Nov. 4, 2000

Recap| Box Score| Notes

Head Coach Gary Pinkel

"Northern Illinois is great football team. We werevery concerned about this game because of how good Northern is. Joe Novak has done great job."

"Nothing makes a coach prouder than coming back from adversity and come out with a victory. Those tests you don't know about until you get there. I'm very proud of my players. That was a great victory."

On Hammock's injury "Any time you losean impact playe it hurts you. I'm sure it hurt them. I thought we did a better job on the line ofscrimmage in the second half, regardless of who was running the ball."

"In the first half, it was just offenses moving the football. We were fortunate enough to take thelead on Chester's run at the end of the first half. Our defense got stingier in the second half and our offense did the things it needed to do to keep the ball."

"It was as good an offensive performance as we've had."

Tavares Bolden

"We feel we can score at any time of the game. We felt good today. We were very focused. We were really clicking."

"That was huge. We were coming into position to run our two-minute offense. We just wanted to start out with a few yards on the ground, and just like that Chester was in the end zone. It changed the momentum of the game."

"We weren't shook up. We knew we could move the ball and go down and score, as well. Northern has a great offense, but so do we. We knew they could put a lot of points up, and we just had to match them."

Chester Taylor

(on 73-yard TD run): "It seems like this year there has always been one person who tripped me up. This time, I was able to take it all the way. I just read the blocks and I was off to the races."

"They're a good team. I'll give them that. We were happy to pull out this win."

Brandon Hefflin

(on his interception) "In the red zone we knew they like to run that fade route. So I kind of knew it was coming. We were in the right coverage where my job is to protect that fade. I just read it and intercepted it."

"Our confidence wasn't shook. We just knew we had to shut them down in the second half. At halftime we said we weren't going to give up any more touchdowns. That was it."