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INDIANA UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEOctober 15, 2016Kevin WilsonBloomington, Indiana Nebraska - 27, Indiana - 22 KEVIN WILSON: It was good. Appreciate the battle our guys had. Had a few mistakes offensively; for sure that hurts us. They were very fortunate. We gave them a pick-six with a little bit of a miscue by a receiver that brings a guy into the fray for a pick. Marcelino is all over the ball, and somehow their guy catches it one time for a big play, and we've got three guys all over a route, and we trip ourselves. Kids played hard. Offensively still a ton to clean up. Got to get the running game going; it's 30 rushes, 80-something yards. Nebraska, like everybody is doing, they're loading the box. We got Zander going to try to get a little bit of quarterback run game because you've got to add a guy. That's not Richard's forte. But again, pretty even game, but some mistakes beat us, and three weeks in a row we're playing three good teams. In one week we eliminate mistakes and we get a victory, and the other two weeks we have something to haunt us, and when you're playing Big Ten -- next week we'll go to Northwestern. It's going to be an early kick and they're good. I think they played well today it sounds like, and that'll be tough. With the football in front of us this week and weeks to come, we've got to keep growing. That was the challenge to the team afterwards. Appreciate them, love them, great fight. I thought the crowd was awesome, a lot of energy today. Some things to build on, but close ain't it, and as a coach, I've got to make sure I'm on our point of things that we need to get fixed because we've got to quit leaving points on the field. We've got to get them on the scoreboard. Like we said before the week, I didn't think we were going to win this game, you know, with 17 or 20 points. We needed 34, 35, 37, 38, and we couldn't get it. Credit to Nebraska. But we've got to keep working and keep plugging. Defense played hard. Down 17-0, the team didn't rattle, kept playing, plugged along. Had a chance, couldn't get over the hump. Q. Now that you're at the midway point of the season, what is the level of concern with the offense? KEVIN WILSON: I mean, I don't know, you can say we've got some guys out, but you've got to deal with it. It is what it is. Everybody else does, so we've got to get blocks, got to score points. Q. The offensive line -- KEVIN WILSON: There's too many guys up there. That's why Mitchell Paige has nine catches. We actually got a trick when the ball was thrown. So some of those could be runs, they're throws. I think the statistics say we threw it 39 times. I would say probably 15 of those throws are run-pass combinations where they're committing to the run. Again, that's the structure of defenses. That's what Wake Forest did, Michigan State does, Ohio State does. That's what a lot of people do, and I guess they commit to that. You either run the quarterback or you throw, but if Richard wanted to throw, and if you have a guy like Tommy or J.T. Barrett, you can go with quarterback run and take care of that extra guy. In our world, it's the pass combination. That's how you count for the extra head. Q. Switching back and forth between quarterbacks. KEVIN WILSON: We had a couple situations we thought Zander could be a running threat because you're either going to throw it or you need to incorporate an extra runner. But still, he still -- I don't know what his numbers were. He was five of seven throwing. It wasn't like we were going -- we weren't playing wildcat. He's just a quarterback that can run a little bit more. Q. When you saw the replay, did you think there was a chance they were going to overturn the call? KEVIN WILSON: No, if they call it on the field. I'm not big on the instant replay. Only one that got me today was they were in position to stop the clock and then the clock goes from 40 to 25 seconds and we get communication and don't have enough time and have to burn a time-out, and we needed that time-out at the end of the game. We had to burn one because it's just the mechanics of the game and it's nobody's fault. They were in position, which they have to be, and they have the right to stop the clock, but now -- we go to the next play, instead of the normal 40-second running clock, it moves to 25, and it's just roughing the -- and it cost us a time-out, and that's our fault. It's the play callers and coaches and communication. We should have got it in, so we got blindsided. That was my issue. Sometimes I thought those guys -- I think our referees all year have been -- are doing -- they have a tough job. I think this league is awesome. That was the call, and we needed -- there were so many other reasons, things we should have done in 4th downs, offensive opportunities or things that we wanted. That was not the difference in the football game. As a matter of fact, we still had a chance at the end if we make a shot or two. Instead we were in a five-point football game. Q. You had a couple times you went for it on 4th down. Was it something with the kicking unit? KEVIN WILSON: No, I mean, you can tell a couple times with a couple of Griff's kicks, and he kicked really well in the second half, but he's had a slight quad pull, and so like he tells me, like here's my range, and based on that, that's just kind of what we do. Q. What adjustments or changes did you make to shut down their offense in the second half? KEVIN WILSON: You can talk to Tom about that as he goes through the week. To me, I think -- as we play each week, our kids are getting a better handle schematically of, okay, if we do this, here's what we go to. Now we've got few weeks under our belt, and the thing, too, that really we've talked to those guys about, same thing offensively, doesn't matter what the game plan is, you can always get different things and you've got to adapt. I think as our defense has played better, they have more self-esteem and self-confidence. Their ability to adapt is stronger and quicker, so it's a credit to Tom and the adjustments, but the understanding of the defense, and I think if there's anything else, I think it's just self-confidence and self-worth. Those kids are feeling decent about themselves. Nebraska came in pretty hot on offense. Kids were running around, throwing around. What was that kid, he was 10 of 26? Last week nine or whatever? I mean, we're playing some bad pass D. They came in -- I don't know if we sacked them at all. Did we have any sacks? But we got some pressure on the quarterback, and they came in as one of the least sacked teams in the country. I think they were ninth. I don't think they had given up a sack on normal down run and pass to date because of Tommy's ability to run and all their stuff. So again, really like the way the defensive kids are playing. We've got to get the offense up to speed. Each year is -- just because you've been good on offense doesn't mean you're going to every week. Just because you've been bad on defense doesn't mean you're going to be bad again. Each team is different. We're kind of getting our identity, and like I say, we wanted to be a little bit more aggressive in the last couple games. I thought we could score a little bit more. Disappointed we didn't. Left some points on the board. Credit to Nebraska. Mike has got a good team. They're playing good football. And at the same time, too, I think we're close to playing good football. We're competing but we're not playing good football yet. We've got to keep working to play good football. Q. What do you need to do to get the offense going? KEVIN WILSON: Sometimes as much as anything if we're not careful, because there's a lot of things you like -- you can just get too much too heavy. What I'm saying, you can be all over the place, and again, each week is different, the structure of the team you're playing, how you're putting it together and attacking the opponent, so you always start with the structure, but I would say if anything, one of the best ways to improve yourself is to make sure you concentrate on the correctables and don't have too much. We've got to find some run game. We've got to get into some manageable 3rd downs, and when we do, we've got to execute the 3rd down. We've got to execute the scores on them. Q. Was this a one-game thing or will he be a bigger part of the offense? KEVIN WILSON: I don't know. I mean, he played well. Like I say, I really appreciate in years past -- I've even been asking him, because he has redshirt year, I want to play. Even like last game, like hey, what do you want to do. He's been a very strong teammate. As a matter of fact, the referee came over and said during the game, he said from a leadership perspective, your young, small quarterback just was yelling at the center, which the referee thought was good. Just appreciated, like he said, as a leader. I'll tell you, your kid was out there getting after one of your guys in the right way. He said it was very impressive. I just appreciate in this day and age you see quarterbacks check out, it's all about me getting the ball, receivers getting touches, running backs getting carries. I appreciate the way that he's battled. He's actually been our scout team quarterback the last two weeks. He's ran -- he was Tommy Armstrong, he was J.T. Barrett, so he's getting 80, 90 percent of his reps going against the first defense. That being said, some of that carries over to what we're doing. I appreciate the way we played. And does he move? We'll see. Q. Are you more conservative offensive play calling because the defense is better this year? KEVIN WILSON: No, I think it's a product of -- you've got two young tackles and a quarterback, so it's getting confidence and trust of what's going on. You're working really hard to make sure your tackles have good match-ups and you're working hard to give your quarterback confidence, as much as -- I mean, I don't think -- again, it was 17-0, and the comment on defense was like, hey, settle down, we'll be okay. We'll get some stops here, and they started doing it. We didn't get conservative. We played a couple teams -- that team a week ago was a little bit different now. They were -- we saw Duke and Louisville; we paid attention to that game last night. Styles of giving yourself a chance. Each week is different, but like offensively we were talking right before the first half, okay, do you want to make them punt with 20 seconds to go. They could screw something up. But we could, too, and because you're playing good D, I did run two plays real quick before the third quarter and we popped one for a touchdown. But it was -- and the reason being, it was like, if we throw it here, we might get two snaps in 10 seconds instead of one because we maybe get one more play, so we'll be smart about it. But I wouldn't say we're conservative because the defense, it helps, because the defense is better, but it's really just getting young linemen and your quarterback and everybody up to speed, and because the defense is playing well, you have the opportunity to do so. Q. You were mentioning how the team's identity can change from year to year. KEVIN WILSON: Yeah, and again, stat-wise, some of those individual stats look good, we have just got to put it together as a team to get it in the end zone. I've never been about the stats. It's about the W's, which we need more, and you know, it's not -- you're sitting here, where a year ago you lose four senior D-linemen, now you've got a couple senior O-linemen, your best receiver. Your quarterback is gone, your running back is going to leave. So you're kind of in a real reloading mode at Indiana, and you're going toe-to-toe with some top-10 teams. To me that's -- no BS, but this team is gaining on them and we're going to keep gaining on them. The ultimate gain is victories, and that means that's where the offense has got to come through. It's not about the stats. It's not about the numbers. It's putting it together. We should have been probably better than we were last year with the guys we've got. Right now, hey, you play the cards you've got. We're going to keep playing the right way. I can promise this week, I think our coaches will keep working hard at getting better, and I truly believe that's a really good group of kids playing hard. We had a great crowd today. It was awesome, and I would encourage as we keep going through the season those fans to stay strong because great energy we're building, great color out there. Appreciate Nebraska's crowd and all that, but with the three down the stretch, man, that's a great group of kids, and I know they want to play hard down the stretch. We'll work hard, put it together for Northwestern, and after that we're going to look forward to coming back and continuing the momentum at home because the last couple home games have been great environments, and we'll keep working and ultimately we'll get more wins, as well. Appreciate it. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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