Joe Stellmacher Quotations

We've seen this offense before with Northwestern, Indiana and Bowling Green, so it's not totally new to us. They'll watch tapes on what we struggled with, and they'll attack us the same way. We have to prepare for what has hurt us in the past.

I think he is wired 24 hours a day. There's no downtime for Bernie.

We knew we needed a three-and-out. If we didn't get a three-and-out, we lose the game. So, the guys just rallied. I know I was blitzing every play because I knew they were going to run it. I told Roderick (Rogers, the UW free safety) to check the tight end - I've got that responsibility - in case they ran a bootleg or something else, because I was just flying into the gap and trying to make a tackle.

We always want to score on special teams. So that was huge for us to get Brandon in the end zone.

We've been on them for three weeks. We know them inside and out. We know everything that they can do, so we're practicing the same stuff over and over. We're just anxious for the game to get here.

We just said, 'No balls over our heads,' which we were unable to do.

During the game I don't really think about it. We've got enough to worry about in the back end. But now that I think about it: Justin out, Coop out, Kurt out. Just to see those young guys grow up in front of your face. They're doing a heck of a job. I can't say enough about them.

(Alvarez) lays everything out right there for you.

It's tough to get a real good sense of what they're capable of doing just by watching them on tape. That first or second series is when we'll be able to get the best feel for it.

It's a very good sign (for the future). Any talk about how he shouldn't have been hired just because we had a so-so year defensively was silly. I ignore that and everyone that knows the game should ignore that. Today just goes to show what he's capable of. He gave us a great plan.

He always gets us ready to play. He's great in these big games. I'm sure he'll have something for us Thursday night and Friday night. He'll have us ready to go.

The first half, our whole secondary, we were like in a sleep-walk, trying to adjust to the speed of the game.