What Minnesota players said after the Gophers' 38-35 loss against Northwestern on Saturday
The Minnesota Golden Gophers’ offense had one of their best performances of the season on Saturday against the Northwestern Wildcats, but the Gophers’ defense had their worst day of the year, allowing over 500 yards to the Wildcats in a 38-35 loss at Wrigley Field. Here’s what players had to say after the game.
[Sign up for Gophers Nation TODAY and get ONE WEEK for $1!]
Drake Lindsey, QB
On how the Gophers’ offense performed on Saturday
“I think we executed really well. It’s obviously not enough. We just got to keep getting better.”
On picking up the defense when they’re not having their best of days
“It’s complimentary football. We just got to keep getting better at that. And, you know, we’re a team at the end of the day. We do this together. We obviously got to do more. Sometimes, you know, it’s not always going to be 50-50 between offense and defense. Sometimes defense is picking us up. We got to pick them up and do a better job.”
On his connection with Javon Tracy on Saturday
“There was a lot of opportunities and shot plays and a couple of permanent for us. And we executed them, I thought, at a good level. The o-line obviously did a great job holding up. I mean, obviously, he had a great game and made great catches.
On not clocking the ball on their final drive
“We wanted to get one more opportunity, but we didn’t want to clock it and go to fourth down. So, I think that was the thing there. We wanted to try to get one more chunk play or see what we could do.”
On P.J. Fleck’s message after the game
“We got to stay together. You know, this is a huge week coming up and we got to, you know, learn from this one and attack next week. But we just got to stay together because it’s the biggest team game in the world.So, once we divide, you know, the team will go to crap. So, you just got to stay together and lead through the rest of the team.”
On playing at Wrigley Field
” It was really cool. I was really excited for this game because it was the next one. But obviously, this venue is historic. It was a great opportunity to go one-on-one. We obviously didn’t do that. So, we got to, you know, come back stronger. “
On the consistent issues on opening drives
“I mean, this one thing on third and one, you got to watch the ball and we can’t do that.And then, third and six, you know, I got to, you know, stuff in the pocket, maybe scramble and make something happen. But, I mean, we got to honestly fix that issue.”
Jalen Logan-Redding, DT
On how difficult this loss was for them
“Every loss is difficult. At the end of the day, you don’t want to be the person that loses individually, but as a team, you don’t want to lose. You got to get it off, very hard. Every day of the week, throughout the process, when it comes to practice and the meticulous things that you put in, whether it’s film, treating your body right, listening to the coach, overcoming your own adversity. When it comes to each game that you play in, when you lose, I mean, it’s always going to be tough. But at the end of the day, it’s part of the growth process, so you’ve got to take it as an opportunity.”
On the defense’s biggest issue in the game
“We just got to continue to respond. We didn’t respond enough, and then at the same time, we didn’t make enough plays to where we could help the team win in a game like this. So, I mean, when we come in tomorrow, we got to dissect the film so we can do better.What players do we need to make so that we can win the game, so that the game doesn’t go that way. And yeah, I mean, overall, we just didn’t make enough plays. We got to be better.”
What made it challenging for the pass rush?
“Just made it challenging for the pass rush. We didn’t emphasize our technique enough. We got to be able to take the coaching, be better in that aspect.And overall, just being able to trust one another, being able to understand where you are in the pass rush, and how does that coordinate to the other people and where your landmarks is. Because at the end of the day, we got great coaches. We got to be able to apply the techniques and what they’re teaching so that we can go out and be the playmakers that we are.”
Does he feel the defense is pressing at times, especially with trying to get takeaways?
“Yeah, I mean, you always want to emphasize takeaways because that’s part of our philosophy that we teach as we go for defense. It’s part of the 70% that we teach. And getting takeaways, because we emphasize the ball, I mean, that’s huge. When you don’t get takeaways, that begins to add up to the game and start at the end of the day. And then it becomes a more narrow game than what it should be. So at the end of the day, yes, we emphasize takeaways. But you don’t go out of your job to go get takeaways. You got to go do your job too.”
On turning the page
“We’re just going to go now. We’re not worried about Wisconsin yet.We are going to worry about Wisconsin. But right now, we’re focusing on this loss. We got to be able to digest this and then see what we didn’t do well. And then being able to, once we truly figure out and diagnose what we didn’t do well in this loss, then we can move on”
