Washington Postgame Quotes

#8 Nebraska 56, Washington 21
Saturday, Sept. 18, 2010
Husky Stadium (Seattle, Wash.)

Washington Coach Steve Sarkisian Quotes
Well let's start with giving them credit. That's a good football team that beat us today. They're well coached which is what we thought coming in. They were physical, which we thought coming in. And they were athletic and you have to give credit where credit is due. Unfortunately we didn't play the way I think we're capable of playing and I'm not going to back off of that. I know we're a better football team than what we put on the field today in all three phases. I know we can tackle better than that, I know we can throw the football better than that, I know we can protect the quarterback better than that. So fortunately the non-conference schedule is over; those weren't conference games. We get a bye to one: kind of heal our wounds. We're a little beat up right now. Two, fix some of the problems we're having, assess where we're at, and then get back to work to get ready to play USC and start Pac-10 play. It's unfortunate today went the way it did because we're better than that. We need to find a way to maximize our potential and play to our potential.

On Jake not progressing as he should:
I think the first part of it is, this is the top pass defense in America. Those guys are really good; they were good. They're playing with DBs all over the field. They made plays on the ball that I haven't seen in a while. Their safeties are making plays on the ball and it was hard to get open and when we did I thought maybe Jake was pressing a little bit today. Like I finally got it or I need it now I need to get this one and unfortunately we didn't but I don't know if we're going to see a better secondary than we saw today and I don't know if people are going to apply more pressure than Nebraska did today so I'm not putting it all on Jake's progress and him becoming the quarterback I know he can be. I'm going to put it on these guys played pretty good football today and unfortunately we didn't play very good team football.

On matching up physically:
I was obviously encouraged by the first scoring drive by us, that we were really able to run the football, and move the ball by running the football and that gave me some encouragement offensively. It was just hard to sustain as the game went on. As we saw defensively, they just wore us down. They did a good job. They're a big, physical team. They stuck to their plan of really running the ball and they wore us down.

On Jake Locker and the Nebraska defense:
Yeah I felt there was potentially a little pressure today. He was going against a great pass defense and I think he wanted to come out and play well like he does every week. With that comes a little pressure but pressure's natural. Great athletes thrive on it. They accept it, they love it. I don't think any differently of Jake. I think the same way. Can he play better than he played today? Sure he can and he will throughout the season and we have to continue to work to put him in situations and give him opportunities to perform at a high level and to his capabilities.

Husky Player Quotes
Sophomore CB Desmond Trufant
Toughest part of defending Nebraska's offense
"Nebraska runs a midline option, so they let some of the defensive linemen go through and then they read our defensive alignment. It's confusing to the front seven, and because their quarterback is elusive we had to account for him just as much as the running backs. We gave up some big plays and that is what really killed us. We just have to look at the film and get ready for USC in two weeks."

Keys for the bye week
"I think we just need to work on doing things right consistently. We have been doing things right for one or two plays, but then we give up a big play on third down. We just have to do things consistently. I think the effort was there today, but we are just too inconsistent. We have to tackle better too. We missed too many tackles today. I think we will be all right. We just need to work harder."

Redshirt Freshman TE Marlion Barnett
Toughest part of working against Nebraska's defense
"I don't want to take any credit away from their defense. I mean their linebackers are athletic and they are good up front, but I think that a big part of the game is how we executed. I mean our coaches gave us the schemes to win the game and we did everything we needed to in practice, but we just didn't do a good job of executing in the game. If we work on that we will be all right."

Senior FB Austin Sylvester
On what things you can take away from today's game
"I think we can take away the confidence that we have of a good rushing attack. Right now we just have to have confidence in each other and fall back from this and learn from our mistakes and keep pushing forward and get ready for conference play."

On noticing the amount of Nebraska fans in the stadium
"No not at all. I mean we're used to it. We're used to playing in loud places, we practice with speakers on, we practice with music playing to try to distract us, it wasn't a big deal at all."

On what things Nebraska did well as a defense
"I think they have a really strong defensive line. They played very hard, and their linebackers covered very well as well as their secondary. They have a good team and they played very hard. They deserve the credit that's due."

Senior LB Victor Aiyewa
On what things Nebraska did well as an offense
"Primarily, the scheme that they run makes them a difficult team to play. Pretty much everybody could have trouble with that type of scheme so we just have to play sound defense and have good gap integrity so that scheme isn't so hard to play against."

On what things need to be worked on in the off week
"We just have to study the film and make sure everybody rests up. We need to get everybody healthy again. We have to figure out our mistakes and find out what we did good too. I think the freshman did pretty well, but we have to watch the film and see."