December 23, 2024 • 9 mins
Coach Sark talks his goals and methods to get the team playing cleaner games and receiving less penalties moving forward.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Northern Illinois is playing Fresno State in the famous sideahoe
potato bow, and Presnent State had driven down and even
centered the ball right in the middle of field a
chip shot to win em sitting there thinking Northern Illinois
had that high water mark of beating Notre Dame in
South Bend early this year, and here's Notre Dame in
(00:20):
the quarterfinals of the college football playoff and NIU is going
to wind up after all is said and done at
seven and six, I'm losing the bowl game.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah, except President of State missed the field goal.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Missed the chip shot straight on field goal. It was
about twenty two to twenty five yards something like that.
So they're going overtime there in Boise, because that's what
you want to do when a cold afternoons, go overtime.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Play more football there than Boise Idahoa.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
All right back here and from the head coaches of
this Chick fil a Peach Bowl, let's move on to
something from Kenny Dillingham asked about Quinn Ewers, the long
orange quarterback, and the type of challenges that Quinn poses
for his team.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
And Quinn, obviously, I recruited Quinn a little bit out
of high school, so I got to watch him. He
doesn't even know I recruited him because I had no
chance to sign him, so I never really talked to him,
but I watched him, and he's a phenomenal player. He's accurate,
can extend plays, super intelligent. You can tell when he
gets to the line of scrimmage. One of the things
I don't think gets praised enough is smart quarterbacks that
(01:24):
get you into good place And when you watch him play,
you see him getting them into good plays consistently.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
And those are the dangerous guys, the guys that.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
When there's nine second stuff from the clock checks you
into a touchdown.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
And he does that consistently.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
I know Coach Sark even alluded to it after their game,
checked them into two runs.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
You can see that, and you can see.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
That the power and confidence that creates for a quarterback
is huge. He throws the ball downfield very accurately, and
like I said, he makes people miss. I mean in
the pocket. He's hard to bring down. His pocket awareness
is really high. And then when you can throw overs
one eyed teams outside the field numbers as a quarterback
that's a complete eraser.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
When you can throw the ball, and.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
You have confidence throwing the ball outside the numbers of
the field and single eyed defense. That erases single eyed
defense for the most part. And he has a lot
of confidence in that, and they do a lot of
things to get the ball out there, which puts trust
in the defense.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
So kudos to him.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
All right.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Sark wasn't asked about his running game because they had
some big runs in the outside zone there to do that. Obviously,
they had two to one hundred yard rushers in the game.
Gene Blue went for one hundred and forty six and
then quin Travian Weise number was held out precautionarily in
the second half, he still had one hundred and ten.
But they also add some short yardage gains or short
(02:42):
yardage attempts that were not gained what they wanted. And
Sark was asked if there were any trends that he
noticed when on those plays when it wound up being
stuffed instead of them getting to the line of the game.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Some bad planning, some bad execution, you know, without getting
in the particulars on which plays were, which you know
there was probably could have planned it a little better
and we definitely could have been a couple of instances
executed better, So you know, I hated that because I
think a couple of those could have really changed the.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
Momentum in the game.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
The one was after a turnover and you know, we
had an opportunity to go up twenty eight to seven.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
We didn't capitalize on that.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
And then the other one there we had a you know,
we're I think it was third and goal from the two,
and uh, we lose a couple of yards and we
settle for the field goal, which we got three points.
But those two probably those two instants stand out to
me the most.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
But I think it was a combination of things.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
All right.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Then, uh, Sark was asked about his the way he
has scheduled this week that they had a standard Sunday
with meet Today they had a practice regular Monday practice day.
But he does plan to give the players tomorrow and
Christmas off, two days off to spendwid family and then
come back on the two, twenty six. So we was
(04:01):
asked about how important it was for them to work
that out for his guys to be able to take
a break for the holiday.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
I do think it's important. You know, this has it's
been a it's been a long grind for us.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
We started August thirty first, went all the way through
the SEC championship there and and had a couple of
weeks and we took a few days before the Clemson
game that that first week to get ready for Clemson.
We felt like the formula worked pretty good. We felt fresh,
we felt fast, we felt felt physical.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
I thought the.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Guys had a good grasp of the game plan. And
so coming out of this week's game, you know, coming
back to work Sunday Monday, and then given everybody a
couple of days for Christmas felt like the right thing
to do. We'll get them back to everybody back to
twenty six and.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
We'll go to work.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
You know that part of that is, you know, we're
in year four and uh, this is you know, year two,
back to back years of being in the College Football Playoff.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
I think we've got people in.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Our organization, uh, and players on a team who came
here for reasons that that this is part of the
reason why they came, you know, was to was to
be in these moments. And so if I can't trust
them now, then way can I trust him? You know,
we're there's eight teams left, right and we're one of
the eight.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
And if I can't.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Trust our guys for a couple of days to go
home and drink eggnog with their mom, then then when
am I gonna trust them? So well, uh, they'll be
ready to go in.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
The twenty sixth quick show of hands out there. How
many people like eggnog? Yeah, I know, I know there's
probably a lot of people. Ronald do you even like?
Ronald does not like eg knock. I'm one of those
weird people.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
I do like it, and I and and I know
a lot of people like it if it's got a
little kick to it, like some bourbon in it, or
some Scotch in it or something like that.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
I don't mind that. I'm not a bourbon drinker, by
the way. I'm I do prefer Scotch.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
But but if I I look at that as being
a perfect a waste of a perfectly good Scotch is
to pour it in an eggnock, I like agnog is
a standalone beverage, and just drink the egg nog. And
then if you're gonna drink Scotts, you drink the scotch.
But that's just me, all right. Dillingham was asked about
(06:07):
the Texas defense and forcing turnovers, because one thing that
really that Arizona State really does a good job of
and has carried him to this point in the season
and winning the Big Twelve and all that sort of stuff.
One thing they like they stay away from turnovers, really
good turnover ratio. So what is it that Dillingham notices
about the Texas defense which has been so good at
(06:28):
forcing turnovers that gives him pause.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
Yeah, it all starts with pass rush.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
They get pass rush, they get tip balls, their defensive
line gets in throwing windows, and then they're back end.
Speaker 4 (06:39):
Obviously the versatility.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
They'll drop eight, they'll rush four, they'll rush five, they'll
mix it up a little bit.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
And then the corners are sticky. I mean they're sticky players.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
There's not much space, there's really I mean, it sounds
like a boring answer, but they're good, they're coached well,
and when the balls their hands, they catch it.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
And then the pass rush. Like I said, everything starts
with impacting the quarterback.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
When you talk about turnovers, and they impact a quarterback
enough and they get enough tip balls to create some
like bonus turnovers I would call them, which are the
tip ball turnovers. Those are like additionals. So yeah, they're
just well coached or where they're supposed to be. They're talented,
and then those guys play hard, so they're around the
football and that's a good combination to create takeaways.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
All right, a couple more things, one from each head coach.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
First of all, from Sark, this is about the confidence
level and how much confidence does Sark have in his
football team at this.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Late stage of the season.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
Well, I'm definitely proud of our guys.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
You know, like I said, it's been a long season,
and you know, having gone to the College Football Playoff
a year ago and literally being inches away from playing
from a national championship, and knowing what the goals were
coming into this season, and to be back in the
College Fotball Playoff when four of us were in the
(08:02):
CFPA year ago, but we were the only team that
made it back into the College Football Playoff in an
expanded version of twelve teams.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
There's a lot to be proud of.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
But mostly I'm proud of our veterans, our leaders, our
seniors because those guys went through five and seven in
year one, you know, they went through eight and five
and year two, and they didn't jump ship. They hung
in there with us. They believe in what we were
doing going into last year and they not finish it
the way we would have liked. And then to get
(08:30):
back again this year, I just think, like I said,
it's a credit to the leadership on our team, this
is a heck of a challenge. You don't like you're
not a conference championship team, especially in the Big Twelve.
I want to remind everybody, like we were in that
Big Twelve, what twenty seven years we won four? Okay,
this is their first year in and they won a
Big Twelve championship, Like it's a really hard thing to do.
(08:53):
They're playing with a ton of confidence right now. The
last two months. I think they're playing as good as
football as anybody in the country. And that's a credit
to Dillingham and their staff and building their team as
they've gotten better and better as years gone on. And
it's clear as day to see when you wash the tape.
So this is a heck of a challenge for us.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Okay, all right, So there it is the comments from
Sarkim from Kenny Dillingham. We have a few final comments
to get to before we have the Christmas break, so
we'll get to that coming up when we continue on
Sports Radio AM thirteen under the Zone.
Northern Illinois is playing Fresno State in the famous sideahoe
potato bow, and Presnent State had driven down and even
centered the ball right in the middle of field a
chip shot to win em sitting there thinking Northern Illinois
had that high water mark of beating Notre Dame in
South Bend early this year, and here's Notre Dame in
(00:20):
the quarterfinals of the college football playoff and NIU is going
to wind up after all is said and done at
seven and six, I'm losing the bowl game.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah, except President of State missed the field goal.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Missed the chip shot straight on field goal. It was
about twenty two to twenty five yards something like that.
So they're going overtime there in Boise, because that's what
you want to do when a cold afternoons, go overtime.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Play more football there than Boise Idahoa.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
All right back here and from the head coaches of
this Chick fil a Peach Bowl, let's move on to
something from Kenny Dillingham asked about Quinn Ewers, the long
orange quarterback, and the type of challenges that Quinn poses
for his team.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
And Quinn, obviously, I recruited Quinn a little bit out
of high school, so I got to watch him. He
doesn't even know I recruited him because I had no
chance to sign him, so I never really talked to him,
but I watched him, and he's a phenomenal player. He's accurate,
can extend plays, super intelligent. You can tell when he
gets to the line of scrimmage. One of the things
I don't think gets praised enough is smart quarterbacks that
(01:24):
get you into good place And when you watch him play,
you see him getting them into good plays consistently.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
And those are the dangerous guys, the guys that.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
When there's nine second stuff from the clock checks you
into a touchdown.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
And he does that consistently.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
I know Coach Sark even alluded to it after their game,
checked them into two runs.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
You can see that, and you can see.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
That the power and confidence that creates for a quarterback
is huge. He throws the ball downfield very accurately, and
like I said, he makes people miss. I mean in
the pocket. He's hard to bring down. His pocket awareness
is really high. And then when you can throw overs
one eyed teams outside the field numbers as a quarterback
that's a complete eraser.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
When you can throw the ball, and.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
You have confidence throwing the ball outside the numbers of
the field and single eyed defense. That erases single eyed
defense for the most part. And he has a lot
of confidence in that, and they do a lot of
things to get the ball out there, which puts trust
in the defense.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
So kudos to him.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
All right.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Sark wasn't asked about his running game because they had
some big runs in the outside zone there to do that. Obviously,
they had two to one hundred yard rushers in the game.
Gene Blue went for one hundred and forty six and
then quin Travian Weise number was held out precautionarily in
the second half, he still had one hundred and ten.
But they also add some short yardage gains or short
(02:42):
yardage attempts that were not gained what they wanted. And
Sark was asked if there were any trends that he
noticed when on those plays when it wound up being
stuffed instead of them getting to the line of the game.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Some bad planning, some bad execution, you know, without getting
in the particulars on which plays were, which you know
there was probably could have planned it a little better
and we definitely could have been a couple of instances
executed better, So you know, I hated that because I
think a couple of those could have really changed the.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
Momentum in the game.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
The one was after a turnover and you know, we
had an opportunity to go up twenty eight to seven.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
We didn't capitalize on that.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
And then the other one there we had a you know,
we're I think it was third and goal from the two,
and uh, we lose a couple of yards and we
settle for the field goal, which we got three points.
But those two probably those two instants stand out to
me the most.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
But I think it was a combination of things.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
All right.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Then, uh, Sark was asked about his the way he
has scheduled this week that they had a standard Sunday
with meet Today they had a practice regular Monday practice day.
But he does plan to give the players tomorrow and
Christmas off, two days off to spendwid family and then
come back on the two, twenty six. So we was
(04:01):
asked about how important it was for them to work
that out for his guys to be able to take
a break for the holiday.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
I do think it's important. You know, this has it's
been a it's been a long grind for us.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
We started August thirty first, went all the way through
the SEC championship there and and had a couple of
weeks and we took a few days before the Clemson
game that that first week to get ready for Clemson.
We felt like the formula worked pretty good. We felt fresh,
we felt fast, we felt felt physical.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
I thought the.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Guys had a good grasp of the game plan. And
so coming out of this week's game, you know, coming
back to work Sunday Monday, and then given everybody a
couple of days for Christmas felt like the right thing
to do. We'll get them back to everybody back to
twenty six and.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
We'll go to work.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
You know that part of that is, you know, we're
in year four and uh, this is you know, year two,
back to back years of being in the College Football Playoff.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
I think we've got people in.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Our organization, uh, and players on a team who came
here for reasons that that this is part of the
reason why they came, you know, was to was to
be in these moments. And so if I can't trust
them now, then way can I trust him? You know,
we're there's eight teams left, right and we're one of
the eight.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
And if I can't.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Trust our guys for a couple of days to go
home and drink eggnog with their mom, then then when
am I gonna trust them? So well, uh, they'll be
ready to go in.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
The twenty sixth quick show of hands out there. How
many people like eggnog? Yeah, I know, I know there's
probably a lot of people. Ronald do you even like?
Ronald does not like eg knock. I'm one of those
weird people.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
I do like it, and I and and I know
a lot of people like it if it's got a
little kick to it, like some bourbon in it, or
some Scotch in it or something like that.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
I don't mind that. I'm not a bourbon drinker, by
the way. I'm I do prefer Scotch.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
But but if I I look at that as being
a perfect a waste of a perfectly good Scotch is
to pour it in an eggnock, I like agnog is
a standalone beverage, and just drink the egg nog. And
then if you're gonna drink Scotts, you drink the scotch.
But that's just me, all right. Dillingham was asked about
(06:07):
the Texas defense and forcing turnovers, because one thing that
really that Arizona State really does a good job of
and has carried him to this point in the season
and winning the Big Twelve and all that sort of stuff.
One thing they like they stay away from turnovers, really
good turnover ratio. So what is it that Dillingham notices
about the Texas defense which has been so good at
(06:28):
forcing turnovers that gives him pause.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
Yeah, it all starts with pass rush.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
They get pass rush, they get tip balls, their defensive
line gets in throwing windows, and then they're back end.
Speaker 4 (06:39):
Obviously the versatility.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
They'll drop eight, they'll rush four, they'll rush five, they'll
mix it up a little bit.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
And then the corners are sticky. I mean they're sticky players.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
There's not much space, there's really I mean, it sounds
like a boring answer, but they're good, they're coached well,
and when the balls their hands, they catch it.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
And then the pass rush. Like I said, everything starts
with impacting the quarterback.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
When you talk about turnovers, and they impact a quarterback
enough and they get enough tip balls to create some
like bonus turnovers I would call them, which are the
tip ball turnovers. Those are like additionals. So yeah, they're
just well coached or where they're supposed to be. They're talented,
and then those guys play hard, so they're around the
football and that's a good combination to create takeaways.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
All right, a couple more things, one from each head coach.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
First of all, from Sark, this is about the confidence
level and how much confidence does Sark have in his
football team at this.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Late stage of the season.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
Well, I'm definitely proud of our guys.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
You know, like I said, it's been a long season,
and you know, having gone to the College Football Playoff
a year ago and literally being inches away from playing
from a national championship, and knowing what the goals were
coming into this season, and to be back in the
College Fotball Playoff when four of us were in the
(08:02):
CFPA year ago, but we were the only team that
made it back into the College Football Playoff in an
expanded version of twelve teams.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
There's a lot to be proud of.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
But mostly I'm proud of our veterans, our leaders, our
seniors because those guys went through five and seven in
year one, you know, they went through eight and five
and year two, and they didn't jump ship. They hung
in there with us. They believe in what we were
doing going into last year and they not finish it
the way we would have liked. And then to get
(08:30):
back again this year, I just think, like I said,
it's a credit to the leadership on our team, this
is a heck of a challenge. You don't like you're
not a conference championship team, especially in the Big Twelve.
I want to remind everybody, like we were in that
Big Twelve, what twenty seven years we won four? Okay,
this is their first year in and they won a
Big Twelve championship, Like it's a really hard thing to do.
(08:53):
They're playing with a ton of confidence right now. The
last two months. I think they're playing as good as
football as anybody in the country. And that's a credit
to Dillingham and their staff and building their team as
they've gotten better and better as years gone on. And
it's clear as day to see when you wash the tape.
So this is a heck of a challenge for us.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Okay, all right, So there it is the comments from
Sarkim from Kenny Dillingham. We have a few final comments
to get to before we have the Christmas break, so
we'll get to that coming up when we continue on
Sports Radio AM thirteen under the Zone.
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