On the run game against Michigan
“It's a really good question. You have to be careful what you say as a head coach but I am going to be very direct, I don’t know exactly. If you take out four runs – you can’t take out four runs – you take out three long runs in this game, it's not like they are just going six yards then six yards because that then starts to scare you because that means you can’t stop anybody. They are averaging 3.7 yards a carry so you are sitting there at the game and you are stopping the run and feeling good about this and then bang, an explosive play. Each one is just a little bit different. We did not play a lot of three-three in the game. We put our big people on the field and we were saying I dare you to throw it. They still found a way to run a couple runs that hurt us so I think that's really what we have to do this week. We need to look at who is on the field and how we are playing. I don't think it's because we don't have good players. Part of that though, is that the players have to hear that we are not overwhelming people. We’re not gap and a halfing, lock down the b-gap and the ball goes inside. I thought, going into the game and I think I said it last week, that 22 was an elite level player.  I’m trying to be honest, last week, I said, inside the 10 offense, kickoff game and 10-yard rushes are the things that concerned me. Explosive plays. We had the ball inside the 10, inside the five. We’re being honest about the things that we know we have to fix. I don’t know if it’s a major overhaul. We’re doing sound things, we’re in bear, all those things. I think it’s making sure that the right guys are doing the right things and locking in and settling into who we are moving forward.”

On controlling the line of scrimmage
“That's an excellent front seven on both sides we faced (Michigan).You look back on the personnel and you say who do we face. I knew who number one was and who number four was. I mean they have excellent players on the front seven. We covered them the entire day, not disrespectfully, like they are running routes and there is no one open. We were getting open all over the field. It's not like we do not have a right to play against these guys. When we got in rhythm on the offence we went down the field and scored. I don’t want to minimize who they are. We faced a really good team and it was a good litmus test for us. We can play better than we played though and we need to play better than we played. So again I do not want to overreact and I don't want to underreact and say well you know its Michigan because well we are Nebraska, like, go play. I believe every Big Ten game is going to be like this. That is why they created the Big Ten like this. That's why they went out and got these teams so that every game is going to come down to three or four or five points and you are going to have to make one more play than them. I did like our mindset and the old ‘here we go again’ was something I did not feel. The guys were attacking and I felt like the crowd was in it and I felt like we kept fighting but we are going to have to play better up front to be the team we want to be.” 

On the o-line against Michigan
“They edged us early and then we started trying to absorb contact instead of taking the fight to them. They bring a lot of blitz and pressure. There were times we turned a guy loose that did not need to be turned loose because we were overthinking it. They present a lot of challenges, so credit to them. There are also a lot of other things like a chip in the back that doesn't chip properly. He tries but it's just not a great chip. One sack we were supposed to have a come back but the guy runs the wrong route. It's all 11 guys. I think versus that rush, they were lining up wide and doing everything we knew they would do, like going speed to power and trying to collapse the pocket and make Dylan (Raiola) uncomfortable. We did not widen the pocket enough so just from the football perspective you want to have the width and depth of the pocket and have the tackles set the width and the inside guys set the depth. For the most part, the depth was okay but we had the edge guys beat our tackles too much. That takes all 11 guys and guys have to get open fast and the quarterbacks have to get the ball out. We did not get that done well enough.” 

On the type of play that can win in the Big Ten
“I mean you want to run the ball more. I always want to be able to run the football more than we did. I think you need to be 100-150 yards rushing to win. That being said, we had every chance to win that game. I don’t want to start panicking about if we are doing too much of this or too much of that. When Dylan (Raiola) had time, everyone was open. We scored 27 points and we would have killed for 27 points at times last year versus a pretty good defense. I think we are always searching for balance and I think the one balance we believe in too is the ball getting into many peoples’ hands. I do think we are spreading the ball around and attacking people. I think this is a good week for us to go back and look at all that. We can say to ourselves, ‘What are we doing well and can we do better.’”

On the left tackle position
“I think this whole week is going to go back and look at those guys. What you find out from players is how they respond after a game like that. I have always felt at positions like corner and at tackle where your job is to basically not give up a big play and when you have that game where you give up a couple posts for a touchdown or you give up a couple sacks, it's really about how you respond. We will have to see how the guys respond this week. We have been rotating a lot of guys at those positions and hoping that we can solidify and crystallize that by the Big Ten and so we will have to see through this week and go into next with here are our best five guys and we will go to war with those five guys and the rest of the guys are back ups and they will go in as needed. Those are all things we are meeting on and watching right now.”

On certain players sitting out at different points of the game
“Marques (Buford) didn’t get pulled because of that play. We went to a bear with three corners. We just adjusted with how they were playing us. I got all the confidence in the world in Marques Buford. The ball doesn't even need to get to him. If everyone up front does what they are supposed to, then he is not going to be there, and he will be there. I think every player is different and every situation is different. It kind of depends on their history and where they are at. I don’t want the guys to play afraid. I also think another part of it is sometimes you dance with the person who brought you. So if someone is a starter, you play that game out with the player that's starting and you mix some guys in, but you put him out there, and then you go from there.”

On the red zone run game
“I think we have attached a lot of RPOs to them but we haven't really hit on the RPOs. At the end of the game, we went to our last RPO to Heinrich (Haarberg) that we did on 4th and 1 and that one worked. They gave us an edge pressure blitz look on the little speed sweep shovel pass and we just didn’t quite come off the ball enough. We kind of just sat there and tried to catch the blitz instead of coming off the ball. I think the 3rd and 3, I basically said hey we have two downs to run the ball three yards and I thought we kind of came off the ball looking to see what they were going to do instead of coming off the ball. Let me just say this, all very frustrating so when I say it in this tone I am not minimizing it and I am not saying it is okay but I am just saying it is what it is. When I talk to you guys I try to be very football based, like this is the struggle and this is the problem, this is the issue so we are kind of down here looking to pick up all the blitzes they are going to bring us as opposed to rocking off the ball and knocking it back. I think some of it has been the RPOs and we had our chances down there. I think in general we had to play better up front. That's everybody – that's the tight end, that's the backs – to win that game.”