Tennessee football and Illinois are set to meet in the Music City Bowl in just a couple days. Ahead of the matchup, Illini head coach Bret Bielema met with the media on Saturday to give his thoughts on the game.
He was asked about preparing for Tennessee, what a win would mean, his quarterback position and more.
Here’s what he said.
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Opening statement
“I know it’s a Saturday of a normal week, but it’s a Wednesday for us. Thought we got in really good work back in Champaign, so came down here, got a couple good days in. Backed off of them a little bit today, but will have a normal Thursday practice tomorrow. Really, got everybody back with us. A couple of those guys opted out with JC, Gabe and obviously Matt Bailey with the surgery. But otherwise, everybody else, good to go. Everybody cleared academics.
“Excited about it. Nashville has been absolutely awesome for us. Tonight is our only event with the Tennessee team. So we’ll be with them tonight. But really haven’t had much crossover. They’re in the same hotel as us, but I haven’t seen anybody – saw a couple Tennessee shirts, but that place is like another city, so I haven’t really seen anybody else. Took in the Charlie Brown Christmas with my daughters on Christmas Day. It was absolutely awesome. Couple other things around town. Start narrowing our focus getting in on game day.”
On what this game could be for returners
“Obviously, guys who were with us a year ago to this year, bowl game is a very unique thing. It’s one thing that lasts almost a half a year. You carry it with you all the way into fall camp from a year from now. Great momentum coming off the back end, I think the senior class in particular has meant a lot to us, but this junior, not as many, but a lot of those guys have been very important players for us. A guy like Brandon Henderson on the o-line. I think he’s very excited to be the only returning player coming back out of that group. A couple of the offensive players, especially Collin Dixon and Murphy Clement. I think collin especially is a guy who’s taken over huge leadership in these bowl practices.
“On the defensive side of the ball, I really get excited about some of the young linebackers stepping up and some of the things they’ve done on the back end. Also, Jaheim Clarke, I think the way he played at the end of the year. Some of those guys are now feeling ownership that this is their team moving forward.”
On keys to the game against Tennessee
“For sure, offensively, just super explosive offense. Obviously, play with great tempo. I’ve never played against Coach Heupel, but have been very, very impressed with his, not just his game calls, but the schematics behind it, but also the use of the clock. Very explosive group overall. It was funny, a couple years ago I was at a Nike clinic. I was there to speak, but I got there a couple hours ahead of time. He was speaking so I went and sat in that meeting and really kind of heard him for the first time talk about his offensive philosophy. A lot of what we saw carries over.
“Defensively, obviously, they’re in a transition. So, really expect a lot of what we saw, but obviously, there is going to be some new wrinkles with a new guy calling it, so we’ll see where that one goes.”
On last year’s bowl game for WR Hank Beatty
“I got back to that game. Really, as he went through last year, just the confidence he gained and the way he played down the stretch. And then, even that lesson learned on that first big play that quite couldn’t get in the end zone, you saw this year how he finished those exact same plays. Sometimes, I think you got to go through a little bit of fire to get where you want to be. That’s been huge. I think that was a big growth moment for him and Luke (Altmyer), honestly, and their connection that they made throughout the course of the offseason and obviously, we’ll have a transition at quarterback, but I think Collin Dixon is kind of taking that same proccess now and maybe that next step. And I think for sure Murph and Hudson Clement, as well.”
On where he is at with quarterback for next season
“Ethan and Carson have had really good. Have done as much as we could before we left Champaign and then down here, kind of still in an evaluation process to find out where we’re going forward. Obviously, the portal opens January 2. I think, everybody is kind of saying every year, every month we go into a college football, it’s a world we’ve never seen before. I think January is going to be an absolute, complete new world of college athletics we’ve never seen before. It’s definitely shaping up to be that way and we’ll see where we are when we get there.”
On the plan to replace left tackle JC Davis against Tennessee
“Nathan (Knapik) has got it right now. He’s done a really good job all through bowl prep here. Have repped a couple other guys at that spot, but really kind of been looking at that No. 2 o-line to all those guys… A lot of those guys that we’ve been talking about and speaking about for them, it’s been huge.”
On what he’s seen from left tackle Nathan Knapik
“I like Nathan. I like his demeanor. I like his attitude. He’s got a lot of really good football still in front of him. He’s raw, he’s long. He works very, very hard. Football is very important to him. I think he has the respect of the guys.”
On sending off seniors on a high note
“You know what, just want them to play their best. We can’t control anything about what they do, we just contorl what we do. Let these guys know today that the best thing we can do is give them a little bit of a mental prep today, back off a little bit physically to have them ready to roll on the 30th. But these guys have put in a lot of really good work for us and I want to make sure that we do the same thing as coaches. I told them that it was going to be my mission, my goal as a head coach and all of our coaches to give them the best plan possible to have success.”
On how big a bowl win would be for the program
“I think any college program, to win your last game is a big deal. I said there last night, I got back to the hotel, I got to see the end of the Minnesota game. Obviously, PJ is a good friend of mine, to see that win and to see his locker room, to see the way that they celebrated that walking off the field. I also saw a social media clip of PJ talking about bowl games are more about the people.
“The people here in Nashville have been absolutely awesome. To use Vanderbilt’s facility, an SEC team, we’re the first Big Ten team to be in this building. Usually, the SEC is always in here, but I know Tennessee really did not want to use Vandy’s facility, which I understand. I understand rivalries. But we’ve been a benefiter of that. It’s been an unbelievable facility. I talked to Coach Lea before we came down here and to have this facility has been absolutely awesome.”
On keeping everyone focused on the bowl game
“We did, to be quite honest, we changed up going into this year how we recruit. So I have six recruiting assistants that are on the road recruiting. Four from the personnel department, six from the football staff. That’s totally different. Even like today, we got done with our team meeting this morning. For me as a head coach, I went and watched film with an hour and a half with our recruiting staff only and we just kind of went through prospects that could be getting in the portal and working through it. I kind of treated this like an NFL organization. Our guys and our football staff have concentrated on the bowl game. Our guys in personnel and recruiting are focused on personnel. At some point when football is done, we’ll join the recruiting staff. It’s kind of like the NFL. I remember when we won the Super Bowl with the Patriots, we really just concentrated on winning that Super Bowl and then as soon as that was done we transitioned to draft evaluations and process. That’s kind of what we’re doing here and it’s worked pretty well so far.”
On what he’s learned from landing impactful portal quarterbacks
“I was telling a story, my first portal quarterback was a guy named Russell Wilson. Worked out well. When I went to Arkansas, I inheritted a guy, Brandon Allen, who is now in Nashville here at Tennessee who has been 10 years in the league. And then to get to Illinois and have the success of Tommy first and now obviously with Luke, it’s definitely got a prescedent. And we’ve had a lot of quarterbacks reach out to us. I think part of our process is find out exactly where we are after the game, move forward, but for sure, I always talk about history repeats itself. Whether it’s fashion, music, art, whatever it is. History repeats itself. Hopefully this will have a great help on us.”
