Austin Allen Quotes 10-4-21

Nebraska Football
Pre-Michigan
Monday, Oct. 4, 2021

On the last game against Michigan
“We have come a long ways and that was obviously early here in the Frost era. They handed it to us that day. That is one of the only couple of games since I have been here that truly felt like they were the more physical team. They beat us that day. You are exactly right they were a really good football team at the time and we were young. But there is a lot of things we learned from that game and a lot of things we have learned since to become the team that we are now. So hopefully it will really be a game this time.”
 
On improvements since the last meeting
“The overall understanding of what we are trying to get accomplished as an offense and as a team. That has come a long ways. It is hard to push that vision across when a new coaching staff gets here. Very first year. It is more baseline trying to get an understanding of what you need to get done as an individual position group. So now it is more of a big picture big vision. That is where it has come a long way in that regard.”
 
On the triple option
“It is a lethal offense when you execute it. It really spreads the field. It really opens up our play book too. You can run a lot of things off of it. People are really starting to love it just because they have seen what it can do in practice. They have seen what it  can do against a Big Ten opponent. It is something that we are going to keep harping on. It is going to open up a lot of other things too. We cannot just live and die on it. It has obviously worked really well for us but that is not something we can run every time. It is a big part of our offense and it has worked so far.”
 
On Teddy Prochazka and Nouredin Nouili
“I was very impressed with how they came in and played. I am going to be honest I was kind of skeptical because there is a new line. There is a lot of time where you do not get those game reps with those guys so you never know how it is going to work out. But I think they stepped in there and did awesome. It was kind of weird without (Bryce) Benhart in there because you look over and Benhart is one of the only guys I look up to to talk to. It was kind of weird talking to Teddy because he is even taller. They did great things. It was something. I should not say I was skeptical. They are really good football players and even in fall camp I was comfortable with them doing anything in our offense. Nouredin has come a long ways. He played as a true freshman at Colorado State so he has had a little bit of experience. And Teddy has experience with Oklahoma being a tight end I guess you could call it. But they stepped in there and did really good things.”
 
On the edge block
“The front line did a great job at getting the play started but how plays turn into big plays is how well you can block downfield and at the receiver and tight end position. I think our guys did awesome. Frost always tells us you can really dictate how well a team is by how well the receivers block because those are the blocks that spring plays for 80. I am really proud of how those guys went out and blocked because when you are setting those hard of blocks on the outside and you are running plays for 80 that is really going to open up plays in the future because those guys are going to have to trigger the run game harder and that is going to open up some slip passes to them and really the deep game. I am happy with the way we blocked downfield and we had really big plays on Saturday. Those are going to be key for this weekend. We are going to need big plays to beat a team like Michigan because Michigan is really disciplined. They are a really good football team.”
 
On psychological challenge of the season
“I think that is my biggest stress for the team this week. I mean yeah we kicked the crap out of a Big Ten West team but so what now? That is in the past. We won that game. Click the reset button now. Let’s with this game now. Frost kind of eluded to something today that I really liked. We have three two-week seasons left. We have two weeks until the bye week. And then we have two weeks until another bye week and then two weeks. What are we going to do to win these two games this week before we get to a bye week. That is kind of how I am going to approach it but the biggest task at hand is this weekend. That is the Big Ten Championship for me this weekend. That is how I am going to treat it. And then the Big Ten Championship is next weekend versus Minnesota. That is how I am going to approach it. There is a lot of stuff to be learned. There is a lot of stuff to be happy about on what happened Saturday but you cannot lean on that. Our attention to detail has to pick up that much more with a team like Michigan.”
 
On Nebraska’s offense
“It has always kind of been in the works. There has always kind of been a thing where there is one guy not executing on the edge that would spring a play for 80 yards. Saturday was one of the first times that all across the board we were executing as an entire offense. It was cool to see what can happen when all 11 guys doing the same job. But it is always something that has been in the playbook. We can spread the field. We can run it down the middle. We have that in the offense. We have to get to that. There is a lot of stuff in our playbook that has not scratched the surface yet. There is stuff that we can do. Frost is a genius in the playbook so there is a lot of stuff we can really get to.”
 

NU Athletic Communications