Brandon Reilly

On experience and leading the rookies
“Yeah I mean obviously we hold ourselves to that standard. We are the most experienced and most depth on the team and you know from our coach down, we are not scared to say that. We just need to come out and show who we are and we can’t say that and not back it up. So hopefully this spring we do that, I expect a lot.”

“They see us making plays, you know, the running backs will do their thing. The line will probably block a little better. So it’ll just go right down to training.”

On quarterback Tommy Armstrong
“A lot of it is vocal leadership, he kind of stepped up and said I need to quit with the bad, bad mistakes here and there and bad decisions. For him to come forward and tell the whole offense that, that’s tough to do, especially when a lot of them are your friends. It’s not an easy thing, to step up and do that. So I think he will make a lot better decisions, he is capable of doing that.”

“He told us this when we all got back from vacation after the bowl game and we were all together after a workout.”

On how motivating Tommy’s talk with them was:
“It’s a lot, because shoot, none of us have started as long as he has. And just with him saying he can improve shows that we all have a lot of areas we can improve on as well.”

On freshman quarterback Patrick O’Brien
“I mean obviously he throws the ball very well, it is always different with the defense out in front of you so I am anxious to see how he does come spring ball. He definitely looks the part so I am expecting him to do well.”

On the new practice schedule
“Yeah, yeah I do (like it). Six practices until spring break, and that’s all that’s on my mind. But yeah I kind of like it because we have more meeting times specifically for the younger guys, like when you’re coming from a high school playbook to this. You know we struggled some guys from one college playbook to a different one and the extra time will help that.”

On Derrion Grim
“Grim he is a great kid honestly. I didn’t know what to expect from him, but on the first day he came and introduced himself to me and he wasn’t cocky at all which showed me a lot because some kids come in like that. But he came to me and said what can I do differently. That showed me a lot there. I’m expecting to see a lot from him this spring.”

On having the coach’s son on the team with them
“I mean Coach [Keith Williams] isn’t going to take his son lightly as you can expect. The bowl game he was running around with us so he got to know us there and then when we got back to Lincoln he just got in the swing of things and he’s one of us.”

On the small details
“Especially with the playbook there are so many little details. It’s just repetition, repetition. It took me a lot. The coaches tell you and you might not think it’s true but when another player tells you, it kind of hits home. But you have to pay attention to the little things.”

On having these coaches for a year and how much smoother it will go
“Yeah it’ll be good because last spring I didn’t really know anyone. Last spring I felt like we took a few steps back before we got going but now I think we are just going to keep moving forward.”

On learning from last season
“Yeah I think deep down it is a character thing. Also as I said before it’s the little details. I mean you saw how many games we lost at the end that were just little details here and there. You expand those and they are a pretty big deal I think it is just learning off of those, and yeah just character.