Nebraska Football
Postgame Quotes vs. Michigan State
Oct. 4, 2025 (Lincoln, Neb.)
Nebraska 38, Michigan State 27

Opening statement
“Credit to Michigan State, I thought they played really hard. Their quarterback was magnificent while he was able to go, disappointed in how the game ended with the last drive defensively but other than that I thought we played really well. We held them to under 100 yards rushing. He’s a good player, and we knew he’d make some plays. Offensively, we were out of rhythm for a long time after that first drive. They made the decision to take the wind in the third quarter, so we had it in the fourth. The big play I thought was the wheel route to Jacory (Barney Jr.) to get us going at the end of the third, and then we had the wind in the fourth. I planned on taking the ball to have the wind in the fourth for a game-winning field goal, but they gave it to us anyway. Probably a good decision by them, they scored two touchdowns with it, but we were able to win the game in the fourth. We scored 38 points, not the cleanest game we’ve ever had, so we’ll try to get better.”

On biggest takeaways from the game
“I think they are all going to be like that in the Big Ten. Did Penn State lose to UCLA? I know I say it and everyone rolls their eyes at me, but like this is what every week is going to be like in the Big Ten now. You're going all over the country, and every game is going to be a battle. The win had somewhat of an effect on both teams today. You can see even in the punt game, you know just the field position, we kept hanging the ball up, it was going 25 yards. Part of the reason we went for the fake punt, that’s not on accident, that’s on me. I'll take responsibility for that. I thought we had a great shot on a big play and their kid made a nice play so credit to them. “

On special teams play and the blocked punt touchdown
“We had the punt return and the punt return for the touchdown, and fortunately came back. We said we were going to block a punt, credit to Jamir Conn. He prepared all week to block that punt. We told the team he was going to block the punt, not we hope he blocks the punt. ‘Hey, go block that punt.’ We said he’s going to block that punt. He blocked that punt, Carter (Nelson) scored the touchdown. We should’ve scored again on the second one. If I’m being honest, the punt fake was the right call. We’re going to put the ball in our guys’ hands with the chance to make plays. We still had them stopped on that drive. It was fourth-and-four. We came unblocked. We trust our defense. We’re not going to just make our decisions based on results. We trust our players and that’s the biggest thing. That game to me was UCLA last year. That felt like that at the half. It felt like ‘C’mon guys, c’mon guys.’ And they went after it. They didn’t just sit back. They just kept battling and fighting and battling and fighting. That was my challenge to our guys. 60 minutes of us playing hard. It’s going to be hard for teams to withstand, and in the end it’s basically a 17-point win. We’re losing at the end of the third quarter and we win by 17. Unfortunately, we lost the last drive." 

On the offensive play after Michigan State took the lead
“My whole point was just get to the fourth quarter with the wind to our back, and we’re just gonna go win the fourth quarter. It was 3rd and 9, we were kind of out of rhythm, got him outside the pocket, and it was a great play design. We ran a similar play last [game], the one that Nyziah (Hunter) caught where he unfortunately stepped out of bounds, it was a different play but we just ran it off of that. It was a game plan play that worked, and I feel like when we put the ball in Dylan’s hands and Jacory Barney’s hands something good’s probably gonna happen, and they found a way to make it happen. After that obviously the kickoff was beneficial, I wanted to get to the fourth quarter by kicking into the wind. They misfielded that ball and that was a ten-point swing, obviously.”

On growth since last year
“We’re not trying to prove anything to anybody, that’s the biggest thing for us. Our guys have done a good job at blocking out everything, that’s the second game in a row we’ve been booed at home. Our guys are mad, Dylan (Raiola) is yelling at the crowd, I’m like don’t yell at the crowd. They paid their money to come here, They’re paying $12 for a beer. It’s part of the game. Go play well, when you’re not playing well, go play well. We’re not trying to prove anything, we’re trying to play good football and it’s really hard, the Big Ten is hard. It’s not like we’re not focused, they have good players too, they gameplanned us too. I think the biggest thing is we just keep hanging in there and playing. I think this is a game in previous years we might have lost, or not went the way it went, but we end up with a 17-point lead and then we give up a touchdown and they’re mad afterwards. I like the mindset and where it’s headed. There’s a ton of things we have to clean up, there’s a ton of things we have to get better at. We are not a perfect team, we have to play around all of our things. I also say we show up every week, even when it’s not perfect, our guys show up, even the Iowa game last year you can’t say we didn’t show up, so our guys show up every week, since that UCLA game last year. This is that first game that kind of felt sneaky, even at half time the coaches kept saying come on defense, come on, we need pep talks? I mean, they scored seven points, what are we talking about here? It’s just growing, I thought John Butler was awesome today, like on the headset he was fiery, he was scary almost, like the Philly in him came out. I thought a lot of our guys hunted and played well. Like I said, this team (Michigan St.) scored a bunch of points last week against USC, they’re a good team." 

On the pass rush and defense
“It looked like we were getting there, they had everything they could to slow you down, they were running the zone reads and stuff that slows you down, because you’re trying to play all that… so it looked like we were getting there a lot, but again, our whole focus this week, our whole defensive focus was stop the run, no big plays to one (Omari Kelly) and six (Nick Marsh), and tackle two (Aidan Chiles). And so we held them under 100 yards rushing I know we’re not a very good rushing defense, but we were today, and I mean that sincerely, we haven’t been a good run defense - well today we were, and so that’s a challenge to our guys, but then the quarterback - we didn’t tackle the quarterback well enough. I’ve said it on record many times, I love this team - even at the end, I was very positive and then Ceyair (Wright) got up and he was furious about that last drive where we let that backup quarterback move the ball down the field, so they’re hungry for more. But I don’t want to minimize how good two (Aidan Chiles) is, I think he’s excellent, and he’s done that to everybody, and because we stopped the run it became more of a dropback-type game, a movement game, and he was able to make plays - he’s a good player."