Head coach Gary Barnett on the Purdue game:
"We managed to do things on offense that were better than they had been. We had 23 first downs. We ran the ball fairly effectively. We were able to generate some offense, much more than we had in the past. Those are the positives that we'll look at."
Barnett on the team vs. Purdue:
"I thought Gavin (Hoffman) played pretty well. I thought D'Wayne Bates had a good game. Bryan LaBelle played pretty well. When you're playing your final home game against a team that you should stack up fairly well with, for us not to play any better than that is pretty puzzling to me. We'll set out to try and get that turned around this week."
Barnett on Penn State:
"Penn State's got a very, very good defense. It's probably not a good match for us from a standpoint that they're very experienced with speed up front on defense versus our inexperience. The rest of it probably is a fairly good matchup for us. This is an easier team for us to play defensively, because you don't see what Purdue does very much. We play against a more conventional offense this week. We can be a little more conventional defensively."
Barnett on the fund that was started for Matt Hartl's Hodgkin's Disease treatment:
"The former captains of the teams that he's played on and the parents have started a fund. They need to raise between $200,000-250,000 to cover Matt's expenses. The parents penned a letter and sent it to all the former players who have played with Matt as well as all the people in the Northwestern football family and within the University."
Junior tight end Jay Tant:
"It's good to see the offense looking better. We had some good drives. It's tough playing an offense like Purdue has, where you've got to put more points on the board than we did."
Senior tight end John Cerasani on getting back on the field after injury:
"It felt great. I wish the outcome would have been a little different, but it was great just to get out on the field again. The first play I was nervous. It was on two, so I thought I'm gonna jump off-sides or something. After I got in the swing of things, I was good."
Junior linebacker Preston Letts on Matt Hartl:
"You can feel his presence. Just to see him out there on the sideline is an inspiration. It makes you realize what you've got and how lucky you are. You can feel how much he wants to be out there playing."