On the onside kick call:
“In hindsight, it didn’t work, so any time something doesn’t work you want it back. We’ve been talking to the kids about being aggressive and attacking this thing for weeks. I think we did that. We had a couple of things that we wanted to be aggressive with. We had one earlier that we wanted to see if we got the look we wanted, and we got a look that’s really good for it and I made that call and that’s on me. At that point in the game, I thought the momentum was on our side. I thought if we got it, it could end the game. The way we were playing, I felt like we had a really good chance of winning the game and maybe we were the better team. You can’t really let them score 14 straight and us sputtering after we played well to start the second half on offense. But those are excuses. If I had it over, I wouldn’t have made the call.”
On the defense having a hard time stopping the run:
“They did a good job with scheme stuff. We gave up a pass we shouldn’t have given up against unbalanced that we just busted. You gotta give them a lot of credit. That’s a team that we handled last year. I thought we won the match physically last year. We didn’t win today. I’m surprised by that because what I’ve seen from the guys in training camp and leading up to the season. I think we got a good team. We didn’t get it done today. I feel terrible for the guys.”
On his message to the team after coming up short again:
“It’s not gonna be one message it’s gonna have to be several. We’ve just lost too many close games. These guys need something to believe in and we need to believe in ourselves as a team. I think they do. I don’t think there’s a guy in our locker room didn’t think we were gonna come win this game today. I’m sure they’ll think the same thing next week.”
On losing seven games in a row:
“Well, you got to win in this business to keep your job. That’s the way it is. I love Nebraska. love the state of Nebraska, love these fans that sacrificed to come over here. I want to thank them. The guys, the coaches they did everything the right way leading up to this. I wouldn’t change a thing about the way we handled the travel. The kids were dialed in. I give Northwestern a lot of credit again. They were more physical than us I thought up front at times today. Probably more than than we were and that was probably the difference. We gotta get this turned around.
On the difference between last year’s Northwestern team and this year:
“I don’t know if there’s a big difference but we certainly, we certainly didn’t dominate. I give their staff a lot of credit too. There was some scheme things that they hit us on on offense. I think we’re gonna have to learn as an offensive staff that you got to be a little creative in this league. So we have some things that we can work on. Thought we did a lot of good things but it’s got to be more of a complete game.”
On Rahmir Johnson and Gabe Ervin not playing:
“That’s been a good competition all camp. We played the guys that we thought had the best camp and really week leading up to this game. I think if it had been a different kind of game, we’d have gotten more guys in but it wasn’t.”
On Casey Thompson making his first start:
“Yeah, you know, he did a lot of really good things again but the good thing about having some new guys is we added a lot of talent to the team with Casey being one of them. There’s a learning curve in this league and I’ve gone through it. You just can’t be negative one in turnovers and make a bad decision as a head coach on an onside kick and give up a cheap one. These games are all decided by two or three plays and there’s gonna be nine more of them this year like that. We have to make sure we’re on the right side of those plays.”
On the difference between Casey Thompson in the first part of the game and finish:
“I don’t know if there was a difference with the quarterback. We lost Travis Vokolek for the game and that hurt us a little bit on a couple of them. We got to make sure we get them in the right stuff. This is type of game we’re gonna be in where we only get so many drives. You got to take advantage of them. The two turnovers hurt. I think we’re up 11 twice in the game and gave up the lead which we can’t do on defense and we got a score on when we needed to on offense.”
On what he thought about the tackling:
“I didn’t think we’d tackled well in open space. I think when it was in the box, it was fine. That’s my impression without watching it on tapes and we missed a couple out in space that we can’t miss. We’re gonna play guys that are just as talented or more talented down the road. I thought their backs ran great. I thought they did a good job making one more cut and getting extra yards. We certainly had opportunity to make more plays than we did.”
On Casey Thompson’s scrambling highlight play:
“Casey, he’s a better athlete than people think. He came out on fire and we just didn’t create any of those big plays when we needed to down the stretch but we can’t put ourselves in that situation. I’ll take seven of it from making the onside kick decision. You don’t win a lot of games in the Big Ten giving up 31. So we have some things to answer on defense. If you can score 31 you usually win games and we didn’t on offense and we have some things to look at there as well.”
On the challenges of coming back from this loss and traveling home:
“Culture. Leadership. Which is the best we’ve had. These guys need to do it for each other and they will. We got a really tight team. Again, I can’t say enough about how they approached this game. The travel over and everything that they did. This is a tight group, the tightest group we’ve had and they’re gonna have to lean on that after a disappointing start.”
On how he adjusted to not calling the plays for the first time in 10 years:
“It’s tough for me, you know? I’ve said this, there’s no one way to do things. But I think we can cooperate a little bit more. Probably the big thing that hurt our offense is when we got in situations where you’re just running the ball. We weren’t efficient enough and when you gain yards on those plays, it gives you more opportunities to run this stuff and that you think could hit big.
On if he would consider stepping down if things continue to be bad:
“No, absolutely not. I love Nebraska. I’m gonna fight with the guys as long as I can.”
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