Post-Game Quotes: Northwestern
10/29/2017 12:00:00 AM | Football
Recap | Final Stats | Notes
Michigan State head coach Mark Dantonio
Opening statement…
Great football game obviously. Went down to the wire. Proud of our football team. Proud of how our guys responded and played through it all, when you really look at the football game, in terms of what went down. I look at us, how we need to run the ball more effectively. We threw the ball very well, scored points, big drive at the end of the game to come back and tie it. Lost opportunity on the turnover early in the first half when we could have wound up at least 10-0 or with 14. A couple field goals hit the bar, so we're not playing to win at the end of the game, we're playing to tie. Defensively, stopped the run. But felt like, the run after catch. Wasn't so much deep balls. Deep balls didn't hurt us. But the catch and run after catch, leveraging the football. The run after catch hurt us. Two plays, their last touchdown in regulation, the half back pass. We had it almost covered. And then the jailbreak-go, in man coverage. Very proud of our football team. 6-2. Opportunity next week. 4-1 in the conference right now, so we live to play another game. I thought Lewerke played outstanding. Probably needs to throw the ball away, certainly at the end of the game.
On Northwestern's success with crossing routes…
We played man coverage on them. They were running some RPOs with their replace route right behind the back. We had to get man coverage on them, which we took that away. When we pressured them on third down, which we did pressure, we didn't get home. They protected the quarterback. He stood in the pocket or he stepped up. Then we don't have an extra player in there to take the crossing routes, so you have to chase the crossing route in those situations, which we did, which we made some plays on them.
But at the end of the game there you saw in the third overtime, the guy gets loose down the sideline and gets a touchdown. We've got to come back and look at what we did schematically there or the execution of it. Nobody should be turned loose. It is difficult to run from this side of the field to the other side of the field and be in great coverage, even though we were in press, if the guy is going to have time to throw the football. And when you send six guys, you've got to get home and affect the quarterback. You've got to really give their quarterback, Clayton Thorson, a lot of credit. He stood in the pocket. He played very effectively. And 21 [Justin Jackson] is a football player. We've been saying that all week. When they had a good play, they found ways to get the ball in his hands. He didn't run the ball for that much. I think he probably had 50 yards rushing maybe total, but they found a way to get him the ball in space, just dumping it to him out there where we had leverage tackling wise and couldn't quite get him down. They would move the chains. It wasn't like they were ripping off 40-yarders, but they were moving the chains on us.
On the mismatches created by Northwestern's linebackers…
Like I said, they're going to put everybody out in the patterns. That's five guys. Sometimes you have five defensive backs, but very rarely are you mixing it up. So, a backer's going to be on some of those guys, and they got us into some bad matchups I think. But you try to pressure too.
On early missed opportunities to extend the lead…
I think we left points off the board. We missed two field goals hitting the bar, so those are inches. We didn't find the inches. We had three shots down the field where we're inches away from making a play. So, we didn't find the inches today. At times we did. But to win the football game, we didn't find the inches. If we make the field goal then we're playing to win at the end of the game. I think at that point there's 25 seconds to go in the game. But you never know how things are going to play out. It is what it is. We've got to deal with it. We've dealt with other things before, and we've got to deal with it. Again, I'll go back to say that our football team played with conviction. They played with energy. They played with emotion. They played with intensity. They never stopped playing throughout the entire time. That's all I can ever ask for from a football team. If there's some execution or some plays left out on the field, from a structure standpoint, coaching wise I'm talking about, that's always going to happen. As long as we do our very, very best and come to play and prepare, I can handle it.
On trying to find balance against Northwestern's defense…
Usually when you look at us, there's a magical number that we say ‘hey we've got to run the ball this amount of times, because they've got to stop the run too.' If you don't ever run it, then they just start playing pass defense. So, you have to force the issue and make them stop the run to open up the passing lanes too. That's my feeling. You can't just say we're going to throw it all the time, because then it becomes just a very vanilla secondary at times. Same thing on their end. We've got to respect No. 21 running the football. So, we've got to stop him. Otherwise, you saw what he did last year. It's sort of a cat and mouse type thing I think, and you've got to play through it. Pay through the pain a little bit.
Northwestern head coach Pat Fitzgerald
Opening statement…
What a heck of a ball game between two, I think, really well-matched teams. If you look at the regulation aspect it was a really hard fought defensive game and I think that will get lost in the final stats. But I thought it was a really well hard-fought defensive game. It was tough to gain any inches on either side. It was kind of a game of big plays and then to see the way someone had to make a defensive stop and the way that we got it done there at the end, it was great, credit to our guys, great resiliency. Obviously, we've got a lot of things we need to shore up.
On how the team started moving the ball so well…
Well you know I thought we moved it fairly decent most of the game. We just had some breakdowns it looked like there, some drops, some missed targeted throws. It looked like we were a block away from a couple of big runs most of the day. And then it became a 25-yard game again. And now that's two weeks in a row we've gotten into overtime and I think our offense has executed pretty well. And we needed to make a defensive stop and we got it done. But I thought Clayton [Thorson] had a career day throwing the football, he was pretty much spot-on most of the day."
On if he thinks Clayton has gotten a lot better throughout the season…
All that matters is we win. Every play is going to be over-analyzed when you're the quarterback, that's the way life is. You know it's the same thing when you're the coach, you do this and it's like, ‘Why?' Same thing as the quarterback. You know today, I just think he took what the defense gave him, I thought we had a really good plan. I thought Mick [McCall] and the offensive staff did a terrific job putting together a plan to take what the defense gave us. I mean they had everybody in the box now, they had everybody to stop the run, and we didn't stop trying. We tried to get creative and tried to get some angles and numbers. Again, I think we're going to watch the tape and see we were a block away from really popping and getting the run game going. So, we've got to shore that up. A ton of big plays by a bunch of guys, I mean Flynn [Nagel], Cam Green, you know we may not have been able to get Jackson going in the run game but he made a bunch of plays out of the backfield. So, all-in-all, I thought offensively, against that defense, to get 39 points was pretty good. Even though it's skewed because of the overtime stuff.
On what his main game plan was for a dual-threat quarterback like Lewerke…
Well the dual threat didn't hurt us, scrambles hurt us. And there were calls that we made that we didn't execute, to be able to have someone there. You know the big fourth down scramble we had two spies on and when you run beyond the quarterback you give them what we call the side-door exit you can't do that. So, we've got to look at some things we did schematically. They lived in empty at the end of the game, nobody in the backfield. And we talked about different adjustments that we wanted to go to, I got to take a hard look at that with Hank [Mike Hankwitz] and the defensive staff to see how we can shore some things up there.
On how Paddy Fisher has come along, how he still need to improve…
From the standpoint of Paddy, I just think his confidence is going up and up every play, every rep. He's got a great work ethic in practice, the way that he prepares. I just think the sky's the limit for that young man. He's just a terrific football player. His instincts, his range, his physicality, his understanding of what people are trying to do. It's not a surprise to me at all, that's what he did in high school. You know he's from Katy, Texas, and Katy High School is one of the most dominant, powerhouse football programs in the country. And he was so well-prepared when he got here, so well-prepared. And hopefully we can just continue to develop him and he can be the best player he can be.
On making decision to call a pass for Justin…
Training camp, it's probably when we put it in. I don't know when we started talking about it. Probably a month ago, two months ago we've had it in the game plan. It just hasn't fit with what we were maybe playing against. It looked like a really bad throw, but productive. So I'm not going to coach him on it. All that matters is that we caught it.
On how his defense played in the overtime period…
Well we needed to make a play. And both offenses just got rolling. Both quarterbacks I thought were playing really well. And we needed to make a play and then obviously we were able to get that there on the last play. So, like I said, there's a lot of things defensively we've got to shore up.
On where this game ranks in terms of ‘pure football games he's played in the last few years…
Well the modern fan will probably be more excited about this game, because everybody just wants to see 98-97, I'm assuming. I just want to win, I don't care what it takes. And games have different ebb and flow, different schematics and adjustments you have to make. The way you're playing and executing makes you have to play into that also. I thought it was a heck of a college football game. I thought both teams battled their rear ends off. There was emotional swings on both sides. And we just found a way to make one more play. I've got so much respect for Mark [Dantonio] and his staff. We've battled against each other a bunch. But a lot like last week with Kirk [Ferentz], you know we're probably the three longest tenured guys in the Big Ten, or pretty close to it. There's so much admiration and respect, that's what we were talking about after the game, ‘We've got to stop doing this to each other.' But I think it's the same thing with our young men too, they just respect the heck out of the last two opponents that we've played. We knew they were going to be just wars. You watched the tape, you see the physicality, you see the execution, you see the talent, you see how well-coached they are. You knew it was going to be a battle and, again, two weeks in a row we had to make a play. Last week it was Justin, this week it was Joe Gaziano, he got the strip and then on the sack and then Nate [Hall] with the pick.
On Jackson tying record for all-time touchdowns…
Spectacular and unbelievable. I think it's more about who he is as a person and the passion that he demonstrates. No one was more excited about that win in the locker room than Justin Jackson. He's just a special Wildcat, and I'm not sure if Big Ten football fans understand what exactly he has accomplished. This is one of the most spectacular careers in Big Ten history. His amount of joy and humility have been a pleasure to coach.
On having a three-game win streak...
I think we have positive momentum right now. There was ample opportunity to make things happen in the three games that we didn't win. I would never want to discredit our opponents, but I kind of feel like we gave those games to them. We didn't execute and we can't win that way. The guys have stayed on course and have worked incredibly hard in practice. They are seeing the return on their investment and that gives you confidence that the work I'm putting in I'm getting the reward for. Let's not kid ourselves, these last two games have been absolute Big Ten wars and we've found a way to make one more play against two really good teams.
Michigan State sophomore quarterback Brian Lewerke
On if the deep ball is the last aspect of his game he needs to develop…
Yeah, learning to put touch on it. I think I did a good job on the first drive when I hit Cody [White] for that long play. And then for some reasons, it's harder for me to hit the wide-open ones than it is to hit the covered ones. I just have to work on that a little more.
On what he saw on the last play of the game…
Before the fumble, I didn't really have anywhere to go, that's probably why I fumbled. And then I picked it up. I think it was second down so I probably should've thrown it away. But, I saw [Matt] Sokol running on the right side. It looked like he had a couple of steps on the guy. It just takes a little bit bigger of an arm to make that throw and obviously you probably shouldn't throw it in that situation anyways.
Michigan State junior wide receiver Felton Davis
On catching the game tying touchdown…
I had a feeling Brian was going to look at me because I was toward the sideline by myself and he threw the ball into one-on-one coverage high and right where I wanted it. With me being 6-4, I just went up and made a play.
On slow periods in the middle of the game…
We missed those deep balls in the second and third quarters and we wish we could have those back. If we complete those we can keep our confidence high and keep the offense on the field and defense off the field. Obviously, we wish we could have those back.
