Kris Dielman's Comments on NU (10-29-02)

October 29, 2002

Bloomington, Ind. -
Opening Statement: You all saw what happened at Illinois - it wasn't our best performance. Overall, I think the team played pretty bad. That's not our team. That was a bad game, it didn't seem like the intensity was there. We didn't give up, I can say that. At halftime Coach DiNardo talked with us and our coaches individually came up and talked to us. The big thing was to make sure that we didn't give up. It could have been 80-0 if we would have given up. Everyone on the team realized that was a really poor performance Saturday. It's not the end of our season, everybody on the team still believes that we can still make it to a bowl game. With that, we have four games left. Northwestern's coming up and they are kind of like Central Michigan in that they don't like to huddle a lot and their coaches signal in the plays as they are out there. I think we just have to have a good week of practice and pick the intensity up and realize that we only have four games left and we could make a run, just like we did last year.

Q: Against Central Michigan and now Northwestern- how much pressure is that on a defense with the no-huddle scheme?

With Central Michigan, considering that was the first team that had done it to us in the season, it was a little stressful. But now that we've seen it once and we've played Northwestern before, we know how to approach it this time. We'll do our no-huddle defense and what we've done in the past. I don't think it will be a big factor at all, I think we can handle it and it won't be nearly as stressful as it was against Central Michigan.

Q: Coach DiNardo talked about the offense sparking the defense - do you think this is an adequate statement?

Of course, we feed off each other with offense and defense. When the offense is doing good, of course the defense wants to go out there and perform their best to help the offense. What we need to do more than anything is whatever team goes out there first just needs to do a good job and spark each other. It doesn't have to be the offense. The defense should be able to go out there and make some big plays, get a three-and-out in the first series and give the offense an extra boost to say 'Hey, we're here to play - now it's your turn' and the same should happen when the offense goes out there. They should go down and score a touchdown on the first drive and when that happens the defense sees that and turns it up a notch.

Q: How has the defense responded to the coaching changes and the different setup?

I think we have adapted to Coach (Tim) Kish's philosophy well. He brought in a new defense and I think everybody's picking it up from the secondary to the linebackers to the d-line, I think we've all handled the changes well. We're not a finished product by any means because we're making a lot of unforced errors, a lot of mistakes. We've still got some improvement to make and I think with time we'll fix that.

Q: You've come out to slow starts , is there anything you can do as a player?

It's unfortunate that we have had such slow starts all season, it seems like. We dig ourselves a hole and we have to get out of it and we have to be the comeback team. Just coming out more intense and snapping on when you get out there.

Q: You played at the tight end spot last week, do you see your role expanding at that position?

If it does, that's great. With Illinois, it was circumstances. There was really no need to put me in there, we were never really in an area where they would use me. In the next four games, if we're in the red zone and they need to use me more, they'll use me more, especially with closer games.

Q: How did that come about?

We've been talking about it ever since the season started. I think they wanted me to figure out the defense first and then I got injured, so they didn't want to put me in too much stuff. We started talking about it again a few weeks ago. That's up to the coaches, if they want to use me, they can use me. If they don't, then I'm happy on defense.

Q: Do you and (Aaron) Halterman talk about going back and forth from offense to defense?

No. It's funny how we're both going back and forth. He's doing well, so I'm glad to see he's doing such a good job.

Q: Are you in at the tight end spot more for run-blocking, or are you in there to catch some passes?

I'd love to catch some passes. For the most part, I think it's just for run-blocking. I don't see them having me run a 20-yard route anytime soon.

10/29/2002 12:00:00 AM | Football