Rutgers Head Coach Chris Ash
CHRIS ASH: All right, obviously we're not going to win a game until we stop doing the things that we continue to do that get us beat. We got penalties on punt returns, penalties on offense. We got drops on offense, you know, turnovers. Defense we lose contain on the quarterback. Jump out of gaps. Come inside on calls when we're not supposed to. Go outside when we're supposed to go inside. Just a lot of things. It's all on me. I'm the head coach. It's my responsibility and got to get it fixed.

So with that, I'll go ahead and open it up for questions.

Q. Where does the team go from here?
HEAD COACH CHRIS ASH: Same place that we've talked about before. We keep working, and you know, we've got a lot of work to do. We've got a lot of things to clean up.

Q. What's the message in the locker room after?
HEAD COACH CHRIS ASH: That's between me and the guys.

Q. How would you assess Art's performance?
HEAD COACH CHRIS ASH: Had three interceptions. That's not good enough. Threw some good balls, obviously. Had a lot of yards but we got three interceptions. We had some issues in the red zone with that.

Q. Warming up were you close to pulling him after playing the second quarter?
HEAD COACH CHRIS ASH: No. No.

Q. Will Lewis at tight end be a permanent thing?
HEAD COACH CHRIS ASH: Still experimenting. Obviously Jerome Washington was unable to play today due to injury, so it was something that we thought we would try to do because of numbers.

Q. Justin?
HEAD COACH CHRIS ASH: Justin hurt himself during the week. I shouldn't say he hurt himself during the week. He was feeling some pain last week in the game and did not practice this week. Tried to go out in pregame and couldn't do it.

Q. You mentioned the run fits earlier in the week. You played several teams now with these big, open, long touchdown runs. How do you fix that midseason?
HEAD COACH CHRIS ASH: You're right, we've got to figure it out. I've been doing this a long time and to play team defense, you've got to be disciplined. One of the things I know our players are doing, is they say they want to make plays. Plays will come to you when you play the call and are in the right spot. You can't just go outside of the framework of the defensive call and expect to make plays. You've got to play disciplined football. You've got to be gap-sound. You've got to do what the call is called to do, and you've got to do it consistently.

Q. Why do you think those things are not translating from the week into the game?
HEAD COACH CHRIS ASH: I don't know.

Q. I know you talk about being young, but most of your older guys are on defense. So why do you think that's not --
HEAD COACH CHRIS ASH: Well, it's a good question. Depth is a concern on defense. One of the things I do know that cures a lot of problems is competition, and we're missing a lot of defensive scholarship players and that's not an excuse, but that's reality. Been saying that for a while. You know, the issues where we lost some guys in the summer has hurt us more than I thought because we've had some injuries. We've got some guys playing out of position. We don't have a lot of depth. That's reality.

You know, competition is something that fixes a lot of problems, you know, and right now we don't have it, and I've got to get it fixed.

Q. You came into this season optimistic that this program would take a step forward. How concerned or surprised are you what's happened the last four?
HEAD COACH CHRIS ASH: You know, I'm disappointed obviously. There are a lot of things that have changed since then, and like I said, when you're talking about some games, 16 defensive scholarship players out; that hurts.

We have got a young team on offense, but still, we have drops, we have penalties and we have things you cannot do on offense and have a chance to win football games, and that continue to happen.

It's lack of focus, a lack of attention to detail. Something has to be coached differently. We've got to figure it out. But you know, obviously was a lot more optimistic about our chances to win these games that we've been playing, and it hasn't happened.

Q. Late in the game you had two first and goals. What was that process of throwing the ball?
HEAD COACH CHRIS ASH: If you look at how we were running the ball, we weren't running the ball very good. Simple as that.

Q. You kick a field goal down there, fans booed, and understandably so. What was going on?
HEAD COACH CHRIS ASH: What do you mean understandably so? We're down 17. You needed a field goal no matter what. Our starting kicker is unavailable. We're in a position where we can get three points that we're going to need no matter what.

So if we don't -- if we go for it and we don't make it, the game's probably over at that point. So we needed points no matter what. So we were in position for our kicker to make the kick and put the points on the board.

Q. When you kicked the long field goal with Haggerty, I think it was a screen play on third down. Were you planning on going for it for fourth down?
HEAD COACH CHRIS ASH: It's all based on the result of the play. We didn't get anything. If we would have gotten some positive yardage, there would have been conversation about what we would do. You know, it is what it is. Justin could not go today, and when you don't have that guy, you've got to make different decisions.

We called a play that we thought would get some positive yards, and then you have an opportunity to make a decision, you know, if you don't get the first down on fourth down. Didn't happen. We're in a situation we could either try to go for it, try to punt it or try to kick it. Tried to kick it.

Rutgers Quarterback Artur Sitkowski
On his play today: "We didn't win the game. Not good. Any time you throw three interceptions and you don't give your team the opportunity to win, it's not good. I didn't do my part as far as starting fast like coach has been preaching all week, so that's on me. The first play was a pick I threw right at the guy. I have to throw the ball right out in front. We didn't win. So we have to get better from here."
 
On getting in a rhythm at the end of the first half: "I felt good. We were rolling. Playing fast and making plays. I'm used to that. We did that a lot in high school – playing fast and getting the ball out of my hands fast. I definitely felt like I got in a rhythm.
 
On adjusting to Illinois' defense: "Thy played Tampa Two most of the game, so they were dropping everyone. So you have your shallows and dinks and dunks, so that's what I did the whole game."
 
On his performance: "I felt like we had a lot of momentum coming in from Indiana going into Illinois. Every time you start out of the gate with two interceptions, you don't give your team a chance to win. It's tough. We have to make better decisions."
 
Rutgers Tight End Travis Vokolek
On his play today: "With Jerome [Washington] being down, I saw an opportunity out there. I tried to go out there and make some plays."
 
On his touchdown reception: "Art threw a great ball. It was just a simple corner route. I had the size advantage on the corner and safety, so I just went up and grabbed the ball."
 
On stepping up with Jerome Washington out: "Yes, definitely. There were still a couple of drops and a couple of blocks I could of picked up, but for the most part, I thought I went out there and took advantage of the opportunity."
 
Rutgers Defensive End Kevin Wilkins
On the loss: "No one likes the feeling of losing. It's hard, but we have to go back to work and correct the mistakes that we've made week in and week out. We have no one to blame but ourselves. It's not the coaches' fault, it's not one individual player, we have to know our responsibilities when it's time to play the game."

On what the team's issues are: "There's no excuse for it. We have a lot of talent on both sides of the ball. Right now it's not clicking. It's going to click at some point, but right now it's not clicking like we want it to. At some point, hopefully it starts to click and you get to see how much talent we have on this team."

Rutgers Defensive End Mike Tverdov
On the loss: "It's rough. This is definitely a game we could have won. We beat ourselves in a way. Coach put us in the right position to make plays, we didn't execute. That's the bottom line. Plays are going to be made during the course of the game, but it's up to us to stop the ball carrier or getting a first down. We just need to keep getting better and move forward."
 
On moving forward: "We have to go back to work. We're going to soak this up the next 24 hours. You can't hang your head. You have to keep grinding and get better from this."
 
On his play: "I think I'm getting better every week. I have a great support system. The coaches have a lot of faith in me. I have a really good brotherhood on the team. Everyone just pushes you to play to your best ability. When you're out there making plays, and there is a lot of juice during practice, it helps your confidence. I feel like I'm getting better every week."

Illinois Head Coach Lovie Smith
On the game: "This is a big win for us. Every time you get a Big Ten win, it's a big win. Getting a Big Ten road win is even harder. We've been getting better as a football team. It hasn't showed up always in the final score. We weren't finishing games as much as anything. I thought our guys came out strong. The bye week helped a lot. We took the ball away on the defensive side. We had three takeaways and a fourth down stop. When you can run the football the way we did today, you should finish the game on a high note. Outstanding job running the ball, and when you can run the ball like that, you have to first look at what the offensive line is able to do. A lot of holes, the running backs were ready for them. Mike Epstein did a good job. AJ Bush, it was good getting him back also. So a big win for us. That's the way you want to play football. When you get a big win, that makes that next game even bigger, and that's the case with us."

On the return of QB AJ Bush: "Well we had gotten good play while AJ was out. MJ Rivers did a good job. The difference is that AJ can also move the chains a little bit better with his feet. So just having him as another guy that can run the football, that's tough on defenses. AJ came back strong. We didn't see any signs of him favoring his hamstring. He was able to make good throws and make runs when he had to."

On the mood in the locker room postgame: "Well it had been 23 months or so since we had a Big Ten win. All of us had to go back to what you do when you celebrate a road win in the Big Ten. There is no feeling like a winning locker room. That's what we had there."

On the shakeups in the secondary: "I think you're constantly looking to put your team in the best position to win. Sometimes you have to look at different combinations. We're still young, especially on the back end. Now we have our full group there to pick and choose from. Sydney Brown is a heck of a football player. Tony Adams is also. We thought we had a better combination out there today. We thought that would give us our best opportunity and I was pleased with what we had out there. For Sydney, he's been playing nickel. And nickel does everything. He's part linebacker, part corner. His skill set was displayed at the nickel position. And he's a good tackler too. He matches up well with tight ends well. And Tony Adams has ball skills. In an ideal world, you would like four corner types as your four DBs."

On running the ball and getting takeaways: "That's exactly what we would like our personality to be. This is who we would like to be offensively. When you rush for over 300 yards, you have to be excited about that. We come in every game wanting to run the football. And defensively, you have to take the ball away. Our statistics aren't great right now in the overall picture, but we didn't have any turnovers today, we were plus-three today. We had a fourth down stop. You're going to be able to win games that way. We'll need that each week. Now it's about next week, needing to be able to do the same thing."

On what the win means: "One win can do a lot. We put a big emphasis on this game. It had been that long since we'd had a Big Ten win, both on the road and in general. So this was big. Rutgers played well. They almost came back and won the game last week. So for us, we took the bye week, we made some changes, and we needed to see a better product. We saw a better product today."

Illinois RB Reggie Corbin
On what the win means: "This was just one that we needed to get. Coming off a loss, having that taste in our mouth for the entire bye week, we needed this one. I didn't really it was our first Big Ten win in forever till coach told us. But we needed that. We needed to prove to our fans and our supporters that we are a different team. It doesn't really prove anything to us, because we know who we are and we know we still need to be a lot better."

On the journey between Big Ten wins: "I just put my head down and worked. And so did everyone else. We talked about how tough our summer was, our team runs. We left that in the past. We let it drive us and we kept going. This helps people more so outside the program. We're very confident. I think we just need to keep getting better. We just don't look at the stats or the points. We look at every little thing, what we did well, and what we messed up. I think we just need to keep that drive going."

Illinois QB AJ Bush
On his game: "It was great to be back out there with my guys. I feel pretty close to 100 percent now. We just have to fine-tune some things but I thought it went pretty well."

On what he brings to the offense: "Just leadership. MJ Rivers did a great job filling in. I just wanted to come in and give a boost to my team. I know they needed it."

On what the rushing attack: "That's what we want to do. We to run the game, go inside zone. Just get our blocking and everything on point so we can open it up for big passes."

On what the win means: "It's important. It's part of the rebuild. Everybody needs to stay patient. It's coming. I can feel the progress in the program that is being set in motion. The younger guys need to learn what it takes to win, what it feels like to win. So when we win, we can build that culture and experience with them. That's what will help build the program."

Illinois Right Guard Nick Allegretti
On getting first Big Ten win: "It just shows how hard we have worked in practice, it works. Last year was a little frustrating, we worked hard but it was not clicking and this year, I think we worked harder every single week and we are seeing that it does work, if you continue to work hard on fundamentals, technique, and effort it will eventually give you the results you are looking for so, we have to keep working, every game is going to be tough for the rest of the season, take it week by week, work our butt off and have a fun season."

On mentality after win: "We came in thinking this is a game we can absolutely win, but I think that is how we are going to feel the rest of the season. We look at the Big Ten schedule, the gap is close from the top teams to the bottom team, Big Ten is very close right now, every game that we play we are going to have the opportunity to play our best and win that game. Next week is Purdue, homecoming it is a huge one, they have an explosive offense, we know that, they have some talented players on defense that we play against, it is going to be a tough game but another game we have the opportunity to win if we play our best."

Illinois Wide Receiver Trenard Davis
On having a defined role: "I knew my defined role since camp so it gave me the opportunity to keep working, get reps and get better and better every time I stepped on the field."

On improvement as wide receiver by playing quarterback: "I just think I got better at running the routes and reading coverages."

On catch with a guy on his back: "You got to make that for your quarterback, the ball touched your hands, it does not matter how it is thrown, if it is touches your hand, you got to the catch the ball."

On playing quarterback on some packages: "I love that, I want to be the best throwing wide receiver in the country so, I love that, hopefully got more."