. We'll worry about November after today. Right now I'm just worried about our players.
Q. How much more do you need to see from the passing game to give yourself more of a chance in November?
CHRIS ASH: Well, we need to see a lot more offensively, period. They are trying. Some guys are getting better but we're just not getting better fast enough, but they are working hard at it and we've just got to make some plays. There are some guys that are open. We either hit them and it's a drop or we don't throw it properly.
So just got to keep working on it and they have to keep getting better, but we have to get better.
Q. I'm not sure we'll speak to you before we come back from the bye. What's the approach you have with the players this coming week?
CHRIS ASH: You know, we've got a plan. We have to go deal with some recruiting but we have to let these guys rest up. It's been an eight-week grind. We have some guys that are banged up. We have some guys that are hurt. We'll practice. We have some guys to develop and we'll keep some younger guys working to get them better. But our guys have been playing. They need some rest.
Rutgers Defensive Lineman Willington Previlon
On what was different about today's defensive effort: "We try to raise our energy levels, have fun."
On Chris Ash's fire and passion on the sidelines after big sack: "He's trying to bring as much fire and passion as possible. He always challenges us to bring it, and match it."
On having fun this week: "Yeah we were definitely trying to have fun out there. We noticed one game we definitely did not have as much fun as we were supposed to and he challenged us on that. We watched the film, we were not having fun out there. Especially this week, homecoming, we try to have as much fun as possible."
On if it hurts more to lose a close game: "They all hurt, to be honest. You don't want to take any loss at all."
Rutgers Quarterback Art Sitkowski
On the frustration of being close to a win: "Yeah, it was very frustrating. As an offensive team, we're so close and this game is full of inches and one or two plays could've made difference. Very frustrating. We'll get back after it tomorrow and get ready to work."
On how the passing game can get better going forward: "Just got to execute on all levels. Quarterback's got to do a better job, offensive line's got to do what they got to do. Coach Ash's new motto saying 'one strong.' Everyone has to focus on what they got to do. So my job is to deliver the ball, put the offense in the best position to win the game and that's what I have to do. Everyone's got to execute, and that's about it. Just got to do our job."
On being the cleanest offensive game: "I think it was the cleanest, but it doesn't matter what you call it. It all starts with attitude and effort. If you bring effort into playing football and you're going as hard as you possibly can you're going to beat that guy. Football is a fight and if we just show up every day and we fight, we're going to give our team a chance to win."
On the dynamics of changing offensive linemen: "I'm confident in all those guys that Coach Blazek has out there. I believe in every single one of them. I love them to death. They break their fingers for me, they do absolutely anything for me so I love them and have the absolute utmost confidence in all those guys in that locker room."
Rutgers Wide Receiver Eddie Lewis
On the close game: "It's frustrating. Everybody is frustrated. Especially me, dropping two passes. I put that on myself the most. As a team, you can feel the frustration. We can play with anybody in the Big Ten."
On keeping it close with other teams in the Big Ten: "Of course. Everybody since the beginning of the year, we've been saying that we can play with these teams. A lot of people don't believe it."
Rutgers Defensive Lineman Kevin Wilkins
On if it hurts to come this close and lose the game: "Absolutely. Like I said before in past interviews, if you're a competitor it's going to hurt when you lose. I don't like to lose in anything so definitely, it's going to hurt. We're very, very close. I thought everyone played hard, both sides of the ball. You love to see that. There's going to come a point in time where it's going to click for us and you're going to see how much talent we actually have on both sides of the ball and you guys got a glimpse of that today. Defensive guys we just got to finish."
On if this was a step forward for the defense: "Absolutely. I think it's probably our best game that we played so far this year. We're going to go out there and we're going to give everything we've got each and every game no matter the outcome."
On two fourth down plays on the game-winning drive: "If I could take those back, I'd definitely go back and do it again. If you asked the guys in our room if you wanted the game to be like that, all of them would say yeah. We're built on being tough, got a lot of Jersey guys, a lot of Florida dudes, we're built on being tough. We got a lot of tough dudes on both sides of the ball. We wanted that. Now next time we get in that situation we got to take it."
Northwestern Head Coach Pat Fitzgerald
Opening Statement: "Great job going 1-0. Sometimes you don't have your 'A' game. I talked to the guys after the game. I said, we're in baseball playoff time right now. A pitcher goes out on the mound, warmed up great, had a great week of prep, like we did. And then all of a sudden things aren't working the way you want them to work. You still have to find a way to keep inching to the end and get the win. Or get it to your bullpen in baseball terms. That's what we did. We had some really good things happen today and we had some self-inflicted wounds. It's a team that's been through a lot of battles and found a way to get it done. A lot of young guys played. We came in really beat up. To see the way that Isaiah Bowser stepped up, especially at the end, really ran physical. (Offensive Coordinator) Mick McCall managed the end of the game really well. I thought the guys went out and executed really well. Our defense was outstanding. We mis-fit one play that led to the long run. But to come in here against a team that puts a lot of pressure on you, (Rutgers) coach
John McNulty and his staff put a lot of pressure on your offensively, their young skill is outstanding, and you saw that this Rutgers team would respond. I thought Rutgers played really well against Indiana and Illinois here and had opportunities to win those games. So we knew what kind of a battle we were getting into and our guys responded."
On Rutgers defense: "They brought pressure from the edges, field and boundary. I thought we adjusted well. They have some pretty good skill in their front seven. Mick did a great time adjusting some things at halftime and we had some more success in the second half."
On RB Isaiah Bowser and the RB group: "Yeah, we need him. I'm proud of our running backs. We had two young pups and Isaiah, that's all we had today. All three of those guys contributed. This is Big Ten football and it's not easy. We played a wounded animal today. Homecoming, we knew we would get their best shot and we did. And we responded with a bunch of young pups. We're a very young football team, but we've been growing up as we go through some battles. We'll continue to work to get better. That's Big Ten football, win and advance."
On success on the road: "I don't think we flinch. No matter what the crowd is like. Our guys just handle things the same way at home and on the road. Our guys are pretty even keel. We knew what kind of atmosphere we were coming into. I thought Rutgers played really well on defense and I thought our defense played really well. It was just a defensive game."
On Rutgers: "
Chris Ash is going to do a great job. I think back to my time as a student-athlete. I think back to my time as a student-athlete at Northwestern and the support that needed to happen to turn the program around. The administration, the athletic department, the donors and the fans. Everybody had to be all in, going the same direction. And there's going to be tough days. But it takes time to turn a program back around. It's just going to take some time to get this thing back going in a direction they all can be proud of. And I hope they give him time. I think Chris is a great man and a great coach. It just takes time when you are in that foundation building stage. But he's going to do a great job. He's an outstanding coach."
