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Opening Statement
“Disappointing loss. Had every opportunity to find a way to finish the game and that’s kind of where we’re at right now. Some critical mistakes were obviously very costly, but credit (Scott) Frost’s team. We knew we’d get a valiant fight from them. Last week was not indictive of their team at all. They ran into a bit of a buzz-saw, and the Buckeyes played really well, so I tip my hat and compliment Scott. He’s doing a great job and obviously we have to eliminate our mistakes if we want to find a way to win. Again, very disappointing loss.”
On what he saw from Nebraska’s defense and if they showed anything new
“They showed plenty of new wrinkles, which compliment them, they did a nice job. I thought we settled in and found some solutions and some answers, probably midway through the second quarter, of exactly what they were doing and how they were doing it and then we had some busts down the stretch. We need to come up with some other answers, too. Need people to continue to be honest. I thought Aidan [Smith] gave us some stuff today. I thought he played very hard, and I can’t blame him for that last interception.”
On what he saw from Nebraska’s offense
“I think for the most part it was pretty sound and pretty solid. They threw a couple of new things at us that I thought we adjusted to pretty well. It happens every week, it happened last week and it happens every week of the season, and I thought our guys handled it well. We just didn’t create any turnovers. That’s the key, especially against Nebraska. In their losses, they have turned the ball over, and to their credit they didn’t do that. So that’s really disappointing because that’s something that we talk about and it’s usually the number one correlation to victory, obviously outside of points is turnover ratio and when you lose it one-nothing and you lose it on the last drive of the game, it makes it kind of tough. There were a couple different ways I thought about playing there at the end, but their kicking situation has been, quite frankly, not great. That’s not rocket science, right? So, I felt like our defense would be able to get a stop and I thought we were pretty close to blocking the field goal. It was pretty low trajectory but I was going to put it on our defense to get a stop, that’s what my thought process was.”
On Nebraska’s I-formation and if it was something he expected more of today
“I don’t know if I would say more of. We expected to see complements off of it. I think I saw coach [Frost] say during the week that, with the way the game went last week they weren’t able to run all of their plays that they had schematically prepared. So. Hank [Mike Hankwitz] has been our defensive coordinator longer than everybody added up, your ages in this room. We just go back to some of the things… I brought up some plays that we ran at Colorado when I was a graduate assistant that we got ready to defend when we played some option teams. You don’t see it that much so you just have to go back and work on some of those things. The over route that we saw from the tight end was actually a route that I was expecting to see. So, that’s what I made our coaches practice this week. It’s Nebraska, so I think it’s pretty cool that Frost is running it.”
On Nebraska freshman wide receiver/running back Wan’Dale Robinson
“I think he’s a really talented guy. He’s got loose hips, he’s able to make you miss in space. He got JR [Pace] a couple of times which you knew he was going to make some plays. He’s an explosive athlete. I thought from a kickoff return standpoint, I think we bottled him up pretty good today, because he’s definitely a weapon in that phase. I thought our special teams, again outside of an unfortunate miss, played really solid ball today and gave us a chance to win through the field position battle. In a really windy… you know that played a role in the game I thought.”
NU Athletic Communications
