Western Michigan defense determined to contain Nathan Scheelhaase and the Illini ground game

"This defense is designed to stop the run," Cubit said of his team's 3-3-5 scheme. "I would be disappointed if we give up a ton of yards on the ground. Last year, we didn't tackle. We were there, but we didn't tackle. I think that will be better. I like our kids' attitude a lot better. Last year, they caught us on a couple looks. They got a couple home runs with their formations that we didn't adjust to. Our kids are older and should be better-prepared."

Cubit and Nagy both agreed it will also be a priority to limit how much Scheelhaase scrambles outside of the pocket.

"We're going to go in and be us," Nagy said. "We'll do some things in our base packages and blitz packages. We'll have a couple spy packages because you'd be foolish not to with the type of quarterback he is. There will be a lot of different things and we'll give him a lot of looks. We want to force him to execute. At the end of the day, I don't care who you're playing our job is to make them execute to beat us. We have to force the issue and take the game to (Scheelhaase) a little bit."

mlive.com