Colorado-Nebraska Quotes
Oct 4 (Sat)
5:30 p.m.
Colorado Head Coach Mike MacIntyre
Opening statement
“The thing that I kept saying and I’ve seen in this team, and you guys might have felt my vibe a little bit as I’ve gone through since January, that is what I saw. - a mentally tough football team, a team that is never going to quit and never give in. They showed that, we made some good drives in the second half, our coaching staff did a good job of making some adjustments at halftime. Kind of couldn’t get in the end zone, our field-goal kicker was an excellent kicker. Our holder broke his collar bone, our punter, so he’s out for the year. So, we had to put in a new punter and he’s also our holder. Our holder did a great job, and our guy missed a couple. After he missed the second one, our defensive guys are in the huddle saying ‘We’re going to stop them and win the game,’ and I hear our offensive guys say ‘We’re going to get the ball and we’re going to go down and score. I didn’t have to say a word, and when I’m not having to say a word that means the coaching staff has done an excellent job and the kids have bought in. They didn’t flinch one bit and that’s what I see in this football team.”
On seeing his vision of the team in a game
“It shows me how mentally tough they are and how they truly have a brotherhood. They really truly care about each other and they really truly want to help each other. We had a lot of guys having to go in at different times, we had a lot of guys getting knicked up as it went along. It was a physical, tough game. That is a physical football team, that is one of the most physical teams we will play all year. The size of their D-line, the size of their linemen and their powerful backs. I couldn’t be prouder of the players and the coaching staff and their never-flinch attitude and their togetherness to me was amazing.”
On the winning touchdown
“Well, as soon as they walked up and pressed Lavis (Shenault) that he was built into that play, I said go get him. So, I saw it in the air and I thought ‘way to go, Lavis, he caught it!’ Right then, as soon as he caught it I knew we were going for two, and my thing was I didn’t want everyone to run out on the field before we get our two-point set up. As soon as I saw him catch it, I called two-point conversion because we had talked about it earlier. They made a great play and stopped our two-point conversion.”
On coming to Nebraska
“First trip into Nebraska was an excellent atmosphere like we talked about. It was really exciting to play and I thought our kids handled it tremendously and handled all of the noise and everything. We had a couple movements but so did they, so it was good on that side of it.”
Nebraska Head Coach Scott Frost
On what he saw on the late fourth quarter flag on Antonio Reed
“I don’t know. I know they picked up targeting. All I saw was the video and it looked it he was playing the ball and turned and hit him. I don’t know if that’s a penalty or not. Somebody smarter than me will have to decide that.”
On what the team did well
“I told the team I’m proud of them. I’m broken hearted for them, but I’m proud of them. Looking out on that field we had an offense, the only time we got stopped on offense was when we made mistakes and stopped ourselves. Defense at times looked like the Blackshirts. I don’t know what they (Colorado) rushed for (44 yards). We had their quarterback on his back, we stopped the run all day. When you’re trying to go from an average team to a great team, you don’t beat yourself and spotting them 14 points is a good way to get beat, not getting any fourth-and-shorts is a good way to get beat. Giving up third-and-19s and third-and-15s is a good way to get beat. Getting holding calls while you’re trying to run out the clock is a good way to get beat. Getting penalties on third-and-25 when they’re trying to score the last, winning score is a good way to get beat. We can’t beat ourselves. We’ve got to learn those lessons. We’ve tried preaching them to them a lot. If this team didn’t beat itself today, we would have won that game.”
On backup quarterback Andrew Bunch
“Andrew came in and did a good job. Obviously he’s got to put one of those last two balls in a catchable position for Stanley (Morgan) or somebody else, but every time I thought we’ve found every way to give the game away, we found more. We’ve got to catch balls when we’re open in the end zone,. We’ve got to catch third-down balls when our backup quarterback comes in and puts it on the money and those guys that did that are great players. They’re going to be great players here. It’d be hard to try and think of too many more ways to beat yourself today.”
On freshman quarterback Adrian Martinez’s injury
“It’s semi-encouraging. We’re going to wait before we talk about it until the doctors and everything see what it looks like. I thought he played great, first time out there. There’s just some mistakes, the freshman mistakes, the first game mistakes that I wish we could have gotten out of our system last week. Greg Bell fumbling early, Adrian fumbling. We’ll keep working on ball security, we have been. Being smarter with the ball at the end. Maybe I should hand him a different play when we threw that last interception, but our defense goes in and bails us out a few times. I thought Adrian played a great game. Especially for his first game. He’s going to be a really good player around here.”
On late-game play calling
“We just wanted to go score. We’re always going to be aggressive. We wanted to go score and put them on the safest pass play that we knew to run to get it started. It wasn’t quite late enough in the fourth quarter to think we could just run the clock out with their timeouts, so we’re going to stay aggressive all the time, we go for the score. We should’ve thrown to the right and we threw to the left, and those are things that Adrian (Martinez)… he’s the type of kid that won’t make the same mistake again.”
On failing to convert on fourth-and-ones
“We didn’t try to get too cute on those fourth down and ones because… shoot, we ran for… I don’t know what we ran for, we’re winning the battle upfront. I thought we won the battle upfront on both sides of the ball. We just got to do it in situations like that.”
On the defense early in the game
“I think their team did a good job executing on that first drive, they hit us with a lot of stuff, with double-reverse passes or whatever that thing was… you know, you can practice against yourself a lot until you see the speed of somebody else and how they’re doing it, sometimes it takes a series… but we’re going to address whatever it was to make both sides of the ball not come out and click early, we’ll address. I’d never make an excuse, but having a game last week certainly, probably would’ve helped the way we came out and played. It is what it is, those were the cards dealt to us. We can’t turn the ball over in our first two possessions. We’re going in to score in the first, and turned it over to them, and it’s 7-0 them instead of us having the lead. And then defense has got to step up, if you spot any decent team 14 points it’s hard to come back. I was really pleased with how our kids responded to that situation and didn’t win.”
On Frost’s emotions after walking out the field
“It’s all wiped out when you lose, I don’t care. I’m a competitor like all of these guys in the locker room and for three quarters I was having about as much fun coaching as I had in my life, doing it back home… but we've just got to find… we've got to learn lessons to be able to win games like that and not beat ourselves. When you’re trying to become a good team, you don’t find ways to lose games, especially close ones. You find ways to win.”
On what he expected before coming into the game
“To be honest with you I didn’t know what I was going to see today. I knew the team had prepared really well. I knew they knew the game plan, I knew they were going to play hard, but I didn’t know what it would look like because I hadn’t been on the field with them before. Short of losing the game and staying healthy, I don’t know if I could have been much more pleased with the way we moved the ball. The way some of our players performed, with the way our freshman quarterback performed, the way the Blackshirts looked minus a couple series and some bad mistakes.”
On the penalties on Nebraska
“I’m not going to talk about penalties, I’ll talk about our mistakes and we’ll address them, I think we’ve made some undisciplined plays and that’s what average teams do.”
Colorado Players
Nate Landman, LB
On leading Colorado in tackles
“It was a great time. We were all flying around. I saw a lot of guys making great tackles today, some big hits out there, and like I say all the time, I can’t do what I do without my D-Line or my secondary. Their D-Line was plugging up gaps, I was coming free on a lot of tackles. I credit Nebraska, they’re a tough team and we just played a little harder today.”
On second half adjustments
“We had a great talk at halftime in the locker room. Coach went back to our base rules. We worked on a couple things that we hadn’t seen during the week. We got those things fixed and once that happened we were able to stop the run.”
On the magnitude of this rivalry game
“It was a great time. I just heard a couple of alums out there say ‘thank you’ for the alums. That just proves how big this game is, has been in the past, how big it is now for not only us here, but for everyone back in Colorado. It was a great win and I feel like we really came together as a team, we had no doubt in our mind that we weren’t going to win this game.”
On the ‘what ifs’ of the game
“It’s definitely easy to get down and be like ‘oh, what if.’ You always have that question in the back of your mind. We had guys on the sideline encouraging us, keeping our heads up, trying to get that ‘what if’ out of the back of our mind. And just ‘we’re gonna win this game.’ So it definitely crosses your mind, but once you get past, then we just kept going forward.”
On his interception
“We just had guys covering really well, we were doing it all game. That time it happened to work. I was in the right time in the right place. I contribute that pick to my secondary who gave me a great look.”
On the scene in the locker room
“Oh, I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. You get big high school wins, but nothing compares to that. Those guys fired up, we’ve been working so hard since camp and summer training and we’re a brotherhood in there, we’ve all been grinding together, going through stuff together and to see everyone happy in there, smiling, jumping, singing our fight song, it’s just a great feeling.”
On if the team knew how much this game meant
“Definitely. I wasn’t aware of that until the beginning of the week. We had been playing those games, old throwback games in the Champions Center the whole week, and I could kind of see the crowd going crazy, the plays people were making and how the alumni was affected, too. I had people saying how big of a game it was, and just to get that win, not only for our team, but everyone back in Boulder, everyone here, who traveled to come here, we had a pretty good turnout for this away game, so I was happy to get that one for them.
On Nebraska quarterback Adrian Martinez
“He’s a great quarterback, he’s really uses his legs well. He definitely gashed us a couple times. He’s a good passer too, he stays in there, he’s a tough kid. I mean he took some shots today. And I’m sorry to hear about his knee, I hope he gets well, he’s a great player, he’s going to be great for them in the future.”
Evan Worthington, DB
On being a part of a big road victory in a hostile environment
"Man, there's nothing like this. Especially with all we've done over the summer and in spring ball. We were all so excited in the locker room but we're going to have to move on because we have a long season ahead of us."
On the resiliency of this year's defense compared to last year
"We could have easily gave up, but we kept on each other, we kept fighting and we knew we could do it. Sure enough we did."
On playing against Nebraska quarterback Adrian Martinez
"He's a really good quarterback. You know, I didn't expect that. He's a really, really good quarterback that was tough to compete against. We're just happy we were able to get the win."
On if this is the type of win that can catapult the team to a big season
"Oh yeah. This is definitely a good win for us. We made a lot of mistakes today but we just have to learn from it and keep going."
On if the environment here was louder than he anticipated
"It was actually way louder than I anticipated. I thought it would be loud but it was really ringing my ears out there."
Steven Montez, QB
On the excitement of the game
“I don't know if boring is the word to describe that game. That was a very interesting game."
On how the game was interesting
"There were just so many ebbs and flows of the game. Coach [Chiaverini], Coach [Macintyre], and Coach [Roper] always talk about it and football games aren't always just going to be all touchdowns for the offense. There's going to be some adversity. So we caught a little bit of that adversity toward the middle of the game today and I think we responded very well. I think we got a lot of tough guys in that locker room that love the game and love each other and I think that's the biggest thing for us."
On the game-winning touchdown
"I hope the safety doesn't get to it, that's what I was thinking. I was like, 'Jeez man, it's single high.' I knew it was single high, it was pressed, I tried to look him off for a split second and I was just praying that that safety didn't get to it and he didn't, and Laviska [Shenault Jr.] made a great catch, great play, and got in the end zone. That's what he's on the field for. He's a playmaker."
On getting the rhythm going on the road
"Coach [Chiaverini] always says it the best; 'Pressure is a privilege.' So we kind of embraced the pressure. We want the pressure and think it's good. That's what we came to the University of Colorado for, was to play good football and good football teams. We're just going to keep taking it one play, one team at a time and hopefully just keep pushing forward."
On seeing the team respond to adversity
"I think it says that we got a lot of tough guys in our locker room. We got dudes that are gritty and dudes that, when it gets a little bit tough, they don't back down. Whenever they get backed into a corner they don't just curl up into a little ball. They start swinging for their lives, throwing death hooks. So I think that's what we got, a lot of those type of guys in the locker room and I think it's good. I think it gives our team a little bit of an edge."
On how he would rank this win compared to others
"It's tough to rank wins. Winning is tough. It's tough to win. So I'm just going to enjoy the moment now for 24 hours and you clear the slate and you focus on New Hampshire because they're the next opponent. They're next on the list."
Jay MacIntyre, WR
On how he felt about his first Nebraska game
"This was one of the best times of my life. Just the whole atmosphere's awesome. The rivalry is awesome. Just being out there and scoring two touchdowns is a dream come true honestly. Just helping my team win, we're a great group of guys and a talented group. It's really exciting to walk out of here with the 'W' and I think it's just going to be a springboard to the next game."
On how the team got back on track
"Laviska Shenault [Jr.]. He's a great player and Montez, he's been hitting all his throws. We knew that we were going to win it in our stomach. You've got to have that mentality. I'm sure they had the mentality, but we had that mentality and went out there and did it. It was so awesome to see Laviska [Shenault Jr.] catch that touchdown. I knew when we called it it was probably going to be a touchdown, and it was. So it was a great time."
On how big it was for the team to come out with a win
"Huge. Adversity makes a team. Last year we didn't handle it all that well sometimes. Sometimes we did. We came back after Washington State and beat Cal and Montez had a great game. But this year we're going to have to handle more adversity. There's going to be a lot of stuff that happens. That's what's great about football. There's going to be adversity but you have to come back the next play and go make the play, win the game and that's why it's such a great feeling afterward when you win, and such a bad feeling when you lose."
On if he knew the defender was there on the late penalty
"I knew he was coming down on me, but it was high so I was like, 'I'm probably going to get drilled.' I got drilled anyway. I made eye contact with him right before he hit me and then it got us 15 yards. I was happy he did, I said thanks."
Nebraska Players
Luke Gifford, LB
On what it felt like to come out attacking
“That’s what we’ve been taught. Coach (Zach) Duval has taught us that all summer and it was good to be able to go out there and do that. Obviously we have to get stops when it counts and we didn’t do that but there was a lot of good that we can take away.”
On getting seven sacks as a defense
“We knew we could do it. That’s just Coach [Erik Chinander] believing in us and we believe in the back end. They can lock it up back there so we have the ability to pin our ears back and get after it.”
On how the defense held up against the run and keeping pressure on
“I was really proud of them. I think the D-line and then [junior inside linebacker Mohamed Barry] and [senior inside linebacker Dedrick Young II] played really well and also [junior outside linebacker Tyrin Ferguson]. They did a really good job against the run. (Barry) and (Dedrick) were flying around so it was good to see that.”
On Colorado junior quarterback Steven Montez taking all those hits and still delivering the game-winning throw
“He’s a good quarterback. We were coming after him and he stood in there and delivered some really good throws so you have to give him a lot of credit.”
On whether or not he’s ever pursued a quarterback like that since he’s been here
“No. Never, and that’s what makes this defense so fun to play in. Coach (Chinander) is a wizard with it and that’s what makes it fun.”
On what changed between a losing locker room last year and what the locker room was like today
“It was completely different. Obviously we felt like we should have won this game. We didn’t. But there was a lot of good things we knew we could take from it and I think the offense having 600 total yards, whatever they had, we had seven sacks on defense, those are encouraging numbers. Offense, we’re not worried about them, they’re going to keep plugging along, we’re really confident in those guys. We’re extremely confident on defense too so we know what kind of team we can be.”
On the balance between anger that they lost and resolve
“This is no moral victory, by any means. We expect to win every game we play and especially in our house. It’s unacceptable, we can’t have it, we cannot lose here. This is a long season, we have a lot of games left, and in order for this team to keep getting better we have to take away the positives. We can’t dwell on it too much. I think the coaching staff is going to have us ready to roll on Monday.”
Andrew Bunch, QB
On his emotions getting in the game"It felt good. I was excited to get in. At whatever point in the game that I got in, I knew at some point I was going to get some time, so I was excited."
On his thoughts after the game
"I wish we could've gotten the ball in the end zone on that last play. That's really mostly what I'm thinking about. The team's going to have a short memory about it and get ready to work next week."
On the last play
"We had JD (Spielman) and (Stanley Morgan Jr.), who are obviously two of our biggest playmakers, and trying to get them the ball in the end zone for the last play. (Morgan Jr.) has been pretty good at getting jump balls. I tried to get it up to him and he ended up not being able to come down with it."
On getting in the game
"I was excited. That's what I've been waiting for."
On practice
"We practiced situational football every time, so when it comes up its nothing new, it's just another screen."
On moving forward
"I'm just going to treat it the same way I've always have. I've always tried to prepare like I'm the starter, regardless of the position I'm in. I'm going to tackle Monday the same way I always do."
On his thoughts about the offense moving the ball
"I think the offense, at some times, did really well moving the ball fast and I think we can go even faster. But, for the first game, I didn't think it was bad. I think we moved the ball pretty well and had a lot of yards on offense. We were able to move it pretty quickly when we wanted to."
On preparing himself at all times
"I just tried to look at every play and decide what I would do if I was in. I get every offensive play that's called, so put myself in the shoes of the quarterback and try to play as if I'm there."
Jerald Foster, OL
On the offensive performance during the first three quarters“We had a couple hiccups here and there, but we showcased ourselves pretty well. I feel like we made it clear to ourselves what we need to work on this week coming up. At the end of the day I felt good about our team though. We have a good offense, good at running the ball, throwing the ball, our pace was good, but we can do better.”
On what he said to Andrew [Bunch] before the last drive
“He’s prepared [Bunch], he’s somebody that takes his reps serious, so I didn’t feel like I needed to say anything to him just to be able to be the left guard that he needed in the game.”
On if he’s satisfied with where the offensive line is at
“I’m not satisfied with my offensive line. I’m happy that we showcased ourselves well for the first game, but we can do better. We have detail things, things that if you knew the scheme and everything about it, you would be able to see we messed up a couple times. At the end of the day we did have good yards. I’m happy going forward, we’ve got a lot in front of us, we do.”
On Adrian Martinez’s performance during the first three quarters
“Smooth with it. I’m happy that Adrian came in and operated as well as he did. He kept us nice and relaxed, allowed us to have fun, celebrate our big plays. With him [Martinez] with [Andrew] Bunch in there, they both are guys that I feel comfortable with giving the ball and really allowing our offense to explode and do the things that we can do best.”
On what allowed the team to bounce back from being down 14-0
“You don’t change up, a good football team doesn’t change up. You have your adversity here and there, but you keep playing the game that you were taught. Our coaches had a great plan for us, unfortunately we didn’t do exactly what we wanted at the end of the game, but throughout the game I hope you could see that we were playing good football. We’re going to go forward from here with Troy, we’re going to do great things.”
On how this loss was different from past losses
“I’m not going to discredit other football teams that I’ve been on, or other coaching staffs I’ve been with. But this team, if you know football, you can see that this team has a lot that we can do better, a lot that we have in store and we have a whole lot of hope that’s going to show up in the next game, it’s going to show up throughout this season so if you’re a team that doesn’t want to count us in it, if you’re thinking that off of this one game is going to be the way this season is going, then you’re going to be wrong. This team there is something special about us. I felt great about what our defense did, they really were showcasing themselves well trying to obtain their Blackshirts. The offense, we had what 600 yards of total offense or something like that. So when you’re counting that in I think you know when a good football team is playing in front of you and I feel like Colorado would respect what I’m saying in that we played a good game.”
On the direction the Huskers are head
“This is our first week. I get what you’re saying about how this could snowball. For it to snowball you have to be a bad team, you have to have bad leadership and you have to not be believing in yourself. I believe that we all believe that we’re a good football team. Again, I keep saying it I’ll reiterate myself all day if I have to, but you can look at the stats and see that we are a good football team. I’ll stand behind all these guys, every last one of them. They played their game. We did have problems, but that’s something that we can fix. It was on ourselves. We had a whole lot of things that you can fix. Keeping the ball handled well, not doing things coming to the end of the game. We can fix that and when we do the scoreboard is going to be looking good in our favor.”
On what went wrong on the fourth down plays
“Offensive line...that hurts, all right? We take it upon ourselves when it’s fourth and ones. So, I’m frustrated up here and I hope you can see that on my face that I’m frustrated about those two things. We can say what we want, but this team doesn’t point fingers, we are one team, one heartbeat so we aren’t pointing fingers, that’s something that we stand for. We do understand that the offensive line needs to be the ones to be able to get that yard, and we will.”