Postgame Quotes: Northwestern

Postgame Quotes
Northwestern at Indiana
September 25, 2026

Curt Cignetti | Indiana Head Coach
Opening Statement
CC: Okay, good win. Hard-fought game. I tried to tell everybody Northwestern was a good football team but nobody was buying that. Two years ago if people said Indiana was a good football team people weren't buying that stock either.

Regardless, we got a lot of improvement to make. The bottom line was we found a way to get it done. Lost some good players in this game. It was kind of a weird start. We got Pearl Harbored the first two offensive plays, you know, when they called the penalty on the center. Obviously Northwestern must've turned something I'm not even -- none of us were aware of.

Usually you get a heads-up warning midweek because this happened to Coogan. They wouldn't talk to me and I had to call a timeout and still didn't want to talk to me. Who knows how many penalties we would've had for something that we're not even aware of.

But then we kind of were sort of frantic offensively. Just couldn't settle in. Dominated statistically, but the score was tight. Completely shut them down on defense. They started to move the ball a little bit at the end of the first half and we started to settle in a little bit and then we couldn't really stop them after that.

The second half, the quarterback broke that third and 13 run and couldn't tackle the guy. But offense really responded after the first series of the third quarter. You know, we got it going and I thought made some nice adjustments and nice plays. It's always about the execution out on the field. Whoever got it going on the back shoulder to Charlie [Becker]; [Nick] Marsh had a nice first half; [Lee] Beebe started breaking tackles; I thought Josh [Hoover] played well in the second half.

Offense responded to the scores; defense couldn't stop them for the most part, and we found a way to get it done. So it's a good win. Because you can lose those games very, very easily. I'm sure everybody is disappointed because they still have the national championship hangover, but I can't do anything about that.

On learning to win a tough game…
CC: Being in a game like this, just like not being where you want to be against Western Kentucky. It wasn't major adversity at the end of the first half. Being in a game like this and winning, absolutely. No doubt it gives you confidence and belief.

On finding offensive rythym…
CC: I'm only going to use this game. Not going to use those other games. The right tackle has to get better. Tight end has to get better. We've got to get our feet on the ground and get settled in when we start.

On the play of Lee Beebe Jr.…
CC: Yeah, he's got as much heart as anybody that's been in this program the last three years. I would compare his heart to Kaelon Black's heart. He's a guy that was doing really well and got hurt last year, so he lost the season.

Boy, we really needed him and he carried the load.

On the problems Northwestern posed …
CC: Well, they were mixing it up, blitzing it a bit, defeating blocks. It's not scheme. It's winning the one-on-one battles. They're a good defense.

I thought in the second half we played really well on offense. I don't know. Maybe we didn't.

On allowing Josh Hoover to run the ball …
CC: I think him using his legs really adds to our offense. Fernando [Mendoza] was able to use his legs and Josh, last week, had a 51-yard run called back because of a holding penalty.

So it's good to see him do that.

Indiana Student-Athletes
Josh Hoover / QB
On the spotlight put on him…
JH: It hasn't changed anything for me. I'm going to show up to work every day, put the time in, prepare, continue to try and be the best Josh Hoover I could be. I think we're on the right track and we're moving forward. I'm really proud of this team, proud of our guys, just the grit and toughness we showed.

On his touchdown…
JH: We saw an opportunity and we took it. Great call there. It was awesome to get in the endzone. I was proud of the guys in that drive, I had some big runs to get down there and the coaches did a great job all night.

On how momentum picked up throughout the game…
JH: We're still getting our rhythm and timing down and we're gonna clean those up. We're gonna have a really explosive offense and I think, at times, we showed glimpses of that tonight. I continue to do a good job with my timing and rhythm and put it out there for those guys to make plays, so I'm really proud of the way our teams fought today.

Isaiah Jones / LB
On his fourth quarter recovery…
IJ: You hope you never have to do that but when your number is called, you have to step up and that's just the next play we have to make.

On Beebe Jr.'s role in the team…
IJ: Injured last year, he was a locker room guy. It's the guy you want on your team. Offense or defense, he's gonna talk to you and he's gonna bring the juice every day. There's never a fall off with him. He plays extremely hard.

Nick Marsh / WR
On how much pride he takes in blocking to create big plays…
NM: My job is to do the best I can for my teammates. Downfield blocking is one of the things I'm good at, so I just try to elevate that in my game and you know really take that into character.

On the mindset of the offense after Northwestern kept chipping into the lead…
NM: The mindset was just respond, just like you said. The defense was making some big mistakes out there. So our job was just to go out there and respond. Just keep playing the game, playing to win the game.

Lee Beebe Jr. / RB
On dealing with pressure now…
LB: It's not that much pressure. I just know I need to step up and just be there for the team. I was able to do that today. It wasn't just me; it was the offensive line, receivers blocking down the field and it was great to mesh with Josh, so it was an all-team effort.

On if he felt like the big run would break eventually…
LB: Yes, I did, because on our previous drives, Josh would sometimes pull it, the run would be open, and I just knew to stay patient and was just like, this is going to pop soon.

Tobi Osunsanmi / DL
On winning this game…
TO: It brings the team together of course. It shows where we need to improve. I mean I'd rather have a game like this and still win, than a game later on down the line that is really close, like a must win game where we start to figure out our flaws.

On what they need to get better at…
TO: We go into film and we see what we need to improve on. We see all the missed assignments and all the missed opportunities that we gotta improve on directly. Our film session is not like a highlight tape. It's not like 'oh I did good there, I did good there' it's like 'what did I do, what can I improve on going forward.' I mean this is a big thing, all the teams are looking at what we did wrong and circle it.

David Braun | Northwestern Head Coach
Opening Statement
DB: Congratulations to Indiana on a good win. We're going to learn from this one. We couldn't have played a worse half of football than we did in the first half. I have to find ways with this team going back to it and put us in a position to be better prepared for an environment on the road. You know whatever we did this week and what I felt was a really good leap of preparation did not show up in the first half. You can tell that the environment. I don't know if it was an environment or nerves but we played awful in the first half. What an incredible reflection of this team's maturity, composure, resiliency in terms of the way that they responded in the second half, through ups and downs, all the way up until going down by two possessions there at the end.

We knew we had to get the ball on the field to kick a field goal. Still, three timeouts left and inches away from recovering an onside, there was no quit, there was no give up, there was no pointing of fingers. Tremendous amount of respect for Indiana and their football program and also really frustrated for our football team, specifically our players. What an incredible opportunity for us to go back to work, evaluate the tape, have hard lessons, and shift our focus to Penn State here in a week. I shared with the team if we would have walked off this field victorious, the message would have been, not not all is won. Just because we won one football game and one Big Ten game on the road against Indiana, doesn't mean that this is going to be a magical season. It's one win. Well, this is also one loss. Not all is lost. We can be disappointed. We can be frustrated. It can really hurt, really sting. But we got to pick ourselves back up off that, learn from it, and go get better and be a better football team next Friday night.

On late penalties in the game…
DB: It's so easy to point out the third and long. If guys are being sloppy with their feet, it's like technique and fundamentals, you got to coach that better. The face mask, I don't know. It'll be interesting to go back and see the tape. If it's something that we can coach better in terms of how we're telling guys to wrap up. We thought we got that third down stop and then the flag came out. It's the pre-snap stuff. We can't beat ourselves in penalties like that. I really trust that we got a coaching staff that understands we need to take full ownership in this and get better because we've been talking about it for three weeks now. We got to find a different way to go about emphasizing it to make sure that it gets cleaned up.

On how the defense played…
DB: It's growing up as a defense. A couple guys were dinged up and we expect those guys to go in and make plays. You have to take a breath and move on to the next play and find a way to get a stop. Too many times tonight, we had them in a third down situation that you would say is an advantage and weren't able to get off the field. Missed too many tackles, that last explosive play where we got the one score, we got to do a better job of cracking and replacing. It's a lot of little things that add up, but I'm going to look at myself in the mirror and know that I need to do better. There's no doubt that we felt there were moments where we had the game in our hands and defensively we let them regain traction and momentum.

Northwestern Student-Athletes
Aiden Chiles / QB
On his frustration with the game outcome…
AC: This was a game that was winnable for us, and we didn't come out and execute in the first. That hurt us in the second half, and the defense did all they could. I'm so proud of everyone and how they fought. I wish we started a little faster. This would have been different.

On the turning point at halftime…
AC: I had to calm down. I was so excited. You know it's big; it's a great opportunity coming up against the defending national champions and coming out and showing that we can beat them. And also the score being 12-0 at half, it's like we have this. We can do this. We just need to score two more touchdowns; we just need stops, we're good. So we came out, we relaxed a little bit, and talked to each other, communicated better, and we fixed up what we needed to fix. Came out and executed.

Braydon Brus / LB
On Coach Braun's leadership…
BB: Coach Braun has done a tremendous job. I think really just implementing a new culture and leading this team well. I think you saw today that we were willing to go in there and fight, and you know it was self-inflicted adversity. I think that goes to show Coach Braun's leadership and the belief that he has instilled in us, in our team.

On Northwestern's defensive challenges…
BB: We just didn't do a good job tackling. There's an emphasis on our defense's tackling and takeaways, and we struggled to tackle and didn't get any takeaways. Eventually, drives are going to build, and it's going to get hard to stop the team. I mean, just looking at the rushing, you're not going to win in the Big Ten if you can't stop the run. We all need to be on the same page. We all need to do a better job tackling, and it starts with myself and the leaders on the defense. But overall, we just did not play well enough to win.

Indiana University Athletics

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Players Mentioned

Lee Beebe Jr.

Kaelon Black

Josh Hoover

Isaiah Jones

Nick Marsh

Tobi Osunsanmi

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