Opening Statements... "I'm proud of our football team and how hard they've worked. You know, it's not easy. This a great conference. There's a lot of tremendous competition, and getting ourselves here and to win the North [Division] and I told our guys, you have earn your way to get a chance to play for a championship. We've done that, we understand that we're going to play a tremendous football team tomorrow night. A heck of a program that's well coached. It'll be a great challenge for our team, and that's the way it should be. You know, you should have to play the best [team] and that's the case. It should be a heck of a match-up, North versus South. We're looking forward to the challenge as is our football team.
On Oklahoma turning around since the Texas A & M game... "Well, I think when you -- you kind of watch their whole body of work when you're getting ready for a football team. To their credit, they've gotten better as the year has gone on. I don't know whether it was just about the A&M game. I think that you've watched them. I've seen them progress and get better week to week. To me that's the sign of a good football team and a well-coached football team. You expect that teams are going to be playing at their best, or should be playing at their best when you get to the end of the season. I think that is the case with OU. I think they have nice balance, and they're playing well in all phases of the game."
On Taylor Martine's performance in practice this week... "Taylor did well. You know, he was -- we limited his reps at times and thought he did some good things. I liked what I saw."
On the difference in coming into this game as opposed to the conference title game last year [against Texas]... "It's no different. I don't approach it -- I don't pay attention to who is an underdog and who is not an underdog. I don't even know who is favored to win this year. That is pretty irrelevant. In the end it's about going out there with the understanding that whoever wins the football game is going to earn it.
You have to do it on the field. You go out there and you compete, you try to execute your game plan the best you possibly can, and let the chips fall where they may. That has nothing to do with who people are predicting or not predicting is going to win the football game. It's going to be earned on the field, that's for sure."
On if his plan is to wait to decide who will be his starting quarterback Saturday... "It is."
On if he's seen anything that might change his mind... "I have a pretty good idea (laughing)."
On if he would wake up in the morning and decide... "I usually take a nap right before the game so....(laughing)"
On what he noticed about Oklahoma's offense coming in to the game... "Well, I think their offense, first of all, it's very well coached. I think that they have-- it always starts with the quarterback. I think he's a good decision maker, makes quick decisions, is very accurate. Their skill people are as good as you're going to play against, guys that can really make things happen with the ball. You're talking about Broyles and Murray, I mean, right across the board. They have guys that can run, they can make plays.
And they're well-coached. They play hard up front. They have good balance. He they pretty much can hurt you run and pass, and they do it out of a multitude of personnels and sets. They create a lot of problems for you defensively. You've got to be on point. You add to that the tempo they play with, and the amount of plays they run at you, they put stress on you from the beginning for four quarters. I guess that's what you're after if you're coaching offense. I mean, they put a lot of stress on you defensively."
On if he could take anything from the game last year in which the Huskers beat Oklahoma and picked off Landry Jones 5 times... "No, not really. Like I said, we executed well. We had some things go our way last year. There is a combination of things. But today he's a different football player, Landry is a different football player now than he was at that time. They're a different offense, we're different defensively, the personnel, lot of things. So obviously they're going to look at that game. We looked at that game. There are a lot of things that you can take from it, but it's not going to have any impact on what happens tomorrow night."
On whether past issues in officiating [especially the Texas A & M game] has weighed on his and/or his team's mind... "No, sometimes I think that stuff is blown out of proportion. You know what, let's face it, coaches aren't perfect. There's never been a referee that's been perfect. It's human error. And things happen. It's an emotional game. It's a competitive game. Things happen. I think I said it a couple weeks ago, it's not a personal thing. You don't hold a grudge or anything else. Things happen. I do know this. Everybody that walks out there coaches, referees, players, administration, everybody's trying to do the best job they possibly can. But it's human error comes in and nobody's perfect. No one's ever going to be perfect. You move on. You move forward. You've got to accept all of those things as part of the game.
If you want to win, you want to win championships, you want good things to happen, you have to overcome human error on a lot of different levels."
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