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BIG 12 CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP GAMEDecember 3, 2010Bo PeliniARLINGTON, TEXAS THE MODERATOR: Coach Pelini has joined us now. Coach, congratulations on the season and your opening thoughts about tomorrow's game. COACH PELINI: Well, thanks. It's great to be here. I'm proud of our football team and how hard they've worked. You know, it's not easy. This is a great conference. There's a lot of tremendous competition. To get ourselves here and to win the north, and I told our guys you have to earn your way to get a chance to play for a championship. But we've done that. We understand that we're going to be playing a tremendous football team tomorrow night. A heck of a program that's well-coached. It will be a great challenge for our team, and that's the way it should be. You know, if you've got to win a championship, you should have to play the best, and that's the case. It should be a heck of a match-up north versus south, and I'm looking forward to the challenge as is our football team. THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach Pelini. Q. Bob has talked in the past about facing Mike or blood relatives, whatever. You guys were obviously close, you were on his staff. Do you enjoy games at all? Do you enjoy playing friends or relatives? COACH PELINI: Yeah, I enjoy games. I don't enjoy -- to be honest with you, I'd rather not see Bob or Mike or anybody else. You know, somebody that I'm that close with. We're pretty close friends, and that part of it is uncomfortable. But you forget about that when the game starts. It goes well beyond Bob, myself, our relationship all that. It's about a lot. It's about the kids in the end. It's about the programs, and the universities. It's, for us, it's kind of a strange thing. But like I said, once the game starts you don't even think about who is on the other sideline. When the game's over, you move past it. Q. Several of your players in the last few weeks have mentioned that they felt they had done kind of an about face after the A&M game. I wonder if you've noticed anything on tape in their last three or four games that's would lend credence to that? COACH PELINI: Well, I think when you -- you kind of watch their whole body of work when you're getting ready for a football team. To their credit, they've gotten better as the year has gone on. I don't know whether it was just about the A&M game. I think that you've watched them. I've seen them progress and get better week to week. To me that's the sign of a good football team and a well-coached football team. You expect that teams are going to be playing at their best, or should be playing at their best when you get to the end of the season. I think that is the case with OU. I think they have nice balance, and they're playing well in all phases of the game. Q. How did Taylor practice for you this week, Taylor Martinez? COACH PELINI: Taylor did well. You know, he was -- we limited his reps at times and thought he did some good things. I liked what I saw. Q. What is the difference for you in the feeling in coming into this year's game compared to last year? It appeared Nebraska was a huge underdog last year despite how well you played, and that may not be the case this year? COACH PELINI: It's no difference. I don't approach it -- I don't pay attention to who is an underdog and who is not an underdog. I don't even know who is favored to win this year. That is pretty irrelevant. In the end it's about going out there with the understanding that whoever wins the football game is going to earn it. You have to do it on the field. You go out there and you compete, you try to execute your game plan the best you possibly can, and let the chips fall where they may. That has nothing to do with who people are predicting or not predicting is going to win the football game. It's going to be earned on the field, that's for sure. Q. There's been a lot of talk about the historical aspect of OU and Nebraska in this game, and also the historical aspect that is the last Big 12 Championship game. Do you address that at all with your team, or is this all about the here and now? COACH PELINI: Well, I have not addressed that much with our team. Our team's well aware of everything that kind of goes with the rivalry. It's a tremendous rivalry that's been going on between OU and Nebraska for a long time. Just because of the tremendous tradition with the two institutions. As far as it being the last Big 12 Championship game, I think it's probably the last one maybe for a year or two, but I don't think this will be the last Big 12 Championship. It just so happens that I think the conference will keep thriving. It will probably add -- who knows what's going to happen. But I don't think for the foreseeable future, I wouldn't be surprised if you see a Big 12 Championship come back around here pretty quick. You know, our players are not -- they're not worried about all of those things. We talk about as a football program, control what you can control, and that is tomorrow night. We're playing -- every time we take the field, we take the field knowing that we're not only playing for each other, we're playing for the whole university, its alumni, the former players and everybody who built up the tremendous Nebraska tradition over a long time. I think if you asked the OU people, they'd be saying the same thing. Q. Who is Youngstown pulling for Saturday night? COACH PELINI: Probably pretty much they're probably hoping it's a tie, but I don't think that's going to happen. You know we obviously share a lot of mutual friends. I don't know. I'm glad I'm not there to watch it, because I don't think there is going to be anybody fighting over the whole thing. I can tell you that much. It's interesting you asked that, because I think Bob said it earlier in the week, the best thing about when we played against each other you know that one of us are going to walk away with the Big 12 Championship. That's a good thing. Q. You said earlier in the week you'd potentially wait until game time to decide who is your starting quarterback. Is that still the plan? COACH PELINI: It is. Q. Did you see anything this week that would change that? COACH PELINI: I have a pretty good idea (laughing). Q. So you're not necessarily going to wake up and decide? COACH PELINI: I usually take a nap right before the game so (laughing)... Q. Nebraska hasn't been to a BCS Bowl game since 2001. Is that something that weighs on your mind or something that you talk to your team about heading into this game? COACH PELINI: No. I mean, I take the approach that you try to win every football game you walk out there for. You don't talk about -- everybody's going to be motivated by different things. The thing that I believe why we're heading in the right direction and why we've done well is a program as we have a certain mindset, about staying in the moment, controlling what you can control, and staying with the process. With our goals and everything else, it's not something that we look ahead as to what is going to happen if we win. We believe, I believe that you get what you earn. If you do the right things and you earn it, things come your way. The same is going to be true with a Big 12 Championship, a BCS berth, all of those things. But it's all the things that you have to do along the way that are going to allow that to happen. If you start worrying about what-if's and all those other things, it becomes a distraction, and you're going to lose your folk us and it doesn't give you the opportunity to play your best football. Q. Can you talk about Oklahoma's offense, what you noticed from them and expect from them tomorrow night, especially going against your defense? COACH PELINI: Well, I think their offense, first of all, it's very well coached. I think that they have -- it always starts with the quarterback. I think he's a good decision maker, makes quick decisions, is very accurate. Their skill people are as good as you're going to play against, guys that can really make things happen with the ball. You're talking about Broyles and Murray, I mean, right across the board. They have guys that can run, they can make plays. And they're well-coached. They play hard up front. They have good balance. He they pretty much can hurt you run and pass, and they do it out of a multitude of personnels and sets. They create a lot of problems for you defensively. You've got to be on point. You add to that the tempo they play with, and the amount of plays they run at you, they put stress on you from the beginning for four quarters. I guess that's what you're after if you're coaching offense. I mean, they put a lot of stress on you defensively. Q. Last year you had success against Landry Jones, at that time he was in his fifth or sixth start. Do you notice anything that you can take and implement into tomorrow? COACH PELINI: No, not really. Like I said, we executed well. We had some things go our way last year. There is a combination of things. But today he's a different football player, Landry is a different football player now than he was at that time. They're a different offense, we're different defensively, the personnel, lot of things. So obviously they're going to look at that game. We looked at that game. There are a lot of things that you can take from it, but it's not going to have any impact on what happens tomorrow night. Q. After the Texas game, I know every season's a roller coaster, but just what you guys did against Oklahoma State and Missouri those following two weeks. Can you kind of talk about if maybe that changed your season or defined your season at all? COACH PELINI: Well, you could say unless you win them all, which there's only a couple teams out there that are sitting undefeated, you're going to have your ups and downs. It's going to be a roller coaster of emotions at times. You've got to channel it the right way. Obviously with all the expectations and you lose a football game, especially at home when we lost to Texas, that was a disappointment. But you've got to regroup. All right. I think our players have shown over the last couple of years really that they're resilient, they have a lot of character. I thought the way we responded was the way I expected them to. We got better. I think we've improved as the season's gone on. I still believe our best football is still out there to be played. I said after last week's game. I'm proud of these kids, and how they represent the program, and how they've represented the program all year and the way they've played. Are we perfect? No. But there's not a team out there that is. But we put ourselves and have given ourselves the opportunity to play for a championship, and that's all you can ask at this point. You've got to try to make the most of that opportunity. Q. Would you speak of DeMarco Murray's first penalty and what kind of impact he has on their offensive scheme? COACH PELINI: I think DeMarco Murray is a tremendous player. I think the young guy's a good player too. I think he's really coming along. They have three good backs if you put Ndulue in there. But I think Murray, he can run inside, outside. He's a tremendous pass-catcher. They could use him in so many different ways. He's such a talented athlete. I think that's going to become real obvious when the draft comes around, because I think he's going to be a high pick because he can do so many things to put a stress on the defense. I think his future's bright. He's a heck of a player. I think that their coaching staff, their offensive coaches really do a good job of finding unique ways and different ways to get the ball in his hands. And believe me, that puts some stress on you. You've got to really be careful who of you match him up with. Q. If anything, is there anything you're going to miss about the Big 12? COACH PELINI: Yeah, I'm going to miss a lot about the Big 12. I mean, you're talking about somebody here who hasn't been in a conference for a long time. But, obviously, there are things you're going to miss. It's the tremendous rivalries. I have a lot of friends in the conference. They're good people. I think that people want to make certain things out as to why Nebraska left the conference. I think it goes well beyond sports. There are a lot of things that play into decisions like that. Long-term interests of universities, of research, so many different things. Me as a football coach, I'll miss it. I think highly of it. I think highly of the people I've come in contact with in my time in the Big 12, and like I said, there are some things you can control and that's not one of them as a football coach. I've enjoyed my time in the Big 12. I have a tremendous respect for the people and the conference as a whole, and that won't change regardless of where we're going or what happens in the future. Q. Because of some issues in the past about officiating, here last year and the A&M game, does that ever wear on the team and play into a team's psyche? COACH PELINI: No, sometimes I think that stuff is blown out of proportion. You know what, let's face it, coaches aren't perfect. There's never been a referee that's been perfect. It's human error. And things happen. It's an emotional game. It's a competitive game. Things happen. I think I said it a couple weeks ago, it's not a personal thing. You don't hold a grudge or anything else. Things happen. I do know this. Everybody that walks out there coaches, referees, players, administration, everybody's trying to do the best job they possibly can. But it's human error comes in and nobody's perfect. No one's ever going to be perfect. You move on. You move forward. You've got to accept all of those things as part of the game. If you want to win, you want to win championships, you want good things to happen, you have to overcome human error on a lot of different levels. End of FastScripts |
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