Nebraska lost, 15-14, as the Huskers (3-8, 2-6 Big Ten) dropped their fifth straight game of the season and their ninth in a row to Wisconsin on Saturday.
Below is a transcript of everything Huskers interim coach Mickey Joseph said during his postgame press conference.
Opening statement
“First of all, I want to thank the seniors that played their last game in Memorial Stadium. This is a tough one, to be in control of the game like that. I got to do a better job of getting them to close people out. That's going to happen with maturity and doing a better job. But I'm taking a hat off to these kids. Just a good character group that’s not going to quit. I told them today, they’re a better football team than the day I met them in December. We’re going to continue to get better day in and day out. And we're going to come back next week, and we're going to play hard again, looking for a different result. Just didn't happen today. This one hurts.”
Wish you would have done anything different to manage final offensive drive?
“You run the ball and you lose two, you’re just not blocking it clean, you gotta go to the air. You got to like I said, I gotta teach them to close them out. How can we close them out?”
Lack of a run game
“It just hadn't been there. And we've been having trouble with it. It's been week in and week out. You gotta play with the guys that we have. We can't trade ‘em. So we gotta figure that out. That’s something we gotta figure out.”
Managing the wind
“Well, in the second half we didn’t wanna give them the ball and the wind. … I don’t think (the wind) affected the throws. I thought it was the kicking game it affected. So we just told Brian you gotta hit this one, and he caught a line drive on one of them. The wind caught it, and it caught a line drive. So it was basically in the kicking game where it gave us trouble, throwing it I thought we were OK.”
On Oliver Martin’s fair catch before the second-to-last final drive
“It’s safe (return). It’s the safe, so we don’t have a return lined up because you’re trying to make sure that they don’t hit us with a fake. So he’s doing what he’s coached to do.”
Assessing the defense
“That's a lot of snaps when a team is running the ball at you because eventually it'll start leaning on you. That's where we got to get complementary football. We got to get all three phases to go. We got to keep the ball on offense to give them a chance. That's not just on them, that's on the entire scheme of things."
On Casey Thompson’s performance
“I thought Casey went out and he hadn’t practiced in a while and came out a little rusty. The first play, I think he opened up the wrong way. But I thought as the game went along, he settled down a little bit. He was a little antsy at times. But I thought he he made some good throws. Just any quarterback, you’re gonna miss him. But I thought he saw it better than I thought he was gonna see it today.”
Marques Buford Jr. Injury update
“He’s seeing the doctor. We’ll know more tomorrow. They said it was ugly, though. I didn’t see what happened.”
Malcolm Hartzog and Ernest Hausmann futures
“Those kids play hard. Those kids are two really good football players. We gotta make sure we sit down with them at the end of the season and see what what they're thinking. But just two good kids. So they'll be ready to come back next year to get better."
On the seniors
“Just a great group of guys, great character kids. Just great players. They haven’t gotten the wins that they wanted, but they they come in this building every day, never negative, always positive, and they come in here to work. And that's what you appreciate for ‘em. That’s the type of team that you want. You want a high-character team that no matter what they're going to come in and give you work. But I take my hat off to ‘em, and we're going to miss ‘em."
Communication on offense between coaches and players with Mark Whipple coaching up in the box
“We have some veteran coaches down there with with Donnie (Donovan Raiola, (Bryan) Applewhite, Beck (Sean Beckton), and Cass (Mike Cassano). So we have some veteran coaches. So that wasn't their first rodeo of being with the coordinator in the box, but I thought it went good.”
Offensive line, what needs to change going forward
“We gotta get some depth. We gotta competition up there. You heard me say before, we gotta get a competitive roster, and we gotta get some depth up there. You gotta have 16 to 17 guys that's on scholarship to get some depth there and to get them going. They rotate defensive linemen, you gotta be able to rotate those kids. But those kids come out here every practice and they practice hard, and they come on every game and give their all.”
Talking to a defense that fought hard but stayed on the field so long
“You don't have to talk to them (individually) because we’re a family. We’re not gonna point fingers, so we don't have to talk to them. Because I know what they're thinking. They're thinking like this: We gotta hold them. And the offense is thinking like this: We gotta go score 16 points. We don’t blame. We’re not gonna play the pointing game. We’re a family, and we’re gonna stick together and we’re gonna fight through this.”
