Coach Bo Pelini

Nebraska Football Weekly Press Conference
Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2009
Memorial Stadium - Lincoln, Neb.
Pre-Arkansas State

Head Coach Bo Pelini
On why the biggest jump takes place between the first week and the second week of the season

“Well, I hope the biggest jump is from week one to week two, but that remains to be seen.  You get the nervousness out. You get the anxiety out. You get back to what’s important and that’s execution.”

 

On what he knows about ArkansasState

“I had done some work on them obviously in the offseason, but not in a lot of detail, just kind of the plays and an overview of what they are.  Now you get into the nuts and bolts of what they do. They’re a pretty talented football team, very well coached.  They are very sound on what they do on both sides of the football.  It’s well thought out and they have good athletes. It’s a challenge.”

 

On what he knows about his football team that he didn’t know before the first game

“Not a lot. I feel like I did going in.  I thought I had a pretty good handle about where we are and how far we need to go. There’s still a lot of work to be done. Obviously, we have a long way to go. I saw some things out there I liked. I saw a bunch of things that we need to get fixed. I thought I saw us get better in some areas as the game went on and some areas that need to get right. I think our technique and fundamentals need to get better. We played really hard. The kids played hard, but they didn’t always do things exactly the way they are coached to do.  You get into sometimes where kids get out there for the first time they want to make plays so bad that they forget about their technique. They realize if you play technique and you play with the correct fundamentals that will lead you to making plays. That’s part of the deal with what I’m talking about the first game jitters, you want to do right, but you do it the way you’ve been coached and things work out pretty well for you.”

 

On what the team did better in the game than he may have expected
”I expected us to play well, and in some ways I was happy with some things and there were some other things that I wasn’t real happy with.  That’s why you practice. That’s why it’s a long season. I can’t say anything in particular that I was overly thrilled with.  For the most part I thought special teams were pretty good. There was just a miscommunication when they got a hand on the punt.  It wasn’t really a technique thing; it was just a total miscommunication on our part, something that is easily fixed. We just weren’t on the same page for whatever reason. It was just a bad error on our part.”

 

On if he saw the kind of mistakes that were made in the game made in practice

“Like I said, things that really need to be fixed are tempo in some areas, in our control of the tempo and really fundamentals. No, I didn’t see a lot of that, especially from some of the guys that I saw it from. I think sometimes you get into the position where guys are trying too hard to make plays. Like I said, if you get into that situation and you’re just looking to make a play instead of defeating a block or making you’re block or whatever it may be and you forget about your fundamentals, that leads to a bad play. And that happened a number of different times. The want-to was there, but the how-to wasn’t taken care of.”

 

On if he contributes some of the mistakes because of all the young players that played

“Some of that happened from some seasoned vets. A lot of it did.  It’s not just the newcomers. I don’t put any stock in that. We put a guy, whether he’s a newcomer or he’s been here for two or three years, the same expectations are on those kids or they wouldn’t be out there.  We don’t make any excuses for anybody. Like I said, a lot of those things that need to get fixed are from guys that shouldn’t have the jitters because they have been out there before.”

 

On preparing for a team that has a much different style that FloridaAtlantic

“It’s different. It’s just a different game plan, but we’ve been there and we’ve had to deal with this kind of offense before.  Our system lends well to being able to adjust to these types of things.”

 

On the differences between FAU and Arkansas States offense

“This team has some similarities to what we saw last week in the passing game and formation-wise and that type of thing. You get some different plays, and you get some more quarterback-oriented runs and things like that.  Some of our emphases are a little bit different.  Ultimately, it’s just about executing what we put out there.”

 

On how much easier it is to get your teams attention when you know ArkansasState beat Texas A&M on the road last year

“I don’t get into that very much. Number one, we respect every opponent we play and that has to be the case. You have to respect the game ultimately because what we’re doing is we are competing against ourselves for execution and to do the things you’re being coached to do.  That’s regardless no matter who lines up out there. Obviously, we focus on the plays and the things we are going to see, but we need to focus on getting better as a football team this week and it’s a huge emphasis. I can tell you this, there were a lot of guys on our football team who were not happy about how they played.  They didn’t feel like they played to what they are capable of.  I loved the attitude that our players came out with to practice yesterday.  They practiced hard and they practiced fast with an attitude, and that needs to continue.”

 

On not taking advantage of all the turnover opportunities during the game

“Well, it’s disappointing.  I said going into the game that we have to take advantage of the opportunities. They don’t come all the time and you have to take advantage when you get them. We let some slip through our fingers. We had a fumble on the ground we didn’t get. That’s a big area of emphasis for us, and one that we have to take advantage of the opportunities.”

 

On if that’s what he was getting at last week when talking about turnovers playing such a big role

“Absolutely.  You can’t drop balls that are in your hands on defense. When the balls on the ground you have to get it.  We had a bunch of guys around the football, we just didn’t get the football. We didn’t come up with it. It’s been a big area of emphasis for us and that will continue.”

 

On if you can contribute the young players’ success thus far to them only having to learn one defensive system

“I think that it plays a little bit into it. I don’t know how much success they’ve had. We have only played one game and they have a long way to go. It gives them a better chance to play. I don’t know that. I would think that plays a little bit into it.”

 

On how pleased he was with the physicality of NU's linebackers

“I wasn’t happy about how physical we played as a football team.  I don’t think we played as physical as we need to play in any regards, front to back. I thought at times you saw some good hits, you saw some physical play. But overall, man-to-man, 11 guys playing it, I thought we played soft at times. We have to get that fixed.”

 

On if he feels they are miles ahead of where they were last year after the first week

“Not necessarily. Yeah I think we are ahead of where we were last year. We had light years to go last year, now we just have instead of maybe two galaxies, maybe one galaxy. We might be in the same solar system now.”

 

On the play of freshman linebacker Will Compton

“He did OK. He did some good things. He didn’t play perfect by any means, and he’d be the first one to tell you that, but he did some good thigns out there. I thought he handled himself well. I thought he was very calm and took control, made his calls.  I think it was a decent first step.”

 

On how his team played to soft

“We played too high. On defense played too high at times. We didn’t play the way we’ve been practicing. We weren’t coming off the football all the time. A little bit is the style of offense that they played. We didn’t play with great technique. We didn’t attack blocks. We didn’t attack blockers. We didn’t come off the ball early in the game with the type of tempo on offense that we need to. We weren’t as crisp and as sound and as physical as you need to be in a lot of regards. There is a difference between, like for instance, taking on a block and destroying a block and getting pads under pads playing with technique and doing things the right way. We didn’t do that consistently by any means. It’s a big area that we have to get fixed.”

 

On if the yards allowed was a big disappointment

“You better believe it.”

 

On how he thinks the referees are calling roughing the passer this season how it differs from years past

“It’s pretty obvious.  I have to be careful talking about that aspect of it. It’s an area of emphasis and it’s a reality.  Forget about whether you agree with it or you don’t agree with it, it’s a reality and you have to be conscious of it.  We have to coach it. It’s not about what we believe should be called or shouldn’t be called. They are going to call it so you have to be careful.”

 

On if that’s something he can call the league office on and get a gauge on how they will call it for the remainder of the season

“Yeah, we sent some things in to get some, but you don’t know. You really don’t know from crew to crew and who’s making the call. You just have to understand. You have to be smart and it’s hard when you’re trying to play fast and play aggressive. You guys saw what happened through the weekend and our game. I don’t know. You just have to understand that it’s a big area of emphasis throughout college football, and you have to play accordingly.  You have to react accordingly.”

 

On how those calls differ in each league and how it affects a team’s performances in bowl games

“I don’t know about that. I don’t think it provides any significant advantage.  I don’t know.  I really don’t know what’s being called in other conferences and how it’s being called. I think it’s throughout college football. It’s a certain area of emphasis.  It’s part of the deal.”

 

On how important it is to get freshman quarterback Cody Green reps after seeing Oklahoma's Sam Bradford go down over the weekend

“It was obvious, we put him there. We got him reps already.  People can criticize Oklahoma for not having a quarterback whose taken reps, but I’m sure their backup last year was probably a senior.  It’s just part of the deal. It’s going to happen sometimes and it’s unfortunate for them.  Sometimes there is no way around that.  We were able to get Cody some reps and we thought that was important so it worked out well for us.”

 

On if he has more patience with the newcomers

“We don’t go there at all. I’m not a real patient person.”

 

On how he would assess his interior line play between Ndamukong Suh and Jared Crick

“Average at best.”

 

On why their play was average

“Because I watch the film.”

 

On how you improve the tempo on offense

“By practicing that way and we have.  We got that tempo in the second half and you saw what happened.  We became a lot more crisp.  We were a better offense in the second half.  We were spending too much time in the huddle. We weren’t getting down on the ball as fast as we’d like.  That’s a big area of emphasis of Coach (Shawn) Watson, our offensive staff and how we go about doing that and getting up and down and getting ready to go and keep them on their heels by the tempo we bring.  You just saw our guys weren’t crisp going and getting lined up, lulling around and it showed.  If you come out of the huddle with an attitude and you’re getting up and down on the ball it’s going to show when the ball's snapped.  It’s just a way about going about your business.  We weren’t doing that early in the football game.”

 

On if he has ever thought about running more no huddle

“We have that capability.”

 

On if he would do it on a regular basis

“Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know.”

 

On senior defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh’s play

“We expect a high high level.  They didn’t play awful, but like I said I thought it was average and we don’t accept average. You can say that across the board. We didn’t play defensively the way I saw us playing defensively.  Period, end of story.”

 

On if the passion was there

“The effort was there. The passion wasn’t always there.”

 

On if the three points and the no touchdowns was a tribute to how the team played

“A little bit if everything. How many yards did they have? Whatever it was, it was way too many for my liking.”

 

On how he used to say he was more interested in wins than in the stats

“I don’t have a real interest in that. You can look at that and say we won, we won the football game, but we didn’t play to the standard that we wanted to play to.  I think that’s just an indication of it.  We had a couple mental busts. We just weren’t sharp.  We were not sharp consistently.  I thought we started off OK, but we didn’t play as physical as I like. In a lot of areas we didn’t play up to the standards that I have. I have a certain vision of what I believe this defense is going to be, and I want it to be and it was not there. Believe me our guys on defense know exactly where I’m coming from. I’m not going to paint a picture that we went out there and we held them to three points and played great. We did not.  We did not play real good defense.”

 

On using the word "soft" to describe a football team

“It’s reality.  That was a reality of how we played. Period. We did not play tough, physical, hard-nosed, disciplined defense. We didn’t get it done.”

 

On if the players realized and knew about the same issues he had after the game

“They don’t always know right after the game.  We won the football game, we held them to three points. We did a lot of good things in the football game, but after you look at the film you have to look at it very critically of yourself.  That’s the only way you get better.  I did a lot of things in that football game, as a head coach, that weren’t good enough.  There are some things I need to get fixed as well, I promise you that.”

 

On if would consider using Cody Green in the first half to get him experience

“That’s up to Coach (Shawn) Watson, the offensive staff and how we’re game planning and doing those types of things.  Believe me, we’re getting Cody Green and LaTravis (Washington) and everybody else, we give our guys reps and they’re getting ready to play. I have full confidence if Cody has to go in the game he will be prepared and ready to go. He’s being well-coached.”

 

On his high standards and his team knowing his standards and trying to reach them

“Absolutely, no matter what happens, what I’ve learned is no matter what, whether you’re playing, coaching or whether you’re in your job, you have to evaluate what you have done. You have to look at it and take a good hard look at it and be critical of yourself and try to get better. Otherwise, you are never going to get better. You can’t ever be satisfied.  That’s the same case whether you play a great game.  There is no one that has played a perfect game and there are very few guys that have ever coached a perfect game. There’s always that room to get better.”