Coach Hill Press Conference Transcript

Opening statement

We have a great opponent coming in with a lot to play for. We have a lot of respect for the coaches at South Dakota. Coach Nielson does a great job no matter where he's at. It's going to tough. We have our work cut out for us. Obviously, were a team searching for a win. I like where were at. We're competing hard. I think we've gotten better each week at what we need to get better at. It hasn't translated into wins yet, but we have the opportunity to come back out here at home and keep getting better as a program.

How similar is the offense and defense they're running to what Nielson was running at Western Illinois?

There's a lot of similarities. Same coordinators on both sides. Offensively, they have a different style of quarterback with Streveler. With all the Minnesota ties we have, we know Streveler pretty well. He's a heck of an athlete. A big kid. He's strong. He can run it really, really well. Obviously, he's proven to throw the ball well a lot this season. Especially down the field in big chunk plays. They do a great job. Their staff is going to get their team in the best positions no matter what players they have. Same coordinators, different quarterback is the biggest difference.

What do you need to do to stop Streveler?

We just need to be sound. You have to tackle well. In a lot of his big runs, he will run through you. You have to be good tacklers. You have to bring some punch to the party when you're tackling. He's a big strong physical kid. He runs similar to how Mark Iannotti did last year for us. He can run through you, but he's also really fast. You have to tackled well and you have to be assignment sharp as soon as you're not in the right spot at the right time he can take it the distance on you. You cant just load the box every play and think that he's one dimensional, because he's proven throughout the season that he can throw the ball down the field and make you pay if you want to do that.

What stands out about South Dakota's big play ability?

I think teams get caught up in wanting him to stop running the football and get an extra guy in there. As a defense, you're always trying to get plus one on any run play. When you run the quarterback you feel like you can get the numbers because you have an extra blocker. Then you try to get more people that force you to play man coverage. He's been throwing some good balls with big plays. The threat of him running has opened things up down the field.

What has to get better about the pass rush?

There's certain things that you're not going to change overnight. They have to win some one on ones. At any time in football they have to win some one on one matchups. Whether it's a defensive lineman winning a pass rush one on one, or if it's a running back in a hole and he just has to make someone miss. Or if we need to burn a guy one on one in the secondary. In a game you're going to have to win one on one matchups and that's usually when a good team has a lot of good players that can win a one on one matchup. We have to get better at that. Pressure wise we brought a couple of things that they picked up. We weren't able to hit home on that. We got some pressure a couple times on him, but we have to continue to get better individually. Ultimately, that's what it comes down to when you need to win some pass rushes.

What does Brandt Van Roekel and the rest of the wide receivers bring to the table?

They have a lot of capable guys out there, it's just similar to us, they rotate a lot of guys and play a lot of guys. They do a good job. Sometimes you play some teams in this league that have a stand out guy, as far as wide receivers go. There have been several guys who caught deep balls and done some good things. We have to be ready for them all to play well. Coming off a game where we gave up a couple of deep passes, they're going to throw the ball deep, they have every single game. He's going to take some shots down the field, that's just what they've been doing. We have to be good in that aspect of playing man-to-man defense down the field.

Does this offensive style put too much pressure on your defense?

I don't think so. I think that when you watch us, were under center quite a bit. We're running a-gap power. We're running regular power. We're running zone. We run the ball and probably more so in the last few weeks. Especially last week. I think we ran 70 some plays, they ran more plays than us. Anytime you go up tempo and don't huddle, your defense is going to play more snaps. You've always known that, so what you have to do as an offense is score more point since we have more tries. We talked about that after the game, we went on four drives and probably needed five or six, that's what it ended up being. We have to better at controlling the ball. You just can't have that many three and outs and put your defense right back out there.

After the game you said you need to score more than 28 points to win. Is that a realistic thing to do in this league?

That's our expectation. There were definitely opportunities there to put more points on the board. You have to give the other teams credit in our league. We're playing a lot of really good football teams. That is proven week in and week out. You get tested against the best. Best teams. Best coaches. All of that stuff. We have to win games where we don't score 35 points, that's for sure. It's kind of been that way this season. If we would've scored 24 or 25 the week before against Indiana State that would have been enough. Whatever the game calls for, we have to be able to do that to win. Whether it's a shootout and it still comes down to the fourth quarter. It is still going to come down to a drive or making those plays in critical situations whether its 17-14 and you have to go make a drive as an offense to get one more score, or if its 38-35 and you have to go get one more score. It still comes down to those critical situations in the fourth quarter. We really haven't done a good enough job in those critical situations as an offense.

South Dakota has a lot of close games much like SIU. What similarities do you see between the two squads?

They've been in a couple. Last week was probably a heartbreaker for them. They had a couple early in the season. They've also won some close ones. They had an overtime win against Indiana State. It's the whole league. Every team we've played this year has a number of close wins and close losses. They're used to playing in close games. They have a great experienced coach. They're going to be ready for any situation. They're going to be going on the road. They're going to be ready if they're up by 14 or down by 14. I'm expecting their best game of being prepared. It's so late in the season, everyone has played in those games and been in a lot of situations as well as us. We haven't come out on the winning end yet. But, the mentality tis that we're going to. It makes your guys grow up a lot when you've played in a lot of close games. It's made a lot of our young players better, knowing situations and playing a lot of games with meaning full possessions, every week, every snap all the way to the fourth quarter. Which is a good thing. We want to win some of these games. We don't feel like a 2-6 team, but we are. We've gotten better. A lot of individuals have continued to get better each week. We have to stick to the plan and keep going. We have to be ready to go this week.

Their kicker has been really accurate. What kind of weapon is he for their team?

You don't see a guy kick, punt and placekick a lot, but he does all three. It's pretty rare these days. He's a talented kid. Your specialists are such key weapons. If you have great specialists, you're on the road to having a great team. Punting the ball, flipping the field, field position. We've not played in a game in over a month that hasn't been decided by more than a possession. It always goes back to special teams. They can be the difference in a touchdown. Can you completely flip the field on a punt, or are you going to keep giving them the ball at midfield? Can you get 55-yard net punt and make them get three more first down before kicking a field goal for 33 yards? All of those little things are the difference in being really good. They trust that guy to make those field goals. He's a huge weapon when it comes down to close games.

Is your team's youth a factor in not being able to close out games?

It's part of it. There's a lot of factors that go into losing games by one possession or less. Everyone takes responsibility around here. I haven't seen one person point a finger at someone else, not even with the players. I have to be a better coach. The assistants have to be better. I think that's the key. When you play a lot of young guys, the experience comes in. When you see a lot of championship teams its usually the junior and senior class that are the biggest and your leaders when you win football games. It usually translates there. We do have some older players that are playing well for us. But the majority of our players right now are freshmen and sophomores. We just have to keep playing, and we have to get better. We have three games to go. We can still win them all. We have to get better with each practice and each game. That's how were going to get better going forward, not only this season but for the future.

Will Daquan Isom play this Saturday?

Right now, I would not expect Daquan to play. There are expectations around here that we have to hold each other accountable. You're all in or you're not. Daquan has been hurt, but when you don't practice, you're not going to get out there. Everyone here, including myself loves Daquan Isom. He's not been in trouble. He's not done anything. He just hasn't been out on the practice field. He's still not 100% healthy, but right not we have to move forward with the guys that are here every single day. Doing the right things. Cam Walter is doing a great job. Without Cam this season, I don't know where we'd be as far as our run game. A lot of things didn't go his way all spring ball, summer time and camp. He got zero runs the first five weeks. But here he is now. It's not like we're putting a guy out there that isn't doing some good things A lot of Cam's yards are after contact. He picks up 3 or 4 extra yards. He's doing a really good job. I thought Mixon came in and did a good job again being that big back and moving the pile. I think we're doing well, but our running back room will look a lot like it did last week.

With the team using so many players, have you seen a lot of maturing from those players?

Yeah, because you get to play. After playing for a while that's the only way you're going to get out there and mature and get better. The more they play, the more they're going to see things, the more they're going to get better. Even a guy like Jefferson Vea, who has been here and is a sophomore, I thought he played one of his best games too. The one that Craig James returned for a touchdown. He sees that play before it happens and drives on the ball. He picked that play off before it happened. A lot of guys you've seen that switch start to flip a little bit as far as being experienced in the right place at the right time, making the right checks and the game is slowing down for them. We still have some guys that need to get there, but each week more and more guys are getting there.

What stands out to you about South Dakota's defense?

They do a good job all around. They play great team defense. A lot of the defenses in our league are similar. Four down front, 4-3, 4-2 when you spread them out. They're not a heavy pressure team. They don't make a lot of mistakes. They make you earn everything. They'll play some cover 2 mix up their coverages and they won't just give things away. They're coached really well. They're letting their players play. Each week you see a lot of the same coverages and a lot of the same fronts. It's the same with us. It's our philosophy on defense. You're going to line up and play good fundamental defense and you're going to win some games when you get it right. It's a good defense and they just play god fundamental football.

Do you have to get a win to validate what you're doing?

Yeah, I think so. I want those guys to win, not for me to get one, but because I know what it's like. We can run down all the seniors that have been playing, but not only for them, for everyone. That's what is frustrating to me as a first year coach. The effort that they're giving and that they gave on Saturday. You work all week and it hurts when you can't get a win and enjoy a win. I want it for those guys. They deserve a win. I wouldn't say that if they weren't busting their tails. We have to get better in a lot of areas. They're playing hard and I know they show up and they go out there to practice it's going to be a focused group and it's a staff that coaching their tails off too. I want them to feel that. We have three weeks left. With six losses you're probably not going to the post season. We can all go out and enjoy the game that we love playing and coaching. You have a chance to play it as a senior, you don't get too many more of them, so you better go out there and do it the right way. That's what these guys will do. They're hungry to get a win. You're so close, you want to feel that other side of it. That's the plan and that's what we're going to keep working at to get.

What do you think about Josh Straughan's play this season?

Josh has done a great job. You come in and you're not even on campus an entire year. He came here and we didn't guarantee him anything. Everyone knows his story by now. He worked hard and he's a great kid that fit into what we're trying to build. He's done a good job. He's had plays that he wants back a long with everybody else. It's definitely not on Josh Straughan, that's for sure. He's put us in a position that we wouldn't be in to make some of those plays. He's done a really good job. He's been good for the whole quarterback room. He's been fun to coach. Same thing with Sam Straub. He has to be ready to go too. Matt has done a good job of coming in and running the football and doing some different things too. We talk about all the time that for a quarterback your number one stat is wins and losses. I talked to Mark last year about it. No one remembers how many yards you passed for or how many touchdowns. Those are good things you can talk to your kids to, but ultimately as a quarterback, we would take half the yards or half the touchdowns to get some wins. Ultimately, as a quarterback that's your job. That's what we're searching for is those wins.

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Mark Iannotti

Daquan Isom

Craig James

Sam Straub

Josh Straughan

Jefferson Vea

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