The Boilermakers played well defensively into the second half vs. Michigan, co-coordinator and play caller Nick Holt said.

But too many mistakes — personal foul penalties and missed tackles — were costly in the loss. Following is our conversation with Holt after Wednesday's practice.

Gold and Black: How do you think the defense performed vs. Michigan?

Holt: “We performed well for about three-and-a-half quarters, then got a little sloppy. Had some backups in and we didn’t really finish the game and that was disappointing. I understand why but it was still disappointing. And I was a little disappointed about some of the delayed hits that we had. We don’t want to do that. We want to play hard, extremely hard, and that’s going to be our style and we want to do it being classy and doing it the right way. We need to address that and get back to some good basics and stuff like that. But they’re playing really hard. There were some good things to learn from.”