Coach Bo Pelini

Nebraska Weekly Press Conference
Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2009
Memorial Stadium - Lincoln, Neb.
Pre-Louisiana-Lafayette

On if there is anything he will do to prevent a carryover from the loss at Virginia Tech

“No, that’s not something that really concerns me.  I liked the way our guys came out and practiced yesterday, and we put last week to rest. That’s part of the past now and it’s time to move on.”

 

On what the 300th consecutive sellout means to Nebraska and college football

“Well I think it’s something that everybody associated with the program, fans, players, coaches, I mean everybody, administration, the whole university, and it’s something to be proud of. With the record and the honoring of the ’62 team who started the streak, it should be a pretty fun weekend. It’s something to be proud of. I think it’s a celebration as much of Nebraska football as the fans of Nebraska football. It shows it’s something special.”

 

On what it means to him when he hears people comparing him to Bob Devaney

“They shouldn’t be comparing me to Bob Devaney. Bob Devaney did a lot. I haven’t done anything.”

 

On what he thinks of Nebraska fans

“Everything entailed that’s going into this weekend shows me, epitomizes the fan base here, the loyalty of the fans and the passion of the fans. I think what gets lost sometimes, you think of a sellout streak and you think of the amount of people that come to the games and fill the stadium, but when you’ve been other places like I have and you’ve been around the country, the visiting people who come into this stadium and the respect that people walk out of here for our fan base and the classiness of the fans that fill that stadium is something that really touches people that come in here.  It’s something to be proud of that opposing teams, opposing coaches, everybody comes out of here saying ?wow its different here than any place else.’ That along with the streak, along with having all the sellouts, but the way they act also. The classiness of the how they go about things here is something that’s different from any place else.  I guess you’d have to be away from here and kind of hear if from the opposing side to really have appreciation for the way people feel, especially opposing team, when they walk out of here. It’s something to be very proud of.” 

 

On if he notices the crowd during the game

“Well you can hear the crowd, but when you’re playing you kind of hear it in between. You have to find a focus to play and to coach. You can’t get caught up in all the other things that are going on. To say that it doesn’t affect you at all, that’s not really the case. You can’t let it consume you. Even if you are at home and it’s exciting, it can work to your disadvantage to. You have to keep it all in perspective.”

 

On how much Phillip Dillard helped the linebackers on Saturday

“I thought Phil played well. He moved over to WILL linebacker and did a good job. He brought physicality to the position.  He did some good things for moving over to that position and brought some maturity and some experience over into the group.  I think he’s fitting well there. I’m glad we made that move. I think he did a good job. He played well.”

 

On how Blake Lawerence is responding to Phillip Dillard moving into the position

“Blake has responded well. Blake has been nicked up a little bit and was on and off. Both he and (Mat) May are still repping at the position. It just makes us deeper. We kind of move guys around until you find the right combinations. We’re going to need a lot of these guys to step up before the season's over. It’s not really an indictment on how Blake was playing as much as we thought that, especially for that football game, Phil could bring something to the table and he did.”

 

On how much value he places on Alex Henery and what he does for the football team

“I can’t tell you. He’s invaluable. I always say he has ice water in his veins. He just walks out there and does his job. His demeanor never changes. Obviously, you add the punting to what he’s been able to do as a place-kicker, he’s been pretty exceptional. I wouldn’t trade him for anybody in the country. He does a great job.”

 

On if he has ever seen Alex Henery get flustered before

“No, it kind of freaks me out sometimes.”

 

On what his reaction was to the 76-yard punt after the bad snap

“To be honest with you, first I was in shock because I didn’t know what the heck he was doing. From my angle I couldn’t see that the snap pulled him to the side. I was like, 'what is he doing?' I’ll be honest with you, when I first looked up I thought he was running the football and I was like, good God, and then he hit a mortar shot off his foot. I was just disappointed the ball didn’t stay in. I see Alex back there and he’s laughing. I wish the ball would have stayed in. It was a phenomenal kick. I’ve seen him do things like that in practice, so it really doesn’t surprise me. Now the running part of it, I don’t see him do that in practice, that’s why I was shocked.”

 

On if he thinks Henery would be injured with much contact

“No, he showed last year he can take a hit. He’s tougher than you think.  He’s very athletic. You can’t do that unless you’re a tremendous athlete.  He’s a tremendous athlete.”

 

On how often Henery misses in practice and if it shocks him when he does

“Every now and then he misses and he’ll tell you. He missed one in practice about a week or two ago. You say he doesn’t show any emotion, I looked at him and said you’re just messing with me, right? He looked at me and just started laughing. I don’t know whether he was or he wasn’t.”

 

On if that’s the most emotion you see out of him

“Yeah, he just started laughing. I was glad I got a chance to have him crack a smile. He’s very serious. Like you say, he’s very calm and I know he has a tremendous amount of confidence.  I think that’s why he does so well.”

 

On if Henery is one of the guys on the team, or if Henery fit the kicker clich?

“He’s one of the guys. He’s pretty quiet guy, but I don’t know. He’s pretty special guy, he really is.”

 

On what went into Collins Okafor's decision to come back to the team

“Well, Collins was a little frustrated. I told him, you need to be happy where you are. He needed some time to sort of figure things out.  My intent was I wanted him on our football team, but he has to want to be on our football team. I gave him a little bit of time to figure it out, what he needs and what he wants. He came to the conclusion that this is the place where he needs to stay. Collins has ability, he’s just raw right now. He’s still learning the game. Sometimes you think as a player, it happens to a lot of young men, they think short term rather than long term and big picture. I think once he thought things through he realized this is where he wants to be, and we left the door open for him. He said ?I want to come back’ and said 'let’s go.' To me it was an easy decision. He was at that point where he was frustrated and needed to figure some things out and I gave him some time.”

 

On his evaluation of how the line protected Zac Lee against Virginia Tech

“I thought the protection was pretty good. They have a couple athletes coming off the edge that can stress you. You play a good football team and a good defense, you’re going to get some pressure and the pocket is not going to be perfect. You’re not going to have all day to throw the ball every time, but overall I thought the protection was good. That’s probably the first time he (Zac Lee) has been in that kind of environment and it probably had a little bit of an affect on him, but he’ll be better because of it, because of going through that and having played through that game. I felt like he got more comfortable as the game went on, which is to be expected.”

 

 

On what Lee took medication for that forced him to sit out practice on Monday

“I’m not real sure off the top of my head. He took some kind of medication or had a shot and they don’t want you to practice the next day. I believe it’s for some kind of infection, but I’m not sure what kind of infection it was. He got the shot on Sunday and they don’t want him to practice the next day on Monday. It wasn’t for the thumb, it was for his other arm.”

 

On what you tell a safety that had a blown assignment the day after the game

“I’ve been there, you recover. You make a mistake, believe me, it wasn’t just the safety. It was a couple things that contributed to that happening. It wasn’t just the safety. You have to correct it. There were a couple breakdowns.”

 

On how he thinks Matt O’Hanlon will respond

“I think he’ll be fine. He’s a strong tough-minded kid. People forget that’s the same kid who knocked the ball down in the Gator Bowl, saved that football game. One play doesn’t define somebody. Like I said, people are going to analyze it and point and say that was Matt O’Hanlon only, but it wasn’t.”

 

On who would play if Larry Asante can’t play on Saturday

“Rickey Thenarse, in fact I just talked to him, Rickey Thenarse needs to play more. You’re going to see Rickey Thenarse out there more and you’re probably going to see P.J. Smith out there more.  You kind of get into a rut sometimes where, I shouldn’t say a rut, but where things are going well defensively and you don’t sub as much as you’d like to or as much as you need to. We need to get Rickey out there more. That’s something that we need to make sure happens”

 

On if Rickey can play in the dime and nickel packages

“Yeah, but we haven’t had much dime.  We haven’t played much dime because of the types of offenses and personnel groupings we’ve been facing, but that is something he still works in practice, we just haven’t had much of a chance to use it in games.”

 

On his impressions of Louisiana-Lafayette

“I’m fairly familiar with the personnel and some of the people they have from my time down in Louisiana. They’re a pretty talented football team. They have a lot of athleticism. Well coached. Obviously, you saw what they did two weeks ago (defeated KansasState 17-15). It’s a pretty good football team coming in here with pretty capable athletes. A lot of speed.”

 

On how you deal with their aggressive defense

“They bring a lot of folks. They change it up a lot. They are pretty aggressive defensively. I would imagine they are going to continue that trend. I like what our plan is right now.”

 

On what he has seen from defensive tackle Jared Crick so far this year

“Crick has played really really well. He’s been overshadowed a little bit by what (Ndamukong) Suh brings to the table and the kind of level he is playing at. Jared Crick is playing really good football. I think we’re playing pretty well up front.”

 

On what Pelini will emphasize in practice after focusing on tackling and being more physical the previous weeks

“You know, kind of what I would say from way back when all the way back into the summer time and end of the spring.  We have too many mental breakdowns. We need to clean up our football.  We need to have a better level of consistency across the board.  I said it and I believe its coaching.  We have to get that aspect of our football team, to go to the next level and to play, we need to be more consistent across the board in every phase of the game. That means continue to practice consistently and then carry it over into games. Just a more consistent level of execution. That’s mental and physical. There are so many things that go into that. It’s something that I’m continually talking to our guys about. It’s about your approach. It’s about your focus. It’s about your demeanor. There are so many things that go into it. I just know there is a lot more out there for this group. We can be so much better. I know a lot people said that they thought we played tremendous defense the other day with the exception of three plays.  We didn’t. We didn’t play to our capabilities. I can say that about offense and special teams also.  We just have to keep working.”

 

On if Roy Helu Jr. will be a more focal point of the offense

“You want to have balance, but I think it’s obvious over the last couple weeks he is a focal point of the offense. He’s one of the focal points. I think our offense does a good job. I think Coach (Shawn) Watson does a good job of taking what’s there. I think we have balance. We’re multiple in what we do. Now we just have to keep executing and the other day it was just a matter of finishing off drives. We didn’t execute. I give Virginia Tech credit, but I also say that we left a lot of points out there. We left a lot of points out there.”

 

On how much time they spend this week working on red zone offense

“No different than we always do. Red zone offense, it’s throughout, it’s executing from the time you get the ball right on through.  You can sit there and say it was just the red zone offense, well we didn’t execute all the way through.”

 

On how he helps his team get over a tough loss

“It’s a mindset I’ve been trying to instill into this football team since I arrived. Our team's over it, we’ve moved on. I know you guys haven’t and probably a lot of fans haven’t. You guys have that luxury, we don’t. You have to move on and we’ve moved on.”

 

On if you can use the Virginia Tech game as a springboard for the rest of the season

“I told the football team yesterday, the disappointment, the rage in some ways, is fuel for the future. Or you can be weak-minded and not step up and be a man and take accountability for us not coming out on top to divide you or point fingers. We haven’t done that around here. The way our football team came out and practiced yesterday, it became really obvious to me they took the message and they understand. We’ve moved on. It’s easy to kind of step back and look at what happened in the football game and point to one or two or three plays and say if it wasn’t for those we would have won the football game. There were tons of other plays in there that would have put us in a situation where we wouldn’t have even been in that situation. What I’m saying is, everybody has a responsibility, and it’s a team loss. Bottom line as a football team, we lost the football game. We need to get that fixed and we need to move on. If we address it the right way, as coaches, as players, and as a whole football team, it will make us better. I think that’s what happened last year at times. That’s why you’re able to move on. I know I frustrate you guys at times because I’m pretty direct, I’m short maybe to the point, but to me it is pretty black and white. I take that approach with our players, if you watch the film, you look at what needs to get fixed, you fix it and you’ll be better because of it. You have to take a good look in the mirror. You have to look on the inside. Look at you first, and then you start looking at the other things. I do that as a football coach. We do it as a staff, and I know our players have learned to do that. It’s all a team concept and I think because of that you don’t see guys pointing fingers or muttering. We don’t have problems and are able to move on because we understand the root of the problem starts here first. We just need to keep working to get better. Keep the team in mind and I said yesterday, all the goals out there that we set to accomplish are still out there to accomplish if we address it the right way.  It means being a man. It means standing up and taking responsibility for what happened, each and every one of us, and moving on.”

 

On how painful the Virginia Tech loss was compared to other tough losses in his career

“I can say that was as hard of a loss that I have ever encountered in football, and I’ve had some hard ones. That was difficult, but you know what, it’s time to move on. I’ve moved on. I really have. It took me a little longer, but I’ve moved on.”

 

On if it’s worse than getting blown out

“In some ways, yeah. I think back, I’ve been in some difficult losses, where I’ve walked off the field thinking...I’ve had some difficult losses. Really difficult losses over my career, playing and coaching. I guess you always remember the most recent one, but you have to find a way, and I’ve always felt, I kind of said last week, that I like playing on the road because I love the challenge of it. As a football coach and a coordinator and throughout my career, it’s situations like this that define you. It’s going to help define our football team. It’s going to define me as a football coach, as a person. You have to rise up to challenges and when you face a disappointment like that it is a challenge to come back. Each one of our guys on our football team is facing that challenge. I look forward to challenges, I’m going to stare it in the face and make sure we do the right things to make sure we get this thing fixed.  That’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to come out Saturday and I promise you, you are going to see a group of guys playing with passion. You’re not going to see anybody crying about what happened last week. Our guys are going to come out and play our tails off. That’s what’s going to happen. I vow that’s what’s going to happen on Saturday.”

 

On if he had to do it over again, would he go for it on 4th-and-1

“No, I wouldn’t. I would not. It was a little more than one, it was almost two. I just felt like the right thing in that situation was to punt. I had total confidence that they weren’t going to score. To be honest with you, I didn’t even consider it. I really didn’t. If it would have been less than one, it would have been a short one, I might have done it. Me as a coach, I felt if we used their timeouts, I thought we were going to get the first down. We didn’t get the first down. It looked like a little bit longer. It looked like two yards. It was the right thing for me in my mind, in that position, to punt it. Have I thought about should I have gone for it? Obviously, I rethink 50 decisions I made in that football game. Given how the game had gone, I don’t think I would have done it any differently.”

 

On if he goes for it if the game was high scoring

“Oh yeah, you better believe it. I just felt like we were in control of the game defensively. I really did.  Barring a break down, I thought we were in control. I didn’t do a good enough job on that last drive.”

 

On the play of his receivers

“I think there were some good things. Some things we need to get fixed, like a lot of the other aspects of our football, in every area. I think you could say that across the board. Inconsistency leads to one in the loss column and that’s what happened. I’m putting that across the board.”