Nebraska Players
vs. Oklahoma
Saturday, Oct. 29, 2005
Postgame Quotes
Wide Receiver Nate Swift
On the offensive changes in the second half
"I think everyone came together. The line came together and blocked a lot better, picked up all the blitzes. We talked about it at halftime. Everyone just came together and fought hard."
On the feeling in the locker room after the loss
"I don't think everyone is going to get real down about the game. It is our rival game. It's Oklahoma, and you really want to beat them, and I know everyone out there wanted us to beat them. It's a real tough loss, but I think we'll bounce back. Hopefully we can get a win next week."
On the challenges the offense faced
"This game we had a lot of close calls and close misses for the passes. Zac (Taylor) was getting rushed all game, and he had to get out of the pocket and scramble. That, in turn, makes us scramble and get off our routes. It was kind of a running around, trying to get open, trying to find the hole. It's a lot harder that way and a lot harder to find a guy wide open because you don't know where he's going to be. Definitely, we did miss a couple just by inches."
Cornerback Cortney Grixby
On the attitude in the locker room after the game
"A loss is a loss, and no one likes it, so it's not too good of an attitude. We have work to do, and the season isn't over."
On falling behind early in the game
"We keep digging ourselves in a hole, and it's making it hard for us to come out of. We're not giving up, and we keep pounding the rock, but we just can't put ourselves in a hole like that to start the game."
On holding Oklahoma for three downs and giving up a first down
"It gets frustrating, but they made plays. That's what they were doing. They made more plays than we did, so that's why the score was what it was."
Quarterback Zac Taylor
On preparing for Oklahoma
"It was a little more exciting before the game just thinking about playing against Oklahoma, and it's a big game for everybody at Nebraska. I don't think we felt any added pressure. We definitely needed to win that game, but we felt the same as usual."
On the pressure of OU's pass rush
"They brought some blitzes, but it wasn't anything special that we hadn't prepared for. My offensive line did a great job. We all made mistakes, and there were a lot of things I could help them out on. The sack was my fault, and so they played their tails off. I couldn't ask for anything else from them."
On the Taylor's incomplete pass to Nate Swift down the middle on Nebraska's final drive
"I think that play will probably haunt me for the rest of my life. It's tough. He was open, and just a little too much adrenaline, I guess. I would love to take that play back, but that's football. We'll bounce back."
On the wind being a factor on the field
"It was [a factor]. The first quarter was tough with both teams going into that wind. It was a tough wind. It was tough to throw those out-routes and things like that, but we were smart about play-calling. They didn't ask me to do a whole lot with my arm strength going into the wind."
On the offense falling behind
"It's tough. You want to be really balanced. When you're down 21-3, you want to put points on the board as quickly as possible. It's not a rush when it's the third quarter, but it's a lot easier to score on a seven-yard pass play than a seven-yard run play. We still ran the ball a little bit, and we had success doing it, but you just tend to throw the ball more in that situation."
Defensive lineman Jay Moore
On the difference in Nebraska's play between the two halves
"Well first of all, we came out flat. We didn't have enough enthusiasm and we just weren't fast enough. We went down 21-3 and when we came in at halftime guys started getting on each other saying 'Let's go. We have to make some plays.' So the energy got up and we started making plays and the offense scored. We were in there. We were in there."
On the presence of any carryover from the Missouri game
"No, I don't think you can look at that. I don't know. For some reason these last few games we've just come out really slow. I don't know what our deal is. We focus on that all week, you know, come out fast. But for some reason we can't get it done."
On Nebraska's dominance of Oklahoma's offensive game in the second half
"Yeah they really only had that one drive during the second half and we thought we had them on that too. I think that's when they ran the fake field goal and got us there. But kudos to them for calling that play. That's a big call right there. They called it to the block side so we didn't have much containment over there, so they made the play. So respect to them."
On OU running back Adrian Pederson
"He is a heck of a ballplayer. We weren't really sure if he was going to play today or not and he did. He got loose on us a few times. He's a hard man to take down. I had him a couple times and he's strong. He's a heck of a back, you know. He's by far the best we've played so far."
On continuing the second half momentum against Kansas next week
"We've got to. We've got to take the positives from this because you can't stress on the negatives. If you do, you're just going to start mowing yourself into a hole. You've just got to stick together and focus on the positives. Because we fought, you know, we fought all day. Now we've just got to get ready to take on Kansas. We have to get ready to go and play at KU which is a tough place to play."
Cornerback Cortney Grixby
On Nebraska's slow start
"We just had some problems. We missed some assignments and didn't play like we were supposed to. We just kept digging ourselves into a hole."
On not getting a holding call in a crucial part of the game
"I don't know. It was a hold and he didn't call it. We can't get all into that. It was just a play that didn't go our way. But we've got to come through that. Like I said, we can't keep digging ourselves into a hold and then expect to come out of it."
On whether the penalties were called equally
"They threw both ways for the most part. We just have to keep making plays. Some things went wrong, but I missed some plays and that's just how the game goes."
Wide Receiver Todd Peterson
On Nebraska's slow start
"We're just concentrating on saying we have to get out to a fast start and it just hasn't happened. We haven't been real consistent. We have to work on that. We keep saying that we need to be consistent."
On being frustrated for starting slow offensively
"It can be frustrating but, you know, it's not alway perplexing because usually you just execute and do your job whether its to run routes and get open or to make blocks for the running backs. It's just more a matter of execution than being confused as to why it's not working. It's just a matter of getting it done."
On whether the offense is essentially high risk, high reward
"Obviously, there's some high risk parts like the halfback pass today. That was pretty high risk, but it went well for us. But mostly, like I said, it's just getting out there and playing consistent football."