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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 hosts Indiana State on Homecoming on Saturday at 2 p.m. CT. The contest will be televised on ESPN+. 

On the significance of Homecoming.
The football game is what brings everybody together. I know what it means to go out there and play well and give them something to celebrate on Saturday. We’re excited for the opportunity to go out there and do it against a good football team in Indiana State. It’s a team that’s improving, stuck to their plan and gotten better. That’s evident watching them on film. It’s a great challenge in front of us. We have a lot of things to keep correcting. We have to get back to playing the football we know we can play. 

On the team’s lengthy injury list.
I’ve always said that nobody cares. Indiana State doesn’t. It’s all about results. This game is going to create injuries. We probably have more than most, but that’s our job, that’s what we get paid to do, is to get the next guy coached up and go out there and give us a chance to win. That’s what we’ll continue to do, with a good attitude, great body language, come out and practice and coach, and do everything in our power. We’ll get a couple guys back, we’ll lose a couple more, but we’ll line up on Saturday with the confidence with the guys we have to go out and play well.

On the defense’s inability to stop the run at Illinois State.
You turn on the film and there’s opportunities to get stops. We’re fitting power and two guys fit outside the puller, and (the running back) hits inside and you’re going to get beat. Not all of it was just physically getting manhandled up there. We had guys that physically won one-on-ones, but it takes all 11 guys in the right spot. Missed tackles, some inexperience, (knowing) when to fit double pullers, (Illinois State) created some problems. I definitely don’t think up front we have to recruit better. We feel like we have some good players, a lot of them. 

On winning. 
You have to make things happen. You can’t sit back and hope it to happen. You have to be the aggressor and go and attack to finish the ballgame. Winning starts to steamroll and breeds success. Unfortunately, we haven’t had a lot of them that have went our way. You got to get one to get the next one, and then you start to learn how to win and what it feels like to win. You gotta find a way at some point to say, enough’s enough, and go out there and do it. Everybody has a hand in it. We have to coach better in the second half, we have to coach better late in practices. We have to focus for an entire 60 minutes. 

On the talent level on defense.
I don’t think we’ve lined up against anybody that has more superior athletes than us. You’re not going to find better athletes than some of the guys we just named off — Anthony Knighton, Jordan Berner, Jeremy Chinn, Madre Harper. They’re as good as anybody. We have to coach them better and put them in better spots, and at the end of the day, we have to make some plays. We have to tackle better, we didn’t tackle good in space, we mis-fit some things, and when we did fit it up right, we had trouble getting (the running back) down.

On Sam Straub’s running ability versus Illinois State.
I thought Sam did his best job of taking care of the football. His 49 yards rushing, all of them were passes called. I think four of them were first-down runs, which we emphasized him doing. For him to take the next step, it’s what he’s got to continue to do. If it doesn’t feel good, something’s not there, pull it down. He’s an athletic kid and tough to bring down. Picking up four or five yards is a positive play. 

On the offense’s performance the last two weeks.
Any time you have 200 yards of offense in back-to-back weeks, there’s a lot of things you can look at to do better, starting with me. Nobody’s happy in that room. Your job as an offense is to score points — we scored three points, we didn’t put it in the end zone. We could sit here all day and talk about things we could do better.

On how the team handles adversity.
You can’t feel sorry for yourself. That’s what this game will teach you. It will humble you really quick. It’s easy to talk about in the offseason, about how football teaches you about life, there’s no greater sport. When you’re in it, and you’re 1-5, it doesn’t feel good, then you really learn those lessons. It’s our job as coaches to be those mentors, be honest with (the players). They’re not the only ones who have that gut-wrenching feel. The coaches are right there with them. You have to keep the core, fundamental things of your program at the forefront. You have to keep challenging them as men. You’re going to win with class, you’re going to lose with class. You’re still going to sit in the first three rows, still going to be respectful. We’re going to lift hard, we’re going to practice hard, we’re going to run on and off the field. We’re going to have a great attitude and body language on the sideline. It’s our job as coaches to mentor that. If you see somebody slipping in that area or feeling sorry for themselves, it’s your job to get them out of that.

On the team’s effort at Illinois State.
There wasn’t anyone who traveled last week who wasn’t in it to win it and didn’t compete until the very end. Madre Harper on the last touchdown passed up two guys to tackle (the ball carrier) and roll him into the end zone. If I would have seen him jogging after that guy on a 49-yard touchdown run because he doesn’t really feel like going to get him because we’re down by 35, but he didn’t. He chases him down, you play to the whistle, you keep competing. That’s we all have to do and the only way it’s going to get better. If we want to flip it around and finish this season strong, we have one choice and it’s to keep working with a good attitude.

On the team’s depleted running back corps.
We went into the (Illinois State) game with three backs — Perk (Chris Perkins), D.J. (Davis) and Tremayne (Lee), who is a freshman who has continually gotten better. He’s gotten stronger and lost 10 pounds, which we challenged him to do. He’s done a great job on the scout team. We used one game last week and we’ll probably use those three other games at some point and still let him redshirt.

NORMAL, Ill. — Illinois State piled up 541 yards of total offense and rolled to a 51-3 homecoming victory over Southern Illinois on Saturday at Hancock Stadium.

The No. 12-ranked Redbirds (5-1, 2-1) scored the game’s first 31 points, compiled a 409-90 advantage in rushing yardage, and tied the largest margin of victory in the 81-game history of the series between the schools.

“Illinois State whooped us in every phase,” acknowledged SIU head coach Nick Hill. “We really didn’t get going offensively. Defensively, they dominated the line of scrimmage, (they) out-coached us.”

Since winning its season opener, Southern has dropped five-straight games, and the effects of injuries and a series of close losses appears to finally be taking its toll on the team. The Salukis (1-5, 0-3) were without the services of eight starters and four backups today. Adding to SIU’s woes, star running back D.J. Davis left the game with a first-half injury.

“Obviously, you’d like to have your guys at full strength, but we’re not,” Hill said. “You have to find ways to move the football and score points with whoever we have. I take full responsibility for that. We have to go back to square one with the fundamental things, and that’s throwing and catching, blocking and tackling.”

Illinois State averaged nearly eight yards per carry as James Robinson ran for 202 yards and Markel Smith added 143. Quarterback Brady Davis was efficient, as well, completing 10 passes, including four touchdown throws.

“They have great backs and their quarterback adds another element where he can scramble and get out of the pocket,” said SIU linebacker Luke Giegling, who recorded his first career interception. “Everyone in our locker room is upset right now. This isn’t the way we want to be playing. We know we’re a better team than this.”

Southern entered the game ranked 12th in the nation in total offense, and its ability to mix the run and pass was a key to its early-season success. Without Davis for much of the game and with backup Jonathan Mixon sidelined, SIU’s best ground threat today was quarterback Sam Straub, who ran for 49 yards. Southern’s longest run from scrimmage was just nine yards.

In his first game back from a concussion, Straub completed 14-of-30 passes for 103 yards. Half of his completions were to Raphael Leonard, who has caught at least one pass in every game of his SIU career. 

The Salukis picked up two first downs on their opening drive but didn’t move the sticks again until late in the second quarter. Their only scoring drive came at the start of the third quarter — a 17-play, 66-yard march that included a pair of fourth-down conversions and ended with a 26-yard field goal by Nico Gualdoni.  

“We felt like it was a game where we could throw the football,” Hill said. “We’ve had some success against them before throwing the football.”

One bright spot on defense for the Salukis was defensive end Anthony Knighton, who had two sacks today, giving him 5.5 on the season, 12.0 in his career, and moving him into 20th all-time in career sacks at SIU.

Illinois State was relentless on the ground, though, hurrying to the line of scrimmage to score one last touchdown in the game’s closing seconds. 

“Some of the inexperience in the secondary — getting fits down in the run game — we’ve got to grow up pretty quickly,” Hill said. “We played our fifth and sixth corner, and obviously our top two safeties didn’t start the game.”

The Salukis had led at halftime of every game until today.

“We have to stay together,” Hill said. “We’ll do that, I promise you. We have good people and we have to model the way as coaches with our attitudes, staying positive and competing. We have five games to play and this season is long from over.”