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Josh Mitchell
Senior, Cornerback
Nebraska Football Weekly Press Conference
Monday, Sept. 8, 2014
Memorial Stadium (Lincoln, Neb.)
On the lack of turnovers forced by the defense and how to improve that
“Fly around, get to the ball, swarm, gang tackle, strip the balls, be more aggressive when the ball is there.”
On his role as a defensive captain and helping Josh Kalu
“Just tell him to go out there and be confident. You practiced during the week, you know what you are doing, you know the game plan. Go out there with some confidence don’t think I am a freshman so I have to play scared. He’s been playing football his entire life, he knows what to do. It’s no different.”
On the yardage that was given up and how to improve
“We have to gang tackle for one. When we actually do tackle, at the point of attack when you hit that guy, you’ve got to run your feet. We were making good contact at the line of scrimmage but then letting the running back fall for three or four yards at a time and getting into 2nd-and-6, 2nd-and-5 and what-not. We just have to gang tackle more. We have to get more hats to the football. We have to fly around. We have to be hungrier.”
On the difference between a 2nd-and-5 or 6, or a 2nd-and-9 or 10
It opens up a different playbook for the offense. They can run little plays that just get down to that 3rd-and-2, 3rd-and-1, which makes it harder for the defense. If you can get them to 2nd-and-long, it’s a different game for you. You can expect different routes, different things that happen. When you get down to a 3rd-and-long, that’s the easiest down there is.”
On what this trip means to him in his final season
“Well the last time we went there we didn’t come out with a W. It would just be nice to go out there and get a win on the West Coast. This is my last time the schedule says playing in California so it would be nice to go out there and play in front of my loved ones.”
On if he was recruited out of high school by Fresno State at all
“No.”
On if the mistakes from the McNeese State game are fixable
“Definitely, they’re fixable. I don’t think they’re very difficult to fix, you just have to do your job. After watching the film and breaking down the film, as a defense in general we just have to do our job and not worry about doing someone else’s job. If you just do your job and the guy next to your does his job then everything is going to gel, it’s all going to mold together. But when you trying to do three different things at one time it doesn’t look pretty.”
On handling a two-quarterback system
“I don’t think we handled it bad. I just think that we didn’t really recognize the type of quarterbacks we were going against at the time. You have to know which quarterbacks are going to stay in the pocket and which quarterbacks are going to move. When they come to the game you have to adjust your mind to that and think okay this quarterback could give me this and this quarterback could give me something else. I don’t think that we adjusted to it the best that we could have.”
On if there is a sense that Fresno State is similar
“Definitely, I think that anytime you have two different quarterbacks and you have a guy that is going to sit in the pocket and you have another guy that can give you the scrambling potential. They both pose their own different threats. Like I said, you just have to know when one is coming to the game and just adjust to it. Florida Atlantic had two different quarterbacks and McNeese State had two different quarterbacks so by the third game guys should be more comfortable, guys should be able to recognize.”
On how often his loved ones are able to see him play in person
“No, not very often. Not as a whole. My mom and my dad make it up to a few games but everyone else has busy schedules and they have things to do. They can’t just fly up here all the time and come to games. The majority of them are on television anyways so they just tune in and watch, so for them to be able to come out to this game and be able to watch me play will be special.”
On how many people he will have at the Fresno State game representing him
“I’m looking right now for 40 tickets, but I told some people that they needed to buy tickets because I wasn’t going to be selfish, but it will be a lot of people. It will be a big “Go Josh” section.”
On how he will find 40 tickets
“I mean we don’t have too many people from California so if you add up all the guys that are traveling with four tickets, that’s a lot of tickets.”
On how he might pull some “senior weight” on the younger freshman
“I wouldn’t even call it “senior weight” I would call it “West Coast weight”. We don’t have too many California kids on the team and then some people don’t have a whole lot of other people coming. It’s different for me the last time going there.”
On if he prefers playing at night or during the day
“I would like to play under the lights. Sometimes those night games, prime-time television, are just perfect and especially if it’s hot out. Sometimes you just get out there and just get going and not sit around the hotel all day, those are always nice. Playing under the lights here is going to be nice. It will kind of be like Friday nights for me playing in high school. So that will be cool.”
On how the team has responded to their performance on Saturday
“I think that as a team we know where we have to improve and get better. Every opponent we play is going to give us their best game and they should. They prepare hard, we prepare hard. Like Coach Bo (Pelini) said, you have to respect the game. I feel like after a game like that a lot of people are using the words, “we got humbled”. Yes we did get humbled but like Coach Bo said, you have to respect the game, its football. Guys play the same as what we play. Guys put on their pants just like we do. Other teams have talent.”
On if he saw a more attentive group in the locker room after the game
“Definitely. After the game there weren’t guys in the locker room just talking and hanging out even though we won. Even the guys that didn’t play, some of the redshirt guys. It was almost like we lost. I think that’s a good thing. I think we need everyone to focus more from the top down. As a team there’s a lot of areas that we need to improve and when you have games like we just had there’s only one way to go about it. That’s just to go out there and just handle your business. We don’t need a lot of guys playing around, laughing around. We need to take it more seriously.”
On if it was harsh that the team dropped out of the top 25
“No, I don’t think it was harsh. When you put on what we put on film, it’s out there. I don’t think it’s harsh at all. I think all you can do is go out there and go play football and just try to be better. When you start looking at that you start trying to see if it’s fair or not. It’s not up to you if it’s fair or not, you just have to go out there and put on your best game.”
On how important it is as a senior to break away from that negative history
“Very important. Just like the seniors in front of us, they didn’t want to go 9-4. They didn’t want to be that team that was just, what I would say, average. When you start to get that feeling “here we go again”, you have to do something different. Every year, you have those guys that when they come talk to you and when they come back they’re like “man I wish we could have done this, I wish it would have gone this way. You guys have a lot of talent, be better than us”. All you want to do is just build on that.”