Opening Statement
Welcome, everybody. Again, going back to Saturday, it was certainly a tough, hard-fought victory for our football team, and I think as everybody knows, Wisconsin is a very challenging place to go and compete. So just really pleased with our football team from that regard. And the other part of that is if we want to be competing in games that are really meaningful in November, one thing for sure, you're going to have to win in tough environments in conference play. So from that standpoint, that was a real positive.
Very happy for our players, you know, to get the victory, certainly, and then right along with that, happy for Desmond King to be recognized by the Big Ten. It's our third Big Ten recognition for a player this season. And I think what it's representative of, you know, if you look at it it's an offensive player, defensive player and a special teams player, and really that's kind of how we're winning right now. We're playing good team football, and you know, one segment's feeding off the other. So I think that really kind of is very fitting.
The other thing I'm pleased with at this point is our special teams improvement. I think we're doing a much better job in the special teams regard. That was something that really needed to be addressed. You know, we just were okay a year ago, and five games into it I think we've made marked improvement. A lot of that goes to our specialist. I think Marshall Koehn has done a good job, obviously. Dillon Kidd has done very well and came up with two early big punts, critical punts on Saturday. Kluver has done a really nice job quietly, and that's the way we want to keep it, and then Desmond King has given us a little bit of octane as our return guy. So those things are all positives as we move forward.
Our captains, same four captains. We've got Jordan Lomax and Drew Ott defensively, Austin Blythe and C.J. Beathard on the offensive side. And then medically, I don't expect Tevaun back. He'll probably miss this weekend, next. We'll see how that goes. And then the other two guys that didn't travel to Wisconsin, Boone Myers and Derrick Mitchell are both kind of day by day. We'll see how that progresses as the week goes on, but I wouldn't want to speculate at this given point. So that's kind of where it's at right now.
And then going backto this ball game, if we're going to be a successful football team, again, if we want to be playing in November in games that are really significant, one thing that we're going to have to do is have the ability to turn our attention quickly to our next opponent and another big challenge, and that's really what conference play is all about. You know, if you look at the scores from last week in the Big Ten, I don't read point spreads, but I'm just guessing after seeing the scores Saturday night, the experts probably failed in a couple of areas on that one. So to me that's indicative of conference play, and what you have to do is play your game. You can enjoy it for a little bit, but you have got to turn your attention to your next opponent real quickly. And it's gotta be your full attention and full efforts if you're going to have success. So that's really the challenge that faces us right now. We play an excellent Illinois football team this Saturday. They come in obviously with a very good record. I think everybody's aware of that. They're 4-1, 1-0 in the conference right now, and I think the thing that impresses me right now they've got a new coach that's a matter of fact, and Bill's a very capable, veteran coach. He knows what he's doing. He's an excellent football coach. But when you look at the film, you see a team that's playing with great effort right now, statistically. They're not dramatically different offensively, but they are dramatically different on the defensive side. They've really done a lot of good things defensively, and they're playing really well right now. And I think most importantly, what you saw Saturday was they're a team that believes in themselves; came back and did a great job in the fourth quarter to get a fourth-quarter victory in their first conference game. So they did a great job. That just tells you about their football team. If you look at them offensively, they've got a good quarterback that can throw. That's no secret. He's very good. They've got very good skill players. I think their biggest change offensively in my opinion is their offensive line looks much improved from a year ago. Defensively, as I just said a minute ago, I think they're a totally different football team. They're playing the same scheme for the most part. But they're just playing very well, front to back, from the front end to the back end, doing a great job there statistically. I think they're up around 500 yards a game right now. They're about 300 in terms of kind of improvement they've made there. And then special teams, it starts with our punting game, they've blocked two punts for touchdowns and also had two big returns, and their returner is an excellent returner. He's good, not only in punts, but kick return as well. That's just kind of a thumbnail of their football team. We've got a lot of respect for them, and what that means is we have got a lot of work to do this week. We're going to have to be at our best to be ready to go on Saturday.
Welcome, everybody. Again, going back to Saturday, it was certainly a tough, hard-fought victory for our football team, and I think as everybody knows, Wisconsin is a very challenging place to go and compete. So just really pleased with our football team from that regard. And the other part of that is if we want to be competing in games that are really meaningful in November, one thing for sure, you're going to have to win in tough environments in conference play. So from that standpoint, that was a real positive.
Very happy for our players, you know, to get the victory, certainly, and then right along with that, happy for Desmond King to be recognized by the Big Ten. It's our third Big Ten recognition for a player this season. And I think what it's representative of, you know, if you look at it it's an offensive player, defensive player and a special teams player, and really that's kind of how we're winning right now. We're playing good team football, and you know, one segment's feeding off the other. So I think that really kind of is very fitting.
The other thing I'm pleased with at this point is our special teams improvement. I think we're doing a much better job in the special teams regard. That was something that really needed to be addressed. You know, we just were okay a year ago, and five games into it I think we've made marked improvement. A lot of that goes to our specialist. I think Marshall Koehn has done a good job, obviously. Dillon Kidd has done very well and came up with two early big punts, critical punts on Saturday. Kluver has done a really nice job quietly, and that's the way we want to keep it, and then Desmond King has given us a little bit of octane as our return guy. So those things are all positives as we move forward.
Our captains, same four captains. We've got Jordan Lomax and Drew Ott defensively, Austin Blythe and C.J. Beathard on the offensive side. And then medically, I don't expect Tevaun back. He'll probably miss this weekend, next. We'll see how that goes. And then the other two guys that didn't travel to Wisconsin, Boone Myers and Derrick Mitchell are both kind of day by day. We'll see how that progresses as the week goes on, but I wouldn't want to speculate at this given point. So that's kind of where it's at right now.
And then going backto this ball game, if we're going to be a successful football team, again, if we want to be playing in November in games that are really significant, one thing that we're going to have to do is have the ability to turn our attention quickly to our next opponent and another big challenge, and that's really what conference play is all about. You know, if you look at the scores from last week in the Big Ten, I don't read point spreads, but I'm just guessing after seeing the scores Saturday night, the experts probably failed in a couple of areas on that one. So to me that's indicative of conference play, and what you have to do is play your game. You can enjoy it for a little bit, but you have got to turn your attention to your next opponent real quickly. And it's gotta be your full attention and full efforts if you're going to have success. So that's really the challenge that faces us right now. We play an excellent Illinois football team this Saturday. They come in obviously with a very good record. I think everybody's aware of that. They're 4-1, 1-0 in the conference right now, and I think the thing that impresses me right now they've got a new coach that's a matter of fact, and Bill's a very capable, veteran coach. He knows what he's doing. He's an excellent football coach. But when you look at the film, you see a team that's playing with great effort right now, statistically. They're not dramatically different offensively, but they are dramatically different on the defensive side. They've really done a lot of good things defensively, and they're playing really well right now. And I think most importantly, what you saw Saturday was they're a team that believes in themselves; came back and did a great job in the fourth quarter to get a fourth-quarter victory in their first conference game. So they did a great job. That just tells you about their football team. If you look at them offensively, they've got a good quarterback that can throw. That's no secret. He's very good. They've got very good skill players. I think their biggest change offensively in my opinion is their offensive line looks much improved from a year ago. Defensively, as I just said a minute ago, I think they're a totally different football team. They're playing the same scheme for the most part. But they're just playing very well, front to back, from the front end to the back end, doing a great job there statistically. I think they're up around 500 yards a game right now. They're about 300 in terms of kind of improvement they've made there. And then special teams, it starts with our punting game, they've blocked two punts for touchdowns and also had two big returns, and their returner is an excellent returner. He's good, not only in punts, but kick return as well. That's just kind of a thumbnail of their football team. We've got a lot of respect for them, and what that means is we have got a lot of work to do this week. We're going to have to be at our best to be ready to go on Saturday.
