Oct. 12, 2002
Recap?|? Box Score?|? Notes?|? Photo Gallery
Yager Stadium - Oxford, OH
Miami Head Coach Terry Hoeppner
Opening Statement
"Congratulations to coach Joe Novak for coming back to his Alma Matter and getting a win like this. I know it was very special and an incredible effort on their part. I told the team that this loss is obviously on me. For us to dominate the game like we did, have it turn around so quickly and for me not to have the guys prepared to the point where we can stem the tide and change the momentum back in our favor is unacceptable. We have to take a hard look at what we're doing and how we're doing it. We're too good of a football team...and I apologize for this loss."
About the remainder of the season
"I know that tomorrow and tonight I am intent on turning this thing around. We'll lay down and bleed a little bit and then we're going to get back up and fight again. That's the nature of the game. It was a tough loss today, we're disappointed but we're not discouraged. We're not going to give up."
Miami Player Quotes
Matt Robillard, LB, Sr.
On losing momentum
"That's the way football goes. They got the momentum and we couldn't get it back. All of a sudden they're gaining confidence and making plays. We didn't make any plays to stop them and get the momentum back."
Milt Bowen, DB, Sr.
On changing the defense
"They got some big plays on us, but why change up what we're doing? We were still doing a decent job on defense, but they made plays when they had to."
Ben Roethlisberger, QB, Jr.
On defensive pressure
"I give their defense a lot of credit. They switched things up and were jumping around. There were only twenty-five seconds to identify who we needed to pick up. They did a really good job on mixing it up and confusing us. I tried to make things happen a little too much today, but I still want to give credit to our running backs and offensive lineman for picking up their defensive rush."
Northern Illinois Quotes
Joe Novak - Head Coach Northern Illinois
"That was a great win. It didn't look very good when it was 27-7. Sometimes you get up and are in control, they had everything going their way and I think psychologically they might have let up a little bit. Turner had a big run to get us going, made some big plays after that and we came out ahead."
"Miami does a great job taking the run away, which takes Turner away from us. If you're going to make us beat you throwing the ball then that's what we'll do, and we did."
"We got things rolling there, especially Turners run got us excited. Then we scored again right after that and we knew we were back in the game."
"We are not a great passing team, but today we had to."
"It is certainly nice to come down and beat what I consider to be one of the elite teams in the Mid American Conference."
Dan Sheldon - Wide Receiver
"When the defense turned it up, we came out there and made some big plays to gain some momentum, and we came out on top."
