NIU-Western Illinois Postgame Quotes
Sept. 24, 2016
DeKalb, Ill. (Huskie Stadium)

Northern Illinois Head Coach Rod Carey

Opening Statement…
"Hats off to Western, they played a great game and they deserved to win. They made one or two more plays than us, we got off to a horrendous start again and that bled into the second half again so by the time we got going, we didn't have enough time to complete the comeback. Even though we were down there twice, those two fourth down calls were my calls and they were obviously bad calls, so I'll take that and I'll take all of this and we're not going to flinch, we're going to get back to work.

On Quarterback Anthony Maddie's performance…
"We'll get in the film room and decide more, but I saw a guy who took command of our team, I think we all saw that. He operated faster, processed faster, made plays, he took some chances and we made plays for him. I was really happy with him coming in, with limited reps during the week, and he gave us a shot in that game."

On falling behind 28-7 to WIU…
"That's obviously not a part of the plan, I don't know if I was surprised. They're a good football team, we knew they were a good football team. We didn't execute, we didn't play hard enough to start with, we had some tackling issues. We played a little bit better at the end, but we have to play that way all of the time, I know it's in there. That lead and how it got there is squarely on the offense, the defense was out there a lot and that's on the offense to stay on the field and have more plays than them so the defense is fresher."

On the end of the game offensive game plan…
"When we got the ball with four minutes left, we were in two-minute mode with the way they were moving the ball through the pass, we had to score. We wanted to give us enough time in case there was another possession. We weren't going to slow down even when we got it down there because our tempo got us back into the game."

Western Illinois Head Coach Charlie Fisher

On the team's mindset entering the game…
"I said all week, this is a great challenge – but it's also a great opportunity.  Anytime those two words go together – challenge and opportunity – you try to make the most out of it.  Fortunately today we did.  I knew it was going to be a dog fight.  I told them this morning, it's going to be a fist fight.  You're going to have to play 60 minutes as hard as you can, it's going to be tough, and you're going to have to find a way when it matters most."

On getting out to the 28-7 lead…
"We had a lot of momentum going, and our kids were playing with a lot of confidence.  I have a lot of confidence in what we do offensively – I've done it for a long time, I know what it can do.  The thing that was really encouraging was that we were throwing the ball well.  We were making a lot of good throws. I knew going into the game we were going to have to do that.  We've got a good running game and a good back, but this was going to be a tougher game to run the ball at a consistent level.  We weren't going to go away from it; we were chipping away with our run game.  But certainly we were going to have to make some throws.  And for most of the game, we did."

On the playbook for this game…
"We have a pretty diverse pro-style offense.  Feeling like it was going to be pretty tough running the ball consistently between the tackles, we wanted to give them a couple different looks.  We were coming off a bye week, so we had a little extra time to work on a few things.  There's no question our plan was to try to mix it up inside and outside, and then with the passing game."

On closing out the game…
"I think the hardest part of the game is being smart and protecting a lead; moving the clock, but staying aggressive.  There's such a fine line.  I've been there many, many times – it's hard.  They're trying to force you to be one dimensional.  You have to try and make some plays.  We made one more than they did at the end, but it certainly wasn't easy."