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NIU FOOTBALL
NIU vs. Miami (Ohio) - October 19, 2014
Huskie Stadium - DeKalb, Illinois

MU Head Coach Chuck Martin

Opening Statement
"Unfortunately we've played a lot of games like this, this year, get down a bunch, fight back, lose. They're a good football team, I told the guys we didn't play good on defense, we can't be proud of that, but Northern Illinois has scored 50 on a lot of people in our league for a long time. We're not ready for prime time yet. The nice thing for our kids is to see what it looks like. They have a lot of good players, they're big and physical up front, they have skill guys, they have a lot of variety with what they do with their quarterbacks, they can throw it, they can run it, they have big physical backs but they have guys who can go east-and-west so they stretch you. What they do structurally really stretches you a lot of different ways, they run, run, run, they run play action then there are guys wide open, I see that a lot on tape and I saw it today and it was disappointing.

"Offensively, I think we're getting better, we ran the ball a little bit today, or a lot a bit for us, which we haven't been able to do for a long time and our quarterback is a really good player and we had two young tight ends who played pretty darn good today. Our line's getting better, we're limited there in size and athleticism but they're fighting and our skill guys are doing a good job in keeping us in games and that's kind of where we're at. I don't feel like we should be winning, I feel like we're kind of good enough to be close but we're not really good enough to be winning. If you take 12 (Andrew Hendrix) out of there we would be losing 51-10 and no better off than we were a year ago.

On being able to take advantage of NIU's defense...
"I haven't been here in this league so I can't compare them to last year's or previous NIU defenses. We're getting to a point where we can score and we can protect our quarterback. I think our outside guys are good players in this league maybe even better than good. I know our quarterback is a really good player and he can do a lot of things and the thing is he's getting a lot better because he's never really played. He's a fifth-year kid but he's never started a game so every week he's getting a lot better, he's learning, he's a very conscientious kid and he's trying to get better every week."

On Drew Hare running a lot more than last week...
"We talked about it and they talked about running all week, he's an athletic kid. Hare's got great numbers this year, he's a great MAC quarterback. He can definitely throw it, he can run it and then the other kid comes in and he's pretty talented too."

NIU Head Coach Rod Carey

 

Opening Statement...

Obviously I'm real pleased with the victory. This feels a lot better than it did last week. We never discount winning around here so we are extremely excited with that. Give Miami a ton of credit, they are a good football team and played hard for four quarters. We knew that was going to be a four quarter game, it's always going to be a four quarter game in the MAC. We thought our guys executed a lot better tonight. We put them in a position and they responded which is good, so we all got better tonight and were not a finished product by any stretch of the imagination. We got a lot to improve on and we will go back to work after this 24 hours and make those corrections and then strive to keep getting better.

 

On increased carries by the quarterbacks...

I mean it's part of our offense so I mean it's always something we're going to do and tonight I thought both Drew and Maddie ran effectively and holes opened up with the other guys running.

 

On needing 650-yards of offense...

I'm so not a numbers guy. The only numbers that matter to me are the scoreboard numbers so I didn't have a preconceived notion of what numbers we were going to have to do on the ground or in the air. I just knew we were going to have one more point than them.

 

On the shootout feel to the game...

With their offense and their quarter back, they throw it. Anytime you play an offense like that, you can go sack, sack, and then they can have a 40-yard completion. Incomplete, incomplete and then a touchdown so you have to play every play and I thought  our defense made enough plays tonight. Obviously, 41 points allowed isn't good enough and we know that but were going to work to get better. We're not a finished product on that side of the ball either but when you face that type of an offense, that can happen pretty easily.

 

On both the offense and the defense playing together...

Well that's football isn't it? If I had some magic pixie dust I'd wave it over our heads and we'd do it but we keep working to improve, that's what it is. It's not a mystery, it's details, it's little things, it's fundamentals that you have to keep working at and improve. You're not ever done with yourself as a football team and these guys understand that and that's why we practice. If we didn't practice, if we didn't have to keep improving, then we wouldn't practice. We'd just show up on gameday so we just got to keep getting better.

 

NIU Players

 

Sophomore Quarterback Drew Hare

 

On sensing a 600-plus yard day coming...

Every player just tried to execute that play; we don't worry about the finish product. We are just trying to do well in that play. I thought we hit them well early. The line did a great job and the receivers outside blocking and catching balls everyone was just doing their job.

 

On his reception...

I just wanted to make sure I had the catch. It would have been first down and we would have had three more plays to score.

 

On if the offensive production felt good...

Yeah, it did. We had 650 yards so yeah everything felt really good.

 

Senior running back Cameron Stingily

 

On his performance...

I kind of tried to play with an attitude. I feel like that's what I've been missing is an attitude.  The offensive line was out there executing blocks on the perimeter. I just came out to play today.

 

Freshman safety Brandon Mayes

 

On filling in for Marlon Moore...

I knew going in earlier this week that Marlon was going to be out, so I just studied hard and got ready to execute.