Nebraska Head Coach Bo Pelini Quotes

Overall thoughts on the game...

“We played well and did some good things, but we still have not reached our potential and we have a long way to go. Obviously it was not the way we wanted to start as it was disheartening for me. One thing they have not done is not panicked, pointed the finger or anything like that. At some point in every game you are going to face some adversity, and it happened for us today early. Our kids came back and our offense responded quickly which helped us. At times I thought we were inconsistent today. I thought we got sloppy there in the second half, obviously, by having a couple of turnovers and missed tackles. Their offensive production really came down to those two big plays and we have to eliminate that from our game. Overall, I thought we did a lot of good things in the football game, but there are still some things that we need to clean up.”

On Nebraska’s second half squib kicks...

“The idea was to keep it away from (Brandon Banks) and also keep it out of the wind. The last kick, we didn’t direction it the way we wanted to, which put our coverage unit in a bad situation. We thought it would be difficult from Kansas State as Alex (Henery) is really good at that. He spins the ball and makes it really hard for them to get. We really should have recovered one as we had a better shot at it then they did. We just did not make the play.”

On Nebraska’s effective running game ...

“I thought we did a lot of good things. I thought Joe (Ganz) managed it really well and the backs ran hard and tough. I thought we had a really good plan on knowing how they were playing us. Joe was able to hurt him with his feet and that helped open up our running backs too. I thought our line did a really good job with the whole game. Joe is very capable of doing that. In their zone-play, you take what they give you. They were giving us the run and we know Joe is very capable of hurting people with his feet.”

On whether the final score resembled how Nebraska played...

“To me, allowing 28 points means we were sloppy. I don’t think it is an indication of how we played on the defensive side of the ball, but you are going to give up extra points when you make mistakes. We were sloppy with penalties on both sides of the ball and the special-teams score. We are a work in progress. We are not playing in the way I envisioned our potential and that is something we have to keep working towards.”

On going into a bye week and thought process of remainder of season...

“I think our guys know what is in front of us. I would like to play straight through, but it does not work out that way. I think it comes at a good time for us because we are nicked up a bit and we could use a couple of days off. This will give us a little extra preparation time and can give us a good jump on recruiting heading into the summer.”