Illinois Fighting Illini College Football Pregame Quote, 11/02/2020

Seems like a lot has happened since we played last, we were missing a few players. As we said we don’t have a whole lot of positives but we have enough through contact tracing to wound our team a little bit but those guys, the guys who were out will be out this week also. With that being said, the rest of our players moved on.

It was a tough situation for Coran Taylor to be in, you know Matt Robinson was listed as our second guy and Isaiah Williams but I thought Coran came in and played some good football plays, did some good things. Offensively though overall, it’s still tough when you turn the ball over that much and a lot of them were down in the red zone where we had the opportunities to get points. We were productive as far as yards are concerned but we do need to get some more points on the board. Defensively I thought we did some things better; we played the run fairly well the past couple games but passing game wise we have to play better pass defense than that.

On the offensive said Chase brown got more carries and some guys who haven’t played lot; Alex Pihlstrom stepped in and did a good job, Kyron Cumby got some of his first action, Daniel [Imator]bhebhe was able to do some things. I like the way the offensive line stepped up, Kendrick Green moving to center on short notice and defensively Owen Carney, I think Owen had three sacks, he should have had two others. He missed them where he just didn’t wrap the quarterback up. When you have production like that at the defensive end position you have to like it. Jake Hansen hauls in a couple of take always, forced the offense to turn the ball over a few times.

There were some good things but not good enough, we’ll need to clean those things up to beat a Minnesota team that is coming off a couple of tough losses also.

Tough loss but a lot to build on for this week.

We loved Johnny Newton when we recruited him. Just picture, he’s playing at defensive tackle [but] he was on playoff team at running back‚Ķ when you put an athlete like that at the defensive tackle position, you’re pretty excited. We’ve liked everything he’s done since he’s been campus. If Jamal Woods can’t go this week then we feel comfortable with him playing.

On the NCAA mandatory off day tomorrow:

I think it’s something that’s long overdue if you really think about it. Ee have holidays where we take days off for a lot of things and what is more important than the presidential election. It’s something that should have been done a long time ago. It’s exciting to see results coming In. I’m bumped up and glad that 2020 told us that this is something we need to do.

They [Minnesota] did have good year offensively and as a team they did. [Rashod] Bateman is back, one of the best receivers in the game and Tanner Morgan is back, an outstanding quarterback. You start with those guys but still there’s a commitment to the run game, their running back as played outstanding ball this year. It’s the same system, they believe in it. If you look at just offensively what they’ve done the past two games they’ve really played good offense just haven’t played as good defensively.