Nov. 14, 2015

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HEAD COACH Kyle Flood

HEAD COACH Kyle Flood: Good evening. Let me start with Derrick Nelson. I think everybody saw that at the end of the game there. Right now he's at Robert Wood Johnson.

Before he left the field he had full movement in his hands and his feet and his extremities. So again, I make that announcement in case his parents were watching. He told me before he left the field his parents weren't here, and we're in the process of trying to get in contact with them. But all the initial signs were positive.

Any injury of that type needs to be handled with the greatest of caution. So that's why he's at Robert Wood right now being cared for. And when I'm done I'll head over there.

In terms of the game, we're disappointed. We've got things we've got to continue to work on. We had some opportunities in the game. We got it to a one score game in the second half, we certainly had opportunities. But we need more consistency. More consistency of good play, which we didn't have today.

Q. You said he was responsive and talking to you while he was down? What was your feeling?
HEAD COACH Kyle Flood: I don't want to get into all that. I'm not a medical person. Again, I want his parents to know if they're watching that he had full movement and communication skills and that kind of stuff. What we're doing is precautionary right now.

As a coach it's the most important thing, the health and safety of your players is more important than anything else that we do. And I feel really good right now that he's over at Robert Wood. He's in great hands.

Q. (Inaudible.)
HEAD COACH Kyle Flood: I just didn't feel good about putting the defense back out there. At some point you're going to run out of possessions. It didn't work. So that's the difference. They did a great job holding them to a field goal afterwards. They really stepped up in that situation.

But again when you call those things, and when they work, you feel really good, and when they don't there's always a little bit of risk reward for sure.

Q. What's your assessment of the defense overall?
HEAD COACH Kyle Flood: I felt they battled, at times opportunistic. Three drives in a row that ended in interceptions. The one touchdown on the scramble in the second quarter, the quarterback gets out of the pocket and a young half field safety comes up to secondary contain it, which is really not his responsibility. And the ball goes over his head for a touchdown. So we're still having some of those growing pains back there, for sure.

I don't think we necessarily put them in the best situations throughout the game. But certainly have to credit Nebraska. They've got a good football team, and they've got talented players and good coaches. And they did a good job with their game plan, as well.

Q. How do you explain the struggle the last two games? And Nebraska came in with a weaker pass defense?
HEAD COACH Kyle Flood: A weaker pass defense gets better in a hurry when the pass rush is effective. And so to me, without looking at the film, and you say what was the biggest issue we had on the field today, it was the defense. They had six sacks, though we didn't do a very good job of protecting the quarterback at all. And it just gets really hard.

Q. Was there anything different Nebraska did defensively with the line, the linebackers, that maybe you hadn't seen in some other games?
HEAD COACH Kyle Flood: Every week I think every team has a little wrinkle in their third down package. How we do it. How they do it. But there's other times where I think we're breaking down one-on-one. And I've got to look at that on film and see if I'm right. Those things are tough to evaluate live on game day.

Q. Paul James, was he mentally tired?
HEAD COACH Kyle Flood: Paul could have played. He didn't have a full practice week. And I felt like if the other guys stayed healthy through the game, I'd like them to give him the opportunity to go out and practice. I expect Paul to be a big part next week.

Q. What's your reaction to getting booed at home during the PSA?
HEAD COACH Kyle Flood: I don't have any reaction to it, at all. My job is to coach the football team. I get great support from so many people and in so many places. The reality of major college football is if you're not playing well and not performing well, those things are going to happen.

Q. A few players on the defense made some plays tonight, despite the 31 points. Lewis and Hampton and Cioffi.
HEAD COACH Kyle Flood: Hampton and Cioffi both had interceptions. Turnovers are critical in the game. Saquan had 13 tackles. Career-high. That's good. That's really good. It's important. He's in the middle of our defense for a reason. For him to be productive, that's a good sign.

Q. I think what Steve is referring to, can you empathize at all with the fan frustration, is that what you in the locker room and coaches are feeling right now?
HEAD COACH Kyle Flood: I think everybody in the program is frustrated. We want to be 1 and 0. There's no question. We've got real competitors in that locker room.

We have very high expectations for ourselves. We're not pleased with how we played tonight. We'll go back to work tomorrow to fix it. Ultimately that's what we can do. I think I said this before, we're frustrated. You can't let the frustration turn into discouragement, because discouragement stops you from going forward, and for us it's important to go forward.

Q. (Inaudible.)
HEAD COACH Kyle Flood: I'll find out tomorrow, but I don't have any concern about it. We've got players that want to compete. And when we show up next week up at West Point we'll be ready to do that. If you've got competitors in your locker room, it's a week to week season. And they'll go out and compete. I have no doubt about it.

Q. Chris Muller, how did he deal with the injury? Did he suffer anything?
HEAD COACH Kyle Flood: Not to my knowledge.

Wide Receiver Leonte Carroo

Q: Being a captain how do you handle an injury like that to one of your teammates?
A: It is just hard but you have to make sure to keep the guys heads up and let them know that Derrick is going to be alright. A bunch of guys are already on the way to the hospital to see him --- I'm going after this so just pray for Derrick and just make sure the team stays strong.

Q: What did it feel like to get back out on the field tonight?
A: It felt great just to be back out there, just to have the game atmosphere and play with my teammates was fun. It has been a rough two weeks --- these last weeks being out but it felt good to be back out there.

Q: Would you say you are at 100%?
A: No but I'm still going to go out there and do whatever I can to help my team win.

Q: You said you weren't 100%, what areas were you deficient in?
A: Just the simple fact that I haven't practiced in about two weeks so just being out there and finally running full speed against a different opponent was difficult.

Running Back Robert Martin

Q: Does the frustration level seem to be getting bigger week after week?
A: I think we are okay. I think we all have good spirit, we train [well], we practice [well], we just have to come out and execute like I told him. I think the spirit is there.

Q: Obviously you heard fans booing can you sympathize with them?
A: They want us to win as bad as we want to win so we know how they feel but we block that stuff out come game time. We are just trying to do our job so we can win and make each other happy --- make the locker room happy.

Q: Robert, you did it at Indiana and at Maryland but to fall behind 20 points --- what kind of hill is that to climb? You can't do that regularly right?
A: Yeah you definitely can't go down big, especially in the Big Ten because it is a really good conference. We just have to stay on task. I felt like we were moving the ball pretty [well], we just have to not hurt ourselves and shoot ourselves in the foot and give up penalties and stuff like that but like I said we have got to get in and watch the film, listen to the coaches and get back to it.

Safety Anthony Cioffi<

Q: What was that scene like at the end with Nelson going down?
A: It was tough to see because you are already down about the game in itself and then you see one of your family [members] go down like that it is tough but we are all praying for him and he is going to get the best care.

Q: When you make that pick and return it down to the five did you feel like you still had a chance to win the game?
A: Yeah I feel like it shifted momentum but we just need to capitalize on every opportunity we have on offense and on defense.

Q: How tough is it on the defense going out when it seems like they have good field position drive after drive?
A: It is tough but we have to continue to go out and [play] no matter if the offense scores or if they have to punt the ball. We are still with [the offense] throughout the ups and downs.

Cornerback Saquan Hampton

Q: What did you see on the scramble touchdown there in the corner?
A: The quarterback was scrambling and threw a good ball, the receiver made a good play --- we have got to come back from that.

Q: Was there a blown coverage in there?
A: It wasn't a blown coverage it is just crazy when the quarterback is scrambling, there are guys running all over the place.

Q: Obviously that is seven losses. How does the team bounce back from that realizing there will probably be no bowl?
A: We just have to bounce back tomorrow. We have to lift in the morning so we just have to come back, keep fighting and finish strong.

Q: What was going through your mind when you see Derrick Nelson down there at the end?
A: Yeah that is sad to see him go down. You just have to hope for the best and send your best prayers to him and hopefully everything is okay.

Defensive Lineman Kevin Wilkins

Q: As a defense you guys brought this team back into the game with those turnovers --- how key was it finish on those plays?
A: It was good. I think my teammates, my brothers we pride ourselves on playing hard no matter what the situation is and that is what we are going to continue to do.

Q: What kind of adjustments did you make as a defense at halftime?
A: Just doing your job as best as you can.

Q: Mentally what are your thoughts now after another tough loss?
A: Well right now our team's concerns are with Derrick. We are going to make sure he is all right so that we can get him back with us. He is a big part of our team and a close friend of mine and that is what we are focused on.

Nebraska Head Coach Mike Riley

Opening Statement:
"We are certainly pleased to come up here and get a win. It was nice to get a good start. Then we made a bad play, they made a good play and got a touchdown before the half, which scared me a bit. The defense did a nice job all night long against Rutgers. We also did a nice job in covering their kicks. That was nice. Two big factors were obviously, we paid a lot of attention to during the week, was their receiver (Leonte) Carroo and what they would do with him and (Janarion) Grant, their returner. I thought we did a good job in those two areas. We made some good plays offensively in the first half and then kind of just made enough plays in the second half to put it away."

About the play of junior tight end Cethan Carter:
"We've actually been practicing that play for a while. It's been part of the two tight end package. After the call, the people in the box were saying it looked good pre-snap. That was good. The neat thing is we are having quite a few different people, maybe it's been different times, different games, contribute. That's good as we go forward, in the big picture going forward. I like that idea of contribution from all the different spots - wide receivers, tight ends, slot backs, running backs. The more we get of that going forward the better I think our picture will be offensively."

On momentum heading into bye week:
"It feels good and I know the players feel good about that. It certainly sets up this game with Iowa. It's a big game for a lot of reasons, but for us they are really obviously. It's a bowl opportunity. It's playing another top ranked team. Just lots of stuff out there for us. Now with this win it sets the table for that."

On the defense:
"I think the coaches did a real nice job of a game play on what Rutgers does, what they've been successful at. It's a good play action team. We isolated Carroo made big plays to him. With how we set it up, we were able to get good pressure. Our guys did a decent job covering Carroo. That was good. The other guys they had really didn't hurt us. I think it was a good plan. We stayed pretty consistent with playing good defense all night right to the end."

On the last two weeks:
"The credit goes to this group because they've continued to stick with it. It's that story, I've been talking about for a long time that was sounding like a broken record, but I really believe it's true. I think this team just continued to work. We broke through. We played a lot of good football, no doubt about it, but we haven't played well at certain times to win games. We lost all those games literally at the end on the last play. We knew we were doing some good stuff and as long as the players kept working we had a chance to get to this day where we won a couple of game and give ourselves a fighting chance to be another top 10 team and then get into a bowl game. I'm proud of them. I give them credit. The only reason we've been able to do this is because they kept working. That's really great."

More on the defense:
"I think the pressure was really good. They had a lot of lost yardage on plays. We did a good job, most all the time, against the run, which always help. The pressure and the passing game were consistent. I don't think we gave up, maybe, a couple of plays over 20 yards. You usually win that happens. That's been our biggest nemesis, giving up big plays in the passing game. That's what frankly worried me most about this team was hard play action, isolating the defenders, they make the plays. We did a nice job. "

On the eight-play, 75-yard driving with the score 21-14:
"Major, major, major statement right there. Big time. That game had the appearance of tightening down, tying it up and then seeing who would win it at the end with them having the momentum is what it looked like what was going to happen to me. That drive was a really good statement by this team."

Junior Punter Sam Foltz

On Drew Brown's (PK/KO) progression this year and getting better as season went on:
"I think Drew Brown is a mentally stable kid. He's strong and nothing really rattles him. If he does miss, he comes right back with a make again."

On preparing for Rutgers returner Janarion Grant:
"If you flip on the film, it's right there. You see three touchdown returns on kickoffs and you see a punt return for a touchdown right there. They can say all they want, but as players we have to recognize it too."

On what the win does for the team:
"We're pumped and this is two in a row for us. We have Iowa coming into town. We have a little momentum going on and we're a hot team going in."

Junior Defensive End Greg McMullen

On getting to the Rutgers QB (Chris Laviano):
"It's all about the execution and what we have been taught to do instead of doing our own stuff. He wasn't scared and kept his composure. As you can tell, late in the game he was still scrambling around. He's a strong kid and did what he was supposed to. Fortunately we were able to get back there and get him six times."

On the big stop before the first half:
"It was definitely a momentum changer because if they were able to score it maybe would have changed their mind set. But it was great for the defense to be able to get a stop. It shows what we can do.

Sophomore Safety Nate Gerry

On the team's improvement:
"Everyone kind of looked each other in the eye and we decided we were going to buy in and things are going to start cooking."

Junior Defensive Tackle Maliek Collins

On the back to back wins:
"Now we're on track and where we should have been. We got two tough wins the past two weeks and now we get a bye week to regroup and try and get another."

On the defense playing well:
"I think the defense played pretty well. It was time we got out there and made plays."

On the pass rush mentality:
"After one guy gets a sack, then we all want one. Guys all automatically want to get one."

On giving up 14 points:
"There's no excuse, we can't give up 14 points."

On preparing for Iowa:
"It sets the tone for the season and how we want to end it. We want to go out with a bang this year. It's huge for this program."

Junior Quarterback Tommy Armstrong
On tight end Cethan Carter's game:
"He had a great game. I saw a lot out of him. We expected a big game out of the tight ends. He did a great job blocking and making plays for other guys."

On getting ahead 21-0 to start:
"It was important getting the ball and scoring, giving the defense confidence in us to put points up. It was a confidence boost for our team."

On throwing the interceptions:
"Just a lot of pressure and bad decisions. I stepped up in the pocket a lot. It bit me in the foot a little bit. I need to put my teammates in the right situations."

On getting the back to back wins:
"Knowing that it may be coming to an end here shortly, we need to play for each other and have fun and preparing the right way. We want to win out. We had some tough ball games. We need that boost."

On how rewarding is it to be peaking at the right time:
"It's important. Each and every week is important for us. We have a big game coming up. We just want to enjoy the season while it lasts. Whenever we find what we're doing at the end of the season then we will find out."

On concerns at the 21-14 score:
"We just needed to fix our problems. Our whole halftime was correcting what we did wrong in the first half."