The Western Kentucky defense continued preparing for Illinois on Wednesday at Houchens-Smith Stadium. Comments from defensive coordinator Nick Holt, redshirt-freshman defensive end Tanner Reeves and sophomore safety Marcus Ward.

Nick Holt

    BGSU game film: “I saw a lot of kids playing hard, especially in the first half. Was really a pretty good football game. There’s some mistakes, we knew that going in, we just had to eliminate ‘em. But I thought for the most part, especially early in the game, the tackling was good, the assignments were good. There’s a couple plays, because the quarterback got to hold the ball a little longer than we expected, a couple guys got behind us, but fortunately it didn’t end up hurting us.

“The second half, we missed a couple tackles early in the first two series that really cost us. I thought – but then we came back and played decently against a really good offense, a really hard offense, really fast-paced with really good schemes. I thought, for the most part, our guys, for the first game executed pretty well and we can build on it. There’s a ton of mistakes, but we can get better.”

Illinois QB Wes Lunt: “Aw man, he can chuck the ball. He’s a big, strong kid, accurate, sits in the pocket and he’s got a ton of arm and I think he’s big-league passer.

“Offensively, they’re good. I’m really impressed with a lot of their guys on offense, especially the quarterback and the running backs, I think their really good players.”

Starting 2-0: “I think we need to play really, really good defense. I think it’s gonna be a hard game for us. We’ve gotta do a better job of staying on top of the deep ball and not letting loose plays get out – the screens and the stuff that are, maybe, four-yard passes but end up breaking the defense down for big gains. I think that’s huge.

“And we gotta get some turnovers. We didn’t any turnovers last week. We need to get some.”

Momentum: “We just gotta go out there and play one play at a time, one series at a time and get the game in the fourth quarter with a chance to win and our offense will do a good job.

“We gotta eliminate the big plays and we need get some turnovers for our offense so that they have some extra drives for us.”

Illinois running back Josh Ferguson in the passing game: “A lot of ‘em go to him, on some delay screens and things like that. He’s a really good football player. Second in the league, I think, in receiving the ball as a running back. He’s a good inside runner, a good outside runner.

“I’m really impressed with him – as well as the wideouts. They got big, strong wideouts and offensively these guys are another good football team that we have to face. We’re just ol’ little Western Kentucky and we’re just gonna try to fight and fight and play really hard.”

Starting 2-0 for the first time since 2005: “I didn’t even realize it’s been that long and I don’t pay attention to that stuff. This is the game we play, it’s Illinois and that’s who’s on our schedule next.

“I kind of look at it as it’s another opponent, a faceless opponent that we just gotta play and it’s Illinois and they’re a heckuva football team, heckuva football program. We gotta get this, we’re 2-0 and then we can talk about those great records.

“I didn’t even know it’s been that long to be 2-0. It really doesn’t matter to us, to be quite honest. We just wanna play well.”

Tanner Reeves

    Illinois offense: “They’re big. They’re Big Ten. That’s usually how most the teams are. They’re big. They got a lot of guys up front, they like to run the ball and they can beat you deep. But like I said, they’re gonna pound the ball so we gotta be able to stop the run.”

    Defense vs. BGSU: “I think we did good. Thirty one in my opinion is too much, but our offense did a great job. Defense, as our first game, came together with a lot of young guys and I think we did pretty good.”

 Momentum: “We gotta keep it up. Like coach said, we gotta go into this game 0-0, like we haven’t even played a game yet. Last year we went into Tennessee all on our high horse and it didn’t really turn out very well.

“But like coach said, we gotta go in with an attitude as if we haven’t played a game yet, this is our first game.

    Starting 2-0 in in nine years: “I didn’t even know that. That’s pretty important, I guess, if it hasn’t been in 10 years. So that’d be really cool if we come out on top.”

Marcus Ward

    BGSU tape: “I thought we played really solid. We had a couple mishaps early, people getting behind us on defense in the back end. I think all-around, though, as a whole defense, we played really solid. We just gotta wrap up all the things we did bad and move on to next next and know that that game’s in the past and we gotta move on to Illinois.”

   Illinois QB Wes Lunt: “They’ve talked about him where he started at Oklahoma State and how he played. He’s a good quarterback – I thought the last week’s quarterback was good, too. It’s a challenge but I think we’re up to it.”

    Which Illinois receivers are you keying on? “None, really. We look at all of them as threats, but, we come out here against our receivers. I feel like they’re the best.

“It’s good practice to come out here going up against our receivers and that’ll go into the game.”

    Can the WKU offense top Week One: “I hope. That’s definitely the goal. We just gotta play the game.”

    Momentum: “Just practicing hard. Coming out here and practicing hard and knowing that game’s in the past. You can’t really rely on it too much. We played really good, especially our offense, but we gotta move on to the next game and know this is a different challenge and a different team.”

    Starting 2-0: “That’s really important. I think that’d keep us going and keep our momentum going. Coming off of last year what we did our second game, we obviously don’t want that to happen. We wanna win and and we need to win.”