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Nebraska vs. McNeese State
Saturday, Sept. 6, 2014
Memorial Stadium (Lincoln, Neb.)
Opening Statement
"First off, congratulations to Nebraska, first-class program and a first-class place. Got to give them credit, they found a way to win the game at the end. Great play by (Ameer) Abdullah. Really proud of our players to come in an environment like this - 90,000. I can't say enough about the effort of our players; for what our defense did in the second half in holding Nebraska in check. We had two big-time drives, one with Daniel (Sams) in and one with Tyler (Bolfing) in. We flipped the field and were backed up, then those two big drives while the crowd was in it and everything. We came here to win. We came up short, but I am really proud of the effort by our guys. I thought we hung in there and really played hard. I think we have a chance to have a good football team because of the guys behind me. That is encouraging.”
On defensive adjustments after halftime
“I thought our defensive coaches did a great job of --- when you play a team like this, it is hard to simulate what they do in practice, because of the tempo. Running the football, (Tommy Armstrong Jr.) was also throwing the ball well, and God, what a couple of great catches to boot to keep drives going. In the second half, we did a better job of getting off the field on third down. Those third downs were continuing the drive and wore us down. In the second half, we were able to get off the field. We did a better job of sustaining drives in the second half as well. I did not think we did well in that in the first half."
On what the locker room is like now
" Down. There is no cheering in there. We are going to be fine though. We will get them up as coaches, but you say it during the week, we are supposed to win. That is what McNeese is about. The guys behind me are about that, and that is what we coach to do. We came here to win the game. Obviously the locker room is down right now, but we will get on the bus and by the time we get to the plane we will have them back up again. It is a long season ahead of us. We have to be proud of our effort.”
On what the difference is between Nebraska and McNeese State
"I don’t know. They had the ball last and that kid (Ameer Abdullah) made a great play. You've got to give him credit. That has to be on some kind of highlight tape."
On if overtime was creeping into his mind
"Yeah I was. Obviously the object was to score a touchdown and not have to settle for a field goal, which we had our chances and I made a really bad call on third down. Whether we would have got it I don’t know, but we did settle for the field goal. We did a great job. We took over with the ball at the five yardline and went the whole field and flipped the field. Hey, we have a lot to look forward to. You are supposed to improve from your first game to your second game and if we can do that, we will be OK next week.”
On if he thought the team could match up with Nebraska
"I did not know about that, and the crowd. But the only thing I told our players and coaches was you always have a chance when you have as much speed as your opponent does. I did not think there was any doubt that we could run with them. We are fast. We have been able to play with some of these teams because we can run with them. We felt like going in, as long as we could run with them and not get out of position, it would be a matter of making more plays than them. Like I said, they made one more play than we did. I just felt like we came in at half and our players were not satisfied. You could tell that. We weren’t satisfied being down seven and looking good. We prepared to win. I thought we had a chance.
On swing passes and dropped passes in backfield
"We had a couple. We felt like we had a few. I have a bad seat so I don’t know. It did seem like we dropped a couple, maybe. We felt like we had those because we were rubbing off their guys that were playing man. We felt like we had them."
On Abdullah's last play, bad tackling or great play by Abdullah
“I am not sure. It looked like a great play by him to me. I will have to watch the film. He is a big-time player. You don’t come back as a leading rusher in the nation unless you can make plays. Give him credit, he made a great play.”