POINSETTIA BOWL: BOISE STATE VS NORTHERN ILLINOIS

December 23, 2015

Rod Carey
Sean Folliard
Andrew Ness

San Diego, California

Boise State - 55, Northern Illinois - 7

THE MODERATOR: We have Sean Folliard, Andrew Ness, and Coach Rod Carey. Coach, will you start us off with a statement?

COACH CAREY: Yeah, obviously very disappointed in the outcome of the game, but at the same time very proud of how the guys played, how hard they played, and there was no "quit" in them whatsoever, which I think is the work of a proud and good football team. Third thing, give credit to Boise State. That's a good football team, and today they certainly made all of the plays and, you know, I thought we had a little bit of a shot there, after the touchdown return, got a turnover, but they certainly were the more physical team. And when you can control the line of scrimmage like they did on both sides of the ball, you know, it's going to be a good day for 'em. So you give them credit, and they did everything they needed to do. We can open it up for questions after that.

Q. Coach, at the end of -- your last possession at the end of the first half, did you want to try to open things up at that moment, or did you feel you were comfortable going in with your three rushes there?
COACH CAREY: Oh, yeah. It was -- I don't know what the score was, 31-7 at that time? We were going to try to run it and get a first down, and at the very least, if we weren't going to get a first down, they were going to burn their time outs, and they may have had some time left but, certainly they wouldn't have enough time to go town the field, and it worked because they got a penalty under a minute, and they got a 10-second run-off because we ate up their time outs.

Certainly was trying to get a first down there and get into halftime. Didn't want to give them another possession.

Q. Coach, I think you've now lost 7 of 9 bowl games. You weren't there for all of them, obviously, but do you go back and evaluate self-scout and how you guys go about doing bowl prep and how much time you divide up and stuff like that?
COACH CAREY: Yeah. We looked at everything last year; we'll look at it again this year. I think you do that whether you win or lose, but certainly there is more attention paid to it when you lose. And we will give it its due right away here after Christmas. We will get back in the office and get after the film and put it to bed.

Q. Andrew, obviously it's hard to look at it in the moment but just the four-year career for all you seniors specifically, the things you will take way, talk about that a little bit.
ANDREW NESS: Well, this is not an ideal way to finish a career, but looking back on it, us seniors, we had a great career, great time here. I personally have had the time of my life and will keep these memories forever.

Q. You guys didn't get a bowl win. How important is that? You accomplished a lot within the conference. How important is getting a win in a bowl?
ANDREW NESS: I mean, obviously you always want to get a bowl win, and it's disappointing that we didn't, but you can't change anything in the past now.

Q. Coach, same kind of question as for Andrew. I know it's hard, but the seniors, all the wins, everything they've accomplished, talk about them as a group.
COACH CAREY: They have definitely left their mark on this university. They put it on the map in their five years here. In the last five years what our program has been able to accomplish has been in large part because of them. Like Andrew, a lot of those fifth year guys have been playing a long, long, long, long time, so they have been a part of all of it. The further away from this game we get, the easier it will be to talk about that and kinda relish in that a little bit.

Q. Do they know what happened to Perez?
COACH CAREY: Ankle, but, I don't know, broke, sprained, high, low, I didn't get any of that.

Q. That's a rough way to go out, not be able to finish?
COACH CAREY: Uh-huh.

Q. I'm sure he felt pretty upset?
COACH CAREY: Yeah, I mean, he was emotional, a senior playing in his last game. He definitely wanted to be out there and playing. He was playing pretty well up until that point.

Q. With specifically the last two bowls, how much does that hurt the reputation that you guys are trying to build for NIU football?
COACH CAREY: That's for you guys. You know, you guys get to do all that and write all that and that's great, and it's part of being a fan and part of covering college football and all that. It's not for us. This is a game. We lost this game, and it wasn't a good performance by us, but Boise State is a food team so you give them credit.

We don't go any farther than that. We've talked about that a bunch. We live one-week lives in college football and when this one is done with, we will put it to bed, after Christmas, and then we will move on.

Q. Andrew, how good was Boise at keeping you out of the end zone?
ANDREW NESS: They were a great team. Defense was rock solid, but we also hurt ourselves. We played our worst game when we needed to play our best.

Q. Question for any of you guys, did it feel like at any moment Boise broke your guys' spirit? They broke out early. It was a lopsided game.
COACH CAREY: Let's not make a mountain out of a molehill. We lost a game where they got after us up front, and that, we're not used to, but there was never any "quit" out of anyone on this team, and there is no "give up." They were fighting the entire time.

THE MODERATOR: Anymore questions? Thank you, Coach.

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