Head Coach Mike Riley Quotes vs. Wisconsin

On if he has ever lost by such close margins
"I'd have to look back a ways. I don't think I've ever really seen this before. But, we're in it. When you've had games like we've had, you will look at many different circumstances on how your playing or coaching could make a difference. I feel like there are tangible things we've just got to do better. I can't be anything but impressed by the team and the leadership on their ability to answer the bell despite disappointment. That's a good quality. That's also a broken record for you guys, but I've been pretty consistent telling you that they're good kids. I really like this team, and I like how they come practice and they did that and got ready to play and we fell short."

On a common thread this season
"I don't think there's necessarily a common thread between every game. They're obviously pretty different. What we missed today was sustaining much offense for any period of time especially when we had some momentum, had the wind in the third quarter, which I was hoping we would capitalize on. I think that's a thread, and I think the other thing is down-the-field passing defense."

On improving long ball pass defense
"We have to keep working with the guys technically. It's like we did during camp and like we continue to do. I know it doesn't necessarily look like it, but we are in better shape. The guy (Wisconsin quarterback Joel Stave) threw some balls that were nice balls, they made some nice plays on the boundary. At the same time, we have to continue to help them and improve that. Just get a little bit better vision on the football."

On if he considered not calling the final timeout when he did
"I did but running that thing down, I was caught. I wanted to give us enough time. We hadn't exactly been gangbusters offensively. We just wanted as much time as possible."

On if he considered throwing it on 3rd-and-7
"No. I wanted to make them use the timeout."

On how beat up the team is
"I'll have better medical reports later. I hope nobody is out for an extended period, except (redshirt freshman offensive lineman) Nick Gates might be. It's an ankle sprain, so we'll see how he is in the next few days. Besides that, I would say that I hope Vince (junior defensive tackle Vincent Valentine) didn't re-do anything, and I think (sophomore linebacker) Marcus Newby had cramps. I think Jack (Gangwish) hit his elbow, but I don't think he hurt it. If we can stay fairly healthy from this game without losing anybody else, we're going to get some reinforcements coming back I think this week, so we just have to hang in there with that and hope we didn't get any new injuries."

On why there was offensive struggles
"We struggled because we didn't have much success throwing the ball on third down to convert anything. We had some runs that we hit pretty well in the first half, but we didn't have any consistency running the ball. To give them credit, they've been a good defense. We just had to be better, and we weren't good enough to really sustain it, keep the football, and score some more points."

On what he said on unsportsmanlike conduct flag
"I really didn't think that was necessary."

On senior fullback Andy Janovich's touchdown run
"I think that we had run a lead play early and the thing we were going to come back with instead of running the lead with Andy lead blocking, we thought we'd get him in the next time we were in that situation and see if they overran that play, and we could cut it off and hit it and we did. So it was right."

On his message to the team
"The first message were for the guys that are older. Guys like Maliek (Collins) and Vince (Valentine) and Jack (Gangwish) and Alex (Lewis). I named a dozen guys and so what we need is those guys leading the rest of the crew. I said, 'I don't know about what's ever going to happen, I can never predict that, but one thing I do know is you've answered the bell every time and we're going to continue to do that.' We're going to go back to work. The first question I always get after a loss is how's the team going to respond, and you've always shown that you come back and work hard on Monday and get ready to play. We did that and if you do that again, we will get better. We're still getting better. Defensively, for sure in a lot of ways. Offensively, I don't think we have necessarily but we are playing tougher defenses. That was the toughest defense we've played. We've got to do better sustaining runs, passes, having good balance and then third downs. That's the message and I don't think I'm naive about it or wrong, I think they'll come back and play hard. I think we'll get better, and I think we have the chance to get some reinforcements to help us in the next couple of weeks. That's what we'll do. I'm sorry for those guys. We want to help them more than ever in our lives it feels like. We're just going to keep working. That's going to be our coaches' jobs and just keep working and get a good plan together and make this thing get better."