Saluki Football Monday-morning notebook
CARBONDALE, Ill. — During his Monday presser, Southern Illinois head coach Nick Hill said he’s excited to turn the page and start conference play on Saturday at Murray State. Down to nine teams in the league after North Dakota State’s exit, every team will play each other this season.
“We know the gauntlet we have in front of us,” Hill said. “We had four challenging games in non-conference and found out a lot about our team and where we need to grow.”
Southern is coming off a 48-10 loss at Illinois on Saturday that Hill described as a “tall task” where “the margin for error was tiny.”
Still, there were positives to take from the game, he said. After the defense gave up four-straight touchdowns to start the contest, Hill gathered the unit on the sideline for a pep talk, and the defense allowed just one more touchdown the rest of the game.
“I told them, this is probably good for us,” Hill said. “What are we made of? What’s our response going to be? They went on to prove what we thought we knew about this team.”
Southern, which remained at No. 24 in this week’s Stats Perform poll, came out of the game mostly healthy. Hill said the only significant injury was to freshman defensive tackle Jaden Hudgins, who has a sprained ankle.
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On Illinois’ first four drives, all touchdowns, its offense produced eight explosive plays totaling 222 yards. Seven of the explosives were in the passing game.
After the initial onslaught of four TDs, Southern’s defense played much better on the final seven drives, allowing only one touchdown and two field goals. During that span, the defense allowed five explosives for 98 yards.
