Ndamukong SuhNdamukong Suh
Football

Ndamukong Suh

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

Ndamukong Suh
Senior, Defensive Tackle

On Coach Bo Pelini’s comment that the defense played soft on Saturday
“Yeah, I definitely take it personally, but I know exactly what he means by that, so I don’t take it too hard.”

On what Pelini meant by playing soft
“Well, I don’t want to put words in his mouth, but I don’t think we were as physical as he had hoped. I know from the defensive line standpoint, basically we’d want to start at a new line of scrimmage. Obviously there’s the main line of scrimmage that the ball is set on, but we wanted to move their linemen back in the backfield and set a new line of scrimmage, which I don’t think we did, even though we held them to a little bit over 100 yards of rushing.”

 

On being called soft after allowing only three points
“It’s kind of a catch-22, because it looks good on paper, but if you go back and look at the film, it wasn’t as great as it looked.”

 

On playing a team this week that likes to run the football
“For me, personally, I love it. They’re trying to say you’re not strong enough or you’re not man enough, in a sense, to stop their running attack, which I don’t think us four up front are going to take that lightly at all.”

 

On Arkansas State’s three-time 1,000-yard rusher, Reggie Arnold
“Anybody that goes over 1,000 yards in college football is a great back. We’ve got a great test ahead of us. It’s something that we’re eager and able to get after this back.”

 

On why the defensive line is unable to get pushes at times
“In talking to Coach Carl (Pelini), looking at film last year, I think the biggest reason why we weren’t getting our pushes is because we were playing high. You can’t play high and get a push. That’s basically playing patty-cake with the offensive linemen. We need to be underneath their chins and pushing them back in the backfield. The only way to do that is getting underneath their helmets and getting your pad level down.”