GAME NOTES: Illinois 34, Wisconsin 10

    NCAAF -  

    Syndication: Stevens Point Journal
    Tork Mason / USA TODAY NETWORK

    Notable Quotes from postgame media availability

    • From Paul Chryst’s opening statement:

    “A time like this, it’s gonna take everyone and certainly we got leaders on this team that I believe in, they’ve got a part, but everyone’s gotta own it and everyone’s a part of this whole deal so we all have to be part of the solution.”

    “There’s a few things in the question. Absolutely, do we want to be and do we need to be — to give ourselves a chance to win, we’ve got to be playing better certainly offensively. There’s no doubt about it. You’ve got to score points to win, and we haven’t been scoring enough, right? That’s obvious. And I think that we’ve got to do a good job. When you take a look at everything. How are we coaching them? Whare are we doing? I think — you know, it’s unfair, and we’ve just got to play better, you know what I mean?”

    • Chimere Dike on Wisconsin’s offense following their first scoring drive:

    “Give credit to them, they played some good defense, I think that we could have taken care of the ball better, we could have moved the ball better consistently in the running game, with the passing game, us receivers being consistent — we had a couple of drops.”

    • Dike on the rushing attack:

    “We definitely expect to run the ball, it’s part of our identity, but at the end of the day you know if they’re taking that away, we gotta execute in the passing game, you know we could have done a way better job of that today.”

    • Nick Herbig on the start the Badgers had in the game:

    “That’s everything you can ask for, first shot on offense and you score, first shot on defense, force a punt, you can’t start out any better than that.”

    • Herbig on his fellow defensive players:

    “I beleive in my guys 100 percent, I love ‘em, I love going to war every Saturday with my team and I’ll do it every single day of the week.”

    • Herbig on the lockerroom’s mentality:

    “Pissed off, honestly it sucks, it sucks to lose, but pissed off...”

    • Graham Mertz on when the momentum turned in Illinois’ favor:

    “Ummm I don’t know, I mean, from my position, I’m gonna say the first pick, when you turn it over on your side of the field, it’s never good.”

    • Mertz on his hand:

    “It’s all right, it’s getting looked at.”

    • Mertz on whether the hit he took impacted his ability to throw the ball:

    “I took a few shots, bodies beat up, but that’s part of the game, you have to be able to play beat up.”

    • Mertz on the “big picture” of Wisconsin football’s 2022 season:

    “I’m not focused on the big picture, I’m focused on week-to-week. I think that’s the way we gotta do it, we lost these three football games, we got a lot more ahead of us and what are we going to do to come together — I try to compare it to last season, when we were in a similar situation, where everybody counts you out and what are you going to do, are you going to fall apart, or are you going to come together?”