Recap |  Final Stats |  Notes

NIU FOOTBALL
NIU vs. November - November 11, 2014
Huskie Stadium - DeKalb, Illinois

Matt Campbell

Opening statement…

“I’ll start by saying this about my football team first and foremost. I really couldn’t be more proud of my team. You talk about the adversity we faced tonight, some of the injuries and things that happened, our kids never quit. I don’t know if I’ve ever dealt with some of the things we dealt with but the only way that I knew how to and our kids knew how to was to continue to fight together. We’ve talked so much about discipline and toughness, and to me, discipline and toughness are the abilities to overcome. The only thing we could do was continue to play. I give a lot of credit to Northern Illinois. They’ve got a very good football team and do things the right way, but our kids fought tonight. They fought for 60 minutes but came up just a little bit short. I’m really proud of my Rockets, I’m proud of what Dwight Macon did, and I’m proud of what our defense was able to do.”

On the decision to start Michael Julian…

“I knew in the pregame when Logan (Woodside) couldn’t move. It was kind of our only option. We tried to play Logan a little bit and he just doesn’t have it right now. Even when Mike went down, it certainly wasn’t the best situation for Logan to manage. Logan’s a really tough guy, if he could have played, he would have. I think we eventually just settled once Michael got hurt that Dwight (Macon) was our best answer and gave us the best opportunity to win the football game, and he did.”

On Da’Ron Brown’s big plays…

“Those two big plays were huge in the football game. What you hope to do defensively against Northern Illinois is try to eliminate as many big plays as possible. Looking statistically at what happened, they were able to run the football a little bit, and that’s something we’ve done a very good job of. You’ve just got to be a disciplined football team, and you can’t give up those big plays. One of those big throws and one of those big runs, the credit goes to him. He’s a very good football player.”

On if there were any nerves about reaching the MAC Championship…

“No, I don’t think so. I think our kids knew it’s a process and it’s still a process here. Our own nervousness was just finding out who was available. We lose our starting tight end, our starting center, our starting quarterback. I think our thoughts were ‘how are we going to go win this football game?’ and we had complete faith in our football team. What I love about our senior class is the moment has never gotten too big for this group, and I think you saw that tonight, with all the things that happened to us and our kids stayed the course. They really gave us a chance to win the football game. I told our kids afterward, I am proud of them, we’ve got nothing to be ashamed of, with what occurred tonight and our ability to overcome the adversity and give ourselves the chance to win the football game against again a very good football team, I don’t second guess anything.”

NIU Head Coach Rod Carey

Opening statement…

I’m obviously very pleased with the win. When you beat a team of Toledo’s caliber, it’s a good win. All three phases took their turns making critical plays in critical moments and I’m really proud of the team and the guys. They just played. You saw the emotion out there that they played with. It was great. Like I said, critical moments, critical plays, I think we made them. I don’t know what the numbers are. I took a quick glance, I know they aren’t great, but you know what, the only numbers that really matter are 27-24 so I’ll take that all day.

On going for it on fourth and four…

Well it’s not much of a gamble. You’re on the 26 yard line and you’re probably just outside of Christian’s (Hagen) range and you’re going into the wind. With the wind, you probably kick that ball, but you’re not going to punt it, because if you punt it in the end zone, you get a 6-yard turnaround. We trust our guys. We got up there and we made a call, Drew (Hare) changed it and made a great play and Aregaros (Turner) made a great catch.

On the senior’s last game at Huskie Stadium

We talked about that with these seniors on Thursday and normally guys, and this is a truism of coaching: on senior night, your seniors usually don’t play really good because it usually it gets too big for them, too emotional. They talked about it, we don’t want to make this too big, so we decided to focus on the things we could control and the little details. I thought they did a great job of that tonight, all the seniors, and am really proud of the way they played.

On how the defense played…

With the numbers you just gave me, they obviously played really well. You know that’s different when they got that other guy in there at quarterback, Dwight Macon, he’s a dynamic runner and we knew probably that the playbook would be shrunk, but he can run around and make some things happen. Fortunately our defense adjusted and we made plays when we had too. But that’s hard when your whole game plan gets ripped up and becomes benign.

On defensive game plan being ripped up…

We didn’t know he played quarterback. They did a good job of holding that in all week. Anything I read, I didn’t hear anything about that being the best. I heard maybe something about them pulling the redshirt off of a freshman guy and (Logan) Woodside being ready. So the other guy comes out, Woodside comes in and then he goes out and all of a sudden 17’s in there. You’re kind of holding onto your rear end there for a little bit, so we addressed it on the fly. I’m proud of the defensive coaches and the defensive players on how they performed.

 

NIU Players

Defensive end Jason Meehan

On facing three different quarterbacks…

“It doesn’t really matter. I just remember seeing a couple different faces. I didn’t think oh my god this is a new guy, I didn’t train for this guy. I just play everyone the same. I had confidence that we could adjust to it, and we did. I really didn’t notice. Once the other guy came in we knew it was a wildcat thing but we just played ball.” 

On looking ahead to the next couple of weeks…

“We’re not worried about the next couple of weeks. We’re worried about next week. That’s really it. The only thing that matters is the game that’s coming up. That’s the most important game every week.”

On whether tonight’s game was the toughest of the season …

“I’m not sure. We had a lot of big wins and we take them all the same. You get 24 hours to celebrate and then you move on to the next team. I don’t think we place a value on wins. I mean Toledo is always a big game for us, and of course this one is bigger than most. But once it’s over, it’s like he said, you move on to the next week cause if we lose, we’re back in the same position we were.”

 

Running back Cameron Stingily

On whether he looks forward to maintaining the teams lead and running the clock…

”It’s the end of the game so forming the offense, I know that they’re counting on me to get the chains moving. From the beginning to the end, I try to approach every play the same.”

On how the seniors have maintained their composure over the past four years…

“Like Meehan said, we just take it one game at a time. You have to have a one and ‘O’ mentality. You can’t look back and you can’t look ahead. You just look at the task at hand.”

 

Quarterback Drew Hare 

On whether tonight was a big game for him…

”I think it was a big game for everybody. I don’t make anything about just me. I got ten guys on offense around me that I can put some of the pressure on obviously.”

On his big play to Da’Ron Brown…

“I mean obviously. Just look at today. All I did was throw him a five yard hit and he took it 65. I mean that speaks volumes.”