Southern Illinoise University Athletics
Kill Previews Illinois State
10/01/2001 | 12:00:00 | Football
Oct. 1, 2001
CARBONDALE, Ill. - Excerpts from Coach Kill's Weekly Press Conference
Illinois State Preview: "To be honest with you we have spent a ton of time watching our tape against Western Illinois and trying to correct some things that we need to correct and become a better football team. I've watched Illinois St. some, but not as extensively as what I will do in the next 24 hours. They are a team that is very much like us, they are trying to find a way to get a victory at this point in time. They are a team whose coach was very confident that they were going to make a run at the conference championship. They have had some things that haven't gone their way. They are very athletic, and maybe in the secondary they are more athletic than anyone we have seen. They play a lot of man coverage and get after you pretty good. They like to blitz. Offensively, they have a good solid running back and it is one of those games where I think it is important for both of us - they need to get a win and we need to get a win. They do have some talent, and good enough talent to where I know coach Johnson was very confident at the beginning of the season, but I think they have just had some setbacks and some bad breaks and it just hasn't come together as he would like up to this point, but I am sure they will be ready on Saturday."
Quarterback situation: "I am not going to say a whole lot about it, to be honest with you, and I have been very open to the press, and you are welcome to come to practice and those types of things...but I got thinking about it, we are going over there to Afganistan right now and we aren't telling (the media) where our special forces are going and those type of things. The less they know the better. They are two different types of quarterbacks, no question. We are going to talk to those two young men today, evaluate the film with them, and go from there. Will I announce the starting quarterback before the game? I don't know if I will or not to be honest with you. We were struggling as a football team, not just Madei, and we put Kevin in and our team responded. He threw the ball well, and we moved the ball. Kevin made a couple of mistakes down the stretch that I lost a couple of hairs over, and we will watch the film and try to get those corrected. But Kevin did a good job of coming in and sparking our team. I think we will take a good look at it and do what is best for our football team. I understand you guys (the media) have a job to do, and I appreciate that, but I am not going to say anything until I sit down and talk to those two young men. I owe that to them.
We will watch the film and talk to both of them...it is a touchy situation. You have to be honest with them. About the only thing I know is that I am an honest guy, and I think that is the reason Kevin stayed with us this long. He could have very easily quit and told me to go to you know where when we brought a transfer in, but he didn't do that. I told him exactly what we were going to do, I said 'We are going to try to recruit above you. That is my job, that is what we are going to do''. He hung in there with me. We will do that with him and Madei. We will be honest with them. It is a touchy situation of course with Madei being a transfer and having only one year left, but I only know how to do it one way. Number one, we are going to do what is best for the team, and number two, I am going to be honest about it."
On the team in general: "I think we got better as a football team. I just made a list of things wegot better at, and things we didn't get better at. Right now field position is killing us. Murray State's average starting position was at the 40-yard line and Western's was on the 44. When you only have to go 60 yards to score a touchdown, it isn't that darn hard to do. Our average field position has been on the 23 and 31, so we are losing the field position game in the kicking game, and that has got to get better to give us a better chance. We did cut down on a lot of mental mistakes. We still made some, we were 1-for-4 on fourth downs and two of those we had alignments going the wrong way at crucial times in the game. We made mistakes, we cut them down, but we made mistakes at crucial times in the game. We still have to get that cut down.
Offensively I thought we threw the ball better, Kevin came in and did a good job. They decided to try and stop the run, and we weren't bullheaded about it, we decided to throw the football. They changed their entire defensive scheme against us in one week and you have to give credit to them.
We still need to cut down on mistakes and we still lack discipline. We caught the ball well, and Tom did a good job out of the backfield catching some passes, and with our tight end out for 3-4 weeks, we are going to have to do a few more things out of the backfield.
There is no question that Western Illinois is a much better team than what we have played so far, and I think that we played much better than the first two games. Physically, they were bigger and stronger than us, no question about it. We had to find a way to offset that, and I think we did that for the most part. We got Western's best on Saturday."
