Senior Defensive Tackle Ndamukong Suh

Nebraska Football Weekly Press Conference
Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2009
Memorial Stadium - Lincoln, Neb.
Pre-Iowa State

On how the quarterbacks looked in practice Monday

“I couldn’t tell you, I wasn’t really in on that side of the ball. We went against the offense and they looked just like normal, getting work done and trying to progress.”

 

On if one quarterback had more snaps than the other

“To my knowledge, no. I didn’t even pay attention to it. It’s not a big deal. Coach is going to put out the best player, as they do for every position. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

On if he ever talks to Zac Lee during games to calm him down

“Not really. I spoke to him a handful of times during the games, but a lot of the time I’m off the field when he’s on the field and when I’m on he’s off. There isn’t too much interaction there.”

 

On what it was like to be a part of the defense last year in overcoming challenges

“It’s just like a little kid. You have growing pains, good things happen and bad things happen. You just have to learn to go with the rollercoaster and try and keep it as an uphill rollercoaster. Hopefully you don’t dip too much, but obviously we have, on both sides of the ball, dipped a little bit as we did with last game. It’s something that has to happen. I’m happy if it does have to happen, that it’s early in the season. We still have an opportunity to have plenty of games left to accomplish our goals.”

 

On if he has helped Zac get through this rough time

“That’s simple, as our coaches always tell us, don’t pay any attention to the media because the media is the media. They don’t have any control of what we do on and off the field. You just keep grinding, that’s the only thing you can do. That’s what we did last year as a defense when our offense was carrying us. If we feel the need on the defensive side of the ball that we need to carry this offense to give them a little spark, we’re more than happy to do that. We’re going to have him back. That’s the main thing you can do. People have certain ways of dealing with things. If I were in that same situation, I am more of a quiet person and deal with myself. It is nice to know that guys are behind your back, but I deal with things more internally within myself. I don’t know how Zac deals with it, but whatever he needs, for me, I’ll be there. I know that 150 other guys will be there as well.”

 

On the psyche of the team

 “I think the psyche is real good. I feel that even though we had a tough loss and even though it wasn’t the way we wanted to come out last week, we still know all of our goals are still intact. A lot of what happened last week was due to us. It wasn’t so much Texas Tech, even though they played a good game and capitalized on our mistakes, but a lot of that had to do with us. We didn’t play our game at all so we know if we played our game and did everything right and were playing close to a perfect game, then if they beat us, then we obviously have some things to look over. We know our mistakes. We watched the film yesterday, we know what we have to correct, especially on the defensive side of the ball. We can go from there.”

 

On what he’s looking for the defense to do better on the field

“Up front, I felt like we got after the quarterback pretty well. We were just tackling, we can obviously strip the ball and get some turnovers, do some different things. In the back end, they played pretty well for the most part. We had our hands on the ball, whenever we get the opportunity to get our hands on the ball we need to take that opportunity and make the most of it; we didn’t do that as we did in the previous games. Those small things like that we can key on and try and do in this upcoming game.”

 

On if he finds himself thinking how big a turnover or two would have been in that game

“Yeah, definitely. I think a turnover in that game would have been huge. I think it really would have sparked us like it did in the last game.  A turnover on the defensive side of the ball usually is going to give your team a morale boost and allow things to start to snowball in a good way.”

 

On how he views the positives they accomplished against Texas Tech

“You can take those things, but it’s only good when you come out with the win. It doesn’t mean that much when you come out with a loss. It’s a moral victory and we don’t allow those here. It’s a good thing that we did those for stats. It looks good to you guys, but for me personally I could care less. I would rather them have 6,000 yards on us and we come out with the win. It’s the good things you can take from and bad things you have to learn from. It was good we did that for the most part, I wish we did that with turnovers. I would give those six sacks back to get a turnover and possibly spark our offense. Maybe that turnover might have been a pick six. You can take good things from it and bad things from it. You just have to pick and choose which is good and what’s not and move forward.”

 

On what Coach Pelini’s level of disappointment was with the players

“I would say it was pretty high. The reason why I could say that is because he knows how we can play, and we have yet been able to put a four-quarter game together. Like I said, in the previous game against Missouri, we played horrible in the first three quarters and picked it up in the fourth quarter. In this last game I don’t think we played a good quarter at all on both sides of the ball. What he’s looking for from us is for us to put a four-quarter game together and see what happens. Then we can really measure ourselves and measure what we have to do and see how much better we can be and how good we can be as a whole team.”

 

On if he thinks Coach Pelini was harsh

“No, I don’t think he did. He wants the best out of us. He is always going to strive for that. He feels if he doesn’t ask that of us, he’s holding us back. He’s not being who he is as a person and not being a good coach at all.”

 

On senior linebacker Phillip Dillard’s career day against Texas Tech

“I am definitely impressed with Phil. He’s gone through a little bit of turmoil. Being one of his good friends, I’ve been there by his side and just pushed through it, in which he’s done. Obviously, it’s starting to pay off for him. I’m really happy for him. He is definitely kind of coming into his own, what I’ve expected from him and seen from him since we’ve both been here as true freshmen. It’s not too much of a surprise, I was just waiting for when he got the chance to go out there and make his plays."

 

On how he thinks the defense will respond this week

“I think we will respond to it just like we did when we went against Virginia Tech. That was one of our first two games against spread offenses and we got into a team that wanted to go into the same thing. I think we’ll respond the same way. Hopefully, we won’t lose by one point, but we’ll win by one point or more.”

 

On what goes through his mind when you have a successful rushing team coming in

“That’s great. I’ve always loved playing against teams that like to run the ball. I think they can run the ball on us. I think us four up front take that as a big challenge. We like to pride ourselves on being able to stop the run. With us four, and maybe a couple linebackers, it just depends on what type of run game they have. It’s a lot of fun if we can get them into a one-dimensional offense like we try to do with any team we play; it allows us to get after their passing game. It’s a little tougher when they aren’t a spread team and like to throw the ball. It’s a little more of a challenge.”

 

On how defensive tackle Jared Crick has stepped up

“Jared is a heckuva player. I’m excited to see how much he can grow. He’s a young pup in understanding his role, which I think he understands real well at this point of time. He’s gotten a tremendous amount of attention, and I think he’s ready to grow and expand on that. These coaches are allowing him to do that. In the last three or four games he’s played, he’s gotten better and better and much more productive.”