Dec. 6, 2005
Northwestern Football News Conference
December 4, 2005
Vitalis Sun Bowl Announcement
Head Coach Randy Walker
Opening Statement ...
"First of all I just want to thank our players and the great job they've done this year. I think it was a year that was marked with solid growth and a lot of the right things taking place. It's real easy when everything is rolling the right way, but it's a real mark of a good football team to respond well to adversity. Everything didn't always go the way we wanted to, but we always seemed to bounce back and play well. I think that's a tribute to our leadership, especially the seniors on this football team -- they've really taken ownership of this football team.
Were you confident you would receive a bid to the Sun Bowl?
"Once we became bowl eligible, the speculation began and I'm sure some discussions began. But based on where everything fell with the BCS, nothing was a certainty. I figured we were going go somewhere and play, and we were excited about the opportunity to go to any bowl game. As time went on, it seemed more likely. The comments from the Sun Bowl people were more and more favorable. Of course, that made it more exciting. Having been there before, I know it's a great bowl game. We are going to learn from it and it's going to be a great experience for our kids.
But it looked like it was going to be either the Sun or the Music Bowl, and those are both on Dec. 30, so it was a bit easier to plan things from finals week on."
How important is receiving a bowl bid to recruiting?
"It's a huge factor. Prior to 1995, Northwestern had been to one bowl game. We've now been to five in the last 11 years. We think we're building a program that's on a solid foundation of consistently playing solid football, and that's been our charge -- to become a consistently good football team."
How much do you know about your Sun Bowl opponent, UCLA?
"Not much. This won't be a surprise to many of you, but I don't know much about college football. In our world, we get so caught up in who we're playing in the Big Ten and staying in this moment. I get home after games and turn on football games, but I really don't watch a lot of football. I watched their game yesterday (against USC), but I don't think that's indicative of what type of football team they are. But obviously they're a 9-2 football team, a top-10 football team most of the season, a football team that has overcome some adversity of their own and probably performed better than a lot of people thought they would this season. So I think there are a lot of similarities between our teams. I know they're a very productive offense, had their moments on defense, but it should be an interesting game and it will probably be a 3-0 game."
Is this the strongest the Northwestern program has been?
"I don't know. I don't know if it's the strongest, but we've been pretty good for the last three years. We've built a foundation where we can have continued success and expectations that we'll be a quality football team. I think the real tribute goes to Henry Bienen and Mark Murphy and the leadership. In the last decade it's become important here to have a quality football program. I'm glad we're measuring up and playing quality football. We've done that the last few years and over the last decade I think Northwestern football has been a program that a fan or alumnus can take pride in."
Northwestern Co-Captains Brett Basanez, Zach Strief, Tim McGarigle, Barry Cofield
What do you know about UCLA?
Brett Basanez: "I know they have one of the best offenses in the country. They're a great team and I'm really looking forward to playing them. They're one of the best in the Pac-10."
How important is it to get a bowl game victory?
Zach Strief: "Really important. We talk about it a lot, it's kind of like the next step. There have been a lot of long-standing records that we've broken this year, and it's just as important as those, so it's very important for us."
Brett Basanez: "I think it's good because it helps us bring the program to the next level. We did that with a couple wins this year, but we need to keep going and end it on the right step, so the seniors can go out with a bowl victory and an 8-4 record."
On the UCLA offense ...
Tim McGarigle: "We know that, offensively, they have one of the best teams in the country, and our defense is going to have to play a great game. "
Brett Basanez: "I think we'll be ready for it if it comes to that (a high-scoring game), but at the same time I have a lot of faith in our defense. I think they're going to come out and play well, and I'm sure (UCLA quarterback) Drew Olson is saying the same thing. We both have good defenses, it's not like either team is void of good players on that side of the field. The Big Ten and Pac-10 has some athletes, obviously. So we just need to come out and execute our game plan, and hopefully it will be high scoring on our end and not so much on theirs."
Does UCLA offense remind you of anyone else?
Barry Cofield: "In the Big Ten, I they kind of remind me of Michigan State, just in the way they can move the ball down the field. Going back to the Pac-10 though, they really remind me of Arizona State because they have so many weapons on their offense. They have a solid quarterback and happen to have a great running back, also. So they're a very dynamic offense, we've seen a couple of those this year. And I feel like with the extra time we have to prepare, I feel our defensive coordinator Greg Colby will have a plan for us, and I'm sure he's already starting breaking their offense down by now. So I'm confident we'll have a solid plan in place to slow them down."
Two of your four losses came to teams that are ranked in the top four nationally ...
Zach Strief: "Our schedule has been strong. Playing the third- and fourth-ranked teams in the country, not a lot of teams have schedules like that. But it's part of playing in the Big Ten. It's hard to have a season where you don't have a really hard schedule -- that's just part of the deal. We just need to have some consistency where the program wins year-in and year-out. No down years, just consistency all the way through. That's kind of what we tried to do and that's what is starting to happen."
With the time to prepare, are you going to add to the offense?
Brett Basanez: "Well if you ask coach (offensive coordinator Mike Dunbar), he would tell you we're not going to reinvent the wheel. But with this kind of time, there is time to put new stuff in -- at the same time, you want to use what got you there. We just need to keep getting better and get our timing back. We've had some time off, so we can use the time to get back to midseason form and keep getting better. But I bet coach (head coach Randy Walker) and coach Dunbar will have something cooked up that nobody has seen before."