North Dakota post-game press conference nuggets

Here is a quick rundown of what Nebraska head coach Scott Frost and his players had to say following Nebraska’s 38-17 win over North Dakota on Saturday in Memorial Stadium.

Click here for a limited time, pre-register and get an unprecedented 12 months for only $1.00. 

Head coach Scott Frost

***Frost said the game didn’t look like they expected, but Nebraska got the win. He told the team afterward that “we’ve got a lot of winners” on this team.

***Frost said the offense wasn’t nearly good or consistent enough.

***Frost said his message after the game was that there were a lot of new guys on this team mixed with older guys who haven’t had a lot of success. “This team can be a great team, and it’s not right now,” he said.

***On the offense, Frost said plays that lose points like the strip sack cannot happen, especially in league play. He admitted that the staff and the players were “still figuring it out together.”

***Frost declined to answer who called plays in the first half and who did in the second half.

***Frost said plays like Trey Palmer’s big catch were examples of guys stepping up and making clutch plays when it mattered the most.

***Frost said he’d hold off on “crowing” Anthony Grant right now, but said he had a good day. “There’s no need to clear room to retire his jersey yet.”

***Frost said NU was “running into a problem” with having too many good skill position players that deserved to play like Gabe Ervin Jr. and Rahmir Johnson.

***Frost clarified that it was a squib kick and not an onside kick. He said it was an issue of poor accuracy on the kick that hit a player instead of bouncing toward the goal line.

***Frost said NU moved the pocket a bit more in the second half, which helped Casey Thompson.

***Frost said the players showed up and gave great effort this week in practice, but admitted they were a little off. He said there was some sickness going around coming back from Ireland. He insisted it wasn’t an excuse but just a natural consequence of long international travel.

***Frost said Travis Vokolek and Nick Henrich would hopefully be back soon.

***Frost said he’d hoped NU would look like it did in the second half more in the first half. He expected less mistakes and being able to play more guys, but he also credited North Dakota for impacting that plan as well.

Click here for a limited time, pre-register and get an unprecedented 12 months for only $1.00. 

Nickel Isaac Gifford

***Gifford said the mood in the locker room at halftime was “business.” He said everyone knew they weren’t playing well enough and they all had to step up and do their jobs better. He said it was frustrating at times, but they stuck together and found a way.

***Gifford said this week was “weird those first two days” coming back off the trip, but after that the players settled in.

***Gifford said NU hadn’t done a good enough job of forcing turnovers, and Garrett Nelson’s strip sack was a great start.

***Gifford said the tackling was definitely worse in the first half, but the defense improved a lot with that in the second half.

EDGE Garrett Nelson

***Nelson said he told his teammates at halftime that “everybody just needs to take a deep breath.” He said people told him after the Northwestern loss that he was trying to win the game on every play, and that was what he tried to tell his guys today.

***Nelson said he put a lot of the Northwestern loss on his shoulders and took the Wildcats’ success “pretty personally.” He had some long talks with people close to him about how that one game “doesn’t define me as a player.”

Nelson wanted to “use my leadership as a weapon” and inspire his teammates and himself this week. He said Marques Buford Jr. grabbed him and told him he loved him when Nelson was struggling early in the week, and that motivated him to snap guys out of their post-loss funk.

***Nelson said North Dakota’s big run was due to a mental mistake by NU not being in the right spots. He said guys were still “figuring out how to play with each other” on defense and was confident they’d get better each week.

Click here for a limited time, pre-register and get an unprecedented 12 months for only $1.00. 

Running back Anthony Grant

***Grant said NU started “very, very slow” on offense to open the game, and it was mainly a matter of “little, minor mistakes” that held them back.

***Grant said he was just focused on lifting up his teammates and “doing my part” to help get a win. He said he felt more comfortable today than he did last week, but there were still some nerves with his first home game as a Husker.

***Grant said he wasn’t really surprised he’s had this level of early success. He’s worked hard his whole career, and “I knew I could do it.”

***Grant said he helps Ajay Allen “any chance I get” to guide him along.

***Grant said Nebraska has a lot of improvements to make and mistakes to fix getting everyone on the same page.

Quarterback Casey Thompson

***Thompson said he was struggling with “a little cold or some kind of sickness” this week, and he took a lot of hits today and was “a little sore” after the game. But all in all he said he was fine.

***Thompson said they work on option plays every day in practice and thought that was a nice wrinkle to their offense.

***Thompson said he took a helmet right to his chin strap on the non-targeting call near NU’s goal line. He felt it should have been a penalty.

***Thompson said he and Trey Palmer told each other they “owed each other” after the Northwestern game for some drops and missed throws. He said that catch in the fourth quarter was a game-changing play.

***Thompson said NU didn’t get many plays – only 23 – in the first half, which threw off their rhythm to start the game. He said the Huskers just “tried to stay positive at halftime” and came out with a great first drive to the their quarter.

***Thompson said being balanced was the best way for the offense to play, and he’d take that type of performance from the running game every week.

***On Frost’s message about NU not being a great team yet, Thompson said game experience was so valuable because you “find out who you can trust and who you can lean on.”

He said Grant, Palmer, Marcus Washington, Isaiah Garcia-Castaneda, and even Omar Manning were becoming those types of players for him.