Alabama / Northern Illinois postgame interviews with Mike Shula, Antwan Odom, Freddie Roach, Shaud Williams, Wesley Britt, Brodie Croyle

These comments came following the Northern Illinois game as Coach Shula answered questions from the press pool ...

Coach Mike Shula –OK. Well, obviously an extremely disappointing loss to a good football team. Those guys did a nice job of attacking us in all three phases. That’s the number one thing. They deserve everything. They deserve the win. They came to play and executed better than we did. They took turns making plays, where as we took turns NOT making plays at times when we needed to. At times we made them, but it just wasn’t consistent enough. They have a great ball carrier (#32 Michael Turner). We had a lot of respect for him coming into this game and we have even more respect for him now. He broke a lot of our tackles. We made some mistakes with some penalties. We had that PAT blocked and had a punt blocked. I don’t think the blocked punt led to a score though. Offensively, we had some negative plays. They got some penetration and put us in 2nd and long, 3rd and long situations. You’re not going to make a living spending the game in 2nd and long and 3rd and long. The field position thing was another factor. That’s partly just because of the way things happened during the game. Whether it was kickoffs or penalties or the other team moving the ball. But those are all things we have to overcome. Whatever the situation is, we have to be able to dig down and execute better, be more consistent and make plays when the game is on the line. Those are the things we’re going to be focused on. It’s going to be tough to do it. It’s easy to do it after a win, obviously. A lot tougher to do it now, but that’s what we’re going to have to do.

Press Pool – Did it seem like (NIU running back Michael) Turner got stronger as the game went on?

He didn’t get weaker that’s for sure. He’s built where’s he just hard to grab on to. He’s explosive. He’s fast. We thought he was both. But it was even more so if you were watching the game. He’s tough to wrap up They’ve got a nice, young offensive line that comes off the ball and gets movement. Then with him behind that offensive line, he just kind of runs through arm tackles and things like that. It’s tough to bring him down unless you’re right there squared up with him. I think that was one of the big things we’re going to have to look at.

Did you expect them to base their defense on stopping the run? It seemed like Shaud was never able to get on track. What were they doing to make you inconsistent?

They were doing some blitzing … run blitzes is what we call them. At times, we were averaging 4 yards (a rush). But there’s a difference between run average and run efficiency. You may have a long run and then a two yard run. We need to be better with our run efficiency … getting 4 yards. Those are things we’ve done when we’ve run the football well. They did some things tonight where they got some penetration. It’s hard to get started, no matter who the back is, when you have guys in the back field trying to bring you down. Those are things we have to look hard at and do a better job with. We talked to our guys and said, “Hey, we’ve got to get this corrected.” The only way we can do that is for each guy to worry about himself and finding a way that he can do his job better and not worry about anything else. If every guy can do that, coaches too myself included, then that gives us the best chance to get it corrected and get back on track.

Was you pass protection what you thought it would be at this point in the season?

Obviously, we’d like to have it better to where Brodie is not getting hit. But it’s the same thing. We need to be more consistent. Part of that is we need to stay out of 2nd and long. One of the things we also talked about with offensive football is that all 11 guys have to be right to be successful. You may have 10 guys doing it right and one guy not doing it right, and because of that it doesn’t look very good. I think that was the case sometimes. We’re still learning, but I’m not going to use that as an excuse. But we’re going to get better as we go along. We going to learn to be more consistent and learn all the little ins and outs of our offense and how we can take advantage of certain things. And when we do that, I say that starting with me and the coaching, we’re going to be better and be more consistent.

Talk about the role the special teams played in this game, especially in the second half where they kept you backed up in your territory?

It’s all about field position, what we sometimes call hidden yardage. You feel like you’re backed up a little bit, but there are some chances where you can create some field position for yourself. Whether it’s with a punt return or getting off the field, or whether it’s when you’re on offense and not going three and out when you’re backed up and you’re making first downs. That way if you are punting then you’re punting from around your own 40. Those are things that we’ve been doing pretty well. But we didn’t do them well enough tonight, obviously.

I’m not sure it’s more physical. They’re definitely a physical team, but we feel like we’re pretty physical too with their defensive line and our offensive line. But I think it’s just more about a couple of thing we have to look at and correct. I’m not sure they were mental mistakes, but just trying to execute better. Whether it’s taking the right angles or taking the right steps. All those little things, that’s how we’re going to get it corrected.

Probably, yeah. I would have boosted me if I was on their team. It’s tough. You can’t even celebrate for a second with your touchdown. Now all of a sudden it’s 6-2 and it was that kind of game. Those are the kind of games that you just have to find a way. Someone has to make a play and then make another play and step up and find a way to get it done. We didn’t do that today in any phase of the game.

Well yeah. It’s always tougher when you feel like you’re trying to get into a rhythm and all of a sudden you do hit a play. Then you call another play and the next thing you know it’s 2nd and 13. We just had some bad things happen. Whether it was us making mistakes or them making plays. Still, you have to be able to overcome all that. I think our guys fought hard. Let me say that too. For the most part, we kept our poise. It was frustrating that’s for sure. You get in a game like that and how can it not be frustrating. We’d be lying if we said it wasn’t. But there’s a difference between being frustrated and losing your poise. We didn’t lose our poise. We just didn’t get it done.

You’ve mentioned in the past that it’s tough to prepare after a loss. Now you get back into the SEC with an Arkansas team that is, is …

Good. Yeah, you’re right. But those are all things that don’t bother me. That doesn’t bother us as far as how our football team will respond. We realize that when you play in the SEC, you’re going to be playing against great football teams. Is it tougher to face Arkansas after a loss like this? Probably, yeah. But regardless, we’ve got to get better and do it as fast as we can. We have to learn from our mistakes and get things corrected and get back on the right track. But to do that, we’ve got to stick together because it’s tough to do at a time like this. It’s easy to sit and point fingers … players at coaches and coaches at players. But we’re not going to do that. Our guys will not do that and we won’t let them. That’s our job as coaches is to not let them do that. It’s our job to get them going again and have them believe that we’re going to get it corrected and come out with a positive attitude and get focused. We’ve got to put this one behind us, which will be tough to do, and get focused on next week. Because there will be a lot of talk about why we lost. But it’s done now and there’s nothing we can do about it other than learn, get the corrections made and move forward. And that’s what this team has been about is moving forward. And that’s what we will continue to be about.

Click on the name for parts of their post-game interviews ..
Coach Mike Shula (Alabama Crimson Tide Head Coach)

Antwan Odom (#98 Jr. RDE, 6-5 277 lbs. Bayou La Batre, AL - Alma Bryant High)

Brodie Croyle (#12 So. QB, 6-3 200 lbs. Rainbow City, AL - Westbrook Christian High)

Michael Turner (#32 Sr. RB, 6-0 228 lbs. North Chicago) and Josh Haldi (#10 Jr. QB, 6-2 202 lbs. Madison, OH)

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