HC Lovie Smith Postgame Quotes

Illinois HC Lovie Smith Postgame Quotes
Nebraska vs. Illinois
Memorial Stadium (Lincoln, Neb.)
Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018

HC Lovie Smith
Opening Statement
“As we continue to build our program, you take a step and you’re just trying to take two steps. We haven’t won two Big Ten games back-to-back in a while. I felt like we had an opportunity to today. When we turn the ball over like that… I think we had five… it’s tough to win. When you continue to give up big runs on the defensive side of the football, run and pass, it’s tough duty. When you have a couple mishaps like we did in the special game against a team like this at home, it’s tough to win. Again, offensively, AJ [Bush] running the football did some good things. Offensively we did some good things. A game like today when both defenses are struggling a little bit you need to be able to match score-for-score a little bit. I thought the guys fought hard and had an opportunity in the second half to at least get back in the game. But that drive where they converted four or three fourth downs, [we] can’t allow that to happen. We had a few injuries. Of course, Reggie Corbin went down. We don’t know the extent of his injury. We think he’ll be okay.”

On senior quarterback AJ Bush Jr.’s performance
“Whenever you come back to a place you call home, it’s special, and that was the case for AJ. AJ’s a good football player, of course. When you have an athletic quarterback like that, that can run the football, that’s tough on any defense. We saw that with both quarterbacks as I said. AJ did an awful lot to put that many points on the board, but we just came up a little short.”

On using two returners on special teams
“That gave us our best chance. That’s the strategy we use.”

On Nebraska’s second half defensive adjustments
“I think, just as a general rule, they kind of made some plays. That’s a simple approach, but it’s pretty much the same game plan for both teams. The quarterback is going to run the ball a little bit and [we’re] going to have some opportunities in the passing game. They made some critical plays and the momentum kind of went their way a little bit. We talked about some of the special team plays. So I think it was no more than that.”

On defending freshman quarterback Adrian Martinez
“Well, that’s college football. It’s the same thing you would ask them. An athletic quarterback that can throw it is tough duty. The way you combat it is that you have to pretty much play zero coverage. We have a free guy, too. If you run the quarterback, the free safety is going to have to make that play an awful lot, and we didn’t make it today.”

On improving the defense during the offseason
“That’s college football now. We’ll continue to recruit. We’re making progress. Today you can’t necessarily see it but we’ll continue to recruit. We’ll get better players. We’ll do a lot better job coaching and we eventually will get there.”