Quarterback Zac Taylor

Nebraska Weekly Press Conference
Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2006
Memorial Stadium - Lincoln, Neb.
Pre-Missouri

 

Quarterback Zac Taylor

On Missouri’s defense

“They’re solid.  They have a lot of talent.  They lost Brian Smith and he’s one of their big-time guys, so that hurts them, but they’ve played with everyone they’ve faced and it’s going to be one of the tougher tests of the season, that’s for sure.”

 

On his health

“(I feel) good.  I’m as healthy as I’ve ever been.”

 

On losing the last two games

“It’s been a tough two weeks.  Both games, we could have won, but we just didn’t execute when we needed to.  It happens, but I’m really confident that the seniors will take over and we’ll bounce back.  We just have to take advantage of the next three games.”

 

On struggling in the second half

“I missed a couple throws.  I thought they were in pretty good coverage the whole game.  After watching the film, I didn’t feel like I missed guys that were wide open.  It’s tough.  OklahomaState came out and fed off their crowd.  That’s one of those teams, if they get momentum and they start getting fired up, that is tough to beat.  We just didn’t have the same momentum they had during the second half, and that just made it tough to get things going on offense.”

 

On the team’s “killer instinct”

“You kind of think you’re developing it, and then you lose a couple games.  It’s tough to say, but I definitely think that, once we get a lead, we feel like we can put a team away.  OklahomaState did a good job of fighting back.  They’re a second-half team.  We’ve known that all year and we talked about that before the game.  I think, going into that game, in their last three games they had scored 90 points in the second half and three in the first half.  We knew they were going to come out strong in the second half, and we just didn’t put them away like we should have.”

 

On Nebraska’s potential fatigue

“I think everyone gets a little worn down.  Every team in the country gets worn down at this time of year, but we’re fresh.  We had yesterday off and most of Sunday off, so I think that this week will be one of our better weeks of practice.  I think everyone realizes that needs to happen, so the focus will be pretty sharp.”

 

On the mindset of Nebraska going into the Missouri

“We need this game, more than ever.  We’ve always needed to beat Missouri, but we know that our season is on the line here and this is a game where we know we’re going to have to step and everyone is going to have to play their best game of the year.  If that doesn’t motivate you, there are some problems there.  But I think everyone is going to be motivated by this game this week.”

 

On the offense’s struggles in the second half vs. OklahomaState

“You have to give a lot of credit to the OklahomaState defense.  They have some great athletes out there, and they were timing out their blitzes really well.  It was just tough.  It was one of those things where you get out of rhythm and everyone is on the sidelines, trying to pick it up.  We all knew what we needed to do.  For whatever reason, it didn’t happen.  It’s just the whole offense on that one, and they’re some things we’re going to correct.”

 

On facing Missouri’s run defense

“They play some cover-two and they put seven in the box.  They can come up and hit you.  That’s the thing I saw on the film.  That running back from Oklahoma (Allen Patrick), he had some good runs, but he got lit up a couple times too.  They run down and hit, so it’s going to be tough.  We’ve had success running the ball all year, so that’s something that we’re going to try to do on them.  It’ll be tough.  I know it’s going to be their biggest game of the year.  It’s going to be our biggest game of the year. You throw all that stuff out the window and just get ready to play on Saturday.”

 

On the mood of the team

“We’re hungry.  We haven’t won in the last two weeks, and we were getting used to winning there for a while.  Everybody wants to finish out this season on a good note, and it starts with Missouri.  This is the biggest game of the year to this point, and we really need this win, so we’re hungry for it.”

 

On the importance of the Missouri game for Nebraska

“Everybody is obviously disappointed with losing the last two weeks, especially with that loss to OklahomaState, but guys realize what’s on the line.  Young guys know what’s going on.  I think everybody has confidence that we can get it done.  It’s just going to take full preparation from everybody.  As long as everybody is focused, we’re going to be fine this week.”

 

On playing in higher-scoring games

“The biggest thing in that OklahomaState is that we should have scored early in the third quarter.  If we had put together some longer drives and put some points on the board, it probably would have been a different game.  It kind of gets OklahomaState down and lets them know that we’re not going to go away, so it kills their momentum a bit.  That’s just something we need to do better at against Missouri.  If you get a team down, you have to have that killer instinct and put teams away in the third quarter.  That’s something we didn’t do against OklahomaState.”

 

On spreading the ball around among Nebraska’s offensive players

“Maurice (Purify) had more catches than the other guys last game, but I thought on that last drive, we spread the ball around a little bit and we went down the field and scored points.  Maurice is a big guy and he poses some matchup problems, so when he’s out there one-on-one, guys are a little scared to press him up, so he gets a few more opportunities.  There’s other receivers working hard and they’re going to have their chances.  They know that.  This week, who knows, Maurice might not have any catches and someone else might have 10 catches, so those guys are still going to work hard and we’ll get the ball to them.”

 

On the team’s chemistry at this point in the season

“We’re still together as a team.  We’re as much a team as we’ve ever been, and we realize that we need to come even closer together this week to get it done.  There are no disgruntled players or people pointing fingers or anything like that.  We understand that all three phases lost that game.  We need to come together and focus and get this win under our belt.”

 

On using experiences from last year’s struggles to help this year

“We’ve been in situations like this before and we’ve shown that we can rebound from them and turn our season around.  Hopefully, this is like that Kansas game last year and we rebound and finish strong the rest of the year, and I have confidence that we can do that.”