"There's no question. Those were cautious smiles, though. I think that it's the one thing in athletics and in the game of football for example, you get 12 games, with the opportunity to play 13. You get to enjoy that for a short period of time. I told them that you get 24 hours to enjoy it, and they did deserve it. They prepared hard and worked hard. It was a heck of a football game, but they also know that there's a lot of football to be played. In terms of not winning the opener for a while heading into that game, I didn't say anything to them because I didn't know myself until later in the week. I don't know what's happened in the past. I want to worry about the future right now."

...on the injured Troy Pollard:

"Troy Pollard's injury they are still calling it a sprain. Other than that, we are as healthy as maybe we've ever been at this point in the season. I don't think we could ask for any better position that way. Xavier could have gone yesterday. We'll probably even hold him a little bit tonight, at least in individuals. His ankle is fine. We just want to make sure that we don't take any chances. Other than that, we are in pretty good shape."

...on the chances that Pollard still might be able to be red-shirted this season:

"Unless they've changed the rule from last year, we can still redshirt him because he didn't play in the first game. And unless they've changed it from last year, which Adrian [Melendez, Director of Football Operations] is checking on right now, then yes we could redshirt him because he didn't play in the first game. The jury's still out on that. I feel pretty good that it will happen."

...on Daniel Dufrene's ankle:

"It's ok. One day he was limping last week. This is kind of how great a kid Daniel Dufrene is. Reggie thought it was his ankle, but he said, 'No, he just taped me too tight.' He didn't complain. He just goes out and plays. It's a nice thing in today's age when guys take the shoes you give them and wear the tape you put on them. They don't complain."

...on playing in the heat:

"Saturday was by far the hottest game. I thought our guys did a nice job of managing it. Played a lot of linemen particularly on defense. I played all 10 of them, when you can keep those guys rolling and keep them in there, I think it helps them, and it gives them playing time. I've said this many, many times, you can't buy experience. The more they play, the better they are going to get."

...on position changes for players on this Illinois team:

"Well, Brian Gamble. It's funny, when we talked about that, it was right after that first scrimmage in Rantoul when Arrelious got banged up a little bit, and we needed a guy there for practice. When I talked to him about it, he didn't want any part of it. I said all right. Then I think some of his teammates talked to him, and he came back and said he'd give it a try. Right away we saw that he had the instincts, and when we first started recruiting him, it was as a running back. He was a running back in high school as well. He's got offensive skills as well, and he's just a guy that loves to play. And when it came time to make the decision for sure, we were at a crossroads here. As a coaching staff, we really feel like you have an opportunity to contribute. He said, 'Well, yea, but I was the backup safety.' You were the backups in the depths chart, but in a game you weren't really backup. We would put more guys in with experience in there. He's done a great job. He's found the classroom now. I'm proud of where he is. Like I said, he's just one of those guys that just loves to play football and he's fun to be around. He's having a good time. Of course, with Will, Coach Locksley teased me about it this morning, and we talked about the kind of day that Will had last Saturday. Well, if they had listened to me, Will wouldn't even have been here. I said from day one, I tried to get Will to go to defense. I believe that you let players where they want to play, and if you're recruiting the right kind of guys, the winners will find the right place for them. They are going to get on the field. They want to be on the field. They want to play. They are going to move and do whatever they have to do to get on the field. That's the case of Will Davis. I'm not saying he couldn't be a tight end, but obviously what he's done on the defensive line, he's a pretty good football player."

...on the defensive line:

"Whether Pilcher is out there or D'Angelo walks out there. All three of those guys we consider all those guys starters. We are going to play a bunch of them. We've got Antonio James, Jerry Brown and we are going to try to play as many of those guys as we can. Will missed the spring, but we consider him to be a starter all year."

...on Penn State's defense:

"Penn State's a good football team. Penn State defensively is in the top 10, they are sixth in the nation in rushing. We're ranked pretty high in rushing offense. But when you line up a play, sometimes it really doesn't matter. I think it does show that they are going to play good defense, and they are always going to have linebackers, DB's and defensive lines. One of their most active defensive linebackers is a freshman, a little bit like Vontae as a freshman. He's a sophomore this year, and he's just tearing it up. Some good young players that are playing hard. There will be a battle."

...on the possibility of finding it difficult to run early in the game against Penn State:

"I think that's very observant. I was telling Rashard and the offensive line this story. When I was with the Pittsburg Steelers sometimes we would come out and "The Bus" [Jerome Bettis] would not do so well that first quarter, but he would keep banging away. By the third quarter, no one would want to tackle him. Sometimes you have to be patient, particularly early in the game. Lots of times during the game, I just keep running. You don't want to get impatient. Obviously, you want to do what will give your team the best opportunity to win, but sometimes I think that you can become impatient. If you ask most coaches at any level, you have to be able to run the football, and you have to be able to stop the run. If you can't stop the run, you're going to have a pretty long day."

...on Penn State Coach Joe Paterno:

"I think that if any of you know, Coach Paterno is a special person. I have the utmost respect for him. I've had the opportunity to coach against Coach Bowden and Coach Paterno, two of the most winningest coaches in football history. There's a reason why those guys win so many games. It just doesn't happen. Football is different now, but I don't know if anyone could stay at any one school like Coach Paterno has where it's a little different society. He's a great football coach and a great person. He's seen it all, he really has."

...on keeping the Illini team grounded:

"I don't think that there's any question that we can go and compete against top teams. I think that I don't want them to wait until the second half like we did at the Missouri game to realize that they could play. We have to take care of us. We can't get caught up in anything other than us. We've got to do the things that we do well. We have to play within ourselves, our program, our scheme, and not get outside of that. It is something that you're worried about because you're coming back home. You're in the stadium, with our crowd. I'm assuming our crowd is going to be crazy, and we'll draw energy from them. The thing we have to do, is do the things we have been coached to do. There are a lot of us that were here two years ago, and probably the low point in my coaching career. Our program is not where we need to be. We still have a long way to go."