Nebraska Coach Mike Riley Quotes

Nebraska Football
Weekly Press Conference
Monday, Nov. 2, 2015
Memorial Stadium (Lincoln, Neb.)
Pre-Michigan State

Nebraska Coach Mike Riley
Opening Statement
“Who wants to talk about the Royals? (laughs) Well, I’m going to do my norm, I’m going to talk about some things that were good first. I thought red zone offensively was good. We were 6-for-6 (in red zone opportunities) and 5-of-6 (scoring) touchdowns. Third-down conversions were pretty good, 7-12. Those are some positive things. Defensively, there’s not much to talk about there, except a big focus for our staff has been doing better on first down. That’s been a big issue, and actually, that was one stat defensively that we (liked). I think we gave up 3.2 yards per play on first down, which should give you a fighting chance through the series. Sam Foltz has really gotten hot and consistent. Lately, he had a 48-yard net the other day, which is a pretty incredible stat. Kickoff return, we finally had a little bit of a glimmer of success. It was nice to see our drive start was the best this year, starting at the 29-yard line. Drew (Brown), I think Drew is doing a good job. He had a nice field goal and the kickoffs were good. Individual players, I think, that need to be mentioned, I was proud of Ryker (Fyfe). Lots of players, every game, you’d like to have some plays back, but for his initial start with us and the way he played and made a bunch of nice plays, I was proud of him. Stanley Morgan Jr., one of our freshman, is just doing a great job, really, I’m kind of amazed at his workload playing receiver. He went in on kickoff return when we needed him, he went in on punt return when we got injuries and got down to it. You would never know he’s a freshman. Jordan Westerkamp continues to be Jordan. Alex Lewis played a solid game, as did Sam Cotton up front. Defensively, two of our freshmen I thought played good games. Aaron Williams and Dedrick Young, good football players. The defensive line in general was solid. Another freshman, Antonio Reed is solid and as of late, one of our best special teams players, very savvy, good football stuff with Antonio, good IQ of playing the game. He’s had a couple issues with penalties, but as far as playing football, he does a nice job. Andy Janovich had another good game. Special teams, Chris Jones (did a nice job). Brad Simpson, a young walk-on player that plays on all the (special) teams, is doing a good job of playing football for us. The bad stuff, it’s like the good, the bad and the ugly. The bad stuff, I was disappointed in our inconsistency, I guess is the best way to say it. Lack of production and inconsistency in the running game. I thought we were the same way overall pass protection. It wasn’t very clean that way. 77 yards rushing doesn’t cut it. Turnovers is the storyline for the game, right? When you look at that bottom line and it says points off of turnovers and it says 0 (for us) and 28 (for Purdue), that’s pretty telling right there. We had four special teams penalties, which is disappointing, we’re doing better, except in that area. I know you’re going to want to know about all those things on the field goal/extra point. I think that it wasn’t really movement by the other team that was causing it, it was some sort of a cadence that drew our guys, which is not an excuse. That was the reason. We had a defensive holding in the secondary. We had a facemask and an illegal procedure offensively, which I thought we’d cleaned up pretty well, but we had the one on Saturday. Another big issue, obviously, that with the turnovers, the other issue for us is giving up big plays. We have a couple of good looking series to start the game off defensively, then we gave up a long run to the quarterback, and we gave up a long pass play when it looked like we had a shot to get back in it. As we were trying to fight back, we gave up a big shot on the bootleg. Red zone defense, we’d done a pretty good job at times in that area, but we didn’t do a good job the other day. Injury situation, Daniel Davie has a dislocated finger, which normally is always a concern, if any of us did that we wouldn’t like it, but you can usually tape it up and it’s OK, but this one won’t stay, so we’re going to have do something to find out if he’s going to be able to play or not. Terrell Newby was out and is questionable, I would say, at this time with an ankle. Brandon Reilly has a pretty severe toe. He’s in a boot and I’m hopeful that he gets better as the year goes on. He won’t do anything today. And of course, De’Mornay (Pierson-El) is out for the rest of the year. He’s having surgery soon. He tore up his knee and fractured his leg unbelievably. I feel so bad for that kid. I feel like I just saw him on crutches a few days ago and here he is again. It’s a sad deal. Still out is Kevin Williams, Luke Gifford, Michael Rose-Ivey and David Knevel. Returning, there’s always some silver lining here returning, Alonzo Moore I think will be ready. I think Tommy (Armstrong Jr.) will be ready. Chris Weber was cleared to play. He didn’t play that much, but he should have a full week of practice this week. Nick Gates, I think, should be healthier as we get going. Also returning should be Jonathan Rose and obviously Byerson Cockrell is back. Michigan State is a really solid football team. I’ve known (Michigan State head coach) Mark (Dantonio) for quite a while. As a matter of fact, a few years ago, him and his staff came out and we spent a couple days visiting with each other, football stuff, on our (Oregon State) campus. So I’ve known him for a while. He’s got a really solid program that’s been built up over time. They’ve got a real identity defensively, 4-3 defense, quarters coverage team. Good defensive line, that’s an outstanding characteristic of this defense right now. #89, (Shilique) Calhoun is their sack leader, tackle-for-loss leader, but they’re all solid up front. They’re a good tackling football team, good overall. Offensively, I think they’re a team built on balance, but with a real threat with a great quarterback, a very, very efficient quarterback and a receiver that’s leading the league, (Aaron) Burbridge with 52 catches right now. So that’s an issue there, but they’ve got big running backs, they’ve got good balance and it’s a physical football team. I think that one of their most impressive stats, you just look at the top of the rankings and look at the top of this stat, you see kind of the same teams and their turnover margin is plus-10, so that’s who they are. Before I get into questions, I just want to say, because I know this is just a general statement about the state of affairs, I think that, like I’ve said many times, this is just a great place with great people, and we’re extremely fortunate to be here. (We have) the greatest fans in the world and the greatest administration, the people that I get to work with, their involvement, their help. I think they give us every opportunity to be the best and be champions. Shawn Eichorst, Steve Waterfield works closely with football, fabulous people that are always there. I’ve noted this from the beginning, every meeting I go to is ‘how can we help?’ Every meeting ends with that, which is a nice thing, always, to hear. But in the other part of it, what is done here through them at Nebraska is special. The student-athlete here is in good hands with all the programs and with all those things that enables them to have, not only an athletic career at a great place like Nebraska, but a life in academics and life skills. And then the administration of the school, they’re amazing. From the beginning, (Chancellor) Harvey (Perlman) has been involved. (President) Hank Bounds comes to practice often, I think he’s an ex-football coach and he likes to come out for recess, but it’s also just nice to see him. There’s lots, lots of people that care and that’s the other general statement about Nebraska that I wanted to make. From the beginning, I’ve also said that the notable thing is people here care. When you’re disappointed, caring comes out different ways, and sometimes different ways in the same person. Some are sad, some are mad, some go the other way and are encouraging. Like I said, you probably get it all. You have to know, from our perspective, if you’re realistic, it’s all real, so it’s not surprising. We certainly want to win and we want to do this for everybody and everybody’s used to it, so we understand that situation. But it all comes from a good thing, which is caring and you don’t want it any other way. We wouldn’t want to have it any other way. My biggest focus is the 135 players I have. So with all of this going on we can’t be distracted, we I know are doing good things, good things in the program and good things in solidifying what we know to be good football. We have to spend our time and our focus to make sure those kids are growing and OK because as we have said before it is a mental battle as much as anything that we encounter in these situations. But we can’t be distracted by that. We have to stay the course and do what we think is right and keep doing it. And know that there are better days ahead. I am more confident about that even in a bad situation than ever as to where we can go. And we are excited to get to do that and we are excited about the challenge, but also the opportunity that is presented this week and the following weeks in the games. We will see how we do, but to me it is exciting. There is all different kinds of challenges to get ready for a team like Michigan State. They are obviously good and there is obviously the challenges of where we are. Like I said, our biggest battle is probably ourselves mentally. We can overcome that and we can get ready to play and have a great opportunity to win."

 

On the program seeing better days ahead
“I just have a feeling, as I have gone through the season Dirk, and actually looked right at our games and look at what we can do. I have always felt confident that through the course of time that I can watch film and look at players with the help of the staff and make things better. And as I go through a season in this league the teams that we play, how we play, what we have to do better, it is an assessment as we go and I just feel good about that. I know this is such a powerful place that we can recruit to, and try to make it better in years to come. There is an immediate picture of a game and there is a long-term picture of where we have to go. All these things are always in evaluation and in gathering information. So as I gather information and I watch and learn I feel really good about it."

On how he goes about fixing the program
"I think it comes through, now going back and evaluating our season and situationally looking at things we can improve five games right now. Can we defend that Hail Mary a little better? Can we teach it a little better? And that’s what it is because you’re asking really now specifically football stuff and that’s the part I feel really good about. We also want a culture. It is like I told all of you before, I don’t want to do this without a program that we think has a good substance for kids, and I also think the residual of that is better football, better discipline, better looking. I am excited about that, too. None of this is actually brand new to me. You go through 40 years of coaching and there’s all different kinds of seasons, great ones, hard ones, intermediate ones. Hopefully you learn the one thing you can do is make it better."

On Director of Athletics Shawn Eichorst coming out with a vote of confidence for you
"Well I appreciate that. It is kind of like I said in the general statement. Nothing about this surprises me, it doesn’t surprise me that Shawn has stepped out because I know what must be going on like that. That is not news to me. It is like I said, people are going to react one way or the other. It comes I think in general, I think especially in Nebraska, out of general idea of caring. I think people want to explain and to do it. There is no doubt we have failed in the eyes of what everybody that wants to do that’s a given. It is just another sign of how people do care and another reason I guess that it is important to know that everybody has got a vision of where it could go. And that is really encouraging to me."

On Shawn Eichorst’s message of a “brick-by-brick rebuild,” and whether there was a miscommunication from the beginning on what needed to happen in this season and seasons to come
"I don’t take jobs with that intention. My goal in taking the job was to establish good football and a program that everybody could be proud of. That has always been my intention in this deal that is what we wanted. I have taken over two different deals like that, at vastly different spots in their football lives. My personal perspective about this is that we just take what we have, look at it and our obvious goal was to win all the games and we’ve not done that. But then, it is like I said, we have to look immediate, what we want to do with our team today in practice and try to win the game this weekend. And then try to have those goals long term and then all the rest of it, whatever it is, whatever you call it rebuilding or renewing it’s different obviously. Nobody likes the different result right now. I don’t really look at it like that, this is what we were given an opportunity to do and this is how I think we can do better and to me that is an on-going process too, because I’ll find out more, so that is pretty exciting to me. We will never know till we get there, but we've got another nice commitment in recruiting today, I can’t tell you anything about it, but frankly some of the best news I have gotten in a while.”

On how far the team is away from where they want to be
“I understand that but can we just take our team and change those games in a rematch day? We can’t do that obviously. Could we make a few different plays to win those games? I’ve said, and I think everybody knows this, but your season plays out on those games. Michigan State has had those games. Iowa’s had those games. They beat Wisconsin 10-6, Wisconsin fumbles on the one yard line in the fourth quarter, but Iowa wins it. A close game. Michigan State goes one-score games against Rutgers and Purdue. They win the close games, and why is that? They’re plus-10 in turnovers, more efficient. To me, as disappointing as that is, those kind of things are encouraging, and I know we can go there.”

On if they are getting worse as the season goes on
“I don’t know. Maybe those two games tell a story, but I don’t know if in general that’s a true statement all the way through. We also played probably our best overall football a couple weeks ago against Minnesota. How do you fit those two things? I don’t really have an explanation for…we certainly did give up 55 points, we also gave them 28 of them. I see the point, from the beginning to Saturday. I look at this league and I see all the time those kinds of scores. You just have to win those games and do better than that.”

On goals
“Well there’s no doubt we want to win the championship and there’s no doubt what we want to do inside the program. The football part of it and how you compete and what you want to do, that part’s easy and the other part is really important to me personally is this is a program that all can be proud of. Those two things are always going to be at the top end of what we do goal-wise in our program.”

On where the culture is compared to last year
“Part of my deal about that is I’m not going to compare and contrast. I said this right off the bat to you and I said it to the players, I never want to talk about good and bad. It will be different because we are different people. I doesn’t even matter if I replaced Bo (Pelini) or if I replaced Nick Saban. We’re going to have a program of things we believe in. That part of it, there’s no need to even compare. We’ve got some things about the way it’s going to be that are just not to be compromised and it doesn’t even matter where we are. That’s the beauty of what we can do in college. Being involved for me in college sports is a little bit different. You can have that. I think in general, I know everybody wants to win and I know in general, if you have people one on one in a corner and say what do you want here, they want that. They want what we bring and I’m proud of that and we won’t lose that. That has nothing to do with not winning. We can’t cloud that.”

On how the players have handled the situation
“I don’t know. That’s an interesting thing that probably they can only answer. We’re going to do it one way. However it’s perceived or done, it can’t…I think whatever method it is for us for sure, that has nothing to do with compromising the detail of what we do. Now you’re going to say, ‘It doesn’t look like a lot of detail.’ I get that, I’ll take that. We own all of that. We own that. We can fix that. Every one of you has a personal approach to your job. You all do. So do I. You probably study it and you maybe change once in a while, which I will do. With 130 plus kids, you’re going to encounter lots of different circumstances. So there’s just going to be ways that you do things. Maybe part of it is belief, maybe part of it is personality. I know in the end you have to win in order to have a program in order to do all that. That’s easy to say. That’s one of the reasons we do it.”

On teaching the players the new systems
“Not good enough, obviously because of where we are. At the same time, if you look offensively, I don’t like to throw statistics to necessarily make all the points but our production offensively in the league is pretty good. We’re up there in the top three in total offense. The only thing I don’t like is we’re not running the ball enough. Our production is good. Our red zone offense is up there at the top. Our third down is in pretty good shape. Statistically, whether it’s passing, whether it’s total offense, there’s stuff that’s there. Now am I happy with it? No, but it’s not like there’s not production. (The defense) that’s a different story for sure. We have to play better defense. Our defensive stats are down. We’ve given up too many big plays. Not enough good defense in the fourth quarter to win games. We can go on and on about that. Has it meshed? I know the quality of instruction going on, and I know the work that goes in. We’re just going to keep talking about coaching our kids. That’s all I can do. We can do better. We’ll see if we never stop trying to improve even though it’s this point in the season.”

On quarterback Tommy Armstrong Jr. and his potential to return this week
“I think good. We just have on Monday’s a walk-through, so we aren’t going to see a lot from him. He certainly looked good yesterday when I went down to the weight room. He was in that machine running, the low impact deal. The gravity deal. He looked good running in that. He looks good just walking around and he’ll go through the jog through today. I think the bigger story will be the next two days.”

On his trust in defensive coordinator Mark Banker
“In the football sense of it, I know his extensive defensive football background. I know more about the character and work that goes into it and the preparation that’s done and the bases that are covered. I’ve been with him through thick and thin. Good seasons and bad, top rated defenses and not so much. I know the consistency of work and the soundness that goes into how we teach and what we do. Now obviously those are words. You don’t see it, but I know what’s behind it all.”

On who can help this program in the next few years
“I don’t ever want to compromise a team’s season for thinking about playing other guys because we’re looking to all that. I don’t ever delve into that. We don’t ever talk about that in a staff room. I think you can just do that by doing the best job right now in the day that you’re in. All that stuff comes to play later on as we look at film and then look at guys during the spring. There’s plenty of time to do that. We have to do the best job that we can for this team this week.”

On mentality of defense right now
“I actually don’t question who they are or what they’re trying to do. I don’t think like that particular play I can measure as to kind of a breakdown in a guy running for 60 yards. I don’t want to throw that on the bus. I sense in general that this team tries. They’ve proven coming back and staying in it. I like that about them. I’ve liked this team from the beginning. I would tend to look at it more as a technical thing. We made a strategic error on that play without a guy in that gap. That was a mistake. That can be corrected. That’s how I tend to look at it. Throughout the game, if I could pinpoint a lack of effort or trying I would. I don’t even know if I would say that to you because I’m not going to tell that about anybody. I would recognize it but frankly, I don’t.”

On loss of team energy
“That is a general statement about everybody. I don’t think that’s true about everybody. I think that when we were 20-something points down and I thought offensively we kept going and had a chance to get back in it. I think that what I see and watch and hear on the sidelines is continued coaching. For the most part, guys are really engaged in trying to get better. I think that it is deflating so there probably is a natural reaction to that play and the problem we have right now, it’s a little bit like, ‘oh boy, here we go again.’ You have to fight all those things. I don’t think that marks necessarily a character flaw in what we have. That’s a natural reaction that you have to fight. The interaction and coaching and the communication with the players on the sidelines has been good. It gives us a chance.”

On facing Michigan State’s quarterback Connor Cook
“I’ve said that the balance that Michigan State has is a tough thing to deal with. They’re going to run and throw and they have a really good quarterback to throw it with. Very efficient, smart and old. Those are all valuable parts. What we have to do is we have to be very sound. That’s something that we weren’t necessarily the other day. We gave up a couple of huge plays that made big, big differences in the game. Hopefully we help the defense better by not turning the ball over and not giving Michigan State opportunities that they don’t need because they’re pretty darn good. We just have to play really sound, good defense, be in good position and we have to be ready to challenge some good receivers.”

On if he talked to Shawn Eichorst prior to his statement this morning
“I got a heads-up on a text this morning that something was coming out, but we didn’t talk about that.”

On his message at the end of his opening statement addressing the program’s state of affairs
“I usually do this, don’t I? It’s like the elephant in the room. You all were going to ask me anyway, so I just thought I would go ahead and bring it up. I don’t mind any of that. I just think it’s important to know I know exactly where we are, as everybody does, record-wise and I get it, so I just thought I’d say it. Because now, people are going to ask me, ‘How do you feel about making the decision to come?’ ‘How do you think about people not wanting you here?’ I just thought I’d address it. Frankly, I made some of these notes last night before I even knew anything was coming up. I usually do it like this anyway. It’s not the first time I’ve said some of these things. I thought I’d just remind you.”

On his communication with Nebraska’s administration, specifically two members of Nebraska’s Board of Regents who made the trip to the Purdue game
“I think it’s just like I said. I don’t know (Nebraska’s Board of Regents) really well, I sure enjoyed being with them (on the Purdue trip), I didn’t get to spend time with both of them, but I spent time with one guy quite a bit, just inadvertently. He was down there when we were doing our walk through. I’m not really going to worry about all that. I know what’s expected and I know we're way, way early in thinking about that. I think that, it’s like I said, those are all things that you guys can ask, I don’t mind getting the question, but when I leave this room, I go back to 135 players and I’ve got to get a game plan ready to go. That’s what we’ll do. Everybody’s going to have a reaction. They care, so they’re going to be sad, they’re going to be encouraging, they’re going to be mad and probably the same person is all of those at different times, so we get all that. I just wanted to say I know that, I know we have to do better and I really know how we can."