Scott Frost Quotes - 9/10

Nebraska Football
Weekly Press Conference
Memorial Stadium (Lincoln, Neb.)
Monday, Sept. 10, 2018
Pre-Troy

Scott Frost
Nebraska Head Coach
On the plan for the quarterback position this week
“We got about as good of news as we could’ve gotten on Adrian [Martinez], so he’s going to be day-to-day. We’re going to get guys reps, get Andrew [Bunch] as many reps as we can, get Matt [Masker] reps, and potentially somebody else. We want to go into the game with at least three guys.”

On Adrian Martinez playing this Saturday
“I think there’s a chance. Like I said, we got about as good of news of the examination that we could’ve gotten. He’s a little sore, but doing a lot better today than I expected and I don’t think it’ll be very long.”

On the status of [Adrian] Martinez’s knee
“I just don’t want to talk about details much, but I will tell you there’s no real ligament damage at all.”

On the potential of Adrian Martinez’s injury being caused by a dirty play
“I’m careful how I answer that. You never want to think anybody on a football field would intentionally try to hurt someone else. Nobody except someone that would do that knows what the intentions were. I will tell you we have an angle that doesn’t look very good, so we’ve turned the play in to the Big Ten and the Pac-12, and we’ll see where it goes from there.”

On if Frost was ever the victim of a dirty play
“No, I mean you have guys that reach and grab you in bad places under the pile and guys stepping on you with cleats, but again I don’t know what the intentions were. I just know that the angle I’ve seen, that I don’t think is out there, doesn’t look good at all. Everybody’s going to have to make their own determination.”

On what it means to name Blackshirts
“We want the Blackshirt to mean something. I told the guys in meeting this morning, we had a longer meeting this morning and talked about a lot of things, one of the things I told them was I was proud of the effort, the physicality. We had a lot of guys on defense that played well enough to earn Blackshirts, we’re just not going to give them all out at once. I think we had about seven guys that we thought their work over time deserved them. Several more deserved it from the game, but I expect them to get it soon.”

On what he saw from Dicaprio Bootle in the secondary
“Dicaprio [Bootle] played physical, he was where he was supposed to be all the time. Obviously there were a couple great plays by them [Colorado] honestly on fades with throws and catches that he was involved in, but just taking his full body of work from spring ball and camp and how he played in that game, I’m glad to be able to give him one [a Blackshirt].”

On the performance of Nebraska’s top four linebackers
“I got to tell you going into that game, I don’t want to look backwards much, but going into that game I didn’t really know what to expect. I knew we had improved, I knew we practiced well, you just never really know until you hit the field. It would’ve been nice to see that in week one without losing that game. Going into the game the two things I would’ve wished for the most was a win first and keeping everybody, particularly our quarterback, healthy. So we didn’t get the top two things done and we are all sick to our stomach about that. Aside from that, we got down 14-0 because of mistakes we self-inflicted, but the team didn’t blink, they just kept playing. The defense was physical, I loved the enthusiasm, and I loved the camaraderie and playing for each other. They don’t give you wins for moral victory so we’re not going to celebrate anything, but I told the team today how excited I was for them and for how happy I was for the way they showed up and played.”

On Nebraska’s blocking on the perimeter
“There’s several things that we need to fix, obviously some of the glaring mistakes that cost us the game. Any one of those things gets fixed and I think the result's different, perimeter blocking is one of them. We had a couple option plays where if we would’ve gotten a block it would’ve been a big play for us. We threw a couple bubbles that should’ve been yards and weren’t because we didn’t block well on the perimeter. That’s got to be a big part of this game, when we get the ball outside it’s got to turn into yards and big plays for us, we’ll keep practicing that and try to fix it.”

On when a decision will be made about the starting quarterback for Saturday
“With a situation like this it could be game day. We’re going to do everything we can to get other guys ready. He’s [Martinez] going to do everything he can to get healthy and learn the game plan. I imagine we won’t be able to make a final decision until probably Saturday.”

On if backs and receivers maximized their opportunities to make big plays
“In some circumstances yes and others no. [Junior running back] Greg Bell is a fast kid, he broke a couple times. I honestly think our guys were so amped up that maybe adrenaline got them a little tight and Greg [Bell] looked like he was tight when he broke through instead of just loose and running. We need those plays to turn into touchdowns when we get guys through that cleanly. He [Bell] knows it, he’ll do a better job in the future. We've got to do a better job on deep balls and catching them and third-down ball and catching them. Every single player on the team did really good things, every guy that played. You can count mistakes that I made and that coaches made just about every player on the team had about one or two. That’s the progression, right. You’re trying to get a team where you want to get it, you got to learn how to win the close games by not making mistakes and figuring out how to make a play when it counts. We wished we could’ve learned those lessons in a win and we should’ve, but we need to learn them regardless and we’re going to be in a few more, probably several more, close games this year so we need to learn the lessons quick.”

On if Adrian [Martinez] told expressed the injury he suffered was caused after the play by somebody in the pile
“No, I talked to Adrian [Martinez] on the field for a second just about how he felt. I didn’t need him to tell me, I had a good view of it from the sideline.”

On the number of the player that potentially caused the injury
“Yeah we know who it was we turned it in to the right people. You guys will see the video I’m sure sooner or later. Like I said, I can’t speculate what the intentions were. Everyone’s going to have to make their own conclusions.”

On adding another player to the quarterback mix
“We have a couple ideas. Obviously we don’t have the depth there that we’d like to have, so we have to have somebody ready to go in in case the worst case happens. We are kind of sorting through options there right now.”

On what would change if Andrew Bunch were to play and what Bunch does well
“Bunch, when he’s gotten his opportunities. he’s done a great job, in fact I was really pleased with how he performed when he came in. Quite frankly he threw a ball that probably should’ve put the game away for us if we get a first down on the throw that he made. We’re not going to change because of who he is, we’ll try to alter it a little to make sure that he’s comfortable with what we have. There’s not going to be wholesale changes and he knows our stuff and he’s done a good job running it.”

On Troy
“There a good team. They had a rough game, Boise had a lot of big plays against them, otherwise it looked like a really evenly matched game. They’re well-coached, they wouldn’t have had the year they had last year without that. I think they’re a little like us playing a bunch of new players and they are young. They are very multiple on defense, you’re never quite sure what they’re going to be in and where they’re going to be. I think they’re kind of similar to us on offense they try to go fast and do some creative things, so it’s going to be a challenge for us. Our team has to rally around each other and rally around whoever is playing quarterback.”

On telling the team that Troy is going to be a tough opponent
“I hope I don’t need to tell the players anything to get them to play hard. We know the challenge we have coming in here and I’ve got a lot of respect for their staff and their team and what they’ve accomplished. We are going to work as hard as we can this week to be ready.”

On the special teams performance
“At times special teams played really well, but you can pick the 60 things where we made little mistake or too many mistakes to win a game like that. Our field position certainly wasn’t good, four penalties on special teams certainly makes a big difference. Maybe if we start one of those drives 10 or 15 yards further up the field we score somewhere else. There are some really good things on special teams, but kind of similar we need to figure out ways to not make mistakes and ways to win a game like that.”

On how Nebraska played against the pass with a base defense
“We played base, we played nickel, we played a couple other groups. Most of the time you want your 11 best players on the football field and as long as we’re not put at a disadvantage from that standpoint we are going to put the best guys out there. I thought [defensive coordinator] Erik [Chinander] had a good game planned. Anytime you get seven sacks and hold a team to 44 yards rushing and have almost 600 yards of offense on your side, if you look at the stats sheet you think you’re going to win. That’s what turnovers do and that’s what mistakes do. This team has to learn some lessons, I just wish we could’ve learned some of those lessons in a win.”

On the 11 a.m. start time against Troy
“Our team is used to getting up and practicing in the morning. It’s great for me I get to go home and see my son after the game.”

On the performance of the offensive line
“I thought they did a good job, they fought. It was pretty clear watching the tape that we were the more physical team that won the battle on both sides of the line of scrimmage. We made some mistakes there, hard to pick them up. We missed on protection on a play where their corner fell down and we had a guy wide open. We made very few mental errors on the offensive line which is great to see, the one or two that we did make cost us a couple plays and again I said after the game I think there was 20 or 25 plays that probably cost us, if you look at the tape it’s a bigger number than that, one or two of those things get fixed and I think we win it. Everybody is to blame, everybody has things to fix including the coaches and we are going to keep working.”

On figuring out who deserves a Blackshirt
“Listen I want 50 guys with Blackshirts. We’re not just going to give them to everybody that plays because they’re playing. It’s not a one game thing it’s a body of work thing. We had a bunch of guys on the D-line that made plays and played well, the twins [junior defensive linemen Carlos and Khalil Davis] played really well. They played well enough in that game to deserve them, we just want to see a little more and I expect other guys to have them really soon.”

On Redshirt freshman defensive lineman Damian Daniels performance
“I though Damion [Daniels] did well, did some good things. Like I said little mistakes here and there from everybody, but I was pleased with a lot of those guys on D-line including Damion’s performance in game one. We’re going to need a lot of those guys to roll through to keep people fresh. As many snaps as we’re planning on getting in on offense, the defense is going to get a lot too. The more guys you have that are capable of going in and playing the better off we are.”