Huskers Focus on Wake Forest

Lincoln - Coach Bill Callahan and the Nebraska football team welcomed the media to Memorial Stadium for the Huskers' weekly press conference at the Don Bryant Media Facility to discuss their upcoming game with the Wake Forest Demon Deacons on Saturday.  Kickoff for Saturday's game is set for 6:10 p.m., with national television coverage provided by TBS. Huskers.com offers complete coverage, including transcripts of Coach Callahan's press conference and quotes from selected Nebraska players.

Callahan's quotes are available in the following text, while quotes from individual Husker players can be accessed by clicking on the page numbers at the top of this page.  A link for Nebraska's weekly pregame notes is also available at the top of this page.

Nebraska Football
Weekly Press Conference
Sept. 6, 2005
Head Coach Bill Callahan<?xml:namespace prefix="o" ns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"?>

Opening Statement
"As a staff we just finished looking at <?xml:namespace prefix="U1"?><?xml:namespace prefix="st1" ns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"?>WakeForest, and we’re getting prepared for the contest this weekend. Overall, when you look at this team that’s coming in here on Saturday night, it is a well-coached, solid team with excellent fundamentals. They are excellent in all areas. They present some challenges that are unique for what we do here, but overall as you look at this team and its ability to run the ball, it is impressive.

Coach (Jim) Grobe has been there now, I believe, four or five years, and they have won the rushing titles in the ACC (Atlantic Coast Conference) for three years. I believe he has a record of running the ball and capturing the conference rushing crown eight consecutive times in his career. That’s very impressive, and it’s obvious where they’re going to put their emphasis and where they’re going to establish their core in terms of the game plan.

As you saw last week against Vanderbilt, they rushed the ball over 250 yards, and that’s the second-best total by a back in WakeForest history. They present us a really unique challenge on defense. I know that Coz (NU Defensive Coordinator Kevin Cosgrove), Bill (Busch), John (Blake) and Phil (Elmassian) are really excited about that challenge. They’re a good football team, and they’re young. They’re a very young football team, especially on the defensive side.

They run well, present problems with a lot of pressures. They are a multiple-front team. As you watch this team and watch the substitution that comes on and off the field in this game, you’ll know there will be several people involved in their defensive scheme. They present a lot of problems for an offense in general. Overall, we’re looking forward to the challenge. Our team gets back to work today, and that’s where our focus is."

On Nebraska's blocking 

"It’s going to be huge. Again, as I mentioned yesterday to the media in the teleconference, that our rushing attack was off by one or two blocks here and there. One thing is that you can see where we can improve it, and then obviously it’s another thing to go out and do it. Those blocks are crucial. One missed assignment or block that happened on Saturday night is going to be crucial to get rectified in order for us to have success this week."

On Wake Forest's offensive scheme
"I don’t think it’s unconventional at all. I think years ago it used to be. Coach Grobe’s career began at Air Force, and he took that mentality to OhioUniversity. When he went to Ohio U, he ran the ball and led the country in rushing, I believe, one of the years he was there as head coach. He’s adopted this philosophy of establishing a run.

Gradually as he got to WakeForest, I believe that you see on film that he’s gotten away from some of the things that he used to do, but he’s still successful in the element of running the football and being committed to it to that end. He’s going to run the football 40-50 times a game, and it’s pretty standard zone blocking schemes. There are some counter schemes; there are some pulling schemes where the tackles are involved, and then the quarterback they have at WakeForest is certainly a weapon.

You watch him perform and his ability to run the football and to make plays on the perimeter ? that’s where they create an edge for themselves. The spread offense ? the way people are spreading teams out nowadays ? it has significantly changed. When you put a quarterback under the center and spread out four wide receivers, the defense has to obviously defend the field. What that does is it limits the number of people or defenders that are inside that tackle box. What happens is that if you have a quarterback who is a ball carrier, he becomes that extra ball carrier, so it’s hard to numerically match what they have in terms of their blockers and also the advantage they have with an extra lead blocker being that one back. That’s the difference I see.

It makes it hard to defend against the run, and when you do commit that extra defender into the box against that run, you become a little bit more vulnerable in the passing game. Things have changed. It’s ever-evolving, but this spread offense and the concept of the spread offense in college football has really challenged a lot of defensive coordinators. It allows for more offensive skill players to get on the field."

On the strengths of both teams matching up

"Well, we’ll see. Again, our challenge this week is to stop the run, and that’s not a secret. I’m sure they’re going to be coming in here with a good mindset. They dropped the home opener to a good Vanderbilt team. They’re coming in here, they’re upset, they’re mad, and that’s understandable. They’re coming in here with a chip on their shoulder coming into Nebraska. They’ve won big games on the road before. Looking at their history, they’ve won at BostonCollege, they’ve won at North Carolina, they’ve won at Georgia Tech. They’re accustomed to going on the road and winning big, so that’ll be our challenge ? to jump on them early.

It will be a four-quarter game. There’s no question in my mind that it will go down to four quarters. That’s somewhat of a standard of how they operate. Their games always go into the fourth quarter. If you look at their recent history, I believe out of their six losses last year, all of them were under seven points or less. Two of those games went into overtime, so this is a real challenge.

This is a team and an offense that loves to run the ball, that likes to eat up the clock and wants to limit your possessions on offense. It’s important to establish a lead. Let’s face it, they understand that, and we understand that. We have to jump on the board. You like to get ahead early and lead late, but you have to know it’s going to be a four-quarter game."

On Nebraska's changes in the off-season 
"I think there is just more definition across the board. As I look at our coverage and evaluate our run technique, you just can’t get enough work on fundamentals, especially in college football. You are limited with time, but the fundamental techniques of what we’re trying to execute, that’s what it comes down to. Guys are using their hands and trying to get off blocks. We’re going to have to get off blocks faster, quicker, better than we last weekend.

I would tell you that just the fundamental techniques of each position are what’s more defined right now. It’s still early. As you progress, you want to see improvement. You want to see how your team is going to react to the challenges and obviously a challenge is of consistency."

On running multiple defenses
"I think there is a simplicity.  There’s a belief in simplicity.  There’s no confusion with simplicity.  We want to have a defense that has the ability to show complex looks.  I thought our coverages were well disguised.  I feel like if we had to, we could have called more defenses, but I don’t think the situation warranted that or necessitated that sort of play from our defense.  We certainly have a full package of things.  Of course you’ve got to look out for teams like we’re playing this weekend, like Wake Forest. 

They’re going to come out with an assortment of things.  They’ll come out in a no-huddle offense and they’ll essentially run the game from the line of scrimmage.  You’ll see their quarterback run the play from the shot gun.  He’ll get everybody lined up and he’ll actually get your defense ready to play and he’ll back off and wait for a call from the press box on what play to run."

On linebacker Lance Brandenburgh moving to middle linebacker
"We wanted to add depth at that position.  We had Andy Kadavy in that role as well.  He’s able to go there.  We still have some flexibility with Dontrell Moore.  He’s playing the Mike linebacker.  There is an opportunity for Lance to possibly get on the field and help up in that capacity.  He is a physical player.  Unfortunately he hasn’t been as durable as he would like to be and as we would want. 

As he’s coming off this injury, it’s advantageous for him to help us there because of his stature especially on that weak side.  It’s a play-making position, and we feel confident that he’ll do well.  He’s a physical guy that can take on the run.  Some of the nuances of that position may be new to him, but he’s a smart player and we have a lot of confidence in him."

On analyzing Nebraska's secondary
"We had a good chance to watch them and watch our coverage techniques.  The thing that I came away with is that we’re more defined on what we’re asking the kids to do from a coaching standpoint.  We can see what we’re doing and the players have really accepted those techniques, and they believe in them and they are performing them well.  You can see that on film.  You can see definition of technique.  When you can see definition of what you’re asking a player to do, it stands out.  It definitely makes for good morale and good production."

On place-kicker Jordan Congdon's performance
"He responded well to the crowd.  For a freshman to come on the field in front of the crowd that we have at Nebraska and to perform the way that he did, I thought, was exceptional.  He missed the PAT, but he made four consecutive field goals.  I think he had a little bit of the jitters, but with each kick that he made he got more comfortable and more relaxed. 

I was glad to see him kick four field goals because that will just give him more confidence as we move on and progress to obviously hit some pressure field goals in the future.  His kickoffs were outstanding.  His placement and location of where we wanted the ball was exact.  I can’t tell you how important that is to our coverage because we’re essentially trying to squeeze the kick and minimize the returns that an opponent has.  To have that ball where it was put on Saturday really helped our net get to the ball and surround the returner."

On punt returners Terrence Nunn and Cortney Grixby sharing time

"We’ll continue on with the rotation we used on Saturday night.  We’re going to continue in that vein.  We really sat down and discussed how much and how often we want to make those subs based on the way the game is going.  I think what you saw the other night was a little different in the amount of times that they punted and the number of returns that we had factored into that.  I think looking at two players that are starters, one at corner and one at wide receiver, that necessitates a lot of running and they don’t get a lot of breaks obviously. 

So we try to be smart with the weather and the humidity so that we’re not wearing them out so that when the time called to rotate them in that’s what we did and they were open to that and I thought it proved pretty successful."

On quarterback Zac Taylor's performance

"All I know is from our perspective is that we want him to play the way he’s capable of playing.  We just want him to perform and coming off Saturday night he’s resolved to improve what needs to be corrected.  Some of the things that we saw are that he hung the ball out a little bit on the outside lane throws, and I think his ability to offset the ball on those throws is going to be important. 

In the first half, he threw the ball to Frantz Hardy early in the game where he offset the ball from the boundaries of the receiver and let the receiver run into it.  The timing is starting to begin, but a little bit later on in the game he was aiming throws.  He was trying to be a little too exact on his placement instead of just cutting loose on his throwing like he did in the first half.  He knows exactly where he needs to improve and there’s no doubt in our minds that he’ll accomplish that."

On defensive back Zack Bowman's performance

"He did well.  He’s an outstanding athlete.  Not to take anything away from him, but I thought all of our corners played well. (Cortney) Grixby and Tierre (Green), they all played well.  I thought they got a little gassed from doing a lot of running, but when they’re also on special teams, and you’re trying to prove that facet you have a tendency to wear some guys out.  So we’re cautious.  Overall we thought that they played well."

On rethinking special teams participation following linebacker Steve Octavien's injury 
"

I feel that we play to win.  We’ve got 11 opportunities and we want to put our best players on the field and if it necessitates a starter, it’s a starter.  That’s part of being a team player.  We don’t segment who can go on, we don’t put backups only on certain phases of the kicking game because we don’t treat it like that.  It’s a third of the game.  We treat it like that in practice in our preparation and in the game.  So our best players will play."

On the health of the team 

"I think we’re healthy right now.  So far, so good.  We haven’t practiced yet this week so nothing has come up of any significance other than the normal bruises and bumps than you get from a game."

On the Big 12 Conference's performance last week 

"It’s a weird cycle.  I think that college football is cyclical and I’ve seen enough to know that the more we move on in the future coaching, communication, teaching and the instruction of fundamentals, it’s all out there.  That’s the type of age we live in.  There are no secrets.  Years ago I would have said that those types of teams didn’t have the access to maybe a pro staff or a college staff.  But now there’s so much communication out there and coaches have great relationships across the country. 

It just shows me that there are quality coaches on all levels, and you get guys of the same age and same stature, anything can happen.  We understand that in an opener especially, your team’s timing isn’t exactly quite there.  You’re integrating a lot of people into your program so some teams will be better than others.  I would never want to disrespect a team from a lower division.  I’ve seen too many upsets not only this year, but over the years."

On individual breakdowns on blocking 

"At different points in the game there were some breakdowns.  There wasn’t a consistency of breakdowns by one particular individual.  It just so happened every now and then.  You miss a block, whether it’s a reach block or a landmark or a target or a hand placement, those things happen.  We just have to be more defined and more exact and more consistent through the long haul.  Not everybody’s going to get blocked every play and we know that.  It’s just more of a consistency factor right now than anything."

On Jerry Rice's retirement from the NFL 

"He is the greatest of all time because of the way he looks at the game of football.  He looks at it like a little kid still.  He’s got that passion and he still has a lot of pride in the game of football.  When I was with him (with the Oakland Raiders) he was just invaluable in our locker room to all the younger players.  Game day was a real treat because he’d be the first guy in the locker room and he’d lay a towel down by his locker and he’d put everything in order.  The whole way that he prepared himself before a game, both mentally and physically, was really impressive."

On the importance of victory margin 

"The margin of victory is an overrated statistic.  I have a great respect for the game of football.  I don’t get into lines or margins of victory.  I don’t look at that.  I look at it as you either win or you lose.  It was still a team game the last time I checked and there are three phases of the game that arrive at that conclusion.  Some teams are better than others.  I just look at my history of being in the NFL for close to 10 years, and I’ve seen kids come in from all different types of schools.  I’ve seen kids from a wide range of programs.  If you can play, you can play.  There are certainly players at every level and that’s why they scout.  People are looking for these types of players and if you happen to have a few more on your football team than you’re going to win."