• WATCH NICK HILL PRESS CONFERENCE

CARBONDALE, Ill.  — Here are excerpts from Saluki football head coach Nick Hill‘s weekly press conference held Monday afternoon at Saluki Stadium. Southern Illinois plays at Youngstown State on Saturday at 5 p.m. CT in a game that will be televised on ESPN+.

On Youngstown State.
They’re a good football team. They’ve had a couple tough games and are probably a lot like us with some games they probably felt like they could’ve won. I have respect for Coach (Bo) Pelini, the couple times playing against him, he always has a football team that’s well-coached and gets better as the year goes on. 

We’re going to have to stop them from running the football. They have two really good backs. Their quarterback is really good, transferred from Notre Dame and done a good job. He’s new to their system and they’re figuring out what he can do best. Going against (Pelini’s) defense always creates problems. He’s one of the best defensive coaches in the country. We’re going to have to be able to run the football, we’re going to have to play well on special teams, we’re going to have to be able to stop the run, and play good fundamental football to win the game. 

They have two elite-level backs, a preseason first-team All-Conference back, with an offensive line that’s played a lot of football. (The running game) is their staple. They’ll continue to do it and we have to continue to stop it. 

On the team’s execution during the first and second half versus South Dakota.
You have to execute for 60 minutes. They didn’t do anything new that we hadn’t seen (in the second half). It was the exact same stuff as the first half. They executed better than we did. Having success on first and second down will always be the recipe to win against a team that likes to go up-tempo and go fast. You can’t let them have positive plays on first and second down. They were able to get into a rhythm in the second half, go fast, and then hit us on a couple big plays. They took a shot on the minus-2, max protection, hit a ball down the sideline that was a big play in the game, 50-50 ball and the guy makes a really good catch on a defended ball. Then we give up the big pass play when we’re in a zone coverage and they get 2-on-1 and didn’t execute like we should. 

On the 89-yard touchdown pass.
We were in a Cover 2 defense, so (CB James) Ceasar is responsible for the flat, so he’s going to pass (deep coverage to the safety). One of the first big plays we had (on offense), they were in a Cover 2 and we had (Nigel) Kilby down the seam because the safety played over the top of Ralph (Leonard). You get 2-on-1. If you play Cover 2, teams are going to run four verticals on you, safety’s gotta make a decision. Any defense you call, you know there’s a weakness to it if the offense has the right play called and they execute it. They had the right call for the right defense at that time.

On tight end Logan Crouse, who made his first career start.
He could be a special one because he’s 260 pounds and can do it all, he can block and he can really run. It’s just experience and he’s a quick learner. That kid’s an elite athlete. He was drafted as a pro baseball player, played every sport in high school, could have been a college player in all three sports. He has a maturity about him. He’s 22 years old and has a great attitude, he’s learning, always asking questions, wants more reps , and then all of the sudden he’s thrust in there and he did a good job. 

On turnovers. 
Every coach in the country goes into the game and has the talk about what are the keys to the game — turnover margin, can’t turn the ball over. Some turnovers are going to happen. You watch (the NFL) on Sunday, the same talk is going on. When I was in Green Bay at quarterbacks school and watching every pick from the year before with Aaron Rodgers, he might have thrown 13 or 14 of them that year, why’d they happen? Some turnovers are going to happen. Some are preventable. The ones that are preventable, decision-making, putting the ball on the ground, how you’re carrying the football, if you’re a quarterback two hands on the football in the pocket. Those are the ones we keep stressing — trust me, we stress it, we show it, we practice it and we just have to do a better job of getting results.

On how quarterbacks are graded.
The number one stat of a quarterback is wins and losses. It’s not about stats, it’s about playing winning football. That’s what we talk about when we grade them. Winning plays to you guys —a throw out of bounds is an incomplete pass, and to everybody in the stands that’s a negative play. That’s a winning play for us. We watched the entire 101 plays (versus South Dakota) as an offense. We called a naked play and (the defense) covered it up great. (Sam Straub) chucked it out of bounds, that’s a great play, that’s a winning play. We have to cut down those 10 or 12 plays where we’re putting ourselves in tough situations that are not winning football. Any quarterback, if you ask how they’re doing, you have to look at the results they’re getting as a team. As a quarterback, that’s what we sign up for, putting our team in the best situations and winning football games.

On the chop-block penalty against South Dakota that reversed a fourth-down conversion.
It’s tough, especially with D.J. Davis, that kid’s heart is in the right spot and his effort is off the charts, and his attention to detail and wanting to know why. That was on D.J. He high-lowed the guy when he was in pass pro. We talked about him staying in and helping on that situation. (Josh Podzielinski) kind of gets beat, he sees him out of the corner of his eye, he went low and hit him below the waist, and Podge still had contact with him, so it was a high-low block. It was on 4th-and-4 and would’ve been a fourth down conversion to the 1-yardline. Instead, it was a 15-yard penalty and we had to punt. It was a costly penalty. 

On the program’s continued emphasis on community service.
When you lead a life of discipline, then you’re probably a disciplined football player, you go to class on time, you’re out in the community (doing community service). It’s our job to give them opportunities to get out there, and then we feel we have a lot of great kids in the program who do a great job out there