Josh Metellus

Josh, can you talk about their rushing attack and how tough it was to stop?

“They did what they did well all season running the ball. They did what they’ve been doing the past couple seasons running the ball. They came in with the mindset that they were going to try to run the ball on us and we knew we had to stop it. We tried to limit it as much as possible but we just couldn’t get it done on the defensive side.”

Why was that? Why did you have so much trouble with them?

“They’re really good at what they do. We were doing what we had to do. Some plays we had guys make mistakes. That’s every football game. People make mistakes, gaps get open, and they would just capitalize on all the little mistakes we made.”

Where do you go from here, Josh, and what do you say to the guys after a loss like this?

“It’s early. It’s week three—third game of the season. We’ve got a lot more football left. As we all know, one game doesn’t define a season in college football. Only place you can go is up from here. We’ve got a lot of things to look forward to. I feel like we played great in the fourth quarter on both sides of the ball so we’ve got a lot to push us into next week.”

Josh, how do you describe the mindset at halftime? Were you guys angry [or] surprised? How would you describe it?

“It’s just like any type of adversity in a football game. You get hit in the mouth, it’s how you respond, how you go back out there. It’s 60 minutes of football. At halftime you’ve only played 30, so we were—at halftime—ready to go back out there and try to fight for the last 30 minutes to get it done.”

When you guys are in there and the game’s over and some of the younger fellas, what did you say to some of your teammates?

“Just everybody keep their head up. Like I said earlier, it’s a long season. We ain’t got nothing to get down about. We played a good team. They played one of their best games probably in the last couple years. We didn’t play our best game.

“So, we’ve got a lot to look forward to. We’ve still got a great team. We’ve all got to trust in each other. We all got each other’s back when somebody falls, so we’ve just got to keep pushing.”

Back to Jonathan [Taylor], you guys did a decent job last year of holding him. What was the difference this year compared to last year?

“The scheme. They came in with a different type of scheme than they did last year. He did a great job of seeing the hole. He’s as good as advertised. He’s a great running back and we weren’t doing a good job tackling, getting him down, limiting him to as much yards he could get after contact.”

How were their schemes different, Josh?

“They ran more of a double counter GT-type of scheme trying to get the cutback lanes. If we overflowed to—say they try to run to the left. If we overflow it, they try to get that cutback through the A gap or something like that.”

[After THE JUMP: Nick Eubanks, Jon Runyan Jr., and Aidan Hutchinson]

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[Bryan Fuller]

Nick Eubanks enters

Nick, what did their defense do to make it so hard on your offense today?

“They just prepared well. Some things we missed ourselves and opportunities we had, we couldn’t take advantage of it but they played solid defense on their end. It was up to us to capitalize on the defense, but didn’t turn out the way we wanted.”

What were those things you missed that you just mentioned?

“Plays. Ball security. Happened to be a big turnover when we first got there down into the red zone. That kind of killed us and after that we just kept on running on that and that just kind of sent us downhill.”

For as much as ball security has been an issue for you guys and you’ve talked about wanting to work on it, where do you go from here now with two more lost fumbles this week?

“Just keep improving on it. Just because we are having those issue, we’re not going to stop doing it. We’re just going to keep improving on it and see what we can do to prevent those from happening.”

Josh and Nick, Josh said the only way you can go is up from here. Does this feel like the bottom right now? This game, this performance?

Eubanks: “Not necessarily. I think of it as a whole group we don’t have an identity yet and it’s up to us to find our identity even though we’ve got a game coming up next Saturday. We’ve got to find it quick. And we know what type of season it is. It’s a long season. It was a gut check, but we’ve got to be able to capitalize on it.”

Could you piggyback on that, Josh? Does this defense have an identity yet?

“Um, nah, I mean, we pride ourselves on being the best defense in college football and these past couple weeks we haven’t shown that, and I feel like going on we just got to keep doing our job, keep putting our faith in coach Brown and that he’ll put us in the right positions to keep making plays and see what happens every day one day at a time.”

If I can piggyback on that, why do you think you don’t have an identity yet on offense?

Eubanks: “Changing schemes especially because within the last three years we’ve faced different offense. We’re not doing too bad as in like doing the RPO scheme and running that type of offense. That’s something that’s not easy to just get accustomed to right away. We’re doing a great job so far, but we just need to capitalize more in terms of the offense.”

What do you think needs to happen for you guys to get there and find that?

“Find rhythm. I believe our offense is just not consistent as we hoped it to be, but through the next weeks, the next few practices we’ll find our identity and find out rhythm.”

Nick, did you feel the mistakes—you said ‘dwelling’ a moment ago. Was that something noticeable in the first half when you had all those mistakes?

“Yeah. When we went down 14 I looked around and a couple players were dropping their heads and stuff. You know, we’re going to face adversity. It’s either going to knock us down and keep us there or we’re going to face it and tell it what’s good.”

You talked about the offense and that it takes time to transition into a new offense. Did you think that it was in place or where—you guys had your offseason, you had camp, spring camp, three games now—how far off are you? 

“I wouldn’t say—we’re not that far off. We’re there but we’re not where we want to be. It’s a trouble. It’s like a hassle with it right now. We just got to find those tunes and tune into that detail and we’ll be flowing.”

It seemed like Nico and Tarik were making a lot of big plays in the fourth quarter. What did you see there and can that impact the offense moving forward knowing you have that option?

“Yeah, most definitely. We’ll see it on film and I believe the coaches will see it as well and we’ll go from there in terms of who needs to get the ball and what we’ll do with our offense.”

I think you were 0-for-9 on third down. You guys didn’t possess the ball very much. How frustrating is it when you can’t get any get in sync, find any kind of rhythm?

“Yeah, it’s frustrating. In terms of converting on third down, it became a hassle, like I said. We just got to do a better job. Coaches come up with a good gameplan and it’s up to us to execute those plays. We’ve got to tune into the small details and be able to execute.”

I think you had 40 yards on the ground. How much do you think not having a run game affected what—b

“Big time. Big time. That’s one of the things we ran away from and I wish we would have stayed with it.”

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[Bryan Fuller]

Jon Runyan Jr.

Offensive linemen look at the stat sheets, look at the rushing yards and it’s 40 yards. i know time of possession was an issue but 0-for-9 on third down. What do you make of this?

“Yeah, definitely. You obviously can’t win a game when you’re, like you said, 0-for-9 on third down. I thought offensively we really didn’t get into our rhythm that we wanted to. I felt like we had a good week of practice, good gameplan going into this game. Credit to Wisconsin’s defense. They played really well. They were countering stuff that we were trying to get going and they just got the best of us today.”

When Nick was out here he was talking about [how] he feels the offense doesn’t have an identity yet. What are your thoughts on that?

“Yeah, I’d say that’s fair to say. First three games, haven’t really been able to dictate the game how we wanted, being able to throw the ball when we want, being able to run the ball .We got into tough situations. The whole fourth quarter I think we threw the ball it felt like 30 times in a row. That’s tough on our receivers, our linemen. It’s tough on everybody—running backs picking up blitzes. You don’t want to be in that situation obviously but we’ve just got to make the best of it.”

What made it so difficult to go up against their defensive line?

“They play a 3-4. They’ve got big, thick dudes in there. They’re all 300 pounders. #56, great player, good pass rusher. Their front seven is definitely something to be reckoned with.”

How did you feel out there? Did you shake off some rust?

“Yeah, it felt good to get back out there. It’s all about getting your eyes and hands and feet back up to speed and I think I addressed it well and quick and felt good out there and feel like I didn’t miss much of a beat.”

Are you back to 100% or getting there?

“Yeah, no, I’m back at 100%.”

What’s the outlook now moving forward? What do you say to your teammates, the younger ones?

“We were kind of in a similar situation last year even though we ended up winning. We were on the road against Northwestern and we were able to come back in that one. That was kind of a gut check and same thing. Early on in the season this game is a real gut check for us and now moving forward we’ve just got to keep our head down and keep working. We know things have to get better. Yeah, everyone is really determined and focused. Our season’s not over. This is a Big Ten West team. We can keep winning out and take it game by game.”

You talked about that identity. What needs to happen for you guys to find it?

“Yeah, I think one of those touchdown drives we had, we were doing a good job of running and throwing the ball and moved the ball pretty easy downfield. We got those two targeting penalties on Dylan but we were getting like four yards a carry. We kind of strayed away from that trying to hurry up because we were down by so much throwing the ball but it’s exactly like I said, you don’t want to be in those situations because Wisconsin was able to dictate what we were doing with the ball.”

What positives, if any, do you take away from this?

“Um…like we said, gut check. Nobody’s obviously pleased with the result. Guys are hungry to be better. Everybody wants to be better. We’ve got a lot of guys that are banged up but we’re going to fight through it and we’re going to come out stronger. I promise that. Everybody after we came back to the locker room everybody together embracing hands, looking each otehr in the eyes and knowing we just can’t play like this all year or else we’re going to get our butts kicked every week. We’ve just got to do better.”

How was the effort, the effort areas. Were you guys okay with how hard you played?

“Yeah, I think definitely the effort was always there, we just weren’t executing. It’s tough when you get in those second-and-long or third-and-long situations where we’re not on the path we kind of want to go. When you get in those second-and-longs and third-and-longs it’s tough because you’re thrown off track and you’re going to have to throw the ball on second-and-long and third-and-long and that’s not a situation to be in. It was difficult but we’ll fix it.”

Do you have the belief that you can be a prominently run team? Can you feature the run game, do you think, with what you have?

“Yeah, we all believe that up front. Returning four all-conference guys last year, we believe we can do that. That’s the kind identity we want to establish and develop and I think we’re able to do that. Just looking to get the chance to.”

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[Bryan Fuller]

Aidan Hutchinson

Aidan, how do you describe what they were able to do to you guys up front?

“They came off hard. Jonathan [Taylor] had a good day. Unfortunately we couldn’t edge them out.” 

The counter and draw plays: what made those so effective for them?

“Um…I don’t know.”

Did they surprise you at all with anything they did with him?

“No.”

Aidan, Nick and Josh were both in here talking about identities of this team. Nick said they’re still searching on offense. Where is it, this defense? What is its identity?

“We’re looking right now. We struggled a lot offensively and defensively. We’ll get better every week, though.”

What’s the feeling when you look at the scoreboard and you see 28-0? Is it anger? Is it shock? How do you describe that initial feeling?

“A lot of hard work was put into this and the score, it hurts a little but we’re ready to bounce back next week.”

Is the message to teammates just get better and keep improving throughout the season?

“Yeah. Just get better every week. That’s all you can do.”

Jon Runyan was just saying this is gut check time. Is that sort of the conversation you all had in the locker room about what comes next?

“Yeah, yeah. Right now we’re at the point in the season where we have our first Big Ten game. We lose it, so now we’ve got our backs against the wall. We’ve just  got to fight. We’ve got to fight to get out of this position that we’re in and we’ll do it. I’m confident.”

Do you remind [yourselves] that this was a West division game? They’re not in your division.

“Right, right, yeah. We’ll be fine.”

What makes you so sure of that? What indications have you had that--

“Just the guys on this team. You look at the defense; we have a lot of good guys. And you guys weren’t in our huddle. You weren’t on the sideline with us. You don’t know what goes on in our defense, but we’re going to fight.”

What was coach Brown’s message to you guys at halftime?

“We’re still in it. We treated the game 0-0 at halftime. We came out, we were confident we were going to come back.”