Head Coach Bo Pelini Quotes (Sept. 16)

Nebraska Football
Weekly Press Conference
Memorial Stadium
Pre-South Dakota State
Monday, Sept. 16, 2013

Head Coach Bo Pelini
Opening Statement 
“Like I said after the game, that was a loss that hurt. I’ve done a lot of soul searching in the last couple days. (I’ve been) thinking about why it happened and how it happened. I can say this: I take personal responsibility for that loss. You hear me talk a lot around this program about culture. I think culture is important. What I know we have is a group of young men in that locker room that want nothing more than to win football games. By nature, I’m a perfectionist. I push. I have high standards. And that will never change. But at times I looked at our players and I saw a look like they had seen a ghost. When I look back on it and I think about it, I think about ‘did I’ or ‘have I’ – and believe me, I’m the guy who points the thumb and not the finger – have I pushed to the extent where they’re not having fun anymore? Or are they playing not to lose? Trust me, they want to play great. A lot of things that happened in the game weren’t necessarily physical but at times mental. At the end of the day, that comes back on me. Have I been doing the right things? Am I doing the right things to No. 1 make sure first and foremost that these young men are enjoying their experience. No. 2 that they are able to handle the pressure, the adversity and the things that go along with being a collegiate football player. I’ve thought about it. I push, push, push. Believe me, there has to be some of that, but there also has to be a fine line. I want our players to get back to having fun again. I want them to go back to going out to play to win and not worrying about losing the football game. That’s the only way you are going to be able to reach your potential as a football player and as a football team. At the end of the day, for whatever reason, I didn’t feel that was the case on Saturday. I saw it in their look, I saw it in their demeanor and I’ve been around long enough to know that it starts with the guy in charge. It starts with me. I understand that and I’m going to do everything in my power to fix that. That’s what has to happen first. Don’t get me wrong. That wasn’t the only reason we lost the football game.

“There were some physical things out there. (There were) some physical errors, some sloppy fundamentals and technique and some things like that that happened at times that hurt us. I understand from being around this game long enough to know that accountability goes both ways, but it starts with me and it ends with me. My job at the end of the day is to put the players in position to win football games (as well as) myself and my staff. (My job is also) to get them in the right mental mindset to allow that to happen. I can say this. I wholeheartedly feel I failed in that regard on Saturday for whatever reason. We got away from playing aggressive football and got on our heels and didn’t recover on Saturday. I’ve thought back to my career as a coach and how I’ve started and how I’ve started as a head coach. I’ve grown up a lot as a football coach. Have I let the inherent pressures or whatever there are – my drive to push this program to the next level – create a culture among our team to not allow them to have success? Or not give them the best chance to have success. I would say at this point, yes. Maybe I did do that. You are crazy to sit there and try to pound the square peg into the round hole. You have to constantly as a head football coach, in any profession or as an athlete, you have to look at the things that happened and evaluate them. (You have to) say ‘what can we do to get better’ and ‘how do we fix this going forward?’ That’s the first part. That doesn’t mean our standards changed. That doesn’t mean that we don’t be demanding or anything else.

“We’re looking at some things to get this thing heading in the right direction, because we are really close. We have a chance to be a really good football team. At times on Saturday we were a very good football team. It has to be a consistent thing. It has to be an every down thing. It has to be an every game thing. A big part of this game and a big part of athletics is the mental drive behind it and the focus. Culture is real. A culture around the football team. And who sets the culture? It’s the head football coach. I understand that. We did a lot of talking as a staff yesterday and did a lot of talking as a staff this morning. I feel that we have a plan in place moving forward that I believe will help this football players get back to enjoying this game again. We have a lot of football left to play, and I like our chances moving forward. That’s kind of where we are as far as Saturday is concerned. One thing we are going to do is practicing on Sunday. We are not going to be practicing on Mondays and that starts today. We’re going Sundays instead of Mondays. I’m evaluating and looking at everything we can do to give our guys the best opportunity moving forward to be the best football team we can be. I believe in our group of guys. I believe in them wholeheartedly. I believe in the players in that locker room. I believe in the staff. We’re going to move forward. We have a lot of football left to play. The process continues. We’ll finish up the process on UCLA and how it relates to our football team today and we’ll move forward and get better because of it.”

On how he changes the team’s mood
“I think there’s a lot of things that play into it and I’m not going to get into specifics. There’s some things that we’ve talked about. There is a lot of pressure in this place. There’s going to be pressure. There’s going to be an aura that comes from outside. We have to make sure we are cognizant of it inside. Like I said, we have to approach it in such a way in every step of the way in providing an environment for our players to do the best they possibly can. I don’t know if that’s been the case as of late.”

On what’s wrong with the team
“I’m saying there’s a lot of things that go into a culture and how you deal with your players on a daily basis. Like I said, I’ve thought a lot about it since Saturday. (I thought about it) all day yesterday, last night and this morning. I think there are some things that we can be doing better.”

On why he moved practices to Sunday
“(To) give them the day off on Monday. I think we can get the same things done on Sunday that they get done on Monday. We are still going to practice on Sunday, but it’s going to give them a day to just get away from the whole thing for a whole day. (It’s a day) where they can just be a student and just go to class. Everyone has a day off during the week. Like I said, we looked at some changes and talked through the pros and cons and everything. I feel we can move forward and really get the same amount of work accomplished and just do it in a more efficient way.”

On who came up with the idea
“That wasn’t just me. We talked it out for a long time as a staff. Like I said, we talked about the benefits, the pros, the cons, everything and decided that this was the best thing for our football team going forward.”

On if the players told him they felt pressure
“I saw it during the game. I saw it in their face. For me to ignore that would be crazy. Can you alleviate that? No you can’t alleviate that. That’s part of football. That’s part of the game. What I can do is do my best to help that. Like I said, you have to look yourself in the mirror and look inside first. That’s how I choose to go about my job. That’s how I’ve always approached it and I need to do a better job. I need to start having fun again. I do. It starts with me. If I don’t enjoy my job and I’m not enjoying what I’m doing, then how are they going to?”

On the point where he started not enjoying it
“With me, it’s different. I don’t think it’s about the fact of not enjoying your job. It’s the fact of being so driven and so task-oriented that you lose sight of other things that need to be part of it. I understood when I came back (to Nebraska) that this is a different place. I understood that. This is a special place. It’s a great place. It’s a different place. It’s very unique. It can consume you. To a certain extent is my drive to success (consuming) me? At times and even if it hasn’t, if I’m able to deal with it then what kind of aura do you put out for your football team? And how does it affect them? It doesn’t matter to me. I’ve been around this thing for a long time. It’s about what you can do to affect your team in the most positive way possible. I believe you have to always look at that and continue to grow as a coach or you’re not going anywhere. You don’t get better. I’m looking to get better. Our football team isn’t going to get better if I don’t get better.”

On what makes Nebraska unique
“There are a lot of great programs out there, but this place is 365 days a year of football, which is a great thing. But it’s different now with social media and all the things that happen there. I don’t know if there are a lot of places that have 15 to 20 people that come after practice to hear what I have to say. I wouldn’t go across the street to hear what I have to say.”

On the team’s response to the practice change
“We’ll talk about it this afternoon. I’ve talked to a number of our players. We as a staff looked at everything we thought we could do move it forward and look at ways to get better. We turned over every stone. That’s what we are trying to do and that’s one of the things we came up with. We’re using this week to see how we like it.”

On the team leaders
“That’s a process going forward. That doesn’t just happen overnight. Those guys do a good job. They are leaders. They are good role models and good examples for the other guys. I believe in our captains and I believe in our leadership.”

On former quarterback Tommie Frazier’s comments
“I didn’t read what he said. I kind of heard about it. I can say this. We have a staff, players, administration, and everyone here who’s busting their butt to do everything we can to win football games and do everything we can for these student-athletes. Since I came back here, I’ve embraced the former players. If he feels like that, then so be it. We don’t need him. That’s a shame. Until you’ve sat and done it, anybody can have an opinion. Anybody can do that. Like I said, it’s easy to point fingers and stand outside and throw stones. I take it for what it is.”

On if Taylor Martinez has been hesitant
“I thought he was healthy going in. I thought he was hesitant. At the end of the day, Taylor needs to play better than he did the other day. That starts with the details. That starts with running the football with conviction. It’s as simple as that.”

On Martinez’s health
“He wasn’t hurt going into the game. Is he hurt today? I don’t know. I know he’s sore. If you say you can play, we expect you to execute. Period.”

On the offense
“I think there needs to be a narrower focus at times. But I can tell you this: we left a lot out there on the field the other day. We left a lot of opportunities and we left a lot of touchdowns out on the field. That was disappointing. We had our opportunities.”

On a narrower focus for the offense
“(Coach Tim Beck and I) talked about that at length yesterday. What we do offensively works. We talked about it yesterday, (Coach Beck) and I and our offensive staff. We didn’t call a lot the other day. We didn’t execute what we ran. At times, we had plays that we didn’t take advantage of numerous opportunities. I think where our narrower focus has to happen is during the week. (We need to make sure) we don’t look at too much during the week or do too much during the week so that our players’ focus is narrowed on Saturday. We talk about it in all respects. I think you have to do that in every phase of the game. A good idea is only a good idea unless the players can execute it and understand it. Like I said, we spent a lot of time yesterday looking at everything we do and where we are after three games knowing that we have 75 percent of our season and more staring us in the face. I think the potential is there to be a really good football team. We have some things we need to get cleaned up.”

On why the offense hasn’t produced explosive runs
“(It’s the) little things. Success in football is in the details. (It can be) not finishing a block here. It’s the little things. That’s why we talk about possibly narrowing the focus to make sure that we concentrate to a greater extent on the details and the little things. That’s where success happens. At the end of the day, all I want to make sure we are doing as a staff is making sure we are doing everything we can for the young men in that locker room to make sure we are giving them the best opportunity to be confident, to play fast and to have fun playing this game.”

On the defense
“(Coach John Papuchis) does a good deal of that but I’m involved. I don’t micromanage it in any respect. We make the calls together. That’s kind of how we go about it.”

On if he would hire a sports psychologist
“We have some good ones on staff.”

On the defense’s speed and athleticism
“I thought at times in the first half we did a lot of good things defensively. A lot of good things. For whatever reason, in the second half they didn’t change much and we didn’t change much. We didn’t execute as much. We got on our heels and played passively and not aggressively. It was more of a mental thing than a physical thing. At times we were out of position and that creates space and more missed tackles. Believe me, some of it was physical. We just didn’t make some tackles and things like that. Some of the mental breakdowns of things we head actually done in the first half and same plays and similar calls in the second half we didn’t execute. That part of it was alarming. That’s part of what I was talking about when I mentioned the look in our eye. The ‘Oh my goodness, are we going to lose this thing?’ look. We played at times in that situation not to lose. A lot of times that puts you in a bad position. We busted assignments we had already executed in the first half. At times we were very good. But when adversity hit, we didn’t respond very well.”

On defensive leadership on the field
“In situations like that, you need to step up and make a play. We didn’t do that consistently. I thought Josh Banderas, who is a freshman, did a really good job of taking command and doing the things up front and directing things. He did a really good job. When it came down to it, at the end of the day on either side, when you have the momentum going against you, somebody has to take it upon themselves to make a play. And to execute their job. There were some instances in that second half I think we had guys trying to do too much. When you try to do too much and you try to do something that isn’t your job, that creates issues. We played good, disciplined team football in the first half. We got away from that in the second half and it hurt us. It was a guy here, a guy there, a missed assignment here. We got on our heels. It wasn’t across the board all the time, but you need 11 guys in order to execute and get it going.”

On playing South Dakota State
“Our guys will be ready to play on Saturday. (South Dakota State) is a good football team. They are well-coached. They have a back and I believe he ran for (more than) 2,000 yards last year. They are going to do what they do and they do a nice job. They are a quality football team. You just look week after week and there are games you think won’t be close. I think it was right after we played Washington a couple years ago, they came in and played hard. They are going to be sound in what they do. They won’t be really fancy, but they’ll be sound and aggressive. They’re going to come in here to compete. The first thing we have to do is fix us and make sure that we have the right mindset. (We need to) have a great week of preparation. We won’t treat this game any differently than we do any other game.”

On the young receivers
“Taariq (Allen) is probably close to 80 percent. You will probably start seeing Alonzo Moore a lot more this week. He was coming off a little bit of a shoulder (injury) and it’s been limiting him in practice time. I think he’s getting better by the day. Obviously we think both those guys are talented guys and we want to get them out there. The sooner, the better for us.”

On Nebraska’s receivers in the second half against UCLA
“Those guys have been playing a lot of snaps, probably too many snaps. You have to get them out there at times. Sometimes you look in hindsight and wish on a big third down you had them out there. But you just can’t play every snap. That’s just unrealistic. You have to give them a rest. We have confidence in those other guys. Those other guys have made plays. We had drops in that game. We had a couple on third down that hurt us. I don’t think we had a drop in the first two weeks. You can count on one hand the amount of drops by our wide receivers in practice over the last month, let alone four in one day. Once again, that’s a situation where we have to make a play and why is that happening? Why did that happen on Saturday? I’m trying to examine every aspect of it.”

On Nebraska’s punt returner this week
“It will probably be either (Jordan) Westerkamp or (Terrell) Newby. Jamal (Turner) has struggled. He really finished off last year and did a really good job by the end of the year. I thought he got really comfortable. He’s been getting all the rugby punts. He’s had some difficult situations that have been thrown at him in the first couple weeks. I think his confidence is maybe a little bit shaken back there. We’re going to take that off his shoulders a little bit.”

On Jamal Turner’s health
“He’s healthy. He’s O.K.”