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• WATCH NICK HILL PRESS CONFERENCE

CARBONDALE, Ill. — Here are excerpts from Saluki football head coach Nick Hill‘s weekly press conference held Monday afternoon at Saluki Stadium. Southern Illinois travels to North Dakota State on Saturday for its final game of the 2018 season. The contest kicks off at 2:30 p.m. CT and will be televised on ESPN+. 

On North Dakota State.
“Saying that we have a tough task in front of us is an understatement — the No. 1 team in the country, undefeated team, the defending national champions. You watch that film and you don’t see many weaknesses, starting with a defense that is tough to move the ball on, tough to score on. South Dakota State went up there and scored 17 points and that’s the most anyone has scored against them. Their defense is playing at a high level. They’re led by Easton Stick, one of the better quarterbacks in the country. He’s had an excellent career. They still build their team around running the football and being physical, but they have some play-makers — (Darrius) Shepherd on the outside, some good tight ends that are playing well, a really physical offensive line and some bigger backs. Like I told our guys, I’m looking forward to preparing against them and going up there and playing well. That’s our expectation, that’s how we have to practice, and we should be excited to go out there and play against the best team in the country.

We’re going up there with the idea to compete to win a football game. There’s nobody in the country that thinks we can do it, and if you take a team up there that doesn’t think it can do it, then it can get pretty ugly. That’s not what we’re going to do. We’re going to go up there to compete, to go play hard. There’s a lot of good guys on that (coaching) staff that compete and prepare. They’re in there right now doing it the way it should be done. 

On NDSU beating FBS schools for recruits.
I heard Coach (Chris) Klieman talk about it at our coaches meetings. Last year, they beat (FBS schools) on six kids that had Mountain West offers, took visits to both places, and they end up going to North Dakota State. That’s who they’re going against. With Cost Of Attendance, they were the first team to say they’re doing it. They do a good job developing their guys. You don’t see many underclassmen, true freshmen, playing. They redshirted every single player last year, they develop them, they don’t have to play early because they have seniors and upperclassmen. It’s obviously a winning formula. When they do go out of state, they have several players from Florida, especially in the secondary, that have made an impact for them. Their backup quarterback is from Lakeland (Fla.), who I’m sure next season will have a chance to be their starter. 

On Matt DeSomer’s status.
He’ll be limited all week in practice. On that foot, he had x-rays this morning, it’s not broken, so he has five days left (in his career) and he’s going to play. Even if they said he had a fracture, they were going to leave it up to him because he was able to get through the (South Dakota State) game, through a lot of pain. He’ll play in the game.

On availability of quarterbacks Sam Straub and Nic Baker.
It was (Straub’s) last home game and we got him two series and then we put Nic in there. I wish Nic would have had at least a couple minutes, he got in with under a minute to go. We’re going to go into this game with Matt being our starter and our expectation is to play well and be in the football game for four quarters. We’re going to play who gives us the best chance to win. Nic’s reps have went up in practice with the older guys and starting offensive line, getting some reps and experience. If you could, you’d like to get him in the game. 

On the success of the running game and D.J. Davis surpassing 1,000 yards rushing.
Since I’ve been here as an assistant, we’ve talked about how we need to run the football better, find ways to run the football. In this league, it’s tough sledding to line up and run it downhill as much as you want to do it. I thought we’ve done a good job of doing it a variety of different ways. D.J. has stayed healthy, he’s had some games with a lot of carries. It’s a credit to our offensive line — we put a challenge on those guys to get over the 300-yard mark all season and we did that last week with 358 yards rushing against a team that was only giving up 130 coming in. It starts with them up front, our tight ends our fullbacks, Jaylon Graham. Matt and the threat of (him) running the football opens up some creases with linebackers having to be aware of him. First 1,000-yard rusher since 2011 and you’ve seen some good backs in those times, so I think it proves it’s difficult to do. Number one — you have to stay healthy. Part of being a good back is staying healthy and being in all the games. It goes back to the off-season. You look at D.J., he’s not a big kid, but he does a pretty good job of not taking huge hits, understanding the run schemes, and I think we’ve come a little ways and done a pretty good job of running the ball this season.

On Anthony Knighton’s success at rushing the quarterback.
I think Anthony puts in a lot of time and effort, especially into getting after the quarterback. For him, once we get into another off-season, being a complete defensive end for all the snaps, Anthony probably at times has taken too many snaps. He took every rep on Saturday and that’s tough as a defensive end. He has a knack for getting after the quarterback, 8.5 sacks through 10 games, he’s continued to develop, he’s gotten stronger, he’s learned the game, and I think you’d like to see his next two years be even better. I think we’ve gotten better up front. (Jordan) Berner has matured and come a long way, too, but we still have to get better, obviously, up front. Teams know Anthony can rush the passer, but to be a complete D-end, you have to play first, second down, stop the run. We do flashes of that.

On Javon Williams progress since the decision to redshirt.
Javon Williams has been taking a lot of reps at tailback throughout practice and I really feel like Javon can be a special player here. He’s probably playing the best ball he’s played yet. We decided not to play him (beyond four games) down the stretch, but Javon would be helping us big time on offense right now at a lot of positions. You see him line up at wide receiver with the scout team, tight end, running back. In our developmental practice, he’s starting to learn the running back position. That’s a kid who is 240 pounds who could probably give us some good reps at tailback going into next year. He’s a ballplayer. He continues to meet with us in the quarterback room and we’ll get into that after the season what’s best. Javon Williams will be on the field a lot for us, whatever position that is. 

On what he plans to address once the off-season begins.
We have to keep progressing, find ways to get better, find ways to develop our guys. We have to do a great job with a critical eye, like all programs do whether you’re winning or you haven’t won, to see what the answers are to get better. I have to do that as the head coach, in all phases of our entire program, to see what is that missing piece. After the season, it’s my job to evaluate every piece of the program — the coaching staff, myself, the players, every piece of the program.