Nebraska Coach Bo Pelini

Nebraska Football
Weekly Press Conference
Monday, Sept. 22, 2014
Memorial Stadium (Lincoln, Neb.)
Pre-Illinois

Opening Statement
“Well we’re looking forward to opening up Big Ten play. Like I said the other night, we’re happy to be able to finish up the out-of-conference play like we did. 4-0. We’ve got a lot of things to do with this football team to get better. Keep working. A lot of things to clean up. A lot of things to get better at. And we need to do that starting soon. We’ll get back to work tomorrow and get ready for Illinois.”

On if Illinois will challenge the weak spots of the defense
“You know, what I pride ourselves on and what I pride our defense on is how we play technique-wise. Especially in the back seven. We didn’t play with very good technique the other night. Our footwork was bad, we got outside of our technique. There were some things that we did, in my opinion, the other night that didn’t hurt us technique-wise. We have to get that cleaned up in some areas. I didn’t really like what we did in our coverage. They came out and really did some things that we didn’t quite expect in that game. They us in some personnel groupings and spread us out a lot more than we probably expected with what they’ve done all year. We didn’t practice as much dime. I mean we practice dime, but we didn’t practice it as much going into the game. Thought it was going to be more of a third-down package that they used a little bit more on early downs. But to me it wasn’t as much about what they did, it was how we did what we did. We just didn’t play with very good technique at times. We didn’t communicate very well at times. There were things in the tape that we went through with a fine tooth comb yesterday afternoon and I think our guys learned from it. Like I said we did some things that didn’t even hurt us in the football game but could hurt you down the line. We’ve got to get some things cleaned up, more fundamentally and technique-wise than anything else.”

On if Miami’s offense forced the defense to lose sight of technique
“No, I don’t know why. I’m talking about some basic things that we really stress. We just were sloppy in some areas. Very sloppy. We didn’t play to our help a number of times in our coverage. Really at times we had some bad eye discipline as far as going through our reads and clearing out run before you got to your drop. Just some basic things that for whatever reason we didn’t execute very well. That part of it was disappointing at times. I thought we played pretty well up front. I thought we played pretty well in the run game at times. And there were some plays that we should have tackled for five, six, seven yard gains and we didn’t tackle. We were sloppy in our technique. Didn’t play with the help. Didn’t get a guy on the ground and it became 25 (yard gain) instead of seven. And I told our guys some of this. You know you’re not going to be able to tackle every day during the week. You can’t do that. But you have to make sure you’re preparing yourself to tackle well. When you’re going against a scout team, you’ve got to make sure of your focus and discipline and that you’re working with technique every single time you’re out there. It creeps up and gets you on Saturday, and that’s a lot of what happened.”

On the plans for the run game
“To a certain extent you have to take what they can give you. I don’t know, I think Miami might have gotten a little bit spooked early in the game. We hit a couple passes on them. We saw some passes that were a little too high than we thought we were going to see from them. But we were running the ball effectively. And when we’re running the ball effectively, we’re going to stay with it. We were going to mix in the play action stuff when we needed to, but I thought Tim (Beck) called a heckuva game. You go with what’s working at the time.”

On the difficulty of linebackers defending running backs
“It can be hard. Especially when you’re giving them the long field. We made the mistake of giving them the long field and not using the boundary to our advantage a couple of times. And like I said, I don’t think technique-wise that we did that very well. I thought we were backing off. One time, shame on me. But when it happens a couple times, you’ve got to know where to push them and where the help is. If you don’t have any help, you’ve got to make sure you use the sideline. At the end of the game I wasn’t as concerned about it. We were just really trying to milk the clock. There was once or twice early in the game where it hurt us.”

On if there is a position battle between senior linebacker Trevor Roach and sophomore linebacker Josh Banderas
“Well we’re going to play them both all the time. There’s going to be times when you see them in there together.”

On gaining momentum despite Miami’s touchdown on the first drive
“Well I wasn’t happy with the first drive because like I said, we did some things that hurt us in that drive where we shot ourselves in the foot a little bit. Our guys and our team are a pretty resilient group. You don’t see a group of guys that are going to panic. You talk to them on the sideline. They’re making adjustments. They’re in tune. They understand and they have confidence in themselves, in what we’re doing and on the other side of the football. It’s not a group where a lot phases them. It’s kind of like okay, it happened, what happened, how did it happen? Let’s work and get it fixed and let’s get on the same page.”

On the progress of the cornerbacks
“It’s going pretty good. A little inconsistent at times. Really know different than any other position group. I think there are some good things and there are some things that we need to do to get better at. Be a little more consistent at. At this level, or to me at any level of playing defense or any side of the football for that matter, it’s about the details. It’s about the little things. And I talked to our guys about that yesterday. Listen, when a correction is made, you’ve got to make sure you take notes, you’re writing it down, you’re going over it. So bells are going off in your head during a call saying ‘this is the technique I have to play. These are the fundamentals. This is exactly how this has to be done.’ And you can’t get outside of that for any reason. There were some very little technique things that we did in the game that we didn’t execute very well for whatever reason. Sometimes it hurt us, sometimes it didn’t hurt us. You can’t get out into the game and get off kilter and get away from it. It can’t just be what you’re doing. The most important thing is how you’re doing it. The technique you’re using to execute your job. To me, that’s most important.”

On if he thought the Big Ten would issue any discipline because of what happened at the game
“No. I mean it started to get a little crazy a couple times but I think the coaches, on both sides, did a pretty good job of making sure I didn’t get out of control. You know, it was an emotional game. I don’t think it’s anything that will be a problem going forward. But like I said, there were a couple of times where I was worried that both benches were going to clear. I didn’t want to be in the middle of that.”

On the passion of the team during the scuffles
“There’s passion and then there’s being stupid. Fighting, there’s no room for fighting during football. Nothing good can come of it. Let’s face it, if a fight breaks out like that with helmets on, keep your helmet on. Whatever is happening on the field, let it stay on the field. Our guys understand that. It’s an emotional game.”

On junior defensive end Randy Gregory’s involvement in the scuffles
“I thought he handled it well. I don’t think he was the instigator. To his credit, he didn’t do anything that could have gotten him thrown out of the game.”

On what he tells the team when they see opposing players attacking a guy
“Just try to separate it. Let the referees do their job. That’s the key. The referees have got to do their job.”

On the growth of the offensive line over the four games
“They played well the other night. They came off the football. They were physical. They played hard. That’s what I expect from them every week. We played a good football game up front the other night, but that isn’t going to help us for our game Saturday. You’ve got to bring it every week. And that’s the key. As well as we’ve played, there are some things that we could do better up front. I think we’re making progress as a team in a lot of areas. We’re still a long way to go.”

On if the offensive line is coming into their own
“Well like I just said, I think we have done some good things. But I think there are a lot of areas that we can get better at and more consistent at. You can’t ride the highs and lows. The fact is the film doesn’t lie. There are some things that yeah, we did well. And you build on that. But we have to keep fighting to get better because we are not the finished product. To be able to run the ball consistently like that is great. But we need to be able to continue to make sure we don’t become satisfied or think we’ve arrived because we haven’t. We have not. It has to be a week-in, week-out type of effort and a week-in, week-out type of execution. Continue to stay with our fundamentals. Make sure we’re approaching each day with the opportunity to get better.”

On the crowd atmosphere of the game
“I thought this crowd was phenomenal the other night. I think I said it in my press conference and I know I said it on the radio after the game. I thought it was a tremendous atmosphere. It’s a tremendous advantage. I hope to see that every week. Just like the way I challenged our team, I challenged the crowd. Let’s get that every week. Let’s make sure it’s that way every week. The same way I challenge it to myself, the coaches, the players. You can’t ride the highs and lows in this deal. You can’t pick and choose. It’s got to be the same approach every week. I hope and trust it’s going to be the same way as far as the crowd is concerned in their approach.”

On if the team feels different being undefeated going into conference play
“No. I mean the difference is, like you said, we’re 4-0. What we have to do going forward for me is just a week by week thing. We’ve got to keep on and stay focused on what we’re trying to do and keep working to get better. To me, yeah we’re 4-0, but we’re 0-0 in the Big Ten. So to me the season starts now.”

On his impression of Illinois quarterback Wes Lunt
“Good arm. Kind of a big guy who can make all the throws. He has some talent. He has really good arm talent. I think they do a really good job in the passing game. He’s not a guy who’s going to kill you with his feet. But like any major college athlete, he can do anything if you have discipline in your rush lanes and stuff like that. He’s a throw-first guy.  He’s kind of a prototypical, pro-style type of quarterback.”

On keeping Illinois junior running back Josh Ferguson under control
“Absolutely. He’s a good player. He’s a really good football player. He’s to me one of the better backs in the conference. He’s a really good back. He’s elusive, he’s quick. He’s quick to bounce the football. To me he runs with really good vision. He’s a good all-around player. I think their staff know it. They know he’s a good football player so they look to feature him. I would hope that we understand that. It doesn’t take a long time looking at film to recognize that this guy is a good player.”

On how Illinois has adapted the quarterback position with Wes Lunt
“I don’t think their scheme is much different. They’re pretty multiple in what they do. A little bit of a flavor-of-the-week type of offense. They have certain concepts of things they’re going to do. They change pretty drastically at times week to week. I know they came out against us last year and they had that crazy set that they showed us there for a while. They’re always going to have something, some new wrinkles that we’re going to have to be able to adjust to. But the basics of what they’re doing stays the same. They look to execute well. They do a number of things formation-wise to attack you that you’ve got to be able to adjust to. We’re going to see some things in this game, especially early on, that you haven’t seen on tape before. You’ve got to know that.”

On if anything on the film stuck out to him regarding how senior IB Ameer Abdullah played
“Well to me as far as Ameer’s performance, I don’t know if the first guy brought him down all night. Like I said, I’ve been around a lot of football. I don’t remember many times you can say that. He continues to show why he is who he is. He stepped up and he was possessed the other night. He ran like he always does. He ended up on top of a lot of people. Anybody out there who says he isn’t big enough, that he doesn’t run big, they need to take a good, hard look at that film. He ran pretty big the other night.”

On if he believes Ameer Abdullah should be in the top five Heisman watch
“Anybody who pays attention I’m sure has him in the top five. You’ve got to not be paying attention and not watching to not recognize the type of year he’s having so far. That’s my opinion. I’m a little biases maybe.”

On if there was a specific play he liked from Abdullah
“I like them all. I had a front row seat for a pretty good performance.”

On if he sensed Ameer Abdullah would perform a little extra before the game started
“No. He is who he is. One thing about Ameer is that you know what you’re going to get every week. You know how he’s wired and the type of competitor he is. He’s a tremendous competitor. He really is.”

On if they need to be wary of future roughing the passer calls
“I thought that was a hard one. Yeah, there’s an emphasis on it. When you’re getting blocked and you’re engaged on a guy trying to get off. To me there’s intent. If you’re coming free and you go low on a quarterback, that’s one thing. But when you’re engaged on a guy and you’re trying to get off and you end up going down to the ground, I don’t know how you can avoid it at that point. I mean I’m not going to tell a guy to just fall off to the side and not try to make the tackle. You know where I’m coming from? You know how I feel about the call. We educate our guys. Our guys know it. Our guys understand it. Our guys aren’t going low at quarterbacks at their legs. Not intentionally. Like I said there’s different situations that come up in games. When you’re locked onto a guy that can be difficult.”

On if he will submit those calls to the Big Ten
“I’m going to talk to Bill Carollo about that one. Just really to get his thoughts on it.”

On the strategy of Hail Mary passes
“There’s some luck to it. But there’s also some things that you need to do to execute defensively to make sure that doesn’t happen. It’s something that we talk about defensively. There are some things that I think you can do that give yourself a better chance of preventing that from happening. I don’t want to share it here, but there are things. This goes all the way back to my NFL days where my head coach said there are things we needed to do defensively to try to offset that. Give yourself a better chance of keeping that from happening. I think some people fall in that mistake. It’s one of those deals when some people don’t think about it until it actually happens and it bites you. It costs you a game, and all of a sudden you take a look at it and you say ‘okay, how do we prevent that from happening next time?’ I’m not saying it will never happen against us, but it’s a situation you’ve got to coach your guys through to prevent it from happening. Because when it comes up, they’ve got to know what to do.”

On the science involved in Hail Mary passes
“There’s not a lot. It depends on what the team is doing against you. It’s not something that is easily done during practice. That’s why there is probably some luck involved. And you don’t really know what the defense is going to do to try and prevent it. Like last year, we get a ball tipped and our guy executed well. He was in the right spot. Everyone is going to be a little bit different. I know the guy that did it the other night just caught the football and fell in between a bunch of guys. Everyone is going to be a little bit different.”

On how often they practice Hail Mary situations
“We talk about it a couple times a year. We do it in the preseason. We walk through it. We kind of have things in place on our walkthrough days where we talk about it. If this comes up, this is what we’re going to do on both sides of the football. Like I said, it’s not one you really want to do full speed and live because you don’t want a bunch of people jumping on top of each other. It’s hard to simulate. It’s kind of like okay, we’re going to put you in position, let’s hope it works out.”

On if he caught himself a little bit during the roughing the passer call
“I was really trying to get a clarification of what happened. What the call actually was. It’s an emotional game. You’ve just got to try to stay under control. Sometimes you can get upset, but you’re not going to get a call changed back. Like I said, you get your point across. In that case I couldn’t understand what his call was. What exactly he saw that made him throw that flag. Why it wasn’t a post-interception foul. I was watching a game Thursday night as you guys might know, I watch a lot of football. And as I was watching, a very similar situation happened where the called it post-interception. And there really wasn’t even any conversation about that of when did it occur. Should we have gotten the ball and then they mark it off afterwards? There are a number of things I was trying to get clarification on.”