Nebraska Football
vs. Northwestern
Saturday, Oct. 2, 2021
“Thanks everybody for staying up late with us. Obviously not our night and credit Nebraska. They played incredibly well and were able to execute their option plays in the first half and kind of snowballed, and I don’t think we got it right very many times. That starts with us as a staff, and we will work hard to get that corrected. Obviously there were quite a few guys who got banged up, but we will need the body to get healthy and go from there. Credit Nebraska. They obviously had a great game plan. They executed very well. We are not where we want to be, and as I told the guys after the game, when we land in O’Hare tonight this game is over and we are moving on. Sometimes it’s just not your night, and tonight was not our night. Really disappointed but a lot of things we need to fix first and foremost as coaches and we’ve got to present a great plan to our guys. We’ve got to practice our tails off and we’ve got to dig ourselves out of this hole. That’s the plan. Thanks again for being up with us tonight.”
On the use of the passing game and how it went overall
“We felt like we had to have balance and we thought we had some things we could take advantage of in our passing game. At times we were able to do that and obviously at times we were not. I’m proud of Ryan (Hilinski). I thought he fought through. He took a lot of hits tonight. I thought he battled his tail of. He’s just got to keep rolling and keep working hard and he will. With that will come plays. I thought some of our receivers made some great plays for us tonight.”
On reasons to believe this game was an example of growing pains and not a sign of deeper defensive failures
“Well because we didn’t play very well. I don’t blame them for being upset, but nobody is more upset than I am. We didn’t stop the triple-option today. They ran a split flow option play that they had shown, and we had practiced but they ran it a little differently and we didn’t fit it and adjust properly. We’ve got to get that corrected as coaches. That’s on us. To answer your question directly, ultimately I’m the guy who is responsible for the way we play, and I have great confidence in our defensive staff and our defensive players. We’ve just got to get them going. Prior to this we had six-straight shutout quarters if I’m not mistaken. Obviously tonight was not our night.”
On what he will tell the guys going into the next two weeks in response to this game
“Well number one we’ve got to give them a better plan, and number two we’ve got to practice well. Number three we’ve got to execute the game plan. Number four we have to adjust, and number five we’ve got to keep the ball inside and out front and we can’t give up explosive plays. Then we have to adjust as they adjust. It’s really that simplistic. That’s kind of how you go about it.”
On the causes of slow starts
“We had an opportunity to make a big play on the first play of the game and they made the play and we didn’t. I think that kind of snowballed a little bit from there. I would start there with number one and then some self-inflicted wounds a little bit offensively. We got it to a two-score game and then we gave up another quick one. We moved the ball well down the field and then we turned it over in the scoring zone. That again would have made it a two-score game. We’ve kind of been a little Jekyll and Hyde. We’ve started fast in a couple of games and we haven’t in others. We’ve got to get that consistently fixed or we can’t be a consistently winning team.”
On what they need to do to find more consistent success
“It starts with us as coaches. Systematically we will look at it on the plane going home. We thought we knew exactly what they were doing and obviously we didn’t do a great enough job coaching it and teaching it and adjusting it in game to be able to take away the triple-option to the boundary when they brought the tight end back. It looked like we were avoiding the tight end every time. We just didn’t have enough on the flank and they attacked our boundary side. That’s two teams that are really trying to major in attacking our boundary. We’ve got to get some things shored up because we should be able to have enough hats over there. Obviously we are a guy short. We can start talking about plus one runs and running the triple option. Credit to Frost. He did a great job tonight calling plays and their guys did a terrific job executing it.”
On prep before games and looking at film
“Again I will go back. We had six straight quarters of shutout football guys. Like I said we are like Jekyll and Hyde a little bit. It’s kind of why we are at where we are at 2-3. We’ve been executing and we’ve played really at a high level defensively. When we haven’t which we’ve got to start with us. Are we putting too many things in guys’ minds? Are we trying to make too many adjustments during the week? Like I said, they had put that on tape. We knew they were going to run that type of play. We just could not get the thing stopped and fixed. We tried to go to some different calls. We thought those were going to work. We will take a look at it and try to get it adjusted and get it fixed.”
On what the point of emphasis is for the team moving forward
“First of all we are going to give everybody off tomorrow. I’m going to give everybody a chance to recharge emotionally and mentally and physically. We will have a lot of treatment time. We’ve got our young guys going on Monday and Tuesday and then we are going to hit the road recruiting hard Monday and Tuesday as a coaching staff. We will put together a game plan starting Wednesday and Thursday to get ready for Rutgers and homecoming. Then we will be out again Friday of next week as a coaching staff and then give everybody Saturday off. Then we will get back going into a normal game week. Number one we’ve got to look at what we are doing fundamentally. To me that’s how you win football games consistently. You execute physically and block destruction. I’m talking defensively now. We need to have the right communication to know we are all on the same page and in the right spot at the right time and then just winning plays by fundamental and technique. We need to tackle right with our eyes in the right spot. There’s a lot of things that we do every single day that we just aren’t getting executed on a consistent basis. You don’t spot and pout. You don’t point fingers. You just stick together and you work your tail off together and you come back fighting and find a way to go one and zero in our next opportunity. I am obviously incredibly disappointed. We are going to work our tails off to improve and to get back to winning ways.”
NU Athletic Communications
