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• HEAD COACH 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 Southeastern Conference opponent Ole Miss on Saturday at 3 p.m.

On playing SEC opponent Ole Miss.
Watching them on film, they’re probably the most athletic, the best FBS opponent that we’ve played since I’ve been coaching the last five years, some guys that you’ll be seeing playing on Sunday, really all over their team.

The way that we prepare is to do the best job that we can, as a coaching staff have the best practices and mental preparation that we can have, to go down and win a football game. I do think that it’s an exciting trip for our fans to go down and see college football played at its highest level in an atmosphere that’s as good as anybody’s. 

Our guys are excited to go to Ole Miss and be a part of the rich tradition of the SEC. That is the best football conference in the country. A lot of our guys would have liked to have been (recruited) there. If you’re sitting around as a kid right now, you’re dreaming about playing in the SEC on Saturday afternoon at Tennessee or Ole Miss or Georgia, a hundred thousand people. We get an opportunity to go down there and do that and I want our student-athletes to remember this trip — going through The Grove, seeing what it’s like, some of these guys would never have that opportunity other than being here at SIU.  

On former Saluki offensive coordinator Phil Longo, now the OC at Ole Miss.
He does a great job of keeping it simple. What a lot of offensive coordinators say they want to do, Coach Longo does. They play fast, really fast. He finds open grass and he gets playmakers the ball in space, or if you’re not going to come down and not give them space, they’re going to go by you. They always have a good wrinkle or two, but they always have outstanding players that they’re getting the ball to. They have three of the best wide receivers in the country as far as their raw talent and ability. We have to tackle well. Texas Tech found that out. I think they had seven plays over 30 yards, a lot of those in the run game. We have to fit things right, we’ve got to make them earn it. They’re going to make some plays. They’re going to throw some up and players are going to make plays. We have to find a way to make them work for it and we have to make plays ourselves.

On how SIU matches up against Rebels’ wide receiver corps.
They’re bigger, physical receivers and we have some bigger, physical DBs. Jeremy Chinn is going to look like an SEC safety out there. Madre Harper played Power 5 football last year. We have some physical, bigger DBs and they’re going to have to do a good job of staying in front, contesting everything and not giving them easy looks. (Ole Miss) is coached really well and they have outstanding players and they do a good job of spreading you out. We have to have a great scheme, not overthink things, be in the right spot, and it comes down to fundamental football of tackling and making plays on the football.

Injury update after Murray State.
Cody Crider left the game and got put into our concussion protocol, was feeling a little bit light-headed. That’s what’s nice about playing on Thursday. When you play on Saturday and get put in the five-day protocol, it’s iffy if you’re going to play next week. We have an opportunity to get Cody back if everything goes well and even get a couple practices in. That’s probably the most significant injury coming out of the game.

On the offense’s performance at Murray State.
There’s always six to eight to 10 plays you’d like to have back, those 10 plays where you wish you could have made a different decision. We snapped the ball 96 times on offense. There’s those plays we have to get cleaned up. Last night was our first opportunity to get back out there and do that. We need to have a great week of practice and go out and execute the game plan.

On the defense’s ability to force six turnovers at Murray.
Our best players, our leaders, played well. When you watch the film, it was tough for (Murray) to get things going. Are they always going to fumble the football when you come and wrap up and the ball pops out? Not every day, not every game, but when you’re putting pressure on the quarterback like we were doing and tipping the ball at the line, those things will continue to happen. 

On defensive coordinator Kraig Paulson.
He’s coaching every minute of every rep. It doesn’t matter if it’s the fourth string. He runs his own scout team. A lot of coaches don’t do that anymore. He’s in the offensive scout team huddle. His knowledge of the game is incredible. You see some guys who want their GAs to do their (play) cards — he draws his own cards. He runs his own scout team. He’s an incredible coach. 

On sophomore safety Qua Brown, who recovered two fumbles and returned one for a touchdown.
Qua has always led us whenever we chart things in the spring time in the disruption chart. He won the belt last spring for most turnovers. He just is always around the football. You don’t do that last spring, you don’t do that in training camp, and then in the game, he’s around and he recovers two fumbles and scores a touchdown. He does that consistently every time we’re out there. 

That’s a perfect guy that you see that our program is working, as far as the development of a kid. He comes in and he needed to redshirt. Then last year his role was special teams and he was growing and getting close, but didn’t play a ton of snaps with (Ryan) Neal and Chinn back there. Now he’s a starter and has three years to play and we’ve developed him for a few years. 

On the extensive roles for backup quarterbacks Matt DeSomer and Javon Williams.
DeSomer is our up-back on punt, plays special teams for us, will go down there and make tackles, then play quarterback. He’s just a valuable player for us, a leader, kind of models the way as far as unselfishness. We talk about this team’s gotta be unselfish and care about each other and Matt DeSomer has done that better than anybody I’ve ever been around for his five years here. He’s played in every game he’s ever dressed here. 

Javon can do a lot of things. He can play tight end, running back, quarterback, he catches the ball well. I told you about all the things he does (on special teams). He’s an athletic kid. When you’ve got a running quarterback — Tim Tebow, Mark Iannotti — we’re running the same plays in 2015 the first game and the last game. The problem is, you still have to tackle No. 14. If you can get one-on-one, that’s a 248-pound guy, you can know what’s coming but you still have to tackle him. If you can go get four or five yards, that’s a positive play. It was the same thing when (Iannotti) ran the ball for us, you can know it’s coming, but he’s going to try and run through you and it’s going to be a long night and he just keeps doing it and doing it, wearing you down kind of like a big running back. When we had Brandon Jacobs here, same plays over and over again. You know what’s coming, now you have to go tackle that big, 255-pound running back. 

On how he balances the responsibility of being offensive coordinator and head coach, and if he patterns himself after Los Angeles Rams coach Sean McVay.
I watched Sean McVay a lot. I went out there and met with the Rams. You have to have a defensive coordinator that you absolutely trust. You have to stay on top of things and just don’t turn your head to the defense and what’s going on. Obviously, I trust Coach Paulson. I’ll meet with the defense, ideas that I might have or I’ve seen. There’s nothing they’re going to do that I don’t know (about). I’m sure (McVay) feels the same way about Wade Phillips. In between series, (quarterback Sam) Straub and I will talk, more so through the headsets. I watch the game, though. I feel you have to get a good feel of the football game, be there to call timeouts. 

On the strip sack at Murray that led to a Racers’ field goal.
That sack is on me. I have to have (Straub) prepared for that look. They showed that look several times last season, not a ton, and we had watched it, but I don’t think I did a great job giving him that look enough in practice. That look would cause for us to change our protection. We called a protection that left that guy unblocked. Sam’s looking downfield. That one’s more on me than on Sam.