Austin Allen Quotes - 12/14

Nebraska Football
Pre-Rutgers
Monday, Dec. 14, 2020

Press Conference Video

On when he found out about the Rutgers game
“Yeah, we kind of figured we'd have a game come up this weekend. We get an opportunity to play Friday, a day earlier. It's a little less time to recover, so to say, but I think we're all excited for another opportunity to compete. A team like Rutgers, somebody who was on our schedule the first time, so we finally get them back on the schedule and it's going to be nice to go compete. Hopefully we're going to see [Rutgers quarterback] Noah [Vedral] there and reconnect with him a little bit.”

On Noah Vedral
“Noah is still one of my best friends. I've played basketball with him since middle school. We've been on the same team, same AAU teams and we talk every week. I mean, just 'cause he went to another school, it's not like I'm going to just completely put him off to the side. He's still one of my good friends. We chat football all the time. He's been doing great things at Rutgers. He's been ballin’ out, and that's good for him because he's an athlete. I think he really deserved in a lot of ways to be an athlete somewhere. We had three great quarterbacks here competing for the job. Noah went on to Rutgers and he's doing great things for them, so it was good to see.”

On developing consistency
“That comes with repetitions. We get a lot during the week and a week like this with it shortened up, we gotta take a little extra time in the meeting rooms, a little extra time walking through in the afternoons just walking through the game plan. It takes a little extra, a little extra time in your free time in a week like this to go over what we need to get accomplished in a short week. But when it comes to consistency in the games, getting yourself mentally in the right place to go, that's where we need to get a little bit better at I think, leading up to the game.”

On the disconnect between having a good practice and not having it translate to the game
“I feel like that that happens sometimes you have group practices, sometimes things just don't come together on Saturday. I do agree that that was one of our best weeks practice. Coach Frost didn't really have to say anything when it comes to us accomplishing what we needed to get done. We sensed it ourselves, running through the offense. We could see that I didn't do that block right and somebody else saw it and it would be like, ‘OK, let's run it backwards, reload that play. You didn't do that right.’ And we could accomplish it ourselves and so that allowed Coach Frost to view other things in a different perspective, 'cause we could take care of things ourselves. On Saturday, I don't think we accomplished as a team what we needed to accomplish up to our standards. That will get better the more we work on it.”

On the effect of a season without bye weeks
“You could say it's taxing. Usually in a normal season, you’ll have a bye week here and there. Coach Frost made an emphasis after practice to be in the cold tubs, to stretch, to do everything you can get your bodies right. I know there's a handful of us - just now after practice - doing a little yoga session to get our bodies right, stretch it out. It was my first time ever doing that and I'll be doing that here again soon but it was a big emphasis at practice to take care of our bodies 'cause…it's deep into the season with no break. So the emphasis on taking care of our bodies at an all-time high.”

On the yoga
“It was Travis [Vokolek, who had the idea]. Travis got together with the trainer last week and the trainer walked him through it and he said, ‘You need to try this. They got me right,’ and I said, ‘OK, I've never done it before, but I'll give it a shot,’ and I did and my body feels great right now.”

On struggling during the second half this season
“I don't know if there's a rhyme or reason. It's football. Sometimes things just don't go your way.  I mean the consistency we know as an entire offense needs to continue through the whole game. We need to execute from play one to play 70. It needs to happen through the whole game and sometimes, in the second half, it just that lapses a little bit. And that's on us as leaders to make sure that doesn't happen ever again here at Nebraska.”

On playing poorly following a win
“I think this year it's just coincidence we didn't play necessarily as good after a win. There's a lot of guys that were on the staff two years ago. At the end of season, we won four straight games. It's not necessarily that I think we’re coasting after a win. I think we just didn't execute as well in the game after and that needs to be taken care of as leaders. We’ve seen it happen before. We can win consecutive games in a row. We just need to continue on the execution path.”

On how close the offense is to fulfilling its potential
“It's almost over repeated how close [it is]. [Coach Scott] Frost says it, [Coach Matt] Lubick says it, we’re so close. I watched on film on Sunday morning and I'm seeing the whole play executed perfectly and then there's one guy that misses his block, one guy that runs the wrong way, gets the wrong signal, that screwed up the whole play and it's just frustrating 'cause we're so close. If I could go back in the play in that time, just make sure everybody's got the right thing. This offense is built to execute based on 11 guys doing the right job. It can't happen with just 10 but we’re so close. I'm seeing that on film every week. It's frustrating that we can't get that one guy to get that done, but that's on us as leaders to make sure that doesn't happen in practice, so it carries over to the game, so all 11 are executing at all times.”

On getting his first touchdown
“We always joked in the tight end room that I was a little cursed about getting a touchdown. Two years ago, we ran a trick play and the ball was underthrown. Last year, we had many opportunities, just didn't get the job done. Last week, I'm tripping over my feet on a wide open score and we always said I was cursed a little bit. So once I saw that play call in the red zone and the defensive look, I knew I was probably gonna score here and the curse was going to be broken. It was a blessing. I finally got the job done, got the opportunity to get in the end zone. Hopefully there's many more.” 

On the Rutgers game
“Our offense is pretty unique in itself. Every week we got stuff we can we can come to. I don't think necessarily just 'cause it's the last game, we're gonna throw everything in the book out. We're going to take care of what we need to take care of as an offense. We gotta execute what play is called and if he does give us something, some crazy, we're going to execute it. I think we’re just going to run our offense. We're going to take care of us and that's what I think what needs to happen if we want to go with.”

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