Nebraska Football
Postgame Quotes vs. UCLA
Nov. 2, 2024 (Lincoln, Neb.)
UCLA 27, Nebraska 20

Opening Statement
“We’re obviously very disappointed. A tremendous missed opportunity for us. That was a game we had every opportunity to win. Even when we got down, we clawed our way back in it. Didn’t make the plays we needed to make. Credit to them.”

On offensive difficulties
“They did a good job early on of coming out, bringing four guys in the B-gaps and bringing the free safety behind. Some of the mechanisms we have to handle that are the screen game, and our gapping it up, and trying to throw the ball down the field. Eventually we got to one with (Isaiah) Neyor where he hit them down the field and got them a little bit out of that. They took the ball and went on a long drive. We went three and out, and they went on another long drive. We had seen that against Rutgers. That’s kind of how they play early on in the first half. Rutgers only had three possessions. We were able to hit the big play to make it a 7-0 game. But I think in general in the passing game, when it came to converting third downs, they were just all out zero blitzing us, and we weren’t answering it the way that you need to. We finished the game like 9-17 on third down. In the first half at one point it was one for a lot. We struggled, made the adjustment early, got it kind of finally taken care of in the second half and were able to stay on the field more. Down in the red zone, first time down there we scored, really the one before the half where we put the ball at the two. We’d been running the power play. We lost Barret (Liebentritt) so we put Elijah Jeudy in at fullback. He was doing a great job. He went down… then just finding the play to get in. They maxed us again, zeroed us up, and we just didn’t withstand it. In terms of everything that went wrong, in the first half I came up to the guys in the locker room and said, ‘That’s about as bad of football as you can withstand between the offense and defense, and yet it was 13-7.’ We were excited to go out and play in the second half, and then unfortunately had that pick six. But still crawled back into it, so there’s a lot of things that we have to continue to work on.”

On what UCLA’s defense did to get NU off-balance
“UCLA came down the field and scored the first drive off Rutgers. I believe they scored on the first drive against Minnesota. They have a veteran quarterback who’s trying to find his rhythm in that offense. They won on third down against man. They threw the shallow cross, they threw the corner route. We were able to hold them to a field goal, but we just couldn’t get off the field early on in that series. The second time through, we really couldn’t get off the field either. I pulled all the guys up and told them that we had a sack and we just kind of fell off of him and he ran out. We had another one where he blitzed five and he went up the A-gap for about 60 yards. There were a lot of little things that aren’t really about talent, but just kind of us making the play that needs to be made. I thought we settled down a little bit after that. I think (Ethan) Garbers’ legs hurt us. We came into it knowing that they move the ball early. The key to people has been wearing them down in the fourth quarter. That game was a carbon copy of their Minnesota game where Minnesota got the ball back and went down the field. They just made one more play to win the game. Unfortunately, Heinrich (Haarberg) makes the fourth down stop. We get down there and we take a penalty and we lose time and we don’t make the plays.” 

On UCLA’s interception in the fourth quarter
“He (Dylan Raiola) was under duress in the first half, and I think any young quarterback coming out of that would start to see a lot. The old saying, you see a lot, you see a little, you see a little, you see a lot. I think he wasn't comfortable. I won’t speak for him, but with all of the things he was seeing, I don’t think he was real comfortable. That was a play-action pass down to Thomas (Fidone) down the middle of the field, into cover two, he was running free was going to be an explosive play, and behind him was an incut and he threw the incut. Credit to him, I thought after that he settled down, we found some run game. A lot of that was what we had seen people do against them. They withstand the early storm against UCLA and their script and then you make the plays to get back into the game. Unfortunately, that pick six and the missed opportunity down the red zone the first time, that hurt us and set it apart.”