Coordinators Wednesday Presser

[vailhusker]

 

[LoudHogRider]

Whip: "Junior High locker room like they had ..." 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣

 

[vailhusker]

Busch discusses getting a tight-knit Husker defense ready for a 'ridiculously gifted football team'​

ByBRIAN CHRISTOPHERSON 20 minutes ago

The GPS trackers are confirming what Bill Busch is seeing in practices.

"One things are kids are doing is practicing at a very high level with effort, so that carries over to the GPS that they wear," said Nebraska's defensive coordinator on Wednesday. "So the numbers that we get back on the information and what we see on the player – kids are practicing and playing very hard."

Busch knows it will take more than strong GPS data when taking on a big challenge at Purdue on Saturday, calling the Boilermakers "a ridiculously gifted football team."

He said Purdue head coach Jeff Brohm is as good as there is calling plays.

"Someone asked me the other day, 'How good is he?' I don't know anyone better," Busch said. "I never give someone the perfect title ... but I went against him once when I was at Rutgers. I've known him for a long time. I've sat and visited with him. We're kind of friends from afar I guess ... But he does a magnificent job in how he schemes things up ... And also he's got a lot of NFL players walking around, so that helps. His quarterback (Aidan O'Connell) is an NFL guy, his tight end is an NFL guy, Charlie Jones is an NFL guy ... So they're as talented of group as we've seen all year skill wise and especially at the quarterback spot.


"Gifted, gifted."

More from Busch.

BUSCH SAID HUSKER PLAYERS ARE REALLY BOUGHT IN​

"You don't all of a sudden just create great attitude players. We have great attitude players. They were already here and they are playing with that level of it right now."
Busch pointed out that both halftimes of the past two wins since he's been DC could've been rough. Against Indiana it was 21-21 and the Hoosiers had scored on the last two drives. Against Rutgers it was a 13-0 deficit. Nebraska posted shutouts in the second halves of both games.
"That's all on the kids. That's just a bunch of guys being real dudes and stepping up and playing hard. Big eyes, big chest, bright-eyed ... that's all on them ... Nebraska should be proud of them for just the way they carry themselves."

ANY STANCE ON BRINGING THE BLACKSHIRTS BACK?​

Not really for Busch at the moment.
"We've got a great pack of kids playing right now together and they're going to stay just like that. If Coach Joseph decides he wants to give them back, obviously I'll support him 100 percent. But right now, we've got a very good mindset about how we're going to play as a unit. And that's all we're worried about right now is being one big unit."

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE CORNER SITUATION WITH QUINTON NEWSOME DAY-TO-DAY?​

Busch said he is "absolutely" confident in whichever corners are called on to play there. First-year freshman Malcolm Hartzog and senior but new Husker Brandon Moore were the corners at the end of Friday's game.
"Coach Fish has done a great job with those guys. Whoever is ready to play will be ready to go. Love Malcolm how he fought back. Did a lot of good things. They hit a couple balls on him. That's on film. Everybody knows that. But it wasn't like he was in bad coverage. He was in good shape. Not all passes are defenseable. You throw a perfect pass, no matter what coverage you're in, they're going to have a chance to be able to catch the ball. But I tell you one thing, for a true freshman, he didn't give up. He's got a lot of fight in him. Malcolm's the kind of guy you want to go to work with any day."

BUSCH SAID PLAYERS ON THIS TEAM ARE ALWAYS AROUND THE STADIUM, WHICH IMPRESSES HIM​

"That's the thing you look for in a football team, which we have on offense, defense, special teams, is our hallways are packed with players all the time. They get here at roughly 6 o'clock in the morning and we'll have guys that are in here in this building – academics too – but here until they leave at 6:15 at night to go get there food. And sometimes they'll come back. They just live up here. And they're always around us, they're asking questions. We'll be in our meetings after this and they'll be poking their heads in on a certain play ... And that really helps because, boy, you have to understand the game, because the game's complicated."

WHAT'S IT MEAN TO THE DEFENSE IF LUKE REIMER CAN'T PLAY?​

"Yeah, we'll see how Luke is coming through with his injury. I know he's feeling really good. I met with him last night, like, about 9:15 or something like that. He's feeling really good. So we'll see where he's at... One thing we have with Va (Mauga-Clements) and Chris (Kolarevic), we're in really good shape because those guys have played a lot of reps. We made a big point as a staff .... is substitution and substitution early. ... The worst you can do is, 'Oh, this kid's ready to play,' and then it's third quarter, 'Oh, get in there (for the first time).' So we try to get all the guys that are going to play in the game some time in the game in the first half, so they get a feel for what's going on. If you play just four or five snaps at halftime, you still feel pretty engaged about what's going on out there."

FOUR INTERCEPTIONS IN THE LAST TWO GAMES. WHAT'S BEEN THE KEY?​

Busch took the question to talk more about how he think Nebraska is maximizing its time better in teaching guys in the secondary by splitting coaching duties.
"People always get confused and they say the word DBs. That's craziness," Busch said. "Because corners and safeties and nickels, they're all different positions. So that's kind of like being like, 'Well, he's an offensive player, so you can coach the quarterbacks and running backs.' That's not how it works. They're different positions that do different things. So when we were able to divide things up ... (because) I've had them all before like Coach Fish did and that's miserable like that ... So we we were able to divide it up so Coach Fish can have the corners, I can have the nickels and safeties ... And also those three positions also play the other ones. So the nickels play safety and the safeties can play nickel, so that's how we can have the rotation to it. So that helps us a bunch in just the time (used) ...
"We felt like we've maximized our staff in how we're dividing like that."

WHAT'S BEEN THE DIFFERENCE IN MYLES FARMER?​

"He's straining to the football better ... He's practicing better. The reason he's straining better is because he's practicing better. And we're pushing him really, really hard to strain to get himself in position to tackle, all those things ... His antenna is up. He's really dialed in to what's going on. He talks back there better. He's gotten himself in better shape that way. ... I like where he's at. He made a huge interception. It was a really nice play for us there that kind of put us in position to win the game. So I'm proud of him for that."

THE GPS TRACKERS JUST HELP CONFIRM TO GUYS THE WORK THEY'RE PUTTING IN​

Busch said he thinks Reimer has tracked the highest at around 22-something mph. Isaac Gifford has been up there too.
"So if someone says they're fast and your numbers don't say that you're running fast, you can tell. Also it shows how much energy you exert. So that's big to tell who's straining in practice. So if the reps are down, you can still tell if it's limited reps how hard they strain during that rep."
Strain is no longer a bad word around here, obviously.
"There is a correlation to it that does help you. It's always nice to be, 'Hey, here's your numbers. It shows me you're practicing really hard.' There's way more to it but it is a piece that is very teachable to everyone that does help us in some fashion like that. Now how it's going to help us cover (Charlie Jones) and get after (Aidan O'Connell), but it does give us some tools to get things done."

BUSCH DOES THINK THE SUCCESS IN TOUGH SITUATIONS CAN HELP GOING FORWARD​

"I know they can handle situations that are tough and there's going to be a lot of tough situations in this game," Busch said. "They'll be able to carry that forward with them. It helped them a bunch in preparation. The mood is always better after wins. I've done this now for 33 or 34 years and generally if you win, next week is fun. If you lose, next week is not as fun."

Busch discusses getting a tight-knit Husker defense ready for a 'ridiculously gifted football team'

The GPS trackers are confirming what Bill Busch is seeing in practices. "One things are kids are doing is practicing at a very high...

247sports.com

 

[vailhusker]

Whipple likes how Husker offense has flipped it in practices after 'worst week' before Rutgers​

By BRIAN CHRISTOPHERSON 35 minutes ago

Mark Whipple said the best thing about Friday's game was what he saw at halftime.

"The look in the eyes on offense – and we played terrible and I did a bad job coaching, all that, and we were bad on third down. But there wasn't like 'woe is me.' It was, hey, I said, 'We're going to take the ball second half, we're going to go down and score, the game will be changed right there, and we're going to win the game.' And that's it. And they all believed in it. And that's a credit to Mickey and the offensive coaches – all the guys that way."

It's certainly not always like that in a halftime locker room, Nebraska's offensive coordinator knows. Not when you're down 13 and have played so poorly.

"Sometimes you go into like a little bandbox locker room like they had, and you can't see anybody, and it's like junior high. But they're closer together and everything else. When you win on the road, it can really help you and we're looking forward to playing Purdue, which has a really, really good football team."

– What can you do mid-stream to fix the pass pro issues that were consistent in that 14-13 Nebraska win over Rutgers?


"Well, we did the silent count and I did a bad job. Could've helped out a little bit more on that. The ironic thing was we only had one sack. But you look at stats, that's how misleading it can be. But the second half kind of settled down and did some other stuff that way. Hey, you go on the road, it's hard to win anywhere. ... We just didn't have any rhythm. But as I said the kids had a lot of resolve ... and that was the most important thing."

– You talk about guys believing. Do you see that confidence still in particular with the O-line despite the struggles?

"Everybody knows when you don't play well. I knew as a coach I coached crappy. We had a bad week. We had our worst week of practice. We only had one day to work hard ... We weren't very good that day and that carried over. The positive was I talked to them Sunday and said, 'We've got to have our best week of practice. You guys learned you can't practice like that and expect to play well.' We've really flipped it this week. These have been the two best days we've had this year."

Whipple thinks the short week last week was tough, but the extra day has really helped this week.

– Mickey Joseph changed the practice setup after taking over, with Nebraska now having Monday as an off day. Whipple said that's a schedule he was used to anyway. He doesn't make too big of a deal about the change from how Scott Frost did it, but sometimes it's useful to just switch up the routine when struggles have been happening.

"Change can be good," Whipple said. "If you're struggling that way, if you're hitting it bad off the tee you go to a 3-wood ... So just the change part and being positive. It didn't help the first week but just kind of got into it and it's what we know right now."

Whipple said he has seen the group grow together more as a team, and obviously winning helps.

"It's hard to gain confidence when you lose."

– Having been in that role before, Whipple said he knows some of the extra challenges Joseph has to deal with as a head coach. "Because he's come in and said, 'Man, I don't know about this stuff,'" Whipple said with a laugh of all other stuff beyond the game that goes with the HC role. "But that's just part of it. He still wants to be involved in the football part, which he's doing a good job. ... I just think the entire staff has stayed positive. Early on it was not 'woe is me...' I thought it was really great camaraderie in the locker room afterwards (at Rutgers). Just finding a way to win and that's what it's about at any level, especially where we're at right now."

– When it came to the Huskers milking the game pretty well away at the end, Whipple said he learned a lot from Bill Cowher while with the Pittsburgh Steelers. "I think his record was 77-1 when he was ahead by 10 points. And he was always up my rear, and Ben Roethlisberger's rear, to snap it with one second. We can get it to two. We've practice it, but we've gotten better at it. Just talking with Mickey and Coach Busch and what we want to do and here's what our thoughts are during the week. I watch both sides of the ball anyway. Just creature of habit and just what you need to win."

– How big was it to get Travis Vokolek going in the passing game again?

"Yeah, he's a big guy and he's a leader. He made some big plays. The touchdown, but another one. I told him we were going to go to him (late) on third down in the four-minute deal, figuring we were going to get man (coverage). And he made a big catch there. All those guys. Coach Beckton has done a good job with all those guys."

– Why didn't you run it on the one fourth-and-1?

Whipple said on previous fourth downs they had run it every time and just missed it on third-and-2. "We've got to be careful with Anthony (Grant), it was the exact same play that Ohio State had (against them). We dropped the ball. So that's why. Those are the reasons. We've been pretty good. We missed fourth-and-2 twice against Oklahoma and ran it, so that was the thought. We got the look we wanted. I was standing right next to Mickey. I said if I don't like the look I'm going to get a timeout...' but we liked the look and we just didn't execute it."

– Whipple said the Huskers just want to build some depth with Tommi Hill working at receiver.

He mentioned Hill still has some defensive sub-packages that could still be available to him.

But as for giving him reps at receiver, they weren't sure of Marcus Washington going into that game, and Oliver Martin. "Guys got nicked up. (Hill) can run ... Just trying to work on his ball skills and getting ready for the off week. Saying, 'Hey, you're practicing a little bit now and with the off week, we can maybe get him toward the end of the season where he can play both ways.'"

Whipple thinks Hill has really embraced the chance. "But he hasn't been under the lights that way. But it also gives us some depth in case something happens, we can get (him) some plays possibly."

NU was apparently pretty dinged up last week. Brody Belt wasn't there. Trey Palmer was nicked up. Martin too. "So that was just kind of the thought process."

– About the bobble on the victory formation snap?

He noted Greg Schiano has done that before in the NFL, when his guys "submarine your offensive linemen."

Whipple said he almost called a timeout before it. But Donovan Raiola had talked to his guys about it and NU had no problems with snaps up to that point.

"That's kind of what he's done in his career," Whipple said of Schiano.

– Challenge of Purdue?

"Veteran group. All over the place ... You look down it's senior, redshirt senior, junior, all the way through. They're not playing any young guys. They're playing at home. They've won three in a row. They come up and make big plays when they have to. So it's a real challenge. It's the best team that we've played I'd say since Oklahoma. I say that because Oklahoma played well against us. So it's a huge challenge for us."

Whipple likes how Husker offense has flipped it in practices after 'worst week' before Rutgers

Mark Whipple said the best thing about Friday's game was what he saw at halftime. "The look in the eyes on offense – and we...

247sports.com

 

[Pepe Silvia]

​

Busch said he thinks Reimer has tracked the highest at around 22-something mph. Isaac Gifford has been up there too.
"So if someone says they're fast and your numbers don't say that you're running fast, you can tell. Also it shows how much energy you exert. So that's big to tell who's straining in practice. So if the reps are down, you can still tell if it's limited reps how hard they strain during that rep."

Either Busch is misremembering, or we have faulty GPS trackers because there's no way anyone on this team is hitting 22 mph in practice. there hasn't been a single NFL player hitting 22 mph in a game this year

Who is the fastest player in the NFL? Here's where Devin Duvernay, Joe Mixon, others rank in 2022 | Sporting News

Taking a look at the fastest times clocked by NextGen Stats in 2022, and in past years.

www.sportingnews.com

 

[NeAz]

I have a feeling Whipple doesn’t make it to the end of the season. He seems like he doesn’t want to be here anymore.

 

[Kaladin]

I have a feeling Whipple doesn’t make it to the end of the season. He seems like he doesn’t want to be here anymore.

he's got health issues

 

[Baron Winnebago]

Either Busch is misremembering, or we have faulty GPS trackers because there's no way anyone on this team is hitting 22 mph in practice. there hasn't been a single NFL player hitting 22 mph in a game this year

Who is the fastest player in the NFL? Here's where Devin Duvernay, Joe Mixon, others rank in 2022 | Sporting News

Taking a look at the fastest times clocked by NextGen Stats in 2022, and in past years.

www.sportingnews.com

I immediately thought an error in the tracker. Or our entire team is slow as shit and a MLB is the fastest player