CARBONDALE, Ill. — Here are excerpts from Saluki football head coach Nick Hill‘s weekly press conference held Monday afternoon at Saluki Stadium. Southern Illinois hosts South Dakota State on Saturday at 1 p.m. CT in a game that will be televised on ESPN+. In addition to a special pre-game celebration of Senior Day, Saluki Athletics will give a free ticket to all military personnel in attendance in recognition of Military Appreciation Day, and also welcomes back Hawgs & Dawgs.

On Senior Day.
Senior Day is always a special day. When you come here and commit to playing college football, their life isn’t easy, it’s not the normal student’s lifestyle, there’s a lot of demands that are put on them. As a coach and alumni, you want to show how much you appreciate their effort. I think we have six of them who have graduated right now and another five of them graduate here in December. These are guys that are getting their degrees and done it the right way. Their leadership has been good. Obviously, we’d like to have a different record for their senior year, but we have an opportunity to go out there and win one on their last home game. I’ve talked to them numerous times down the stretch about their character and how we go about things. There’s really only one way to do things, and that’s the right way, and their attitude and their commitment and how they practice these last six or seven practices is really the test of who they are and how they’ll be remembered. There’s a lot of good guys in that group. 

On Saturday’s opponent South Dakota State
We get another opportunity at home to go out there and compete against a really good team — a top-5 team in the country — with maybe one of the best offensive players I’ve personally seen in this league and in the country in (Taryn) Christion. He’s an unbelievable player and the key to stopping them, which is very tough to do. He’ll make you pay with his feet, he’ll scramble around and he’s an accurate thrower inside the pocket. They do a good job running the football. It’s a tough task and we’re looking forward to getting back out there and being ready to play on Saturday.

On Christion’s strengths.
He’s probably the best I’ve seen at not taking hits, he slides a lot, which is smart. He went through his entire career without really missing any games. He’s smart about when to run, when to pick up the yards and get out of bounds, when to slide. He’s really good in the RPO (run-pass option) game. They give him a lot of options. They continually are able to run the football and a lot of that is due to his success outside the pocket. Eventually you give up a crease or two and they have capable backs. (Christion) makes the people around him better. I’ve seen Christion up close. He’s a leader and he never gets too high or too low. All the records he’s broken this year, he’s had a heckuva career.

On how to avoid pass interference calls.
We’ve been called on several this year that are really uncatchable balls, but you have to have the technique to get your eyes back and play the ball. We’ve had a lot of them this season where it’s one-on-one, man-to-man coverage and the ball is thrown short and the receiver is going to come back and fight for the ball. Obviously, he’s got to go through you to get back to the ball, but you’ve got to be able to get your head around and have great technique to try to not get that call. 

On the team’s five losses decided by a touchdown or less.
We’re 2-7 and we’ve got five (one-score) games where we haven’t gotten it done. Each game is different. Your conference season is different than the preseason. We haven’t done things in those five games to change whatever it is to get those wins. We’ve done a lot of good things. I thought for a lot of the (Western Illinois) game, our defense played well, really in the last three games. Now, we’ve given up some drives, but we’ve gotta find a way to close out that game defensively, offensively. Both sides of the football could have closed the game out last week. We’re in the game and have the lead against a lot of good football teams, so you’re doing some things right, but not enough to win. It’s on us to find what that is. 

On fourth-year junior linebacker Cody Crider’s future.
He’ll graduate in May and is on his third (knee) surgery. We’ve talked a lot with Cody. He’s going to attack the rehab and we’ll talk in the springtime, as far as how he feels where his body’s at.

On how to prevent big plays against South Dakota State.
You have to have a guy responsible for every gap. People use motions or try to use some type of deception to get you out of that gap. Whenever there’s a gap on the field, that’s a crease where you have to make them pay. That’s when you see big plays happen. Or in the run game, when you have the gap filled, and you physically break the tackle, yards after contact, you’re there in position, the scheme’s right, and your player is better than their player, it’s a big play. They do a good job of a lot of pre-snap motions, the quarterback’s such a threat — fly a motion this way, run back this way, linebacker’s out of his gap a little bit because he over-pursues and they hit a big run.

On freshman kicker Griffin Cerra.
I think he’s gradually gotten better. One of the best things we’ve done this year is on Sundays have a developmental practice. After the veteran guys get off the field, guys that didn’t get many reps in the game or are redshirts, get a chance with pads on to get about 20-25 team reps in. We’ve dressed Griffin in those situations all season and given him some live reps. The last month, we’ve dressed all the specialists — long snapper, our starting holder, just to give him real timing, and he’s really come along. We’ve just seen him grow and he’s performed on the field. That was a big kick on Saturday — a 42 yarder — and it had plenty of room to spare. He’s a talented kid that’s going to be a good one. He kicked a 56-yarder in developmental. Now, that’s without a full-speed rush. He could probably stretch it right now to a little over 50.