Nebraska Huskers football: Northwestern postgame nuggets

Nebraska head coach Scott Frost and a handful of players spoke with reporters via Zoom following their 21-13 loss at Northwestern on Saturday.

Here is a full recap of what they had to say…

***Frost said the most significant issues for Nebraska “begins with me. We didn’t play a disciplined enough game… It’s inexcusable to only score 13 points in that game.”

Frost said the program’s discipline starts with him and the staff, “and we made too many mistakes in that game.”

***Frost said Luke McCaffrey had a couple of plays designed for him in the first half, but Northwestern’s defense didn’t allow NU to call them. Frost said guys like McCaffrey and Wan’Dale Robinson had to get more involved in the future.

***Frost declined to comment on the status of the quarterback position but said he was “comfortable with both of them in the game” and

***Frost said they knew Cam Jurgens was out going into the game, and they chose Matt Farniok to replace him because he was a veteran guy who could get the ball to the quarterback.

***Frost said his message to the team after the game was that the loss was on him. He said they played well enough in all phases to win the game, but the inability to score touchdowns was “inexcusable, and that’s my fault.”

***Frost said one positive from the loss was how many young players stepped up and made plays, especially on defense.

***Frost said, “nobody is more impatient than me” to turn the program around and that the Huskers needed to start winning games.

***Frost said Will Honas was ruled out during pre-game warmups, but he wasn’t surprised with how well Luke Reimer played in his first start.

**Frost said, “the players can see what’s happening” with the team getting better, but the discipline was his responsibility to fix.

***Frost said the decision to replace Martinez with McCaffrey was just an effort to “provide a spark” to the offense. Frost liked what he was when McCaffrey went in, “but I would read too much into that.”

***Bootle said, “it’s hard, definitely, on us.” He said the mistakes the team made in the loss were “unacceptable,” and a loss like this “can either split a team or bring us together, and my job as a leader is to bring guys together.”

***Bootle said Myles Farmer “answered the call” with how he played in place of Deontai Williams. “He earned a lot of respect from a lot of people today.”

***Bootle said the defense “stayed poised and believed in each other” after Northwestern drove 80 yards for a touchdown on the first drive. “That’s something we need to keep doing going forward the rest of the season.”

***Bootle said the message to the team was “keep on pushing.” He noted how the team responded to a loss like this would tell a lot about their makeup.

***Allen said it was “for sure frustrating” only to score 13 points with that many opportunities, but he also said it was promising how well the offense played overall. He said they just had to find ways to finish drives.

***Allen took just as much blame for Martinez’s interception in the end zone because he didn’t play the ball in the air as well as he should. “I’ve got to go make that play.”

***Allen said he trusts both quarterbacks when they’re in the game. “Luke’s a competitor, Adrian’s a competitor.”

***Allen said all of the little mistakes the offense is making were frustrating, mostly because many of them were things they had worked on and prepared for all week in practice.

***Reimer said it was “a pretty somber mood” in the locker room after the game. “This one hurt. This one hurt for sure… We knew we should have won this game.”

***Reimer said he was glad to finally get back on the field and play that type of role as a starting inside linebacker.

He said there was some rust he needed to knock off early, but he settled in pretty quickly.

***Mills said McCaffrey “gave us a good spark” because of how well he runs a fast-tempo offense.

***Mills said the red zone issues were an issue of not everyone being 100-percent locked in mentally the way you have to be to score in that situation.

***Mills said the shuffling on the offensive line “handled the situation pretty good… It wasn’t nothing I had to worry about.”