Coach Mike Riley Press Conference

Nebraska Football
Weekly Press Conference
Monday, Sept. 21, 2015
Memorial Stadium (Lincoln, Neb.)
Pre-Southern Miss

Coach Mike Riley
Opening Statement
“We’re obviously really disappointed with the loss. There’s many mixed emotions about a game like we just had.  We had a very bad start, and then a nice resiliency by our team, and then our inability to finish and win it at the end. There’s lots of mixed emotions about how that all went down. In evaluating the game in general, there’s things negatively, I suppose, to point out that are pretty easy to see. We just had a bad start in the game. Why that is, I think you can blame it on some stuff that may or may not have any substance. There just may be reasons, certainly not excuses, whether it’s travel or the first road game or the conditions with the humidity, we should be able to handle that fine. We actually played through the game better, which is a good indication that we’re in good shape, that we could stick with it like that.  The fact of the matter is (Miami) started faster than we did. They outplayed us defensively and offensively right off the bat. That got us into a big hole, so we were not in any kind of attack mode on either side of the ball and they were. We were bad on first down defense. Their average on first down was way too high. We were bad defensively giving up big plays again. Offensively we just had a bad start, whether we dropped the ball or we had penalties that negated plays. We had no rhythm whatsoever. If you take the penalties in the ballgame, we had two illegal substitutions, three illegal formations, two false starts and an unsportsmanlike, all under our control that we have to clean up. Otherwise, despite the bad start, we’re putting ourselves in a disadvantaged position, so we’ve got to clean that up, both the coaching staff and team. There were some good things, obviously, the fact that we came back and we became the attacking team as the game went on. As bad as we were on first down, our third down defense was good, they were 3-for-14 on third-down conversions. I think our red zone defense was good, they were 2-of-8 (scoring touchdowns).  At least when they got in position, the majority of the time, we made them have to kick a field goal, which, when you get there, that’s a win for you as you go. Special teams in general, Sam (Foltz) did not have his kind of day punting the ball, but when you look at it in general, a guy like Andy Janovich, that’s specific, but he’s one of the best special teams players I’ve ever been around. He made four tackles and had some unbelievable physical plays on special teams. There was actually some good stuff there. Drew Brown had a nice day kicking off and made a big field goal. Offensively, our red zone offense was good. Our hurry-up offense performed well, and we had a variety of people contribute with different receivers making plays. That’s all good as we go forward in the future. I thought that it was a good sign that we were able to play through the end of it physically in the hot, humid conditions. The fact that mentally we could stay with it, those were good things. Injuries, (junior linebacker) Michael Rose-Ivey will be out for probably four weeks at least with a groin. (Junior defensive tackle) Vincent Valentine, the best way to describe him is week-to-week. We don’t know today, and maybe as the week goes on, we’ll know more. He’s still having pain with that ankle, and it was what was termed a slight high-ankle sprain. The high-ankle sprain, I think, is worse than the other one. He got better during the week. I thought he might be able to play but he was not able to. Now we’re obviously looking forward to getting started today with our preparation for Southern Mississippi. I think probably one of the obvious questions is, 'How (are we) going to be?' I’m not going to assume anything negative about them practicing or preparing, because we haven’t encountered that. We will certainly address it, and make sure we stay on top of it. This is an unforgiving game, and it’s all about finishing and winning. A couple of plays different, a couple of seconds different, we’d be undefeated and having to address, probably, a different topic. The fact of the matter is, whether we are or not, we’ve got those same issues. If the games were just the same but the finish was just a little different, we’d still have those issues that we have to deal with, whether it’s how we started, or the penalties or what we need to do. So that’s where we have to go with this team, is continue to grow and teach and accentuate those things that we’re doing well, and improve those things that we have to get better at. So we’re looking at all those angles and studying that, there will be questions about personnel, I’m sure, of possible changes. What we’re doing in the secondary is, we’re going to, through the week, sort this thing out with the corners. Josh Kalu plays nickel and (cornerbacks) Jonathan Rose and Daniel Davie have been in, and Chris Jones has played now, and Trai Mosley’s played a little bit, so we’re dealing with a handful of guys, different nickel, dime base. We’re going to figure out the best thing to do with no definitive answer. Somebody’s going to ask me about starting corners, I’m not ready for that, you’ll get that as we go through the week. We need to sort it out as the best situation, the variety of coverages we can play, what we might do in nickel and dime, and then go from there.” 

On junior linebacker Michael Rose-Ivey’s injury
“Well, I’m disappointed in that, just because I was excited about (linebackers Josh Banderas, Dedrick Young and Rose-Ivey) getting healthy and getting to play together as a group that we would term “the starters,” which I guess has been one time now. We haven’t had that, but in the meantime, what we do in nickel, and the fact that, hopefully, Josh Banderas gets really healthy and feeling good, we play two regular linebackers in our nickel defense, so I think we’ll be all right there with Dedrick and Josh, for instance, that would be playing. I think we’re strengthened by the fact that Luke Gifford has played a lot of football for us, and Marcus Newby played a lot in the game before, so guys have gotten experience playing, and that helps us a little bit. It’s just too bad that trio (Banderas, Young and Rose-Ivey) couldn’t stay together and play together for a bit, because I think that’s a good group, but these other guys will step in and play, and they’ve got experience.”

On how he will address the penalties
“That’s been an ongoing thing. It’s one group in particular as we substitute that caused an issue.  One of them, we made a change in personnel group while (wide receiver) Jordan Westerkamp was still returning to the huddle, so he didn’t get the communication coming back that we changed personnel. That’s our (staff’s) fault, we’ve got to find a way to remedy that. I love the opportunity to change personnel groups, we’re going to continue to do that, we just have to do it cleaner. The communication from the sidelines and the awareness of that by everybody, what we’ve tried to teach and failed, is that you should never go in the huddle until you know that everybody knows.  And then if you just go out there and don’t go in the huddle until you know everybody knows then you can solve it, but obviously in the heat of the game we didn’t accomplish that. We will figure out a better way to do that. That’s what it was offensively that killed our rhythm, either a penalty, or we made a couple good plays, I was wondering if Jordan was even going to get a ball, he caught two big balls, and neither one of them counted because of penalties. Now that one illegal formation deal, that is a tight call. That’s called on the offensive tackle for being in the backfield, and usually, you don’t get that called until you get a warning about that. I was surprised about that, not that (the officials) were wrong, but that’s just a tough one. I’m not sure you could tell from the film.”

On if any other team he has coached has come back from a deficit that large
“Well, we’ve had a couple comebacks, not that amount of points, and the last time we were like that, and it’s easier to do it because the clock stops, was one time in the Canadian (Football) League, we had even, I think, a little bit bigger deficit and won the game. I liked it because our guys had, physically, the ability to do it and stay with it, and then we were more in the attack mode, we were more confident. I thought (quarterback) Tommy (Armstrong Jr.) for the majority of it was outstanding. He made some big-time reads and throws. Guys were making plays. All that is good. We all know the bad parts. We had to do that because of the situation we put ourselves in.  That’s the hard part, and then not finishing it. We had them on the ropes, and didn’t finish.”

On the personnel group on the field for the final offensive play in OT
“In that personnel group, we’ve got two tight ends and two backs. I actually think that was a heck of a call by (Offensive Coordinator) Danny (Langsdorf). Tommy just didn’t quite get through the progression. You’re basically two-on-one, the linebacker on the backside with the tight end and the back. The tight end was covered and the back, he’d run for 15 yards. Maybe (Armstrong) got flushed, maybe he didn’t quite go through it, and then he scrambled opposite that.”

On whether Armstrong has struggled with progressions because of the lack of protection
“Sometimes that happens. (The first play of overtime) was a bootleg, and I don’t think it was lack of protection. I think he just looked for the tight end and took off and didn’t make one more step on it. He’s made a lot of good reads, though. I’m very pleased with his progress. Had we caught more balls early, had he got more in a rhythm, and had we not had penalties, I think he had to fight through a lot. I think we counted six possible drops in the game.”

On how he feels Offensive Coordinator Danny Langsdorf is doing calling plays
“Good. Real good. One thing that is naturally going to happen with a (coaching) change, it’s a whole new language, so I think his teaching of that and the ability to run an offense and make those calls, I think he’s done a really good job.”

On his play-calling history with Langsdorf
“I (called plays) through most of (2013), and then he did at the end, just because I thought, at that point he was really ready. He and I had worked together for so long. I kind of went back and forth with it a couple times with him, and when I took back over, a couple years before, it was just because I missed it, not anything to do with anything else. He called a great game that year against Oregon, where we took the lead with 1:29 to go. I thought that was outstanding. Then he called the bowl game against Boise State that we won nicely. I feel really good about what he’s doing. You can tell how the flow is going, because the guy that’s calling plays, I can hear him (on the headset). You can’t stutter, it’s got to go. I think he’s doing a real nice job.”

On if he has called any plays this year
“Only on those good plays that you’ve seen (laughs). Not much. There’s been some moments I can’t help myself. That’s been fun. When I first started coaching for John Robinson at USC, it was awesome. It was 1993. He had offered me the job as offensive coordinator, and I told him, 'Coach, I’ve been coaching offense for one year. I’ve been working with the offense with (the San Antonio Riders of the World League of American Football), and that was the first year I’ve done it.' He said, 'That’s OK.' He just wanted somebody he could work with. I was going to call the plays, and I had not done that, and I signaled and called and all that. He was so funny during the games, because at least twice a game, he would walk by in front of me and say, 'How ‘bout the bootleg?'  I said, 'You got it, here it comes.'  It was fun, so I get all that. I think you’ve got to be real careful when you do interject, because there’s a thought process going on. You’ve got to do it early. It’s better between series, as I look at defenses, I can help that way.”

On if he misses calling plays
“You know what, I still do. I think it’s good. But I think that what I also found is that you are just locked in to one side of the ball a lot, whether it is between series when you’re talking to the quarterback or working with the signal caller. I think I can do better like this right now with talking to (special teams coordinator) Bruce Read, listening to the defensive calls in between, and being able to talk to those guys, too. For me right now, it’s better. That doesn’t mean I don’t miss it, but I think Danny’s doing a good job.”

On talking to Alex Lewis
“First of all, I know he feels bad and sorry about his response. Alex is a good guy. He’s sensitive. He made a mistake on a penalty that was bad and he knows that, we all know that. Then his response was bad because first of all, he doesn’t need to do that. You don’t need to gain your identity from social media and react like that, and secondly, you don’t generalize like that about a group of people and he knows that, so that basically was the nature of our talk. ”

On what frustrated Riley most about pass defense
“There is no doubt about it that we are giving up too many big plays. Every coverage that you run has strengths and weaknesses. Of course, one of the things you start with is where you have to take care of first.  Where are your vulnerable points? If you’re playing a three deep, you know you’re going to get help on the post, but you’re not going to get any help here, so here on the fade or the streak is the dangerous route here. So, that’s got to be your first priority and if you’re pressing, you’re playing man-to-man, you want to be able to first transition and be in a position to play that ball. Now that is way easier said than done sometimes. When you’re playing quarters coverage, you’ve got some help underneath, but you’ve got to take care of both. You don’t always have post help or streak help, and then your underneath and inside underneath help will be good. So you’ve got to play to your strengths, always take care of those things and we’re not doing a great job of that. We’re losing those one-on-one battles out here mostly; that’s where they‘re happening. So we’ve got to continue to coach, help the players, technically and then they’ve got to be aware and sound, but we’re giving up too many big plays and that is flipping the field if nothing else and giving them scoring opportunities.”

On Daniel Davie’s confidence
“I think that what we need to do is really help Daniel with some concrete stuff to help him get better. He’s got to fight this thing mentally, because it becomes not only a physical problem. He’s conscientious, [a] really good guy, good worker, has had a lot of experience and played, so we’ve got to get him back on good footing and help him. That’s where we have to go with him.”

On a social media restriction
“I don’t have a rule saying, “Don’t go on it.”  I have advice on how to handle it, and so there are consequences to portraying our team in the wrong way with a situation like that.”

On whether or not Alex Lewis has maintained his captaincy
"Yes, yes he has."

On understanding the gravity of starting the season 1-2 for the first time since 1980
“I don’t know if historically they [the players] do necessarily. I think that they do understand the gravity of losing and how close and unforgiving this game can be. These guys care, everybody cares, everybody’s hurting, but like I said that’s one side of it. It’s kind of what we can do with it. I certainly don’t ever ignore the things that have to get better, but I will because there’s a lot of football ahead of us, a lot of stuff out there for us to still go after, so you’ve got to kind of approach it in a way of 'this is how we can fix it.' There’s a lot of good things here that if we mix it in and fix it, this team is going to be all right. We’ve lost to two pretty good teams in games that we had great opportunities to win, so we can’t as a coaching staff panic on that stuff. We still have to acknowledge why. There are reasons, it’s just not an accident that we lost, there are reasons we lost, but we understand who we played and what we did against them and what we can do and that all to me can be positive as we go forward today.”

On the potential return of De’Mornay Pierson-El
“It’s getting close. Everything is progressing without a hitch right now. I think in the next week, not for this week, but in the next week or two after this, we’re looking at something we can really talk about in here. Maybe next Monday, maybe not, but maybe.”

On the importance of this week’s game
“It’s big. It’s a home game for us. At this stage, it’s a matter of all those things we already talked about getting that opportunity to just play better, cleaner, start better, all of those things we failed at, that we can look at and then build on what we’re doing well. I think building really who we are, identity-wise, in every phase -- that grows as you go. Like I’ve said before, I think every game in college football is a playoff game, so you’re looking for your niche and we’ve got to start going after that."

On the start of Big Ten play in 12 days
I’m obviously paying attention, but [am I] focusing really on who those teams are at this point? No. I’m very interested in how the games go. You know we really are, as you can tell, we’re in a position where we can grow this team and all the transition stuff that we’re doing and help the people that are playing in those positions is our focus. We’ll take care of the Big Ten schedule better if we do better right now."

On the value of teaching a quarterback to recognize coverages and read defenses
“With what we know and what we do in the passing game, it’s natural that a quarterback has to learn that. I can understand that other part of it, because even though offenses are way different [in the NFL] and [college] quarterbacks aren’t growing up in that, there’s still cases of a quarterback like, we’ll take Marcus Mariota for instance. He’s probably going to go through growing pains as he goes, but he is a good quarterback in any system so they’re going to be all right. And he’s smart, and so we have found that the transition with Tommy (Armstrong Jr.) has been very good. We have tried to blend some of that stuff, so that recognition of what he’s doing and why he’s doing it is kind of fun to teach. I think that what we know in the passing game, you have to know that stuff. You have to understand coverages and how that pattern fits into the coverage, and you have to understand in that pattern when they’re playing that coverage [and] this is where the ball should go first. So I think that that gives a kid common-sense knowledge of what he’s really doing.”

On whether a quarterback ever stops learning
“No, and that’s why even as guys diminish in ability, they get better as quarterbacks. We have great examples – Tom Brady, Peyton Manning – and maybe they aren’t quite as strong as they once were, they’re still doing pretty well and that is because they get smarter, they know quicker.  This is one of the biggest things, they know quicker where to go with the ball. They just see it and the ball’s out. So, as you work with quarterbacks, it’s easy to see and it’s not even that enlightening, but it’s really fun to see our history with quarterbacks and how well our guys have played their senior year and that’s the way it should be.”

On the importance of messages coming from leaders on the team
“Our players like that. I think the best example for them to set right now, is just by example, by what they do. I think the number one thing that they can show is that they are really engaged in this next game and they start showing that in practice today. That’s the best example and frankly that’s what I’m very confident in. I think guys like Tommy and Westerkamp and Maliek (Collins) even a guy like Josh Banderas. We’ve got lots of good guys that will come out and be good examples and practice today in a very good way. You’re right though, you have to have that. What I say is really hollow without the actions that follow it, so they make it look good. And you need to have that regardless of the circumstances you’re in. Like I said, I’m not going to assume anything negative about how they’re going to do today, because I have not seen a sign of that from them. I’ve seen real resolve to work, and they like football and they compete like crazy. We all know we haven’t been perfect because we’ve lost two close games, but I certainly in no way can fault their effort or their stamina to stay in a game and fight it to the very end. And like I said, those were two pretty good football teams, and they made the right plays at the end and we didn’t and they won, but I think it still says a lot about our kids.”

On balancing sticking with a play or making a play, when you're the quarterback
“He (Tommy Armstrong Jr.) made a lot of throws that were right on spot reading. Then, I think you can never fault a guy for taking off and using his ability. I got to see the end of the [Green Bay Packers and Seattle Seahawks] game last night and they were making that same point when Seattle was moving the ball well. They were just talking about, ‘you’ve got to let Russell Wilson be Russell Wilson.’ Those guys have to have that sense that they've got to go back and make a play throwing the ball or use their ability at the right time to take off and run. So far I’ve been really pleased with Tommy’s ability to look to make a play and then when he has to, he’s got a pretty good sense of pass-rush. Somebody’s getting beat, he’s got a good sense of feeling it and he’ll spin out and he’s helped our third-down conversion be what it is and that’s a great way to do it if you have to. You want him to take advantage of everything he can and what he sees, but you also want him to be a player and just play football from there.”

On Southern Miss
“It’s an impressive football team now. They’re going to have an impressive defensive front that we’re going to need to block. They’re active, just about all of them across the board. The defensive ends can cause you an issue if you give them an edge and the one guy has a really good inside move. They play a 4-3. They are primarily a quarters coverage team, like we are. They’ll go into man-to-man and then they’ll play a little bit of weak-side roll on the defense, but what they do they do well. They’ll mix in blitzes, but they look very comfortable calling their base stuff and letting those up-front guys take care of business.  [They are a] physical team, [they’ve] been very productive offensively, [scored] lots of points, played Mississippi State very well for a long time in that game. I think they’re averaging well over 500 yards of offense.  [They] were in a 56-50 game or something like that this last weekend, so obviously have capability to move the ball.  [They’re] a balanced offensive football team, run-pass.  [They] really have a lot of variety in their kicking game, a lot of different stuff that they do. Their punt team will be spread all over the field, so we’ll spend most of our time covering down people and making sure we’re sound in that. You’ll see a lot of stuff, there’ll be some rugby punting, all of this stuff we've got to get ready for, we’ve got to have two returners ready to be able to cover that up. They have two wins and lost to obviously a good (Southern) Mississippi team.”