Penn State Football
Illinois Head Coach Postgame Press Conference - Illinois – September 28, 2024
Bret Bielema
Opening Statement:
“Obviously disappointed in the results, I give credit to Penn State, an undefeated top-10 team, but our guys prepared well all week. They came in this game with the idea of being successful. Obviously we had a lot of success and did a lot of really good things. I felt on the plane ride coming over here that I had a really good football team. For me as a head coach, we can’t do the things that cause us to fail. We have got to give our guys more chances. I think we came out pretty clean. I stress all the time we learn more in moments of adversity than in moments of success.”
Q: I know you’ve been worried about your team for five weeks especially with this challenge and how are you feeling after this game?
A: I think we are a good football team. I like our demeanor. I like their work ethic. I like their edge. They are very disappointed as I hope they’d be. We did enough things today to cause the failures that we had but I don’t see any of them being anything we can’t do correctly.
Q: Are you concerned with your ability to run the ball?
A: We say it all the time, good teams do three things; they run the ball, defend the runs, and cover kicks. Obviously, this will be a recipe that others will follow and see and you know they have a good running game we knew that coming in.
Q: Penn State has two coordinators this season, I am just curious how different this is for you?
A: Obviously a respectful coach, he runs multiple personnel groupings, I think he plays his players well. Like number 44 I just love him. One of the things I took from the league is when a guy has a lot of position flex which means he can do multiple things besides what hes slatted into. I just think the skillset of him just allows a lot of other things to happen. James does a really good job at putting players in their position. I have a lot of respect for what he has done.