	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 14, 2015

Kyle Flood

Piscataway, New Jersey

Nebraska - 31, Rutgers - 14

HEAD COACH KYLE FLOOD: Good evening. Let me start with Derrick Nelson. I think everybody saw that at the end of the game there. Right now he's rot Robert Wood Johnson.

Before he left the field he had full movement in his hands and his feet and his extremities. So again, I make that announcement in case his parents were watching. He told me before he left the field his parents weren't here, and we're in the process of trying to get in contact with them. But all the initial signs were positive.

Any injury of that type needs to be handled with the greatest of caution. So that's why he's at Robert Wood right now being cared for. And when I'm done I'll head over there.

In terms of the game, we're disappointed. We've got things we've got to continue to work on. We had some opportunities in the game. We got it to a one score game in the second half, we certainly had opportunities. And -- but we need more consistency. More consistency of good play, which we didn't have today.

Q. You said he was responsive and talking to you while he was down? What was your feeling?
HEAD COACH KYLE FLOOD: I don't want to get into all that. I'm not a medical person. Again, I want his parents to know if they're watching that he had full movement and communication skills and that kind of stuff. What we're doing is precautionary right now.

As a coach it's the most important thing, the health and safety of your players is more important than anything else that we do. And I feel really good right now that he's over at Robert Wood. He's in great hands.

Q. (Inaudible.)
HEAD COACH KYLE FLOOD: I just didn't feel good about putting the defense back out there. At some point you're going to run out of possessions. It didn't work. So that's the difference. They did a great job holding them to a field goal afterwards. They really stepped up in that situation.

But again when you call those things, and when they work, you feel really good, and when they don't there's always a little bit of risk reward for sure.

Q. What's your assessment of the defense overall?
HEAD COACH KYLE FLOOD: I felt they battled, at times opportunistic. Three drives in a row that ended in interceptions. The one touchdown on the scramble in the second quarter, the quarterback gets out of the pocket and a young half field safety comes up to secondary contain it, which is really not his responsibility. And the ball goes over his head for a touchdown. So we're still having some of those growing pains back there, for sure.

I don't think we necessarily put them in the best situations throughout the game. But certainly have to credit Nebraska. They've got a good football team, and they've got talented players and good coaches. And they did a good job with their game plan, as well.

Q. How do you explain the struggle the last two games? And Nebraska came in with a weaker pass defense?
HEAD COACH KYLE FLOOD: A weaker pass defense gets better in a hurry when the pass rush is effective. And so to me, without looking at the film, and you say what was the biggest issue we had on the field today, it was the defense. They had six sacks, through we didn't do a very good job of protecting the quarterback at all. And it just gets really hard.

Q. Was there anything different Nebraska did defensively with the line, the linebackers, that maybe you hadn't seen in some other games?
HEAD COACH KYLE FLOOD: Every week I think every team has a little wrinkle in their third down package. How we do it. How they do it. But there's other times where I think we're breaking down one-on-one. And I've got to look at that on film and see if I'm right. Those things are tough to evaluate live on game day.

Q. Paul James, was he mentally tired?
HEAD COACH KYLE FLOOD: Paul could have played. He didn't have a full practice week. And I felt like if the other guys stayed healthy through the game, I'd like them to give him the opportunity to go out and practice. I expect Paul to be a big part next week.

Q. What's your reaction to getting booed at home during the PSA?
HEAD COACH KYLE FLOOD: I don't have any reaction to it, at all. My job is to coach the football team. I get great support from so many people and in so many places. The reality of major college football is if you're not playing well and not performing well, those things are going to happen.

Q. A few players on the defense made some plays tonight, despite the 31 points. Lewis and Hampton and Cioffi.
HEAD COACH KYLE FLOOD: Hampton and Cioffi both had interceptions. Turnovers are critical in the game. Saquan had 13 tackles. Career high. That's good. That's really good. It's important. He's in the middle of our defense for a reason. For him to be productive, that's a good sign.

Q. I think what Steve is referring to, can you empathize at all with the fan frustration, is that what you in the locker room and coaches are feeling right now?
HEAD COACH KYLE FLOOD: I think everybody in the program is frustrated. We want to performer about. We want to be 1 and 0. There's no question. We've got real competitors in that locker room.

We have very high expectations for ourselves. We're not pleased with how we played tonight. We'll go back to work tomorrow to fix it. Ultimately that's what we can do. I think I said this before, we're frustrated. You can't let the frustration turn into discouragement, because discouragement stops you from going forward, and for us it's important to go forward.

Q. (Inaudible.)
HEAD COACH KYLE FLOOD: I'll find out tomorrow, but I don't have any concern about it. We've got players that want to compete. And when we show up next week up at West Point we'll be ready to do that. If you've got competitors in your locker room, it's a week to week season. And they'll go out and compete. I have no doubt about it.

Q. Chris Muller, how did he deal with the injury? Did he suffer anything?
HEAD COACH KYLE FLOOD: Not to my knowledge.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297