Northwestern post-game press conference nuggets

DUBLIN, Ireland – Here is a quick rundown of what Nebraska head coach Scott Frost and his players had to say following Nebraska’s 31-28 loss to Northwestern on Saturday in Aviva Stadium.

Head coach Scott Frost

***Frost said in hindsight he’d want to take the onside kick back. He said they wanted to be aggressive on special teams, and they got the look they wanted to try an onside there. It was his call, “so that’s on me.” He thought if they got it the Huskers would win the game.

“If I had to do it over, I wouldn’t make the call.”

***Frost said Northwestern ran some good schemes but also had some really bad busts in coverage. He was mostly surprised by how much NU lost physically.

***Frost said: “These guys need something to believe in.”

***Frost on his job security: “You’ve got to win in this business if you want to keep your job.”

He said he wouldn’t change a thing about how the team handled this trip, and gave Northwestern a lot of credit.

“We’ve got to get this turned around.”

***Frost said Gabe Ervin Jr. and Rahmir Johnson were available but Nebraska played the guys they thought gave them the best chance to win.

***Frost said Casey Thompson “did a lot of good things” but “there’s a learning curve in this league.”

***Frost said the passing game in the second half wasn’t as much to do with Thompson but one where the offense as a whole didn’t execute well enough. He said losing Travis Vokolek was a big part in the second-half struggles.

***Frost said the tackling in space wasn’t great, “but I think in the box it was fine.” He credited Northwestern’s backs for running hard, “but we certainly had the opportunity to make more plays than we did.”

***Frost said, “I’ll take seven of it” with the onside kick call, “but you don’t win a lot of games giving up 31 points.” He said the defense had just as much to fix as the offense.

***Asked what Nebraska needed to lean on to bounce back, Frost said: “Culture.” He said the team handled everything the right way leading up to Northwestern and expected they’d do the same next week.

***Frost was asked if there would ever be a point where he would consider stepping down. “No.”

Quarterback Casey Thompson

***Thompson said he was seeing the field pretty well all day, but he knows he needed to be better down the stretch.

**Thompson said not having Vokolek hurt the passing game, “but when guys go down, everyone has to stay positive.”

***Thompson said he never felt any pressure in the game and tried to stay “poised, positive” and lead the offense. But they can’t make the types of mistakes and expect to win.

***Thompson said on the final drive, he knew it would be tough to go 96 yards with no timeouts, but he was confident in NU’s two-minute offense. “We just hurt ourselves,” he said.

“You’ve got to give Northwestern credit. They were more physical than us from start to finish,” Thompson said. He added that Northwestern was constantly flying to the football and played with great effort.

Tight end Travis Vokolek

***On his injury, Vokolek said, “I’ll be alright,” and that it was “just a little ankle thing.”

***On his role as a captain, Vokolek said he would tell his teammates that this game wasn’t going to determine their season and that they had to turn the page and move on. “The world’s not over. The world isn’t burning down.”

***On the line of scrimmage, Vokolek said he thought the offensive line played well but Northwestern’s defense was physical from start to finish.

EDGE Garrett Nelson

***Nelson said there were “definitely a couple plays where it seemed like we were a yard or two behind the line of scrimmage… That just can’t happen. That’s not Big Ten football.”

***Nelson said he and fellow captain Caleb Tannor would put it on themselves to fix what went wrong on Saturday. He said his message would be that this was just one game and they couldn’t let it derail the rest of their season.