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BIG TEN CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCEApril 12, 2011Sean FisherBo PeliniTHE MODERATOR: We're joined by Coach Pelini. Coach, thanks for joining us. COACH PELINI: Thank you for having me. THE MODERATOR: We'll take a quick opening statement and then open it up for questions. COACH PELINI: We're finishing up spring ball. We're excited. We're getting ready obviously for our first year in the Big Ten. Our kids have been working hard. We've had a really productive spring practice. We'll finish up with the spring game on Saturday. But we're looking forward to the future. I'll be happy to open it up for any questions. THE MODERATOR: We'll open it up to questions. Q. Are there any adjustments you made during this spring because of joining the Big Ten and because of specific opponents or specific schemes you may encounter in the Big Ten play? COACH PELINI: No. That's not the time of year. We're not really scheme-oriented in the spring. When we go through spring practice, we're really looking for getting ourselves better, fundamentals, technique. We're doing some extra work obviously as a staff to prepare ourselves scheme-wise for what we have going in the future. We're always looking to tweak things and add some things and change up a little bit on both sides of the football. That process has been working going forward. We're not really getting specific into what we're going to be seeing. It's more fundamental, technique aspect type things for us. Q. Based on what you know or have seen so far, are there any specific challenges you see to joining the Big Ten relative to coming out of the Big 12? Are there specific positions of strength or coaching matchups that you're interested in? COACH PELINI: No, not really. Obviously I think the Big Ten, the coaching is excellent. The teams are very fundamentally sound. Probably some styles of the offenses we're going to see are a little bit different. Really, for that matter, the styles of the defense. At the end of the day it comes down to executing your game plans and taking care of yourself if you want to be a good football team. You don't alter a whole heck of a lot comparatively to who you're playing; you have to play good football. Our kids understand that. We're really concentrating on that doing that as we move through spring practice. Q. I wanted your thoughts on joining the Big Ten, especially the prospect of you playing against your alma mater. COACH PELINI: We're honored to be coming into the Big Ten. We think it's going to be a great move for our university in all regards, not just athletically, but everything that the Big Ten represents academically. We understand the challenges that lie ahead with that. We're going to be basically playing 11 new opponents this year. That's always a challenge for you. As far as playing Ohio State, I've done that once. Obviously having played there, understanding the tradition, what that all entails, it's going to be a heck of a challenge. Our team looks forward to that challenge. Ohio State obviously included, but there's a tremendous amount of tradition in that conference, a lot of great football has been played there over a long period of time. We're happy to be bringing our tradition, our history, coming in, joining that, getting a chance to play in some great venues against some really good football teams. Q. Taylor Martinez, how does he look this spring? COACH PELINI: I think Taylor has had a really good spring. He's done a lot of good things. I think all of our quarterbacks have gotten better. I like our depth at that position. We have a number of options there. We have a lot of guys we feel can go in and play some winning football for us, Taylor included. I think that's a positive sign for us offensively. Q. Could you talk a little bit about the difficulties of having to prepare your defense and offense for 10 or 11 different teams? COACH PELINI: You know, it's a bit of a challenge. Really just requires a little more work in the off-season. We've always gone ahead and looked at the new opponents that are on our schedule. We just have a few more to look at this year. Ultimately, we're really just kind of trying to develop an idea of who they are, what their philosophies are, what they like to do. Then obviously you get into a week where you're getting ready to play that football team, then you dive into your specifics. Right now it's kind of familiarizing yourself with what's coming up in the future. Q. How long has this process been going on for you guys? COACH PELINI: It's been going on for a while. Obviously right now our main focus at this point is spring practice. Especially myself and the coordinators to a certain spent, when May recruiting comes around, we finish up with spring practice, we'll kind of hit the ground running and go pretty full throttle looking at our opponents. We'll want to by the time summer comes around, by the time we take a little bit of a break as a staff, that we've seen all our opponents, have some preliminary thoughts on each and every one of them. Q. Where is the offense relative to your expectations? Are they on schedule? How is that unit looking so far? COACH PELINI: They look really good. I think we've made a lot of strides. There's still a lot of things that we need to keep working on and getting better at. You're not going to be the finished product yet. We have a long time until we play a football game. But I do like how far we've come. I think we've gotten better in a lot of areas, but we still have a lot of ways to go. Q. How about the tempo? COACH PELINI: I think it's translated well. I think the players have taken to it. I think they have a good understanding of what we're trying to accomplish and how we're trying to do it. I'm excited about it. I think we've come a long way in a pretty short period of time. I also know, after spring practice is over, we have 29 practices in the fall to keep going. Right now we've kind of just put in the basic parts of it. We'll get a little more specific and keep adding as we get back together in the fall. Q. Have you gotten any feedback from your players as to the move to the Big Ten? Are they excited about the new challenge? COACH PELINI: I think so. To be honest with you, we haven't really talked much about it up to this point. But I think our players look forward to this challenge. We've talked a little bit about it last year when the move first happened. Our players just want to play football in the end. I do know they have a tremendous amount of respect for what the Big Ten is, what it represents, and are all looking forward to the challenges that lie ahead, playing some new opponents, some really good opponents. So it will be a lot of fun for our kids. Especially the guys that have been around have played in most if not all the Big 12 stadiums. They'll get a chance to make their rounds through the Big Ten. That's a fun thing for a kid, to experience all those things, all those different venues, so many different traditions that represent college football. It will be a great thing for our kids. Q. With the change in conferences, do you go about scheduling your non-conference games any differently? COACH PELINI: No. We take the same philosophy of how we represent our non-conference schedule. We want to schedule some good opponents, ones that are really going to prepare you for league play. In the end, that's what you're trying to do, trying to get ready for league play. At the same time you want to win them all. There's a fine line there. I like the way we've scheduled over the last few years. Q. With your experience as a player with the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry, can you address how much that adds for Nebraska to have a natural rivalry with Iowa? COACH PELINI: I think that's always a fun thing. I think to a certain extent because sheer geography, the Colorado rivalry was one that a lot of people talked about, the traditional game we played them, we played them every year, we played them around Thanksgiving. Now that will be Iowa. I think that is a natural rivalry for us. Not only is it a rivalry, but a good football team, a well-coached football team, a team that's won a lot of games. We play a tremendous schedule this year coming up. We haven't played a lot of those teams before, at least not for a long time. There's great challenges that lie ahead for this team. Q. Bo, do you have any relationships with the other Big 12 schools? Might you continue those on a non-conference basis in the future or is it a fresh start right now? COACH PELINI: Well, I'm sure we'll visit some of those things as we move forward. A lot of the non-conference schedules are in stone, pretty well filled up for the next few years. But I'm sure that will happen as we move forward. There's been some talk, sure, between the administrations with some Big 12 teams. You look at four or five, six, seven years down the road. But I don't know if anything is set in stone. I know there are some conversations that have happened. THE MODERATOR: Thanks, coach. COACH PELINI: Appreciate it. THE MODERATOR: Next we're joined by Sean Fisher. Thanks for joining us. SEAN FISHER: Thanks for having me. THE MODERATOR: Talk about how spring football is going and then we'll take some questions. SEAN FISHER: I think for me the biggest thing is I'm just excited to have a chance to be back out playing football. I got hurt early in the fall during fall camp this previous season. It's been kind of a tough road for me the last couple months. More than anything on an individual basis, I'm just excited to be out with the team, going about things on a day-to-day basis. I think as a whole, we're coming along. Obviously spring is a time where you try to get as comfortable as you can with the defense, any changes we're making, new things we're trying. We're doing different things, having fun playing around with some new things. Things are starting to come along. Guys are starting to gel. We'll just try to continue that into summer and fall camp. THE MODERATOR: Let's go to questions. Q. You were being recruited by Iowa and Wisconsin in high school. I was wondering if you took any visits to any other Big Ten schools, what were your impressions, your overall thoughts on getting to play there this year? SEAN FISHER: I think the only Big Ten school visit I took was Iowa, I believe. I think I went there quite a few times actually. Early on, we had quite a few guys from my high school before me that were older that had been there. They had created those connections between my high school and the coaches there. I had plenty of opportunity to see Iowa specifically. It was a great place, a great staff. I got to know them pretty well. From what I could tell, they have great facilities, just an overall great football program. Obviously they've done really well for themselves. As far as a lot of the other programs in the conference, there's some really great tradition, some great football teams. I think as a whole, we're looking forward to kind of try something new next year, especially for us guys that have been in the Big 12, to contrast that and get to go play at different places, we're looking forward to it. Q. How cool is it from a player standpoint to face 20 different opponents in two years? SEAN FISHER: I think it's an extremely fortunate thing for us. There are probably not a lot of kids that get the opportunity to do this. Most kids get in school, you're in the conference you're in for the four or five years that you're here. To be able to go to places like Texas and Oklahoma, then places like Ohio State and Penn State, it gives you an opportunity to see some really cool places as well as play some really good opponents. Q. I imagine there's some interesting conversations back home because your brother is going to Iowa. You're ground zero for the Nebraska-Iowa rivalry now. SEAN FISHER: My parents make jokes about it pretty frequently. I'm cool. My younger brother is going to Iowa. I'm obviously really happy for him. He's pretty excited about it. He's going to be there this summer. He's looking forward to starting his career, figuring out what it's all about. Unfortunately we both play defense. I don't think I'll get the opportunity to maybe tackle little brother, which would be fun, unless it's on special teams or something like that. It's all in good fun within the family. There's no bad remarks or anything like that. We're just going to have fun with each other. Q. Any good stories to tell once Nebraska joined the Big Ten, are you wearing your Nebraska shirt around the house, he has his Hawk-Eye shirt on? SEAN FISHER: There's not a huge amount of talk about football in our house just with both me and Cole playing for all these years. I have a younger brother who also plays and is in high school. It's such an integral part of all of our lives. When we go home, it's a place where we can get away from football, talk about family and other things, focus on some other important things. There's nothing real crazy. We don't get into it too much. It's kind of a left-alone subject at the house. Q. Does your mom has a half Nebraska jersey and half Iowa jersey yet? SEAN FISHER: She doesn't yet. I'm hoping she doesn't. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if she does, though. Q. Where do you see the defense this year as you're entering a new area in Nebraska football? What's it like on the defense? SEAN FISHER: I would say we're looking forward to the challenge. Obviously there's some great opponents in the conference. So we're excited to get an opportunity to play some of those teams, see how we match up defensively. Obviously since Coach Bo has gotten here, defense has been a pride of our team. The guys that are here this year, on to the future, that's something we definitely want to continue. We'll strive to be as competitive in the defense as possible. Q. Who would you say is one player you're practicing with that has a chance to become, like, a household name by the time the season is over? SEAN FISHER: A guy that I play right alongside almost every play would be Lavonte David. I got a chance last season to watch him being out. I wasn't going through practices, things like that. Just to be able to get a chance to watch him from an outside perspective, he does some amazing things. He's an extremely athletic guy. Early on he was forced into a situation last fall camp when two of us got hurt. He had only been there a month or so and was asked to step up and start, which is a hard thing in our defense. We have a lot of different things we do. For him to be able to do that early on was a testament to his work ethic. Q. There's a lot of talk about the schedule you have, how they really didn't give you any breaks the first couple years. As a player, how do you look at your schedule in the Big Ten this year? SEAN FISHER: Yeah, I mean, obviously there's some extremely difficult competition. I don't think we're necessarily worried about it. Obviously we feel confident in the things that we can do. That's all you can really control, is prepare every week and give yourself the best opportunity to win. I think, if anything, we're excited because of the fact that we get to play some of these teams that are such great teams, have someone coming here and play us at our home stadium as well as getting to travel to some of those places. I would say we're looking forward to that opportunity. Q. Do you think this type of schedule will really show where Nebraska fits into the Big Ten right away? SEAN FISHER: Yeah, I mean, I definitely think it's a way to measure yourself against some of the competition that has done such great things in terms of going to bowl games, just success, overall season. I definitely think so. THE MODERATOR: Appreciate it. Best of luck the rest of the spring. SEAN FISHER: Thank you very much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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