Nebraska Postgame Quotes

#19 Nebraska 38, Northwestern 17
Ryan Field (Evanston, Ill.)
Oct. 18, 2014
Postgame Quotes

Nebraska Head Coach Bo Pelini
On offensive coordinator Tim Beck's playcalling ...
"De'Mornay [Pierson-El] played quarterback some in high school as did Alonzo [Moore] some, so it's a play that Tim put in for this week and get them thinking speed sweep with one of those guys who were in reverse. I was a little nervous about where he called it because that wasn't quite the area of field we were going to run it on, but that's why Tim calls the plays and I don't."

On second-half defensive adjustments...
"We played better, but we didn't really make a big adjustment. I mean we covered better...I don't know [if] we did some things that were that bad in the first half. I thought we were sloppy tackling earlier on, let some guys leak out, we had one or two miscommunications and really had some opportunities where we were right on guys on third down when they made catches. I just thought we cleaned ourselves up and played a little bit better and were a little more consistent in the second half."

On DT Kevin Williams' spark...
"Kevin played well. I know he was excited to be out there. Kevin, you know what, he had a great week of practice. In my experience when you practice well, you're going to play well. There's no mistake. He's feeling healthy now and I wish the field wasn't the way it was. It was a little bit softened out there. I'm glad he came out of it healthy and it was a little bit of a boost for Kevin. I thought Jack Gangwish played well. I thought we played pretty well up front all together."

On today's substitutions...
"We wanted to sub a little bit more. We got away from them for whatever reason against Michigan State, and like I said when guys practice well they earn playing time and I thought that was the case."

On winning after the Michigan State loss...
"We just needed to come win a football game and I don't want to read too much into it. We're going to meet a challenge next week. We've gotta keep getting better. There's a lot of things that we need to fix, that we need to get better at, as the year keeps going on. We'll stay with what we're doing. If we keep practicing and preparing the way we're capable of, we need to keep getting better and there are some things, especially in that first half, that I didn't like and really things in the second half that we were able to overcome, a couple throws on third down that type of thing or a sack here or there. We just gotta keep trying to get better."

On Ameer Abdullah and the running game...
"You just keep pounding it. You just keep running the football and you know he doesn't need a lot of room. What I was happy with and what I give the offense credit for, is we didn't go away from the run. We stuck with it and kept looking for different ways and different structures and motions and showed Northwestern a lot. We eventually found some things that we really liked and that we were able to take advantage of."