Nebraska Coach Bo Pelini Postgame Quotes

 

Nebraska Football
Postgame Quotes
Saturday, Nov. 10, 2012
vs. Penn State 

Nebraska Head Coach Bo Pelini

Opening Statement
"Happy to get out of here with a win. It's a good football team that we played today, and I'm happy to come out of it with a win. I think we played obviously a lot better in the second half than we did in the first half. We talked about what we needed to do to get to Indy (for the Big Ten Championship game), and that's four down. We've got two more to go; just have to stay the course."

On the goal line fumble call
"I have not seen it, but I know one thing that helps you in that situation is how they called it on the field. You have to have indisputable evidence to overrule it, and something that is that bang-bang usually ends up going how they ruled it on the field. We were kind of fortunate that they called it that way out there on the field."

On the defense's season-high three forced turnovers
"It was big. We talked about it all week and going into the game that this team was very good at the takeaway and the turnover differential. We needed to win that phase and we did. Obviously that helped us win the football game."

On if the offense responds in situations with urgency
"Yeah, I thought the offense played pretty well today, all day. Where we didn't play very well was in the red area. We have to clean that up. We didn't really have a rhythm for whatever reason in the red zone. The touchdowns that ended up being threes, and obviously the turnover down there inside the five, that's an area of concern. But I thought we did some good things. That's a pretty good defense, good physical defense that we played today."

On if there's a comfort level with being down at halftime
"We've been in worse situations than this to start the second half. In the back of my mind, I was hoping that we could get even by the fourth quarter and pick up the win to go into the fourth quarter. To pull even at nine-something, basically within the first six minutes, was big for us psychologically. That helped us. It was big."

On if the wind affected the team early
"Yeah, it did a couple times. There was one pass in particular, it was on the sideline to Kenny Bell where he was pretty open. It was going right to him and you could just see the wind take it right out of the way. You go from probably having a seven or eight yard gain, break a tackle and a little bit more, to third and long. It's hard to get a rhythm in that situation, and that also plays into the playcall a little big."

On what Penn State did offensively in the first half to mix Nebraska up
"Me personally, I put our guys in a bad situation a couple times because I didn't  get them the call quick enough or I didn't realize they were going up on the ball quick enough. I didn't handle the tempo good enough in a few aspects in that quarter. That one time where they threw the ball in the flat for a touchdown, I saw what they were going to come out in and I made a bad call, and that put our guys in a bad situation. So I take responsibility for a couple of those."

On why NU backed off some of the pressure on quarterback Matt McGloin in the second
"We felt like our guys were getting open in the second half up front. We were picking and choosing, they were going fast. We wanted, No. 1, for our guys to feel really comfortable in what we were in. I probably should have gone to that earlier in the game. Fortunately, it didn't cost us, but I won't make that mistake again."

On quarterback Taylor Martinez's play
"I thought Taylor played his butt off. I thought he played really good. I wish he would've wrapped two hands around the football on the quarterback trap where he put the ball on the ground, but I thought he played at a pretty high-level. He was calm the whole time. I thought he played a good football game."

On Nebraska's ability to wear teams down
"You know, this was a team that, going in, I was really concerned--I don't have it in front of me, but I know we won the time of possession. I thought that was going to be big in the football game, because of how they play. I think going in, I was a little surprised in the first half that they went as much tempo as they did, because I thought would want to limit the amount of touches our offense got. I thought the time of possession and our ability to keep drives going and win that part of the game was big for us. You can find that with the turnover ratio, and that was big in the game."