Bo Pelini Press Conference Quotes

Nebraska Football
Weekly Press Conference
Memorial Stadium (Lincoln, Neb.)
Monday, Nov. 10, 2014
Pre-Wisconsin

Opening statement
“Well we had a productive bye week. Got a lot done. We got back to work yesterday. Gave them a couple days off on the weekend. Got back to work yesterday and getting ready to roll.”

On if senior I-back Ameer Abdullah is back
“We’ll see on Saturday, but I anticipate him playing.”

On if Abdullah practiced last week
“No, he worked out on the field.”

On how much emphasis they put on quarterback/center exchanges last week
“The same we always put on it. That’s always an emphasis obviously. Like I said, it’s not something that just creeps up in practice. We’ve got to make sure to eliminate it in the game. Was it an issue for whatever seven weeks or whatever it is? I wouldn’t anticipate it being an issue going forward. I mean look at Auburn the other day. That’s always something that can creep up and get you at any time. Sometimes people take that part of it for granted. You can’t take anything for granted in this game.”

On how much football he watched Saturday
“I kicked back, but I didn’t watch much football to be honest. I spent a lot of time with the family. Relaxed. Didn’t watch a lot of football.”

On the development of the front four on defense
“I think they’ve gotten better. I think they’re playing pretty well. I think there’s still a lot more there for them. It’s still really a pretty young group. We’re not going to lose any of them. I’m seeing them develop. I think they’re playing well. I see them getting better and more consistent in a lot of things, but still see a lot of areas where they can get better. Keep developing.”

On when he realized sophomore defensive tackle Maliek Collins could be a potential star
“When we first got him. He reminds me a lot of Glenn Dorsey when he was at LSU, which to me is high praise. Glenn was a heckuva player. He’s bigger than Glenn was at that point. When I first got to LSU Glenn was probably in the 275 or 280 range. But very athletic and explosive. Played well with his hands. I see a lot of similarities in how they play, how they move. Some of their strengths. What Maliek has though is that he’s a little bit bigger. Over 300 pounds. He’s doing many of the similar things I saw Dorsey do.”

On if he saw some of Collins’ high school wrestling skills transfer over on the football field
“Absolutely. I think you have to have a certain mentality to be a wrestler. Just look at (Mark) Manning. You've got to be a little screwed up to be a wrestler. You’ve got to have some explosion, feet. You have to be a pretty good athlete to do the things you have to do and wrestle at a high level. I thought that Maliek certainly did. Obviously the competitive nature he brings to the table. Just the total package. He’s a pretty talented guy.”

On his overall analysis of sophomore defensive back Nate Gerry
“Nate’s playing well. I think he gets better each week. He gets more comfortable every week. He gets a better understanding of what we’re doing. I think he plays well next to Coop (Corey Cooper) and I think they communicate really well. I think they’re on the same page. You know, he has really good ball skills. It’s interesting because I believe that playing up has helped him. Some of the natural things he does deep didn’t really come out some because I think he was a little bit of uncomfortable playing up. I didn’t see some of those ball skills when he was playing up there. He was thinking too much. Maybe he was a little bit out of place, out of position. It was what he was used to doing. But now you go back and you see that his ball skills have been a strength for him where I wasn’t sure where that would be coming in. Because you don’t see a lot of that in high school. They don’t get put into that position a lot. They probably throw away from them a lot. He was kind of a run it guy. Came downhill and made a ton of tackles. I think that he’s really developed well. I think he is going to be a great player before he’s out of here.”

On if he can tell if Gerry is happier playing his current position
“I think his confidence is just growing. We put him up there out of necessity a little bit because of our youth. Trying to get him on the field. I think he was a little bit uncomfortable, but he was a team guy and did what we asked him to do. You know it’s a lot easier to play and play freely and do what you have to do when you have a tremendous amount of confidence. And his confidence is growing all the time. I think he has a really good handle on what we’re asking him to do. How we do it. It’s enabled him to play at a high level.”

On how Wisconsin has changed since the 2012 Big Ten Championship Game and how they have stayed the same
“It’s interesting because there is a new staff, but it’s very similar in what they’re doing. It’s really the same offense. I mean there are a few wrinkles here and there, but they do a good job. They know what they want to do. They’re physical and well-coached, and they execute very well. It hasn’t changed a whole lot. And you know what, it was probably a smart move on their part. You come in, you have a defensive guy taking over. Why mess with a good thing? And they haven’t. They’ve done a good job of sticking with what they’re doing. I actually spent a lot of time learning, trying to figure out why they were doing things and how they did it. They’ve put a good product on the field.”

On if playing Wisconsin this weekend rekindles any bad memories from the 2012 championship game
“No, it doesn’t really rekindle for me. Me personally, I’ll never flesh that out. That’s something that will always be there. It’s hard to flesh that one away. But there’s nothing you can do about it. That was one of the most unusual games I’ve ever been a part of. And frustrating at the same time.”

On why he thinks the team struggles on the road against ranked opponents
“It’s hard to win on the road against good football teams in tough environments. But I know that those last five games won’t have anything to do with what happens on Saturday. The team that executes the best is going to win.”

On the key to stopping Wisconsin’s running game
“We need to execute our game plan. We have to tackle well. They have good backs. It’s going to come down to being physical up front, guys being disciplined and playing their gaps, and putting their face on somebody and tackling them when you get there. It comes down to execution. The team that executes the best will win the football game. No question about it.”

On if Wisconsin’s style of offense stresses more importance for the safeties
“It stresses everybody. They do a good job of getting everybody involved in the run game. And the pass game to a certain extent. You’ve got to play a good team defense to play against a good offense like this. Very disciplined, eyes in the right place, hitting your keys and executing at a high level. Everyone is going to have to tackle well. Everyone is going to have to read their keys. Be disciplined and play in their gaps. To play great defense, it has to be great team defense. I mean go look back at the 2012 game. We missed some one-on-one tackles. Early in the game we were out in space. Then it got our guys off kilter. We had guys jumping out of gaps and doing things. You would have come out of that game saying,’ I’m proud of ourselves for playing pretty disciplined in what we’re doing defensively. Being in the right spots, well-coached and having all of the things thought out and taken care of.’ And if you would look back at that game, you would think that group had never been coached before. For whatever reason, I don’t know why that happened. I don’t know. I watched it. And unfortunately I watched it again. A number of times since then.”

On if he thinks Abdullah is close to being 100 percent
“Yeah, but I’m not a doctor. I don’t know how it’s going to play out. We go a little bit off of how he’s feeling. We’ll find out Saturday.”

On how they prepare for a big game when they have two weeks to do so
“We don’t over-coach. We don’t do it any differently. Let me tell you, I’m not taking a shot or anything, but every game is the same magnitude as far as I’m concerned. I don’t buy into the ‘this is a big game, this isn’t a big game’ thing. Just watch college football. You better be ready week in and week out. There are no games that are bigger than the next. This just happens to be the next one against a tough opponent in their stadium. But our approach won’t be any different.”

On if sophomore tight end Cethan Carter will be available for this game and what his role has been
“Were hoping so. He’s a good player. It’s hard to replace a really good player. If he can play, that would be a really big bonus for us.”

On the nature of Carter’s injury
“He had a foot injury. I’m not even exactly sure what we would call it medically, but it was a foot injury. He ran out there on the field yesterday. Slowly but surely. We started him back Thursday or Friday last week, kind of gradually putting him up. He ran pretty well yesterday. He’ll run again today and see where he’s at tomorrow.”

On how playing at Wisconsin compares to other venues the team has played at
“It’s a great atmosphere. The fans are into it. It’s loud. It was even like that back when they weren’t quite as good of a football team when I was in the Big Ten. It was still a loud place. Good venue and good place to play. When Coach (Barry) Alvarez got in there and got that thing going, that probably took everything to another level, including the crowd.”

On if sophomore quarterback Tommy Armstrong Jr. was able to put the Purdue game behind him and have a good week pf practice
“Yes. Tommy is a competitor and wants to be perfect so to speak. He puts some things on him. There were a couple things happening in that game that weren’t necessarily his fault. He doesn’t look at it that way. He saw some things, like any competitor does coming out of the game. When you’re really a competitor and you’re coming out of the game, sometimes you forget about all the good things you did and think only about the plays you want back. It’s hard to get those out of your head. I think that’s the case with Tommy. It doesn’t affect him going forward. He doesn’t sulk or anything like that. I think he understands that there’s room for improvement and it takes a challenge to roll up his sleeves and go back to work to try to get better each and every week. That’s what our goal is really across the board. It helps when your leaders, especially in the position of quarterback, take that attitude because I think it streams down to everyone else.”

On his thoughts about the Freedom Trophy
“I actually haven’t seen the design of it. I know (Director of Athletics) Shawn (Eichorst) and Coach Alvarez and the universities came up with the idea. And I think that anything we can do to honor the veterans is a good idea. I don’t think you can do enough to honor the men and women who serve our country. I don’t think you can ever do enough. It’s a great idea.”

On how he gets tough game losses out of his mind to move forward
“Well I try to take that attitude whether you have a great game or like the 2012 one, a horrendous game. Or anywhere in between. There’s always things that you have to look at in order to learn from. I think people make that mistake sometimes. The only time they take a good hard look is when it doesn’t go right. A lot of times, things don’t get magnified. You make errors that you know are going to hurt you down the line, but just because you win with them that day doesn’t make it OK. So I think regardless of what the result is, what you do the next day and how you evaluate it, what you do as a coach or a player, have a team that is trying to get better. That part of it has to stay consistent. So I don’t look at that any differently. I don’t put it under a magnifying glass any differently. There was a lot more to look at. But how you evaluate it, how you move forward and figure out what you’re trying to do, trying to figure out how and why to get things fixed, those types of things don’t change.”

On if there was anything specific from the 2012 game that helped him move forward
“There were some things. As a coach there are two different things you look at: what you need to do structurally that wasn’t good, and then the things you blatantly didn’t execute and figuring out why. There’s two different levels of it, and I think you have to look into every depth of it. Not just what didn’t you get done, but why didn’t it get done. Figure out how to fix it.”

On if there is a psychological component to fixing those things
“No. I don’t think so. Because you know why? When you look at the film in a situation like that, you have guys that sit there and just shake their heads. I don’t get it. Why did that happen? And most of the guys that were in the game had nothing to do with it or weren’t even around.”

On how difficult it is to prepare for Wisconsin possibly playing both quarterbacks
“I think they’re different. One guy is more of a runner while the other guy is more of a pocket passer. Just making your guys on defense aware of the two differences. If they were exactly the same, then you don’t worry about it much. But they are a little bit different. The players have to be aware of who is in the game. Everything could change. They won’t change their whole offense, but they could change some things here and there.”

On what he thinks of Wisconsin running back Melvin Gordon
“He’s a good player. He runs hard. They block things well. He understands how the offense works. He’s hard to tackle.”

On if Abdullah’s absence puts added pressure on Armstrong
“You know, that doesn’t change Tommy at all. Tommy knows what he has to do to make our offense click and work. Regardless of who is back there with him, Tommy has tremendous confidence in them. It’s not like Ameer is the only running back we have. He’s a great player and obviously you want a great player. But we have other pretty capable running backs back there that are in there when he’s not in there.”

On the status of junior linebacker David Santos
“Santos is feeling good.”

On what it means to have Santos back at full speed
“I think he’s a lot more full speed and feeling better now that he made it through a game and that he’s had some time off. I think he will feel even better this coming Saturday than he was last time we saw him.”

On the performance of freshman place-kicker Drew Brown
“I don’t say much to Drew other than to hit a draw or a fade. I don’t much about kicking. But Drew has had a tremendous two weeks. It’s coming really solid off of his foot. I thought he went through a bit of a funk for about a week. He worked some things out. I think he’s feeling a lot better and a lot more confident. And I have confidence in Drew. I think he’s a young player and he’s going to continue to get better. He works at it every day. I feel good about our kicking situation. There are other coaches on the staff obviously that are more in tune to the kicking game as far as the kickers are concerned, and we lean on those guys.”

On why there are more kicking specialist coaches in college football
“Well it’s hard. Even in the pros, there’s a few. But all of the special teams coaches aren’t experts on kicking. Most of the kickers have their own coaches. Guys that they go to in the offseason and such. There are certain basic techniques I can see that are obvious and I might make a comment here and there. It’s like a golfer swing. It’s about repetition, hitting it strong. It’d be hard to do. With the 10 coaches on your staff, to be able to just hire a guy specifically for kicking, I don’t know if it’s feasible.”

On how much experience he has with Wisconsin head coach Gary Andersen
“Not a lot. I’ve got to know him a little bit at the meetings and such. He’s a great guy. He’s a heckuva coach who really put together a good staff. I have a lot of respect for what they do and how they do it. They do a really good job.”

On if punt blocking could be a potential weapon for them
“Well with Purdue in particular, we were looking to exploit something that we thought was there. But every week is a little bit different as far as that’s concerned. You look at what people are doing, you try to exploit a perceived weakness somewhere and in that case we were able to do it.”

On if he sees those opportunities opening up more because he has such good returns
“When you’re going for that many blocks, you have to sacrifice something when you go for the blocks. You’re taking the chance that you’re going to get there because you’re not blocking a lot of people. So there are times to and times not to. We’ve mixed it up pretty good as far as going for the block this year and at times trying to set up returns. At times playing some safe looks, making sure you’re very sound on fakes and that type of thing. There’s a lot to it.”