What Mickey Joseph had to say following Nebraska’s loss to Wisconsin
Interim Head Football Coach Mickey Joseph spoke to the media following Nebraska’s 15-14 loss to the Wisconsin Badgers. Here is everything the coach had to say.
Dylan Widger-USA TODAY Sports
“First of all, I want to thank the seniors that played their last game at Memorial Stadium. This is a tough one. To be in control of a game like that. I have to do a better job of getting them to close people out. That’s what’s going to happen with maturity and doing a better job. Take a hat off to these kids. Just a good character group. A 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. We’re going to come back next week, and we’re going to play hard again and look for a different result. Just didn’t happen today. This one hurts.”
On the last possesion of the game
“When you run the ball and you lose two, you’re just not blocking it clean, so we try to get it in the air. Like I said, we have to teach them to close them out and how we can close them out.”
On the run game
“It just hadn’t been there. We’ve been having trouble with it. It’s been week in and week out. You have to play with the guys that we have, we can’t trade them. So, we have to figure that out.”
On how tricky the wind was
“I don’t think it was affecting the throws, I thought it was the kicking game that was affected. So, with Brian (Buschini), we say you have to hit this one. Then we got a line drive on one of them, the wind caught a line drive, so it was mainly a kicking game. Throwing wise, I thought it was okay.”
On the field position of the last possession
“We don’t have a safe return setup because you’re trying to make sure that they don’t hit us with a fake. So obviously he did what he did what he’s coached to do.”
On how he would assess the defense
“That’s a lot of snaps when a team is running the ball at you because eventually it will start wearing on you. And that’s where you have to play complimentary football. We have to get all three phases to go, we have to keep the ball on offense to give them a chance. So that’s not just on them, that’s on the entire scheme of things.”
On Casey Thompson's performance
“I thought Casey (Thompson) went out, he hadn’t practiced in a while. I thought he 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. I thought he made some good throws. Any quarterback is going to miss some, but I thought he saw it better than I thought he was going see it today.”
On Marques Buford Jr.
“He’s seeing a doctor. We’ll know more tomorrow.”
On the contributions of Ernest Hausmann and Malcom Hartzog Jr.
“Those kids play hard. Those kids are two really good football players. We have to make sure we sit down with them at the end of the season and see what they’re thinking.They’re two good kids, and they’ll be back next year to get better.”
On the senior group
“They’re just a great group of guys, great character kids, just great, great, great players. They haven’t gotten the wins that they wanted, but they come in this building every day, never negative, always positive, and they come in here to work. And that’s what you appreciate from them. And 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 here and give you work. I’ll take my hat off to them. We’re going to miss them.”
On what the communication was like with Mark Whipple up in the box
“We had some veteran coaches down there with Donovan (Raiola), (Bryan) Applewhite, (Sean) Beckton, (Mike) Cassano, so that wasn’t the first rodeo with the coordinator in the box, but I thought it went well.”
On what needs to change with the offensive line
“We’ve got to get some depth. We’ve got to put some competition up there. You heard me say before, we have to get a competitive roster. And we have to get some depth up there. You have to have 16 to 17 guys that are on scholarship to get some depth, to get them going. They rotate the defensive linemen; you have to be able to rotate those kids. But you know what, those kids come out here every practice and they practice hard, and they come out every game and give it their all.”
On what he says to the defense after they fought hard
“You don’t have to talk to them, because we talk like a family and we don’t point fingers. I don’t have to talk to him, because I know what they’re thinking and they’re thinking like this – we have the offense is thinking like this – we have to score 16 points. So, we don’t play the pointing game. We’re family. We’re going to stick together and we’re going to fight through this.”
