Coach Callahan Quotes

Nebraska Football
Weekly Press Conference
Memorial Stadium (Lincoln, Neb.)
Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2007
Pre-Ball State

Coach Bill Callahan

Opening Statement

“We’re back at it today.  We had a good film study with the team Sunday.  The players were off yesterday.  The coaches are working hard to correct some of the things that occurred in Saturday’s game.  We’re looking forward to this week and a good week of focus and preparation on BallState.”

 

On what was most discouraging from the film of the USC game

“It wasn’t so much discouraging as it was disappointing. I was disappointed in the obvious performance of the defense and how we played.  I think that was obvious.  I think it was concern going into the film study, but after the film study, I came out encouraged that it’s correctable.  There are a lot of areas that we were a player off or a technique off that we didn’t perform exactly correct.  I’m not trying to deflect any type of criticism to the players. I accept the full responsibility in that regard.  It still falls on my shoulders.  I do accept that.  We have some things to clean up.  It’s still a team effort, a team game. We’re all in this together. We’re upbeat and positive as we go into this week against BallState.”

 

On Nebraska’s mental approach after a loss

“Film was shown to the players as an entire team. We watched every side of the ball. I think, by and large, the team comes away with a clear understanding of what has to be improved and what we have to do on the practice field to alleviate what occurred on Saturday night. But there were some really good efforts. I’m not trying to sugarcoat it in any way. We’re not pleased with the performance. But (Zach) Potter gave a solid effort for us. I thought Steve Octavien played hard.  I think (Cortney) Grixby played hard and did some excellent things in terms of their individual performance.  But I think collectively, we can play much better team defense and much better team offense for that matter.”

 

On facing No. 1 USC

“I think we took our best shot and it didn’t work out. I think we can be better. It was not our best, that’s for certain. I really believe our kids will bounce back. The indicators that show that to me are the players being around the offices on their off-day.  If they didn’t really care about their performance, they would be at their houses, apartments or dorms. They do care and they’re hurt.  They want to rectify the error.  They’re caring and they’re concerned about what happened.  They want the best. I appreciate that about our team. I see nothing but positive efforts as we hit the practice field today.”

 

On potential personnel changes

“We’re going to compete this week for a lot of spots across the board, offensively and defensively. It’s too premature to make any statement relative to a change in personnel. We’re going to let these guys go out. We’re in full pads today. We’re going to get after it pretty good and we’ll get a good idea of where we’re at in that aspect of it, and then we’ll carry it over to tomorrow and Thursday.  We’ll let the week unfold, and then we’ll evaluate, measure and assess everything at the end of the week.  If there are changes to be made, there will be changes made. But that’s competition. That’s life. I think we can all accept that.”

 

On current non-starters who may see increased roles

“I would like to see our starters get better first before our backups. That’s really our focus right now, to try and get everyone as good as they can get and improve them as well as we can.  We do want the guys that are backing up to compete.  We want them to compete as hard as they can. That will be an interesting situation on the practice field this week. We’ll go bests against bests primarily during the week. It’ll be some good competition, to say the least.”

 

On the expected physicality of this week’s practices

“We’ll be as physical as we can get, in terms of practice field tempo.”

 

On understanding why USC defeated Nebraska

“That’s the main thing, is answering that question, is the ?why this broke down?’ and ?why this didn’t happen?’. Like I said yesterday, it’s really fundamental techniques. It’s not a generic term; it is a reality. It is a truth. When you break down fundamentally, you get hurt.  I’m not trying to disguise anything that’s going on. We need to get better technique-wise. Our fundamental techniques have to improve. When we ask a guy to knife, he has to knife. If we ask a guy to tighten down on tighten down on the inside leverage, he has to tighten down on the inside leverage. If you lose those responsibilities and techniques, they cost you. If we ask you to be in a certain gap against the run and you’re not, it hurts. Same thing on offense. It’s a function of team offense and team defense, you have to have great fundamentals. Our team works hard on them. Our coaches work extremely hard at fundamentals. To not see that (good fundamentals) happen, that’s disappointing. I think our players are more disappointed than anyone. We have to build them up again, encourage them, stay upbeat and get them going again this week.”

 

On emphasizing starters vs. starters in practice

“When you get out of training camp and you break down into scout teams, you don’t get that chance to go full against each other as much as you’d really like to. Just to get the competitive nature going and the maximum value of a practice, it helps, because there’s a lot of similarities in our next opponent (BallState) on both sides of the ball.  That allows you to do something like that.  There are instances where you have to break down into scout teams to get certain looks that your offense or defense doesn’t have.  An example is that, for the Navy game, I’m sure BallState worked against their scouts to prepare them for the option that they were going to have to defend. I think it’s different each week, and you have to gauge it. I also believe it’s a good opportunity to get our tempo cranked up to get out practicing hard on the practice field and really elevating our standard of play and let it carry over to the game.  That’s the big thing, to let it transfer from practice to performance.  That gap has to be narrowed down.  That’s why this decision was made.”

 

On the week of preparation leading into USC

“I thought the tempo was good. I thought it was very good. I thought our guys competed hard. I thought our scout team provided an excellent picture. I don’t think we got enough best-on-best.  As a coach, you don’t want to be so physical that you end up leaving it on the practice field. There’s a fine line. It’s a little bit of a juggling act.”

 

On the performance of Nebraska quarterback Sam Keller

“I thought Sam (Keller) competed hard. I thought he played well, with the exception of that one errant throw that he made on the slant lane. I think their defensive end was coming out of a fire zone into that area, and I don’t know if Sam saw him or not or if it was a clean passing lane to see him through. That was the only error we had, besides the deflected pass. But I think, by and large, he stood tough in the pocket, he made some plays outside the pocket that were pretty courageous. I felt he had excellent tempo. Our receivers did a great job for him, and that’s an extension of his performance. When your receivers are running full speed, running crisp routes and getting open, you have timing and rhythm. That makes it a lot easier for a quarterback. I thought Sam played well, but I have to compliment our wide receivers. I thought they played fast. I thought they matched SC’s secondary.  I thought they did some outstanding things in terms of ball skills and catching, receiving and blocking downfield. I was really pleased with that performance.”

 

On the importance of left guard Mike Huff and others after Andy Christensen’s injury

“They’re all valuable right now. It’s going to be an interesting battle this week with (Mike) Huff, (Matt) Slauson, (Jacob) Hickman and (Jordan) Picou. There’s going to be a lot of competition for those spots. That’s one area that we need to shore up. I thought our two tackles in the game played really well. I thought (Carl) Nicks and (Lydon) Murtha played really well against an outstanding defensive end Lawrence Jackson, who will probably get picked really high and be a dominant player in the NFL. I was very impressed with the way our guys blocked their defensive ends. Inside, we had some problems with (Sedrick) Ellis. I thought that was evident at times. He was a dominant player. We knew going into the contest that we had to play as physically as we could against a player of his caliber. Overall, I really believe our guys in a protection aspect on the edges provided some good time for Sam (Keller) to push the pocket and make the throws that he needed to make.”

 

On watching the game film as a team

“We normally break down by unit, because we don’t have time to get through what we need to get through. I just thought it was really important that everyone take a good look at both sides of the ball and understand what’s going on in a very honest approach. It wasn’t a rip session. It was just a ?let’s talk about these responsibilities here’.  Let’s get it corrected, that’s the main focus. I’ve done it in the past at certain times when I was at the pro level, where I grabbed a unit, grabbed the team and watched film and made the necessary corrections so that you can move forward and so that everyone knows what’s going on.  I think that it’s important that the entire team knows what’s going on so they can help each other and provide encouragement and support for each other as we hit the practice field. Otherwise, it’s kind of unknown entity about what’s going on. They’re not in the loop, and they need to be abreast of what’s going on so they have a clear idea of some of the concerns we have and also to point out the great things we did as well. There are always a lot of good things that you can point out in a performance. That’s also included in the critique.”

 

On being more involved with the defense

“I’ve been active with the defense. We have dialogue every day as a staff. One of the things we do is converse well with each other. It’s not as though we go off into our separate rooms and hide for a week and then come out for game day and talk about things. We’re pretty adamant about dialogue and very proactive about technical football in terms of the game on both sides of the ball. That crossover communication is a constant on our staff. That’s a real strength of our staff, to ask each other what they like and don’t like on the other side of the ball.”

 

On his advice Defensive Coordinator Kevin Cosgrove after Saturday’s loss

“He’s hurt. He’s down. I tell him, ?keep your head up’. He has my full support. He’s going to get back at it. He’s going to do a great job this week. There’s nobody that wants to do a better job than Coz (Cosgrove). I think our entire team does. It just hurts when you have a performance that you don’t expect. It hurts. I’m not sure if you’ve ever been through that in life, it happens but you just have to deal with it. You have to look at it, address it and attack it. There’s no other way you can go about it. It happened, we feel terrible about it, but we have to move on. We have nine games left. It’s a long season, and we still have our goals intact. That’s the upside to it. There is a concern that we do have error and we do have to correct it. We have to correct it this week against a football team that’s very capable in BallState. I like what they do.”

 

On the performance of Nebraska running back Cody Glenn

“He showed me a lot in pass protection, check-downs and running ability. I mentioned several times to everyone about his potential and abilities. It was only a matter of time that he started playing at the level he is capable of playing. He’s been hampered by injury. He was out almost the entire training camp. He played in the first game, but he wasn’t himself. He needed a couple more weeks to get back into rhythm. This was a very good opportunity for Cody to emerge and show what he has. I think he did very well.”

 

On Cody Glenn’s involvement in the passing game

“He has been involved, but as you look back a year ago, Brandon (Jackson) and Marlon (Lucky) had an enormous amount of receptions. Cody’s getting back into the mix. We knew he had ball skills and protection skills. We knew he’s a physical route-runner. He’s a complete back, so it’s good to see him get better. He still has room to grow and things that he needs to get better.  It was just good to see him perform the way he did Saturday night.”

 

On the team’s approach to avoid an upset by BallState

“(BallState) is an improved football team. When we address BallState as a team today, they will get a whole breakdown and presentation about BallState as far as where they’ve come from and what they’ve done. As you look at their history, they’ve done an excellent job. They are an improving program and they done an excellent job. You can see in the passing game, Stan Parrish is their coordinator.  He worked at TampaBay and Michigan. He has excellent background in the passing game, so they know what they’re doing, and they do a very good job of dispersing the ball. I think we’re going to get challenged running the ball. I think that goes without saying. Defensively, their head coach has a defensive background. He comes from the Michigan school of thought, so there’s a lot of that in their package. They’re very good. I watched them against Navy, a flexbone team that runs the ball on everybody. You look at that film, and then a lot of times, you throw it out, because it really doesn’t do you a lot of good in terms of your breakdown because of the nature of how they play the option. That’s completely different football than what you’re accustomed to.  But they’re an improving football team. Their game against Michigan came down to the wire. We all saw that.  The Big Ten teams they’ve played last year like Indiana and Purdue, they played close. They’re a good football team. We have great respect for them.”

 

On his expectations for opponents’ offensive game plans after Saturday

“I’m sure teams are going to run (against us). You can only do two things: run and pass, so I’m sure they’ll try and run.”

 

On learning more from a loss than a win

“I believe there’s some accuracy in that. I think there are a lot of good things you can learn about yourself when you go through tough times or when you have a situation that you’re trying to get better from. We’ll see how we respond. We can sit here and talk about how we’re going to do this or do that, but we have to go out and do it. We have to go out and prove it and demonstrate it.  I think that’s the most important thing right now.”

 

On his goals for the team this week

“I just want to see us play with good, sound fundamental technique and to play at a high level and play at our best. That’s what I expect and what we all expect. I don’t see it to be any different than how it was last week in terms of our preparation looking at how we go about our business, being consistent and taking the approach that we’re just trying to get better and improve every aspect of our play. I don’t see anything different, but I do see the tempo elevating because our players are upset. They want to prove they’re a good football team. I believe they’re a good football team. I believe in those players. I believe it’s just a matter of correcting the errors and going back to the practice field and showing it.  That’s most important thing right now.”

 

On the improvement of Nebraska wide receiver Todd Peterson

“I think, if you watch his performance, that it’s been very consistent. He’s smart and a tough guy. He’s dependable. He’s an excellent downfield blocker and he knows how to get open and he knows how to make plays. I’m proud of what he’s accomplished in a very short time and we rely on Todd to do a lot of things. He’s capable of playing a lot of different positions. He has the versatility to line up at all four wide receiver positions.”

 

On keeping the team focused on the big picture

“That’s always been our approach, to focus on today and just keep talking about our goals through the year on a weekly basis.  Those are addressed and talked about so that they always know what the big picture is. I think it’s important. They have to know where we’re headed in the big picture.  Every game is important. I think it’s always necessary to remind them of where we’re headed and where we’re going.”

 

On the performance of Marlon Lucky against USC

“Marlon (Lucky) is such a great competitor and always wants to be at his best. He wasn’t pleased with his performance and he wants to get better. He did some very good things in the game, but there’s some plays that I’m sure he wants to be better.  Visiting with Marlon, he wants to be the best he can possibly be. That’s what I’m encouraged about. I’m encouraged that he wants to go the extra mile, the extra step, do everything that’s right and try and lead this football team. I’m encouraged by his performance.  I wish we would have had more of an opportunity to keep the attack in balance.”

 

On BallState quarterback Nate Davis

“He’s a good player. He has all the throws, along with mobility, quickness, a quick release and a good understanding of their concept. He knows where to put the ball. He’s a good progression reader. He doesn’t take a lot of time to deliver it. He understands how it ties into protection. The ball gets out, and he’s been outstanding.  They have quick backs and a tight end (Darius Hill) who I think is exceptional, so he’s going to be a guy that we have to focus on. They do a nice job. They know how to create matchups and create route structures. We’re going to be challenged. They’re very flexible. They change from week to week, so it’s going to be challenging.”