Postgame Quotes: Indiana vs. Michigan State

Postgame Quotes
Indiana vs. Michigan State
Oct. 1, 2016

Indiana Head Coach Kevin Wilson
Opening statement...
COACH WILSON: Proud of the team. That was a hard win. We had a thought process early in the week that we were just going to try everything we could to get it into the fourth quarter. Didn't know if we could, but that was an important part of our style in the first half. Defensively, we hung in there and we didn't try to take a lot of risks early, because last week we did, kind of burned us a little bit. So in the second half got a little more aggressive, didn't manage a few things well.

But our kids played hard, it was a good win, proud of them. Lot of things to improve on. It was good for our team. We've been in those games and we just talked all week about trying to play as hard as we could and take it down the stretch playing hard. Just look at the end to see if it would be enough and we were lucky enough it was tonight.

Lot of respect for Michigan State, Mark and his team. You don't beat that team if you're not playing kind of okay in all three areas, because they're a prideful program, great players and great tradition. So that was a good team win for us. We ran it pretty good down the stretch. We stopped some of that run a little bit better. We had a couple sacks on the quarterbacks and couple things that helped us, so good win. Happy for the team.

Q. On what gave the team the confidence to come out and get a win tonight?
COACH WILSON: Again, what comes first, the confidence or the winning? The more confident you are, the more you win, the more you win, the more confident you are. Also can't take things for granted. But we talked about this week about not winning the game, but we just talked about it got really simple about the process of taking care of your body and prepping hard and believing in yourself, and taking each play and making each play a one-play play and then stack them up.

So for the most part, we weren't as stiff an offense tonight. We tried to slow down tonight, not be as frantic. Our defense gave up a few things, played well. We didn't talk a lot about the outcome before the game. We talked about the preparation. We talked about how to go play the game, trying to get into the fourth quarter.

We felt in year's past we got to those games and didn't think anything was wrong, just the other team played a little harder and better. So we just asked our guys, we talked about making plays. I think we said word for word, if you try to make a play, you're not going to. If you just play hard, the plays will come. And defensively, those sacks that got them into -- that's probably as good a thing as happened to us all night was those sacks that got them into that long-yardage situation.

Q. On halftime adjustments:
COACH WILSON: We did talk to our guys about, at halftime, about we were playing as a team, and we had some guys, we had the same holding call, almost similar to the week before. We had the same guy jump offsides and that that needed to stop. That's a credit to the kids. I did think early some of those calls were kind of a lot going one way, but whatever. They happen, they happen, you know, the law of averages. Rules of averages, it evens out. At the end of the game, there is a call that they call a guy fro leaping.

And I think that shows the credit of -- of course everyone complains when you don't get calls. Human element is part are of our game, and typically we're always pointing fingers and blaming people. There was a call tonight again that was a good call, and that's the kind of referees we have in our league and the kind of people. Fortunately for us it gave us a chance to win the game.

But you don't know. We're still going to go play double overtime if they don't call that because we missed the field goal there right. I didn't know we had the penalty, that's good.

Q. On kicking the game-winning field goal on third down:
COACH WILSON: No, we talked about on third down, if we have a bad snap, we're going to fall on it and we kick it again. And I said, did I take the timeout or was that the one before? No, that was the first. Same thing happened last week. We go up there and it's like we're numb to the 25-second clock. We actually had to take a timeout which allowed them to get lined up and get a block on us. So, anyway...

Q. On whether this is the biggest win in his tenure at IU:
COACH WILSON: I don't know. I think we've been, you know, I don't know if it stands right because they never put it on the Big Ten Network, but I think we're the only Big Ten team that's ever beaten a ranked SEC team. I think. They never put that on the network because it's played on the SEC Network. It's always reruns of all the other games in the history of the conference.

I think we've had some nice wins, and I don't think our guys have felt like they didn't belong. So it's pretty calm locker room. They were excited about winning. I just think they were elated at the end of the game that we played as hard as we could and made a couple plays at the end of the game to finish, and that's all we talked about. Can we get to the end of the quarter, play hard and see if it's good enough, and tonight it was.

Q. On Mitchell Paige's touchdown pass to quarterback Richard Lagow:
COACH WILSON: It was good. Took a shot on the one play too. We shoot, the one play we scored on Diamont drew up, and he said, Coach, we need to do this. And I even credited him after the game because I've seen some teams where guys aren't playing, get disengaged at the half. Zander had his best week of practice. And Ricky's touchdown with Zander said why don't we consider doing this? As a matter of fact, he brought it up and interrupted our video session because he wanted to talk about it one more time and I had to kind of blow him off. Because as soon as he started talking, I said, you just want to talk about your play that we call Poker, as a matter of fact.

So, anyway, that was good for Richard. I did have to yell at him for his touchdown reception because he was getting a little out of whack like last week, but he's growing. Tonight the surrounding players and coaches did better for him, and he benefited from everybody else.

Q. On his aggressive play-calling:
COACH WILSON: I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. We had a couple good ones tonight. We missed a couple. I thought early because we were so conservative in the first half. We didn't want to let it get away, so we were kind of playing it close to the vest. Early that one drive was going, I thought because we ran it, I thought that they could pop that little pass on him and I went for it on fourth down, but I thought the defense could stop him.

And even though that didn't work today, you should have kicked it. Well, you've seen where we were kicking field goals. I don't know if that's a guarantee right now. The thing that bummed me, the defense got a stop and the offense got the ball right back in scoring position and did nothing. Actually gave them the ball in good field position. That was the only issue in our whole game of anything that happened was we made an aggressive deal. We counted on our defense, and they came through and the offense didn't. That poker and Andy in the same deal. I'm not even poking him.

Q. On running misdirection plays at multiple times in the game:
COACH WILSON: We've had that in, yeah. As a matter of fact, that was actually something that I said on the first drive. I said, no, we're going to need it later, save it. You know what I mean? You can only go to the well so many times.

Q. Do you ever consider taking the ball first when you win the coin toss in overtime?
COACH WILSON: No, no. As a matter of fact, I was mad at the TV guys because they took a break. Because I brought Marcus Oliver up because he was going to be the guy to tell them what to do, and he's sitting there totally worn out, but there was enough break with the TV deal.

But the deal is, even if they're worn out, you know what to do as an offense, no matter what happens. You know it's four-down territory. You've got to go for four downs. You know it's field goal wins or you know you need a field goal to tie. It just changed up. So that's a no-brainer.

Q. On the performance of Tyler Natee:
COACH WILSON: Yeah, you know, he got a slight knee that held him out a couple weeks in the preseason. So he's kind of getting back. Tell you, you want his big toe in there because he's a big old load. He's pushing upper 270s. But when the game's on you got a freshman his first real deal and it's like, okay, you're sitting there.

But my thing was like, hey, I'm just going to trust your gut. There are some things that happened last week that kind of got my attention about, hey, just quit worrying and let our guys go play. Put together a good plan, quit worrying about the defense. You know, last week when it's a 12-point game we had talked if we don't do something really fast, we had planned to call timeouts. But mathematically, odds are if I would have went for it on third and fourth down, we'd have a greater chance of winning. Now the deal is is your defense going to stop them? And I shared it with the defense.

I didn't know if it was the old D or the new D. And I told them tonight, I was going to play the like new D. That's why I went for it on 4th and 2 early. Most people say I'm going to try to score touchdowns because you need touchdowns in a game like this, and I thought our defense could get stops.

I told the kids at halftime, it's the first time since I've been here, we were playing as a team, and that was a very good team win. Appreciate you being here.

Indiana Player Quotes
Quarterback Richard Lagow
On taking command in fourth quarter and overtime…
"It felt great. I just kept believing in my teammates, myself and the coaches. Good things like this happen when you work hard, trust yourself and just play. It was good for it to click like that and come out with the victory. "

On the timeout before touchdown catch…
"I did not feel too rattled. There was some miscommunication with the play, and with it being a trick play I did not want anything bad to happen so I burned the timeout. Obviously it worked out well. After the timeout, everything was smoother. It definitely got the juices going, I think we were kind of down, kind of flat, but that got us going. "

Defensive Tackle Patrick Dougherty
On his key sack in overtime…
"We focused a lot on our pass rush this week in practice. We focused on getting the edge. That was a huge emphasize. We did not feel that we played up to our standards last weekend. As far as the play goes, it was a simple boundary blitz. I was just getting out to contain, made a move and he was right there."

On rebounding in overtime…
"It was a good goal line stand. They are a great power team, as good as anyone. Forcing them to a fourth down was really a big deal. We were confident going into overtime. We knew if we could get a stop we had a really good chance of winning.

Wide Receiver Luke Timian
One the celebration…
"It was awesome. I have never experienced a feeling like that. "

On Lagow's performance…
"He is a great player and great players bounce back. It was really good to see him not carry over those mistakes from last week into this week."

On Oakes' game-winning kick…
"It was awesome. I grabbed the guys next to me. I knew he was going to make that kick and he did."

On knocking off a ranked Big Ten team…
"It is our ability to finish. Every team has a new identity. We are not the same team we were last year, and we finished."

Linebacker Tegray Scales
On what this win means for the program…
"It was a big win. It's a big momentum boost for us. I think to move forward, we just have to continue to do what we've been doing to give us that success."

On if the thought of last season's Michigan loss arose…
"Absolutely. We said 'we just have to finish this game'. In those situations, we just had to bow our necks and finish."

On the confidence boost that came along with choosing defense first in overtime…
"It was a big confidence boost. Coach (Tom) Allen overall just brings the energy to us, never lets us go down. It's just constant, constant throughout the whole game."

Wide Receiver Mitchell Paige
On the atmosphere after the win…
"You would like being in there, lots of excitement but it was also weird because we were but we play Ohio State next week. You could tell that guys were like 'yeah this fun but it would be a lot more fun if we could do it again'. We will enjoy tonight but I am ready right now and wish we could watch film on Ohio State."

When asked about the pass to Lagow in the end zone…
"We practiced it a lot, and Rich made an incredible catch. We actually practiced quite a bit, I'm just really happy it worked out and I was excited that it worked out. I like throwing touchdowns."

How big this win is for the program…
"They are the defending Big Ten champions we've been going to go toe-to-toe with these big guys for a long time and we finally had the confidence and played long enough to beat them. It just gives us confidence going forward."

Safety Jonathan Crawford
On how the defense played tonight…
"Think we improved on everything we did wrong last week and I feel like that all we can ask for is improvement and to play hard each week."

On having the Old Brass Spittoon back in Bloomington…
"Before the game, Coach showed us the article about how people used to forget about it, and that was the motivation to get it back here."

How big of a win this is for Indiana…
"It's huge. It just gives us more confidence, we have to forget about this win and go on to the next one."

On Oakes winning field goal…
"I was speechless. There is nothing you could say. We just rushed the field and just enjoyed it."

When asked about third down stops…
"Just having confidence and believing in what Coach has us doing. The offense had confidence in the defense on fourth down so that was really cool."

Michigan State Head Coach Mark Dantonio
Opening Statement…
"Congratulate Indiana and Coach Wilson on what they were able to accomplish tonight. Too many mistakes by us. Too many penalties. Too many plays we did not make. We had the opportunity to make plays, maybe great plays, some of them. Great drive at the end of the game to tie it up, but not very good in overtime. That's for sure. He (Tyler O'Connor) takes two sacks and then the jumping over the pile. Very disappointed, what we have to do now is claw our way back into things, just in terms of getting back to playing winning football. We've got BYU next week. We have to get back, get busy and get back to work. Very disappointing loss. I thought our guys played hard, but our games with Indiana have always been very close and very competitive. This time we did not win the fourth. We needed to do that in order to win the football game."

On Michigan State's overall play…
"I do not think we ran the ball effectively in the first half. We missed some scoring opportunities with holding calls and different things that set us back. We had some balls that were close to being caught, would've been great catches. We had a deep ball dropped. We hurt ourselves. Credit Indiana, they played with a lot of enthusiasm the entire night. They just kept getting a little bit stronger and a little bit stronger. If the game goes into overtime, we have got to be able to win it in overtime. Where it went wrong for me, we had too many penalties, too many missed opportunities. We had a couple big plays against us on some wheel routes, and we gave up a couple touchdown passes. The 4^th down trick play was, 'hey almost,' but we didn't have it quite covered."

On the late game personnel confusion…
"We had two timeouts left so it was not a big deal to burn one. We needed to get the right personnel in the game. We had called for our 'Hogs' packaged, which adds an extra lineman into the game, but he was not in the game. There was a little confusion there on who was supposed to be in the game, so we called a timeout to settle everyone down. Then on the overtime drive the same thing happened. I think all of a sudden you have a play called and then there's a problem with what's called. Rather than get into panic mode and run a play we did not want to run, I thought lets take it easy, call a timeout, all we need to do is play the game at this point. That's what we did, but did not come up with the plays we needed.

On Indiana quarterback Richard Lagow…
"Obviously he played pretty well. He won the football game as quarterback. He aired a couple throws. He threw very well. He won the football game. I thought he showed toughness."

Indiana University Athletics

Players Mentioned

Jonathan Crawford

Richard Lagow

Tegray Scales

Luke Timian

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