Thomas Hammock
Northern Illinois Head Coach

Opening statement:

“We thought it would be a physical contest and it was. I thought our defense hung in there and played their butt off throughout the whole game. We did not do enough offensively to stay on the field long enough. I think we had six drops in the first half in critical moments that put us behind the sticks but we have to find a way to be more efficient on offense and reward our defense for the way that they are playing. Credit to Nebraska, strong and physical team. We had every inclination of what it was going to look like and it was. We have to go back and study the tape and try to improve.”

On Northern Illinois’ defense getting tired:

“I definitely think it was an accumulation of plays and being on the field for an extended period of time that affected us. I thought they played extremely hard the first half and gave us a chance to keep it competitive. We had a dropped punt snap and gave them a short field which put us at a disadvantage defensively but we can’t have that many drops in a game like this. We talked about handling the environment and we didn’t handle it well at all.”

On Nebraska’s defense:

“They played the way we thought they would play. I think the matchup, especially the nose guard on our center was not in our favor. He got nice push back in the run game which clouds the reads for the backs. We have to figure out how to control the nose because the nose can take over the game.”

On settling for a field goal in the first quarter:

“We talked about scoring touchdowns in the red zone. We had three opportunities and we did not get it done. That hurts. That is a chance to get momentum and make it a 7-7 ballgame and then play toe-to-toe from there.”