Coach Scott Frost met with the media Saturday following the Huskers’ 52-17 loss to Ohio State. He spoke about his team’s willingness to fight, this year’s matchup with the Buckeyes versus last year’s matchup, wide receiver play and more.
Here’s the transcript from his question-and-answer session postgame.
On the game this year versus last:
“I thought we did a lot of good things and, you know, unfortunately some of the things that led to the game getting out of hand were self-inflicted things that we can fix. We had too many penalties. They didn’t have hardly any. We turned the ball over a couple of times with the quarterback running. We got them in a couple of second and really longs and gave up first downs on third and 14s. We can fix a lot of those things as a group. We hung in with them a lot better than we did last year physically and I give a ton of credit to them. That’s a really good team. But I was proud of how our kids fought. End of the second quarter, we got the ball back down 17-14 and a chance to take the lead before half and kind of shot ourselves in the foot with the delay of game penalty. That’s my fault. A holding penalty, I can’t remember what happened next, but they score before half and then score again coming out of half and that’s the game.”
On the targeting calls:
“I have no idea and I’m not going to say anything now other than now on the field it looked like Deontai hit him in the chest with his shoulder but that’s just me seeing it live in the stadium and big screen. Hopefully we can have some discussions about that. We’ll see where that goes. We’ve got to play smart as a team. The other one certainly wasn’t violent but it was a dumb play and we need to fix those things.”
On the defense as a whole:
“I think time will tell. I was happy with how they competed. I thought we tackled pretty well but we gave up a lot of yards. I don’t know if that’s because we were playing such a good team. Again, a ton of credit to them with their quarterback, their speed at skill. I think they have a bunch of future pros on their team. At times I thought the defense played well and battled but we’ve got to get more stops than that. Offense has to put the defense in better situations than that.”
On Luke McCaffrey and the quarterbacks:
“I’ve been telling everyone that our two quarterbacks are our two of our best players on this football team and that certainly played out today. I thought both played well. Can’t turn the ball over. If we’re going to run our quarterbacks like we do, then they need to take care of the football just like everybody else and we’ll certainly address that this week.
On responding when hit in the mouth:
“I think it happened before that. That happened earlier than late second quarter. I thought that happened in the first quarter and early second quarter and I thought our guys responded really well. There’s a lot of excitement down there when we tied it up 14-14. Defense came a couple of inches from a stop on the next drive, we got the ball back 17-14 and I thought we still did some good things after that. We just have to produce better on offense on that drive and prevent them from scoring at the end of the first. We want to come out of the locker room and get a stop. But again, we were playing a good team and I give them a ton of credit.”
On the passing game:
“Well, I thought we had a really good game plan. Coach Lubick has made us better. We stopped ourselves a lot today between penalties and sacks. When we played clean drives, we executed pretty well and moved the ball well. We still as a program need to push the ball down the field better, there’s no question about that. When you watch the speed they have at wide receiver and the shots they take and the deep balls they hit, when you hit those they’re big plays. Even when you don’t hit them, you’re backing people up and keeping people honest. We have a ways to go to be that kind of threat, to hit a home run in the passing game, but I thought the guys executed the game plan we had very well. We had a couple of other chances and fumbled a snap, missed a protection with guys running open down field. I thought they executed the game plan well at times but we shot ourselves in the foot.”
On younger receivers helping with that in the future:
“Yeah, we’re getting better at that position. There’s no doubt about it. We have to watch the tape to see how everybody played but I thought the guys who played did some good things, made some catches. I thought our tight ends really got involved in the game plan, which we needed to have happen. I thought some of the young guys got in late in the game and every rep they get is valuable. So we’ll keep bringing that group along.”
On Jack Stoll:
“I haven’t even heard yet, to be honest with you.”
On closing the gap with Ohio State:
“That’s Game 1. We probably got assigned the hardest challenge in the league in Game 1. We got a really tough one again next week. We’re playing the Big Ten East champions and the Big Ten West champions in Week 1 and 2. That’s the cards we were dealt. We’re just excited to be playing football. That’s one game and I’m more than anything just thrilled to be out there with the guys. Thought we definitely matched up better than we did a year ago. To beat a team and to take control of the league and your destiny and to win those games, you need some veteran guys that are able to look those type of teams in the eye and go out and whip them. I think we have a lot of guys ready to do that and we need some more.”
On focusing on Ohio State’s Garrett Wilson:
“He had a good game. They have other guys too. We did our best to stop everybody. He had a good game.”
