Michigan State Head Football Coach Pat Fitzgerald Wraps Up Illinois, Looks Ahead to Northwestern on Saturday

All right.

Uh, good afternoon.

Thanks for being here.

Uh, as always, uh, I thought our team showed great character, uh, and heart on Saturday.

Uh, they were resilient, battled, and competed hard all the way to the end, um, but we came up short, came up one play short in a lot of ways, from the first play to the last play, and a lot of plays in between.

Uh, but I'm proud of their effort, and I'm proud of their fight.

Uh, and they keep fighting, they keep working hard.

It's gonna pay off.

Uh, uh, we just got back at it today.

We just can't stop now.

I talked to you, the analogy that I told the guys about priming the pump, and, um, right back at it today.

They know how close we are, uh, but close isn't good enough.

And so you get better by preparing the right way, and I anticipate that we will this week.

Uh, our players of the week on offense were Jaz Patterson.

You know, Jaz is really stepping up, 17 carries for 93 yards, four total touchdowns, three rushing, uh, and one receiving.

Uh, our big playmaker was Trent Fraley.

He's playing at a very high level, graded out 93%.

Uh, Rakeem Johnson played well.

Les played, you know, 22 out of 26.

He played well.

Jayden Savery played well.

Defensively, uh, up to our standard, Ben Roberts was the only guy that was nominated and was our player of the game.

And Devin Vaughn, obviously a big playmaker for that pick, 37-yard interception return, and had five tackles.

Special teams, uh, obviously the big play by Liam and, and Samson, uh, was, uh, uh, well done by Coach Woods and his staff and well executed by those two guys.

Our practice players, uh, Colin Campbell on offense, uh, Chris Peworczyk, uh, on defense, and Corey House, uh, on, on special teams.