Ethan Piper Postgame Quotes (Illinois) - 10-29-22

Nebraska Football
Postgame Quotes vs. Illinois
Oct. 29, 2022

On Illinois’ pass rush
“I think they threw a couple tricks up their sleeve with a couple rushes. I think in the first half we picked up the blitzes pretty well. In the game, it’s kind of hard, especially that last drive. It's a two-minute, obvious pass and it’s kind of our protection that we have to guess those blitzes. Overall, I thought we did a good job picking up a lot of those blitzes.”
 
On the discussion on the sidelines when Casey Thompson went down
“Honestly, I didn’t see Casey (Thompson) go down. I was blocking, and I didn’t see Casey until halftime. I didn’t see what was going on. For me, I just heard Logan (Smothers) was playing that next drive for us. It was just the next man up. We practice it all the time. If someone goes down, we have the quarterbacks ready to go.”
 
On the offense’s struggles in the second half
“That's kind of a tough question. I thought overall we picked up some things. Maybe just a miss there, a miss there, we just needed one more man to do their job just a little bit better. Overall, a play would have hit big. I think we were really close on some things. It would have been nice to finish one of those plays like a long drive.”
 
On lack of momentum after halftime
“I thought guys were fired up. We kind of had a little miscommunication, that can throw you off a little in your rhythm. It'll be good to go into the film room and see what's going on. I think Illinois was doing some stuff that weren’t their regular things. Just got to go in the film room and look at it.”
 
On difference between blocking for Chubba Purdy or Logan Smothers
“There is no difference. Every day we have multiple quarterbacks rotating behind you. I'm not really focused on the quarterback; I'm just focused on blocking.”
 
On Illinois' defensive intensity
“I think they were up and were trying to go for the throat. Illinois does a good job trying to hold an opponent down when they're down. If we hit one of those plays on one of those blitzes it would have been big.”
 
On attitude for last four games
“We have a great group of guys here at Nebraska, and I think we are going to bounce back like we always do. The offensive line, the whole team, could not be more proud of us the way we respond to things like this. I know that when we come back for practice next week everyone is going to be going full speed. Tough loss, just gotta come back, look at the film, and get better.”
NU Athletic Communications