Nebraska Football
Illinois
Saturday, Nov. 21, 2020
Press Conference Video
On something not being quite right during practice this week
“In my mind I think it was just a lack of execution throughout the week. I think we had a decent game plan during the week. We didn't execute those plays in practice and when things don't execute in practice, it's hard to execute them in a game. We have to be locked into the details coming in this next week with it being a short week. That's all we can do, take care of what we can during the week.“
On the locker room morale post-game
"This one hurt for sure. It hurt even worse because one of our brothers (Collin Miller) is down, got taken off the field. It’s a part of football, but I can't imagine the pain his family is going through right now. In the football game, the lack of execution is what hurt us, and I think everybody felt that. We all knew that this week coming up was big one and we just have to take care of us moving forward."
On Collin Miller’s injury
"Like I said, it's part of football. You see it happen all around the country, but it hurts a little bit more when it hits close to home like it did with Collin. But you could tell on the sideline that we felt the presence of him leaving, he’s a leader on his team. But I think Luke Reimer, Garrett Snodgrass and others stepped up in the end there and played some decent football."
On hurdles in the passing game:
"It’s not necessarily a lack of not knowing the offense. We only have a certain amount of plays every week, and we lock into this set of plays every single week. We just need to go out and execute it, whether that be giving Luke (McCaffery) or Adrian (Martinez) a little bit more time so we can get through our reads, or as a receiving corps getting off our jams that much quicker so we can get into the read a little bit quicker. Nothing across the board, execution needs to pick up."
On offensive execution:
“Just giving half a second more time to throw. Getting that much quicker off blocks to create quicker throwing lanes for Luke. I mean it's just executing plays on offense, simply. It’s just gotta happen, period. I don't think it was there completely today.”
On if he saw anything during the week that led him to think the team wouldn’t be prepared
“We can't take any week off for granted coming off a win. I mean, that's something we need to get used to around here is winning. I think coming out the gates this week we were very businesslike. We were doing the right things. Just the lack of energy going into practice. We're doing the right things, getting what we need to get done. It's just we're just going through the motions. And that's on us as leaders to notice that and pick this up.”
On the team’s blocking this season
“That's something I do have to go back and see on film. I'm looking forward to going home and seeing that as soon as I can because we can learn from this even with the shorter week. Coach Frost preaches it all the time. You can tell how good an offense is going to be by the way their receivers block when they're not in a pass or whatever. When they spring that last block 30 yards down the field, that's instead of a 30 yard gain a 60 yard gain for a touchdown. Then you can gauge an offense on how good they are based on how their receivers block. I’ll have to go look at it and we’ll keep working on being a great blocking team.”
NU Athletic Communications