Dicaprio Bootle Quotes 10-19

Nebraska Football
Weekly Press Conference
Monday, Oct. 19, 2020
Pre Ohio State

Press Conference Video

On what it means to him to be selected as a team captain
“It means a lot to me that the guys respect me in that way. Over the years I paid my dues just being here,  came in, 2016, redshirted, just worked my way up the totem pole and just continue to go at it year after year, day after day. And I think the guys really see that and you know they really see me as somebody that they can lean on and somebody that’s always going to have their best interests at heart and always going to try to point them in the right direction. You know, and let them know whether they're right, whether they're wrong and ways that we can fix multiple things, not even just in football, but in life as well. So it means that most to me to know that the guys really respect me and really feel that way about me, and I'm going to do my best as a leader to put my best foot forward for them.”
 
On the emotion of the uncertainty surrounding the season, especially as a senior
“I know the days were counting down. At one point we didn't know that we were going to have football and then once we figured out we were going to have football, now it's just a countdown basically to this week. So now we're here and I'm feeling it. It's feeling like a game week. The preparation is there. It's in front of us for the rest of the week and we just got to count down the days, make sure that we that we come in here with the intent to execute our assignment and right now it’s just feeling really good for us  that we know we fought for this and this is what we're getting. So we're really happy with the fact that we get to play this week.”
 
On the challenges of facing Ohio State
“I mean it’s no secret, they’re a great team. Year in and year, they're a great team. They're not going to go show it to the game and beat themselves. They’re a team where we’re just going to have to go in there and execute our assignments to the best of our abilities and at the end of the day just play football. I’ve played them every year since I've been here, never got a break from them. In that aspect, I know how they come, they come hard. We’ve just got to execute our assignments, execute the game plan and we'll go from there. “
 
On the difference between Nebraska’s game with Ohio State in 2018 and the 2017 and 2019 matchups
“I don't want to put any key differences on the (previous) games. I just know that right now, today is Monday, so we just had Monday practice. Monday practice, we had to make it the best that we could possibly make it in order to give us a chance for Saturday coming. So we just continue to do that throughout the week, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Saturday is the game, but as long as long as we prepare like we like we're supposed to, maybe we'll have a have a good outcome so we just got to continue preparing the way they were supposed to. I don't really want to put any distinct differences. I'd be lying if I made something up right now just to tell you off the top of my head. So we just got to execute in practice and then when the game comes, we just got to execute.”
 
On how Nebraska discovered him and his journey to Nebraska
“There was a satellite camp down in Miami and at the time the coaches at Rutgers were hitting me up to come to the camp, because they were going to be at the camp. I was like ‘OK, well, I need to go to this camp, try to pick up this offer from Rutgers,’ but I saw all the other schools are going to be there so I just used it as an opportunity to basically put myself out there. At the time, honestly, I was nobody in terms of recruiting, like I had a couple small offers, didn’t have a big offer from anywhere. A couple coaches came and found me down at South Ridge High School, came and watched me practice, offered me but I never got the big offer, you know? To be honest, I don't really know why that was, I just knew that I was going to keep working and just let it happen. Just put it all in God's hands and just let it work for me. Then going to the camp and, you guys know the story, ran a 4.3 (40-yard dash) and then I had (Nebraska’s) attention. They would just watching me like a hawk and then later that week I got an offer from them. Then I came up here on my visit. On my visit, I was just like, I mean, there's nowhere else for me to choose between here and nowhere else. This place was unmatched and is still unmatched to me. So I ultimately decided to commit here, but like I said, I mean I was nobody. I mean I came in 2016, nobody really gave me a chance. My coaches loved me, but you know, I had to wait my turn. I had to sit down and understand that there were guys that were here before me, that were guys that were a little more seasoned before me. One of my best friends, Chris Jones, he just told me ‘just stay the course. Whatever happens, no matter what, just the stay the course.’ And that's the message I try to preach. I mean in 2016, you go back, I wasn't traveling for game days, I was just on scout team week in and week with scout team just trying to get the offense a look. But by me trying to give them a look, it was getting me better and better and better. Fast forward to the next year, just working hard in spring camp, going into that fall camp, opportunities opened up. I received my first Blackshirt and then from there I just never looked back, never gave it up. I just continue to come in every day and just try to work hard to be up out of whatever situation that you're in. Sometimes it takes time, it takes a lot of time, a lot of faith in what you believe in. A lot of conversations with God for me. I just continue working and now I'm in a pretty good situation. I wouldn't change anything. I love it here.”
 
On what it was like before and after the Big Ten decision to play football this season
“Before the Big Ten came back, me and a couple of the guys, Deontai Williams, Marquel Dismuke, Cam Taylor, Braxton Clark, just all the DBs in general really, we were just trying to find different ways we could work out so that way we could stay on top of what we needed to stay on top of. We just always encouraged each other, ‘hey, this thing might pick back up and you know we got to be ready.’ We’d rather be disappointed than not ready so we just continued to work and work day in, day out. Sometimes working out three, four maybe even five times in a day just because, just so that we could make up for what we were losing for, what we were missing. We were always optimistic before the Big Ten came back, and once the Big Ten came back, like I said, it's counting down the days just preparing. Just coming out every day and being dialed into our assignment, executing, just doing what we had to do to get here and now we’re in game week and just got to keep that going.”
 
On what he would do working out five times a day
“Sometimes we wouldn’t even work out for long. Sometimes it’d be like 30 minutes, we’d just work a specific area, come back later and do something else. We always made sure we lifted during the day, always made sure we got some type of conditioning component in and always made sure that we got some type of technique component in. So some days we’d wake up at like 7, go find a spot to work out somewhere, someway, somehow and then you know by the time 7 rolls around again, we’d already have so many different things that we had worked on during the day and stuff like that. For us I feel like it made us really close. We always saw each other. We were always looking to be with each other, if somebody missed, we had to make it up. I think that speaks volumes for the guys in my room and how they really attack this offseason.”
 
On the challenge of facing Ohio State and quarterback Justin Fields without any game film from 2020
“We’ve just got to go off of what we know. Things that that they've done to us in the past, things that they've done to other teams as well. You just take the film from the previous years. Obviously they’ll have some new things in there that we’ll have to adjust to, but pretty much we’ve just got to go out there and just know what we're doing. If we get a coverage, we’ve got to execute the coverage to the best of our abilities. If something’s wrong, we come to the sideline and we fix it and just be able to make adjustments on the fly and just be able to adapt to whatever they’re throwing at us. But definitely with a quarterback like Justin Fields, it makes their offense great. They’re a great offense, they’ve got great guys over there, they are very athletic, the top of the top. So, we are just going to have to be on our game.”

NU Athletic Communications