“What bothers me, obviously, is that we didn’t start fast and didn’t come out with a W (against Iowa). You look at film, and you start to put together a plan all week based on the things you see. And then you go into a game, and they’ve made adjustments too. And that’s the yin and the yang, and that’s why football is fun, why coaching’s fun… People change, so we have to go change. I felt defensively we weren’t attacking, so we made some adjustments to kind of jump start that, and they worked. But at the end of the day, if it’s a game where we think playing coverage is the best thing to win, we got to attack. If we feel like dropping eight and rushing three is the key, then it’s got to be an attacking rushing three. If it’s blitzing then it’s blitzing. Do I wish we would have done it earlier? I wish we would have won the game.”

“(Motivation) is the same thing every week for us. Where teams run into problems is from week to week if they change what they focus on. For us, it’s always about us; Coach does an elite job with that, and we talk about that with the program. We don’t focus on results; we focus on process… You look at (Northwestern), they have good players. They’ve been ravaged by injuries. They have good coaches. They’re one year removed from winning the Big Ten West championship. We talk about what they’re capable of doing.”

“We have a saying, anticipate don’t assume. When you watch film, that allows you to anticipate. Where guys get into problems is they watch film and assume something’s coming and they guess and get out of position. By studying film, it can give you anticipation pre-snap what a play is going to be, even post-snap if you see a stem or demeanor, what a play will be. I think (Winfield) has really come into his own with that… Every year, he’s been in a situation where he hasn’t played a stretch of football, and everyone needs to get comfortable. In my opinion, he’s the best safety in the country, I mean find me a guy that’s better than him. He’s playing at such a high level, and the great thing about him is that he has no ego. He’s always been a leader. He’s been good, but now he’s really just taking that thing to the next level.”

“On Monday, we were kicking some things back and forth and Kamal and Carter we’re in watching film. I grabbed them and brought them in and said ‘hey, here are a couple of things we’re thinking about. What do you guys like? Because we like to get their input and what their comfortable doing. Now, make no mistake, it’s not like Carter and Kamal are coming up with the gameplan, but we want to hear what they have to say. They’ve earned the right to do that because they’re older and have an understanding of what’s going on.”

“(Cashman and Oliver) are similar (as blitzers). I would say Braelen is probably more of a violent finisher. Blake I would say probably had more knack to wiggle through and find the seam. But they’re both very good, and the thing that’s very exciting is that Braelen has three years left and even some games this year to get better.”

“The key for (Northwestern) is to not let them get chunk plays. The games they’ve scored, they’ve got chunk plays, and the games they haven’t, they haven’t. That’s the main key for us.”

“I would say half the missed tackles came in the first three drives when we weren’t where we needed to be in terms of our execution. Then the tackling became much better when we had people in the right spots.”

“Maybe the first time all year, were in a couple critical situations and weren’t able to make the play (against Iowa). That’s what stood out to me. But I thought we played hard against a very, very good defense.”

“I feel like (Clark and Kramer) are probably a little bit ahead of schedule from where I thought they’d be at this time. I think Zack’s injury probably helped speed them up a little bit. I think they both have a bright future, and I’m really excited and looking forward to having an offseason where they can really soak into the offense, really understand it instead of kind of memorizing what we’re doing. But I think they’re understanding has come a long ways. I’m really actually pleased with them.”

“I don’t see any difference in their work ethic. They prepare every week as if they’re going to be in there the second play of the game. They’re mature beyond their age. But that’s really the standard here at the program. You have to be ready to be the next man up. They’re ready.”

“Their weaknesses are the same, their inexperience. Their strengths are similar… Cole is probably a little bit better runner than Jacob, but Jacob’s taller and can see in the pocket a little bit better.”

“I’m so happy for (Bateman). He has so much God-given talent, but he works so hard… I’ve seen Matt (Simon) do it so many times with receivers… It wasn’t one of those things about if he turns into a good player, just when… I was talking to Matt (Simon) the other day, and he’s still got a lot of room to grow. The best is yet to come, and you’re not going to have to worry about him resting on his laurels.”

“When I was at Western Michigan, we played these guys a couple times, so we’ve had a couple battles with Northwestern. I mean I really respect what they do on defense and the way they coach. It looks like to the common eye that they have a pretty simple defense. They line up in basically one front on first and second down, and they play quarters or single high. But when you really study them and notice their tweaks and adjustments, I just have a ton of respect for them. I thought the last half of the year, I thought they did the best job against us last year defensively. They were brilliant, and (adjustments) were little things… The other thing that makes them so good besides their great coaching is they have a lot of talented players, and that’s obvious on film. So I’m excited for the challenge, I really am. It will be the third week in a row that we’ve played a really, really quality opponent.”

“Demetrius, really, he helps me sleep at night. We know he’s a guy that from a talent standpoint, he’s a guy that could step into a major role at any point… I think the best is yet to come with Demetrius.”

“The emphasis (for the offensive line) is the same that we have every week for everyone on the team: change your best… If you want to play better, you got to get better, get better in practice. One of the sacks, I really don’t think was on the offensive line. Like always, you can make statistics look however you want. I just made it look like the six sacks weren’t all that bad… I try to focus more on the reasons then the actual results. Sometimes we’ve given up no sacks and I’ve been all over Brian and the offensive line about the protection. But we’re in good hands with Callahan up front coaching those guys. Our running backs are as good of pass protectors as anyone in the country, that group of guys.”