Kansas defensive coordinator Brian Borland spoke with the media about the Illinois game and talked about players on the defense. Here are some of the topics Borland discussed as the Jayhawks prepare to play UNLV on Friday night.

I thought there's certain things I really liked. I thought we played hard. I thought we played fast. I thought we were physical, flew around, pursued the ball well, tackled well. You know, some of those things were good. Illinois is obviously a pretty physical team that wants to try to run it, and I felt like they didn't have a whole lot of success doing that. So there's a lot of things that I think are positives, but I guess the biggest takeaway at the end of the game is we didn't win.

And quite honestly, they had some of their best success in the fourth quarter. So some of it, they made some really nice plays. Some of it was, quite honestly, us not doing the job that we need to do.

We didn't really execute a couple calls very well, and it was just enough that they were able to make some plays on us. So, you know, the most disappointing, I guess, the last time they had the ball, they end up kicking a field goal. I think they got like three first downs before they kicked the field goal and had some third and longs and just didn't quite get off the field with enough time for our offense to really have a fight chance.

So, I I'm happy with certain things, but again, this is kind of a win or loss deal. So we didn't win. So you can feel good about a couple areas, but understand we got to put it all together.

I thought they were physical. I thought we got off the ball. We got some good knockback. Tommy Dunn really did a nice job in there playing the run particularly, so that was good to see.

And again, I felt like the guys that were playing in there were really holding our own, more than holding our own sometimes and most of the time. And so I think that was encouraging because obviously Illinois, they've got some pretty big dudes and said they're a pretty physical downhill kind of a team. That didn't seem to bother us too much at all. So I think that's encouraging going forward.

He's been a little bit inconsistent in his past, and I do think he's strung together some practices that you would say, hey, that's, this is real progress. And then the real test is getting a game and see what a guy can do. He was probably our best defensive interior player in there last week.

So now we've just got to keep going this way and not have the dips in the road. But he's such a good kid. He's such a great kid, and so you just really want it for him. And I hope he's really hope understanding better what he needs to do, which is just be that more consistent in what he does.

I think the plays that he's played have been good. I don't know that we'd want to put him in there for 40 or 50 snaps a game right now. So, he's been kind of in that 15 to 20 play range, and the plays that he's played, I think he's done a really nice job. He's understanding the defense better, so not really making some of the mistakes that he maybe once had made. I think he's doing what he's supposed to be doing, and he's playing pretty physical. I think the one (play) he ended up missing a sack, maybe one time missed a tackle on the sack, but he really shows what he can do.

He's fast and he's a good athlete and he's long, and he's got good instincts. So, we just need to keep bringing him along in a way where he can have kind of more or less, like small doses of success at a time, and then we'll see what happens in the future, whether that becomes more or not. But he keeps playing the way he's playing, it gets harder and harder not to want to play a guy a little bit more.

Cornell has been excellent and that was a really strong game that he played and he did have a number of tackles and tackles for loss. He's flying around and fitting where he should and being part of a lot of plays. The other part is he's done a really nice job of just directing everybody up there.

I don't know that we don't try not to have to put too much on anybody's plate in terms of a million and one different checks and different stuff, but the things there always needs to be communication and he's on top of it. And again, he's fast and he's a good athlete and he sees things.

When you he's starting to become the total package at that middle linebacker spot, which, again, was pretty exciting for all of us.

You want to know what worked for you, but yet you don't always want to be exactly the same either. If we surprised them with anything, they wouldn't be surprised now. They'd have time to see it and prepare for it. So it's trying to find that right mix of what can we do. And some things you do, you just do them every week and you're going to do them.

There's other things that you kind of want a little bit more of this, a little bit less of this. So we're it's trying to figure that out. And as we get going towards game time we'll be narrowed down a little bit to a smaller number of things that we're going to do.

Whatever we do, we just got to execute our plan well. And they've got a pretty tricky offense. They've got a lot of stuff going on back there on offense and you better keep your eye on your work and not just get caught staring in the backfield or you're going to be in trouble. Those are things that we're really talking about as much as anything is we got to really be locked into assignment and eyes. If we can do that, we'll hopefully be all right. But they're going to bring a big challenge.