Coach Mike Riley Quotes

Nebraska Football
Spring Game
Postgame Quotes

On how he felt the team finished off the spring
"I liked it. I thought that today was a good day to finish it like this. Everybody got to play as the thing went on. As a matter of fact, Kyle Kasun made the play at the end. We have on-campus tryouts for people who are on campus that want to just come and work out. Not long ago he was one of those guys. He was the one guy we picked from that tryout and of course he makes a lifetime memory play for him. He's a really good kid and he looked good in the tryout. That's kind of what this thing can be for. In the second half there were some guys who played who have a chance to elevate into a position to play and getting to play in front of our great crowd is a good thing. I thought there was pretty good give and take between the offense and defense in the first half. That was the first time we ever used that scoring system and it was pretty equitable, I think it worked out OK and so we might do that in the future. It's a lot easier to try and orchestrate that way instead of trying to divide into two teams. That part of it was good. The football part... there's going to be stuff like there's after every practice where we just kind of say we need to do this or that better. We kind of sputtered around at times and then we looked pretty crisp at times with Ryker (Fyfe) and Tommy (Armstrong) with the groups they had. Defensively, there weren't alot of big plays and we were pretty sound all around. We must have had a ton of plays total so that was good."

On Greg McMullen
"Greg McMullen has decided he is finishing his degree and he has already been accepted and granted an assistantship to graduate school and he is going to work with youth in our area. Since he's got his degree, he wants to go on with his life. He has made a decision not to play football anymore and that obviously means an opportunity to play after this. He has really got a vision about where he wants to go and what he wants to do and I'm really proud of him in a lot of ways for what he has done for this school and team. Now going forward we will miss him as a guy around here, a really good person and a football player so it's kind of bittersweet for sure. He's got a plan and this is what he wants to do. Also, Kevin Williams is not going to be on our team. He is choosing a different opportunity to play as a graduate transfer somewhere. I don't know where or what he is thinking but he is looking for a different opportunity in the scheme of things to find his spot to play."

On the defensive line
"That's a really good follow-up question. It's obviously not easy to lose four defensive tackles that all had eligibility to come back when you go back to Maliek (Collins) and Vincent (Valentine) and now Greg (McMullen) and Kevin (Williams). You can't hide from that but I'm going to look at it half full. I'm really excited about the guys we have coming back. Kevin Maurice is a really good player and we are looking forward to what he can do. And the other guy that played for us last year that has been good and I'm really excited about his development is Mick Stoltenberg. He had the injury in bowl practice and he will be recovered and ready to go. Mick is big and strong and very anxious to play. We will have him back and we have the Davis twins who are doing this everyday. It'll be exciting to see them and we've had other guys surface, I don't want to leave anybody out, one guy's for sure that is improving is Peyton Newell. That's five guys right there and I think that this group is a great group, they work hard and I think Coach Parrella will bring them along. We will be absolutely fine and we might be better than fine as this thing goes."

On Greg McMullen's leave of absence
"Part of it was at that time when I said he was going to take some time off and he was getting a little overwhelmed with school as he was getting ready to graduate and getting into graduate school I did not anticipate that that would end up with him deciding not to play. I think he thought it all through in a Greg McMullen type fashion and he decided this is where he wants to go with his life right now. He accomplished this, he got his degree, he's in grad school, he's going to work with kids and that's where he wants to go and that's good."

On the offensive line
"I didn't know the last time I talked to you guys that Dylan Utter wasn't going to play today. We got in a situation where Michael Decker was going to start for us today and Zach Hannon being the backup and those were about the only two centers we had for today. I think he hung in there and did fine. I'm real excited about him as he develops for the future and the same as a lot of our freshmen offensive linemen that we have. We also will have a pretty good idea of our starters heading into fall camp and we will also have a pretty good idea of who can be our backups going into the game."

On Paul Thurston
"He was unavailable today and he's probably going to be a guy who is looking at the depth chart and wanting to play more and he might be looking at another place. He only practiced four days with us this spring. There was one class he had to take to graduate so in doing that he was basically unavailable for spring ball for all but four days so he opted out at the end so I'm pretty sure he is not going to be with us. He has asked for a scholarship release and we will talk about it more next week but I would say that is pretty much final and he is going to go somewhere else. I think he like Kevin (Williams) they look at the depth chart and see their senior year and they're looking for opportunities."

On Tommy Armstrong in the running game
"It's pretty obvious to me that the combination of where we have to be is with our tailback runner and our receivers more involved in the fly sweep game or the reverse game. We actually called two reverses today where we didn't hand the ball back around. If we can get our receivers involved and then the weapon that Tommy (Armstrong) is as a runner with the bootleg stuff or play action stuff. This vision going forward looks pretty good and I'm excited about it. I think we need to find that drop back pass stuff that we have to do. There are situations where you have to do some of it and we have to keep getting better at it. Some of it looks OK and some of it we aren't quite there with it. I thought in general choices and reads were good and with the exception of a couple of missed plays, we dropped a couple of balls, overthrew a couple of passes and those changed the execution of what it might have looked like. I am encouraged though."

On the success of the draw plays
"I hope that that is true that our draw game is coming around. Today there were some nice plays like that. We haven't had that with the quarterback much but we've been a good tailback draw team. It was nice to see that come alive right off the bat and we've been working our single back draw, we've got to get that going and the quarterback draw with our quarterbacks is a viable option. If we can get that going and elevate our screen game a little, we've now got a chance through fall camp to have a nice variety. In general it's kind of exciting to me and the next phase for us is we work on it alot but we've got to get better in the screeen game."

On the run game
"I think we really have a better idea of these runs are going to work for us. In fact we made decisions right in the middle of practice to focus on this thing and put this on the back burner for now. Those are good decisions to be able to make to say let's become this, this is who we can be. Those decisions are in progress as we speak and we've already made some of those. I think it's really important to continue to do that."

On how he feels now compared to the beginning of spring ball
"I feel much more confident now that I've been able to watch the spring practices and even seeing them come out here now today and do it surrounded by a freshman center. I'm encouraged by this group. I think we have some definition as to who the guys are that are going to start. I think we have a good chance to be able to define our backups and feel good about the two-deep. I'm looking forward to the next phase. I think the offseason program, take a guy like Michael Decker, Christian Gaylord another four months of weight room work will be really good for them. I think they're going to be good players and that is the natural thing you have to do to be a good player is to get faster and stronger. I think offensive linemen are the guys that need the most learning and the most development physically. I think athletically those guys have a real shot and I think they do with tenacity and intelligence. I think we can give those guys a real shot to be elevated to the point where they are really viable backup players."

On turnovers
"I think that the obvious goals for this team when you look at our rankings in the Big Ten Conference is that we can not turn the ball over like we did but we have to get some. But for what we did today I was glad that we didn't turn the ball over and we'll have to talk about the next part. It's obvious when you are practicing and playing against each other you aren't going to be happy both ways."

On the backup quarterback play
"I think that Ryker's group was matched up a lot against the one defense so I think it became hard for that group at times. I thought he hung in there well. Ryker has some really good strengths. I think you see it when you see his quick release. The stuff that he does in that intermediate passing game and when you add a little play action to it, I think he's outstanding. I think you saw some real sharp throws and some good movement and he was doing it often against the first string defense so it was hard sledding. Then when he went in and that group went in against the next group it gave an even clearer depiction of what he can do. The other two guys have showed really good signs and you saw that today. You saw A.J. Bush and Patrick O'Brien make some really good plays. When he throws that five route to the outside part of the field, that's a big time throw and he put that right on the money. But then he made some mistakes. But he's a freshman and he should still be going to the prom tonight. I am excited about him and I'm excited about the improvement of A.J. and I think by the time we go through fall camp we will be in a very good situation. Right away we will add Tanner Lee so that picture down the road is a good one in my mind."