Nebraska Coach Mike Riley Quotes

Nebraska Football
Weekly Press Conference
Monday, Oct. 19, 2015
Memorial Stadium (Lincoln, Neb.)
Pre-Northwestern

Opening Statement
“OK, all right, as you already know, this football’s a mixed bag of a lot of stuff, so I’m going to kind of follow the procedure we’ve used previously. We did some good things Saturday. Defensively, we continued to be good against the run, which is always a positive thing. We held Minnesota to 65 yards running and a 2.5 average. I think the players and the coaches have done a nice job adapting to quite a change in personnel. Greg McMullen’s playing quite a bit of inside, and of course Ross Dzuris on the outside has been new, but they’ve still maintained doing a good job. Josh Banderas entered back in, which was good for us. Chris Weber had been playing well and then he got hurt; Josh got well just in time. He stepped in and did a nice job. So there’s been quite a mixed bag in that front seven, and they’ve done a nice job adapting and still continuing to play well.

We had two really good third-and-one stops, which is always good to see. We had six tackles for loss. They converted 6-of-15 third downs, but three of the third downs were on their first drive. We’re doing a little better job minimizing big plays, which has plagued us all year. We had (three) takeaways (and) zero penalties (on defense). We had a takeaway for a touchdown. Overall, pretty good job.

Offensively, we had good balance. That was nice to see. We had 200 yards rushing and 261 yards passing. The passing percentage was good, which is always good for efficiency. We had nine explosive plays. We had one penalty, one sack and no turnovers. I thought the one thing that was a thing of beauty was that 99-yard drive.

Special teams. Drew (Brown) did a nice job kicking off. Our kickoff coverage was pretty solid. They averaged 16 yards per return. We were able to get a big punt return with De’Mornay (Pierson-El) back there, which was nice to see. We only had to punt two times so Sam (Foltz) didn’t get a lot of work, but that’s OK. The protection on the punt and field goal (units) was better. The only penalty we had (on special teams) was on the coaching staff.

So, overall, we had two penalties and a pretty clean game. You know, some of the things we need to continue to work on… we lost leverage on receivers. The difference between playing inside or outside and maintaining that leverage, so we got beat on some routes that felt like we didn’t need to if we maintained the right leverage. Obviously, you guys saw us lose the contain on the reverse a couple of times and once for a touchdown. We had one really bad bootleg coverage where they got a big gain on a drive.

Defensively, we had a chance with a stop at an opportune time on a drive that really would’ve been game changing, but Minnesota kind of answered the bell. So it would’ve been nice to put a stop to them a couple of times there where the momentum looked like it was beginning to shift. We absolutely blew a coverage for a TD and we blew containment for a TD. So we had two missed jobs, really, that cost us two touchdowns. Tackling was kind of a mixed bag. We tackled well at times and we missed some tackles so we got to continue to work on that. That’s just good position and leverage all the time.

Offensively, we had three dropped passes. We had a third down miss that was really, really avoidable. We had a wide open receiver and just bad work between the two guys; the receiver and the quarterback. We missed a third and short by misblocking a play. We still have too many MA’s (missed assignments) where the defense shifts or move and we don’t get to the right guy. We had too many lost yardage runs.

Special teams, we made a couple of bad choices on kickoff returns that cost us, at least, 10 yards of field position. Those are always crucial parts of the game, right? With the touchback rule and the depth of the kick and the 35-yard line kick, you’re just about always having to make a choice back there. Those good choices, whether it’s a punt return or a fair catch or not, a kick returner bringing it out or not, the kick returner letting the ball go if it’s going to go out of bounds, those are big, big choices. We've got to be perfect on those. We failed to catch a punt that cost us field position. So all those plays… you’re exchanging 40 or 50 yards of field position. So every yard you can save, even if it’s fair catching the ball or like I said making a good choice in the kickoff return, those are all big deals.

I’ll hit some highlights on Northwestern. This is a good, solid football team. (They’re) always well coached. Defensively they’re one of the best in the league. I think they have one of the best overall rankings. I think they’re third in the league in rush defense and third in the league in pass defense. A couple of rushers, number 94 (Dean Lowry) and number 13 (Deonte Gibson), in particular, have caused everybody some problems so we’re going to have to do a good job there. Offensively, they’ve been a real good running team. They’ve thrown the ball more in the last little while and so that’s where we’ve really got to pick it up and be solid. They have an excellent punter. They’ve only had five punts returned this year. That’s an interesting stat because of his hang time. He’s forcing a lot of fair catches. (He) does a nice job.

So that’s kind of the summary of our game and heading into a new week, which we’re excited to do. I’ll open it up for questions.”

On the injuries on the team
“We’ve got some possibilities here. You’ll see it during the week as it goes, but Michael Rose-Ivey we’re going to see where he is. Today, for us, it’s kind of a jog through, so we won’t get a final answer today, but as these guys come back from groin (injuries), it’s a matter of entering in and us being careful with their reps and them seeing, really, what they can do. It’s like what Josh Banderas had to do last week. We’ll look at Michael Rose-Ivey like that. We’ll look at Daniel Davie like that, today. Kevin Williams, we’ll look at that and see where he is. Yesterday when he came in he wasn’t a lot better, so we’re kind of doubtful for him, but we will see. Kevin Maurice is not going to be ready, but is getting better. Terrell Newby, I think, he’s going to be fine. Freedom (Akinmoladun) is going to practice so we’ll see how he goes. Nick Gates is still questionable. Chris Weber is questionable, but better. He’s lifting weights. If we could get a couple of those linebackers back that would be good. Luke Gifford is still questionable. He’s got that hip problem that is still bothering him.”

On if he notices a difference on the toll a Big Ten game takes on his team compared to what he saw in the Pac-12
“Oh, you know, I think that… I’m not sure about that, overall, but I will tell you… and it’s kind of what I told our team last week. It’s really a matter, as you look at the games, it’s probably pretty close to the same thing. Those teams that are supposed to be at the top, they’re still playing really tight games. Keith (Mann) and I were just talking and these games appear to be like NFL games that go down late, so the competition is good. When it’s like that it’s physical on guys throughout. I don’t know, in general. The conferences are interesting. I think the Big Ten still has a good reputation of playing physical football, but as you look at conferences in general there really are mixed bags of teams that are running. Like (my) old conference everybody thinks of it like Oregon – spread, Washington State – spread, but you’ve got Stanford in there too. They line up everybody right between the hashes sometimes. There’s a mixed bag in college football and so that stuff is kind of spreading throughout the country, I think, a little bit.”

On the balance of the offense
“If we can be effective running the football, and we can keep our passes to that 25 to 35 range, that’s pretty good. That’s a pretty good game for us. It just shows, really, you’re in good shape in the game, you’re not having to throw because you’re behind and you’re keeping the defense off balance, hopefully, a little bit. We haven’t really got it going yet, but having a nice variety with… whether it’s a receiver run like a reverse or a fly-sweep. Obviously, the tailback and even the quarterback… if you have that kind of variety and have those things going then having 30 passes in a game would indicate good things are going on.”

On the number of snaps for De’Mornay Pierson-El and if it’s trending upward
“Yeah and I went through that with the coaches yesterday. I didn’t write it all down to bring the number of plays each guy played. I want to say 18 or something like that. I just vaguely remember that. That needs to trend up from there, but, frankly, he’s got to get back in the picture learning-wise too. It’s one thing to kind of think you know and to be around, but actually missing all those reps in practice and getting to do it. It’s also, one thing, of knowing what you’re doing, but also knowing what adjustments you have to make if the coverage looks like this or looks like that. It’s a little more complicated than just throwing him back in there and throwing him the ball. But, we do need to get him going more. We have things that are specifically good for him that we really have to focus on. So if, indeed, we do not play him on every play, the things that we have for him, we need to extenuate and get him the football.”

On soft-tissue injuries and discussions with athletic trainers
“Well, you know, somewhat yes and Steve, this is probably, this is both good for now, I suppose, but also, even better for the future, right? Because it has to do with long-term prevention and how you approach what you do in off-season training and then how you handle… and the biggest issue is receiver. Now, next in line are DB’s and linebackers, according to our history this year. And, frankly, I think a lot of it has to do with overuse (and) fatigue. That’s why we use all those GPS deals to kind of give us a warning. It kind of gives us a little bit of an idea about how to use that guy tomorrow. When you get that result from today, it kind of gives you an indicator, and then you keep track of it. Like Jordan Westerkamp, we’ve actually pulled him out of the last two periods of practice a couple of times. We’re paying close attention to it. Now I will say this, it’s difficult coaching. You want more turns. I’ve never been, really, tied to the clock that way, so it’s hard for an old dog sometimes. But, I do know that we have to learn from this, whether it’s the training preseason, whether it’s how you do fall camp and you've just got to be careful. It almost always is overuse and fatigue that causes the injury. It’s not if it’s going to show up, it’s when. So you have to be careful.”

On run defense
“I think we’ve got good players out there. That was a known strength coming in. When you’ve got not only a guy like Maliek (Collins) and Vince (Valentine) when he’s healthy. We’ve had good depth there. When we’ve had all of our players there and you add Kevin Williams into that mix and Kevin Maurice into that mix, then you’ve got a young guy like (Mick) Stoltenberg that’s coming along. For one position, that’s pretty good. Then you've got guys like (Jack) Gangwish and (Greg) McMullen playing outside that are really good run defenders in their own right. Then the linebackers have been growing and learning and are physically tough. That’s a big deal. The other thing you already know in this day and age, everybody just about has some sort of quarters coverage in their defensive playbook. The rooftop of those coverages are basically a straight line or sometimes the corners will press. There’s not a single high rooftop, there’s kind of a straight line look. That means the safeties can get involved in run defense and rather quickly they play eight to 10 yards off the ball. Some teams will go a little bit deeper. Some of them tighter actually. Minnesota had one where they exchanged the linebacker with the safety and he was about six yards off the ball. Those guys are almost like linebackers. You have to do that and have it in your inventory so you can play the zone-read teams. What I’m getting to is people like (Byerson) Cockrell and Nate Gerry are very much involved in that run defense too and are doing a nice job. Defensive statistics every week, Cockrell’s up there as one of the leading tacklers that we have week to week. All those parts. Then the other thing is your corners have to be willing to tackle too, because what teams will do is they’ll take their wideouts, bring them down. They’ll go in and try to dig the safeties out and make the corners have to come up and be that force player and tackle. It really is a team thing, but it really is good to have that front four that is pretty darn stout against the run. They’re obviously being coached well, staying in their gaps, eating up blocks, allowing linebackers to make plays. Our middle linebacker should be our leading tackler and should hopefully be one of the leaders in the conference.”

On zone read
“It’s nice to be able to have those safeties flow. Both to be able to have somebody that can fill for a quarterback that’s keeping the ball but also a running lane on the back side so if those interior people are indeed blocking, they have the freedom to come up and help. They're in a position to be pretty fast force players.”

On if his defense is helpful against a quarterback run
“I think that we have had a lot of practice at it coach and staff-wise through the years. We continue to study it, and I think that it’s one of those things that you just better be prepared for and be prepared to do a good job, otherwise that is what you will see and it looks bad when the quarterback’s faking the ball and running out there by himself. It does take a lot of discipline. Frankly, it’s all about eyes, where they’re supposed to be. It’s kind of back to that old wishbone defense where somebody’s got the dive quarterback and pitch and it’s very disciplined and one missed assignment means a missed gain. The other thing about spread defense and spread option defense, spread running defense is you have to tackle in space, so the amount of athletes you need, there’s those guys that are 6-2, 225 that you could recruit 10 of them and play them at outside linebacker and safety because they have to be out spaced making plays. They have to run and you see that virtually in some fashion in from just about everybody.”

On how to challenge junior quarterback Tommy Armstrong Jr. this week
“For him, it’s continued focus and concentration and deep tail coaching progression-wise. The right amount of packaging. Packaging for a game is a hard thing because you are enamored by ideas as a coach. Selecting what we do and then making sure Tommy is totally understanding what he’s doing with the ball on each one of those things and what we want to do with it and make it bang bang. A lot of times, some of the stuff that we do will be in play-action game. You’re going to make a good fake and it’s a one, two read. One, two or check-down read and that’s good enough as long as you do that quickly and understand where the ball should go, you can get a great idea. It’s a lot of preparation. It’s preparation of what coverages you’re going to see when you have this pattern up, if they run this coverage. That’s when you know it’s going OK. I can look out there and I know the play and I can see the coverage and I know where the ball should go, and if it’s going there, you’re on the right track. If it’s not, then obviously there is something missing. It’s just a preparation for the choices against coverages, and it’s detailed work throughout the week and then making it look good building up confidence in practice. You challenge him with learning and continued focus on all that stuff.”

On playing a clean game against Minnesota
“I will say the results were good. It’s a good lesson for everybody. Defensive change, you’re going to be presented with different problems, and they will all have different strengths. Being able to do that week to week is obviously the key. The other thing is we just didn’t hurt ourselves. I talk to the team all the time. Stay onside, no illegal procedure, then we can get in the right formation. Then we have a chance to be successful. At least we can run the play and not hurt ourselves. Having a clean game, not turning the ball over. Andy (Janovich) got away with one and picked it up and got a first down. That’s pretty clean. You’re giving yourself a chance to continue drives and make plays. That’s why I loved the 99-yard drive. We even had a penalty on it. That was just our one penalty we had to overcome. The consistency of our team at that point, that was nice to see. Hopefully we can grow on that, continue with that. Play good clean football then execute the plays.”

On taking care of the ball
“I feel pretty good about it. We had some unnecessary turnovers, interceptions. For the most part, I think that we and Tommy have done a pretty good job in that area. In general, I think we’ve protected the ball pretty good running with it. It’s always something that you continue to stress and work on.”

On ball security drills in practice
“Every day in camp and probably at last two times a week during the season.”

On forcing turnovers
“In general, not as many as we would like. We’ve had some missed opportunities I would say. In the passing game, the first thing we had to do was worry about the coverage then we’ll get to the interceptions next. That’s our next biggest step. Hopefully we’re making strides in that area. When you’re playing a lot of man-to-man, zone teams, if you are a good zone team and you’re vision on the quarterback and you have a good four-man rush, those teams get more interceptions because their vision is a little different. Good man-to-man corners may not get a lot of interceptions because they’re locked in and basically trying to play the receiver first and then react to the ball and make sure he gets an incompletion. A lot of good man-to-man players aren’t necessarily going to get interceptions. That’s where we’ve been.”

On moving forward after a win
“My message will be on this will just make us hungrier. This is just a little bit of an idea. I can play through a lot of really good examples of why that happened. The preparation and obviously I really admire this team. Every week I get the question from you guys about the disappointment, how are they going to handle another close loss, all that stuff. What I’ll say is it says a lot about our team’s character. Our team’s character to be able to grow from that. That’s one of the big rules in life. Don’t let circumstances control your attitude or behavior. I think they’ve really lived that well. Now the message is that this should just make you hungry for more. We need another good week of growth.”

On junior wide receiver Alonzo Moore
“Alonzo Moore, I have a lot of respect for him. He is just a football player. I think what he’s done, we didn’t do anything for him because he’s a hard worker, he’s a god guy, he’s just a football player. All we had to do was teach him. He’s a great learner, he’s totally engaged, he’ll do anything you want him to do. He has started on all four special teams. He’ll run the ball. He’ll catch it. He’s ready. Alonzo is always ready because he practices well. You can do a lot with a guy like that. I really have a lot of respect for a guy like that. That was all inherent with him. We just had to teach him what the name of the plays were.”

On what’s changed in practice
“Well you never know. They don’t know me that well, and I don’t know them and especially going through hard times like we have in football, you really don’t know. I’ve been pleased. I’ve told you before, I’ve been impressed with how they practice and I didn’t make it up. It’s like I’ve been saying, you can do stuff with that. It’s fun to go to work and they have always put on a great spirit about that day which was great.”

On if he utilized the fullback at Oregon State
“We had used the fullback through the years when we had one. I don’t think we ever recruited a fullback. We found them from the walk-on ranks and almost every one of them that we had earned a scholarship and became a guy that did what Andy’s doing. Maybe not with the running ability necessarily, but throw them a ball in the flat once in a while and they lead block. They were always part of a personnel group that was in the game every week. Maybe two or three personnel groups.”

On recruiting fullbacks
“Yes we would be interested in recruiting the right guy at that position. What's interesting anymore, NFL goes through the same thing, there’s not a lot of teams that use fullbacks because of the spread. So you find them different ways and recruiting them out of high school is kind of like that. I haven’t looked at all the places here in Nebraska totally yet. Finding that guy, it might be in a scholarship mode, it might be a guy that wants to walk-on that morphs into that guy. Our backup right now, Harrison Jordan is a walk-on player that is a good, tough football player. At the same time, yes we would if it was the right guy. That ideal guy could be that guy that could move from an H-Back back into the backfield and be a fullback for you. I think in an ideal world in the future, that would be a versatile person that you could get.”