Opening statement
Give all the credit to Duke. They're able to get out of here with a W. Obviously, one of the things that we've really prided ourselves on over the last five years, going to year six, is more games are lost than won. Something that we try to get right from day one since we got here. And I'm not diminishing anything Duke did. I just think that we did enough things to cause us to fail. Obviously, turnover a little bit, but I think it was more the penalties and the mental errors that just caused us to self-implode a couple times on really all three phases. So that's all on me. I got to clean up the details, just simple things from the way we communicate, the way we execute in critical moments, some things that could have easily
been avoided. And just a shame, I apologize.
Obviously to get a sell out here and to have a crowd the way we did, winning is addictive. For players, coaches, and fans, you get used to having success in those moments. And when it doesn't happen, you're upset, you're pissed, you're mad, you're angry. And I definitely fall into that category. My Saturday's always a lot better. I got two girls at home that love to have a fun time. And when you don't have success, it just sits with you for seven days. So the part that you got to learn is you'll learn more and more. The more you go through these moments, you just learn so much more in moments of adversity than you do in moments of success. So this is definitely an adverse moment that we got to take advantage of. I ask them to have big eyes and ears tomorrow. As coaches, we need to set the standard early on in the meetings to accept the things that we need to do better and hopefully put ourselves in a position to get back on track sooner than later.
So I don't know anything about injuries. I know TJ went out there at the end. We had a couple guys go out that came back, but he's the only one that I was told wasn't going to return to the game after he went out.
On miscommunication
Yeah, so they double-sub late. We sent a guy out. They were in 14 personnel. I think the player that came off the field though we had too many people on the field and I was asking for clarity. I just don't know the exact specifics. I don't want to misspeak until it happens. But obviously, when we sub, we have to make sure that we're subbing one for one or if we're subbing a sub package. They were in 14 personnel and there seemed to be some miscommunication on if we were subbing based on personnel.
On tackling issues against Nate Sheppard
Yeah. 20 is a really good player. He can make people miss, but also no excuses for us. We got to wrap up. I thought there were several times where we had guys stopped and they fell forward for five, six, seven yards or even ran through some tackles and not just running our feet. There was a big emphasis on that on Wednesday especially. I had everybody do a drill that basically brought our feet from a tackling standpoint. I think we're going to have to double down and go that more. Most of the tackles that we're missing are just that we're not continuing to drive our feet. We're just wrapping and reaching. We're not finishing our tackles.
On offensive issues in second half
Well, I think a couple of them were self-inflicted. Every play's a little bit different. I know there was some pressure that they brought on one. We checked ourselves out on a couple plays and made nice adjustments. I thought Katin obviously had the one turnover, but I thought there was a lot of things that he did extremely well today to get himself in the right spot. There were a couple in the fourth quarter that I think they just played extremely well on that play, but that's no excuse. I think Kayden's numbers were still really good, threw three touchdowns, scrambled and made some plays. I think we just got to make sure that we can't. We don't want to do it to get us twice, basically is a big thing. But I think on the flip side of it though, you really have to take a huge inventory, everybody personally from starting with me just on what could have been done better today, but also during the course of today.
I really thought we had our best. Well, we've only had two games, but our Thursday practice was really, really good.
On issues with defense
Tackling would be priority one. You have the greatest call, the greatest fit. I think the very first play, there was two guys inside. We spilled the ball outside. The penalties in the first drive, I know we had a DPI and then we also had a facemask call downfield and a play that was like 30 yards behind the play. So, give them 30 yards on an opening series, you're just not going to win many football games. And I think we actually had two of those penalties might have came after an offensive negative yard play up first down and playing behind the sticks and then to give up free yardage just can't happen.
This article originally appeared on Duke Wire: Everything Illinois HC Bret Bielema said following loss to Duke
