Quarterback Zac Taylor

Nebraska Weekly Press Conference
Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2006
Memorial Stadium - Lincoln, Neb.
Pre-Oklahoma State

Quarterback Zac Taylor
On playing against Oklahoma State
“It’ll be neat to go back to Oklahoma, go home and play in front of some friends who haven’t gotten to watch me play.  That’ll be cool, but other than that, it’s just another Big 12 team I’m playing against.”

On rebounding from a loss
“We were disappointed after that loss (to Texas), like we should’ve been, but it’s behind us now and we know that we have four tough games ahead of us.  Going to Stillwater is going to be a tough game.  It’s a good team and it’s going to be a tough environment.”

On initially verbally committing to play at OklahomaState
“It was a Big 12 school, the only Big 12 offer that I had.  At the time, Coach (Les) Miles was there, and I had a good relationship with those guys.  It was close to home and I was going to get a chance to play.  Then, Josh Fields came on strong, right before I had to sign.  He came in and beat Oklahoma as a true freshman.  I didn’t want to be behind him.  He was a great quarterback and I didn’t want to be stuck there with him.”

On playing at Oklahoma State
“It’s going to be tough.  The stands feel like they’re right up on you, and everyone is going to be wearing orange.  They can get pretty loud and they’re going to be pretty excited with Nebraska coming in.  They always get up for big games like that.  It’s going to be similar to what we saw to K-State.  They were a loud crowd, and I think that’s pretty much the environment we’re going to walk into.”

On the resiliency of the 2006 Nebraska football team
“This team is very resilient.  We’ll be down in games, but we’re always going to fight back.  I think that, for the last two years, we’ve shown everyone that.  We’ve shown that we’re never going to give up in a game and that we’ll always be there to the end.  I think that we’ll bounce back really well from that last loss.  It’s tough, but we’ll just do what we did after we lost to USC, when we won the next couple of games.  Hopefully, we can mirror that pattern after this one.”

On learning from last year’s 1-3 stretch after the Texas Tech loss
“It’s tough to compare last year to this year, because the overall feeling is so much different.  We’re an older, much more mature team this year.  We have a completely different mindset.  We just feel a lot more comfortable and we feel a whole lot better than we did last year, so I expect us to bounce back and give OklahomaState a tough game.”

On Nebraska’s road success
“We’re really confident on the road now.  Last year, we struggled on the road.  Until the end of the season, we hadn’t won many games out there.  But already this season, we’ve beaten IowaState and K-State, so we feel really comfortable with our whole road situation now.”

On his performance against Texas
“I thought it wasn’t one of my better games.  Especially in the second quarter, I was really disappointed.  I felt like I rushed my throws when I was moving around the pocket and missed some throws that I really should have made.  On the interception (in the second quarter), I should have known better and just thrown the ball away and not tried to make a play in that situation.  In the second half, our offense really stepped up.  We made some plays.  We were going against a really good defense.  I wasn’t thrilled after the game with how I played, but I’m confident that I’ll bounce back this week.”

On the defense’s adjustments this season against Nebraska
“It’s tough to say because we’re playing so many different teams than what we played last year.  We’re getting what we expected out of a lot of teams.  Texas ran exactly what we expected them to run.  It wasn’t anything we hadn’t prepared for.”

On the effect of the conditions Saturday on his performance
“I can’t blame a lot of my bad throws on it, but there were one or two when we were going into the wind.  There was one on an out route where I threw the ball over Terrence (Nunn’s) head where I was trying to overcompensate.  I didn’t want it to get caught up in the wind, so I just threw it little too hard and it just got to where they couldn’t get it.  There were a couple of times where it did affect me, but it was the same way for Texas, too.  There were a couple of times where I could tell that Colt (McCoy) was having the same problems.”

On the team’s support for Terrence Nunn after his fourth-quarter fumble
“He knows (the team supports him).  He’s a leader on this team.  He’s just a junior, but everyone looks at him as a leader.  He’s a playmaker.  It’s tough.  You feel bad when that happens to somebody just because it was just an unfortunate situation.  He turns around and the guy gets his helmet right where it needs to be.  I can’t say that I wouldn’t have done the same thing in that situation.  I fumbled earlier in the game.  It’s just tough for him, but he’ll bounce back.  He’s a strong guy and he knows that he can still make plays out there.”

On his confidence to have a breakout game
“I just don’t feel like I’ve played the game I’m capable of playing.  I’m missing too many throws that I make in practice and I’m comfortable making and, for whatever reason, I’m just missing them.  Hopefully, this is the game I play the game I’ve been waiting for.  But our offense and our running game has been doing so well that it’s taken the pressure off of me and I haven’t had to do unbelievable things.  It’s nice that I have all this talent around me and I don’t have to be the one out there making plays, but I would like to play better down the stretch.”

On his decision-making and game management
“I feel a lot better than I did last year.  I feel a lot more confident in reading blitzes.  I feel like this was the first game that I knew exactly what was going to happen.  The offensive line was seeing it and I was seeing it and we were on the same page, especially in the second half.  I’m as confident as I’ve ever been and I feel at ease back there.”

On his confidence in Nebraska’s offensive line to pass-block for him
“I don’t lose faith at all.  I think the problem was Texas had a great front four.  They’re going to get pressure against anyone that they play against and I was just rushing too many of my throws.  In the second half, we all settled down.  We all realized that we’re a good team, also, and that we have a great offense and we just settled down and did a better job of protecting for the blitz.”

On scrambling
“The biggest thing I see on film is that there are times when I run and I think that I’ll get a couple of yards when I would have been better off just throwing the ball away.  I think I could take some of those hits off myself.  I was a little sore Sunday.  I should throw the ball out of bounds and just save myself a little bit.  The coaches tell me I should slide a little more and my teammates tell me the same thing.  I’ll probably start taking that advice.”

On criticizing himself
“I think I’m my toughest critic.  I walk away from the game thinking about all the bad passes I made instead of all the good things I did.  I think every quarterback is the same way.  You’re going to be your harshest critic.  I wish I played better Saturday, but I have a lot of opportunities left to make for that.”