On this week and it being senior week
“It's good to see everybody, obviously it's senior week for us, short week, got back late Sunday morning, had our first real real practice, a true Tuesday practice today, so I thought the guys came out with great energy, optimism, and excitement about what lies ahead. The game will come quickly Friday at 11, so we will be excited to go try to play our best game so with that, I will see what questions you guys have.

On this week's schedule
“We will just do a normal week, we just move everything up a day, so on Thursday, Thanksgiving, that will be a traditional Friday for us, which is a walk-through and meetings in the morning, and we will cut them loose for a little bit, then bring them back to the hotel and do our normal hotel on Thursday night.”

On the education of the younger athletes on the rivalry game
“I think a lot of that happens from peer to peer, player to player. I think they understand just how much this game means to us but I think more importantly than anything else its to me last year, it was a great honor to be able to send the seniors from last year out as winners, beating Wisconsin for the first time in 12 years or so. For this group, I think there are 19 seniors that we will honor before the game. Half that class has been here the whole time, you know so some guys – Javin (Wright), I think this is like his third senior day or something like that so they’re vets at it. But I think more importantly than anything else is that we just want to show tremendous brotherhood, play really well for them. We have a lot of respect for the opponent, we know what it means to play them, but as much as anything else, it's us taking a step forward as a team and playing well for them.”

On bad blood between Iowa and Nebraska
“I don’t know how they feel about us. I respect any coach that's done what they have done as long as that and I think all of us are just focused on us right now. At the end of the day, it's about trying to win a game, two years in a row I've watched them kick a field goal to win it and walk off the field and watch them celebrate. They tell us, hey have a merry Christmas because they knew we weren't going to a bowl so to the victor belongs to the spoils. I respect them, and I respect the way they play, I respect their coaches, and I respect Phil Parker more than probably any other coach in college football, so there's no bad blood for me at least.”

On how this game matters to their record and season
“I’d like to win every game we play, and it's why I love these seniors so much. We came here with an intention of building a program that would be built to last and not build on short-term results. That doesn't mean we don’t want results, we desperately want results, but they have done a lot of things that I think they have – a lot of these guys were here when I got here and they were here at a fragile time with a fragile program and you know they have been a part of building infrastructure. They stood in the gap, they haven't panicked, they have stayed here with us and they have played a lot of good football. You know we are not where we want to be, we want to be National Champions right. That’s not National Champions, this is not a National Championship season for us. A lot of people do nowadays they just try to create super teams, they just run and go try and go somewhere else, there was a day where we all went and played for our local high school. We played for the team that we loved. I think of Javin Wright and those guys like they have stood here and committed to being here and then when I think of the guys who have transferred in, they have embraced our way of doing things so yes it would be a great great step for us to win this game. My focus is just purely on this game. My focus has just been on every game each week, but for this week – we play Iowa every year and so I have not yet as the head coach here produced a win so I am going to focus on that.”