Quotables from Lovie Smith’s Wisconsin Preview Presser

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Illinois returns to the field Saturday against a scuffling Wisconsin team. Lovie held his weekly press conference Monday afternoon. He wasn’t too pleased.

• “If you saw the score, you kind of saw how it played out.” 46-7.
• “We thought we had a better gameplan than we had.” 46-7.
• “Hopefully we get a couple guys back, and I know we’ll play a lot better than we did this past week, with this upcoming game vs. Wisconsin.”
• “We made mistakes. We didn’t perform.”
• “We can talk about that Purdue game the rest of the time we’re here. I don’t have any answers for you. We’ve started the process (of looking ahead). For our football team, whether you win or lose, we have to move on.”
• “Go back to work.” That’s the plan going toward Saturday.
• “Weren’t a whole lot of positives. Started strong. Blocked the PAT. When you’re talking like that, when you get beat that bad, there’s not a whole lot.”
• “We’re going to see that from (Sydney Brown). He’s going to get better every week.” Brown had one interception (first career) and 12 tackles.
• “When you have a 3-3 record and you the play the way we have defensively, you can’t talk about a lot of positive things.”

ON WISCONSIN

• “Wisconsin has a system — a commitment to the run. We’ve played a lot of spread offenses. Wisconsin will huddle. There is some old school flavor to that.”
• On RB Jonathan Taylor: “He’s definitely a scholarship player.” That’s an answer.
• Also on Taylor: “Taylor has excellent speed, runs low to the ground. He can break one on the outside... We’re gonna need to be more sound than we have been in the past.”

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