Huskers Look To Get Back to Winning Ways in 2021 | 2021 Big Ten Football Media Days

of football media day means that football is imminent in the big ten it's even more imminent for scott frost and brett bielema the head coaches of nebraska and illinois they will open up on august 28 going head-to-head a week zero match-up that was originally scheduled to be in ireland but of course we'll be here on american soil and you see the outlook for the huskers looking to turn the corner here for scott frost in year four and get back into a winning season something that hasn't happened since 2016 certainly have some key pieces in place including quarterback adrian martinez set to start once again his fourth season at the helm of the huskers and very pleased to be joined now by scott frost the head coach at nebraska and scott's been an interesting couple weeks in lincoln you have a new ad now in trev albert someone who much like you knows all about the glory days of nebraska football and just how great this program could be what have your kind of early discussions been with trev about what it's going to take to get to that point that both you and he i know expected to be at yeah all the coaches in nebraska couldn't be happier that we landed on trev he's a guy that shares our passion for nebraska the people in nebraska and the university shares an intimate knowledge of the unique aspects of being at nebraska and i think shares a lot of the same visions for where we expect our athletic department and football team to go scott what what are some of those unique things that someone from the outside wouldn't necessarily know like trev knows well nebraska is a unique place one in that it's the only show in town in nebraska every every set of eyes is on us there's unbelievable resources in nebraska because it's all pointed toward the university of nebraska and our football program and our other sports programs there's also a lot of criticism that goes along with that and a lot of scrutiny there really is no place like nebraska and trev understands that i want to switch gears a little bit here and talk about your team you've recruited really well but you've also gotten into that transfer portal and gotten some guys out of there so who are some early impact guys that you have as freshmen coming in and also some instant impact guys out of the portal you know we recruited really well some really good freshmen i hope it gets harder and harder for a freshman to play on our football team as we keep building talent in depth i think it's be harder for newcomers to come in that being said we're going to play the best player that we can i might point to simari toure a receiver for us that came from the university of montana think a lot about that program he had unbelievable numbers and production there and i think he's going to be a big asset to us on the offensive side coach i read somewhere where you slow down the reps on your offense during practice i don't know if that's true or not but if if it is what made you do that no that's not completely true we're never going to change the fundamentals and basics of our offense this this league's a little different than some of the other leagues i've i've coached in coach and in general we get fewer offensive snaps per game in this league this league's really well coached and there's talent on every team we think we need to be a little smarter with our reps and smarter with when we use our tempo but the base of our offense won't change you mentioned in the press conference earlier about how excited you were for this team something a little bit different about this team this year what exactly is it that has you so excited there's a whole different feel about our team and listen anything that we're going to accomplish we need to go out and earn i'm not trying to to sell anything that isn't there but when you walk into the building uh there's a whole different feel because of the type of character kid that we have in the building and just the unity of the team right now you and i talked a little bit about this earlier i find it really fascinating and it's not unique to you and this happens all over college football in an opener but you do have this challenge with illinois of not really knowing what they're who they're going to be and what their identity is going to be and certainly brett isn't going to let you know he's not going to put it all out on the table so how much bigger of a challenge is it in terms of looking at the history of each one of the coordinators in the history of the head coach and trying to piece together a game plan for an opponent like illinois it's it's a challenge it's certainly not as easy as putting on last year's tape with the same coordinators or in the middle of the season putting on the last two games and seeing what they're doing we're going to have to piece it together a little more than that that being said in a lot of games you go go into in this league you line up and all of a sudden there's something new that you haven't seen that that they've installed for you uh so so we're gonna have to try to have a game plan that's gonna be efficient against anything that we see and we're gonna have to do our best to adjust one of the constants for you has been adrian martinez at quarterback and last year it completed more than 71 percent of his passes so incredibly accurate you were talking earlier about samarita and kind of this notion of who's going to be a game breaker for you guys and it feels to me like that's the the missing piece here is you you've got an accurate offense can you be a more explosive offense and can you take care of the ball how has adrian evolved his game from the end of last year to where he is now to do those things well i i think first and foremost adrian's comfortable with who he is and where he is now he came in and earned the job as an 18 year old had a phenomenal freshman season i don't think his sophomore season went as well as any of us would have wanted to not just him but as a team i think he's been through the highs and lows of being nebraska quarterback and having that spotlight on him and i think he's really comfortable with that in that challenge now and i see a confident determined young man with a lot better pieces around him than he's had in his first three years coach says some new rules about how much contact you can have in camp does that change much of what you do were you in favor of the rule change yeah we don't have anything to do with the rule change you know that that being said i don't think it's going to change us much and i don't think it will change most people fall camps aren't just line up and tackle each other to the ground every play anymore like the junction boys right you know we try to take care of our student athletes and get them as ready to play as we can without risking getting them hurt and the number of days they gave us in helmets only and shoulder pads and helmets and full pads i don't think will change our approach very much you renew your rivalry with oklahoma this year and i mentioned this earlier i was talking to mike loxley about maryland and west virginia and that maybe people who are long time big ten fans don't understand that the implications of rivalries i mean it didn't get much better than nebraska and oklahoma nationally played some of the most significant games in the history of college football so give people who may not understand that rivalry a little bit of a primer of what it's all about well i'm sitting here on the big ten stage and there's dozens of good rivalries in this league that have gone back a hundred years uh in my lifetime uh watched growing up around nebraska football and being around it there was nothing better than nebraska oklahoma and for a long time the winner of that game had a great chance to to win the conference have a shot at the national championship that's the rivalry that i grew up with i know our players are really excited to go down there and have a chance you spoke earlier when you're at the podium about penalties turnovers special teams some of the things that you really want to address and you feel like your team has embraced that how do you coach those type of things differently when you think they've they've been an issue in the past i think some of it coach will happen organically and naturally if you have a young team you're more prone to making mistakes and we've had a young team for three years we're still a little bit young but we're a lot more experienced than we've been and i think the other big step is getting the kids to to recognize that those things are issues and things that we can improve on and we've lost too many close games since i've been at nebraska and usually that comes down to one player or two uh one play on special teams or one turnover here and there and and the guys understand if they get that fixed we're gonna have a better chance well and that's kind of where i was gonna go with the close games and everything else having a more mature team a more experienced team do you think that definitely puts you over the edge when it comes down to those critical situations it could put us over the edge as long as the kids are attentive to it and we get it fixed and that's my job as head coach and our staff's job and and the players job to make sure that we're all paying attention to those things coach we were talking a little bit about uh adrian martinez and you had mentioned some of the additions at wide receiver i'm really interested in the running back spot it kind of looks to me from the outside before we get to camp and whatnot as kind of a running back by committee approach perhaps do you see it that way or is your hope that someone emerges and becomes kind of a bell cow yeah i don't want it to be running back by committee uh there's a lot of positions on our team that i think are pretty solidified of who's going to be playing and other guys trying to play up to their level running back's one that there's a lot of guys that are going to have an opportunity and i wanted to see be see it be really competitive i don't want to come out of it with four running backs i want to find out who our number one guy is and who our number two guys guy is and those guys are gonna get the bulk of the carries you know coach when you played and around that air nebraska always had the best training table the best weight program the best facilities it seems like you're addressing now the arms race and building a new facility tell us a little bit about that yeah nebraska has always been an innovator coach when it came to strength and conditioning nutrition life skills academic support nebraska has always been the cutting edge of those things when i played there i used to think man all i have to do is show up and play because everything else is taken taken care of for me we've fallen behind a little bit in some areas those areas are still really strong i think with the changes in college football we're going to have a chance to to try to be at the forefront of and of college football again and be innovators again it's great to have trev alberts alongside because i know he thinks the same way i do scott we were talking a little bit earlier about nil and the opportunities for nebraska's student athletes how have you tried to work kind of to to get guys into position to take advantage of this new rule a lot of the nil things i think will happen naturally and organically there's a lot of interest in our football program nebraska is uniquely equipped to flourish in an nil there's no pro team in nebraska there's no nebraska state the eyes of every nebraska fan are on us and our players our players can really capitalize on that and and we're trying to clear as many pathways as we can so we can be innovative in that area and i think our administration's done a good job of laying the groundwork for that and i think it's coming pretty soon head coach of the huskers scott frost always a pleasure thanks a lot coach really appreciate your time thanks for what you do fellas appreciate you cornhuskers here in indianapolis you see on the radio row earlier today of course always a ton of media coverage surrounding nebraska football and that continuing here today is nebraska very much in the spotlight and they'll be in the spotlight week one as well again that game we talked about with the illinois players just a few minutes ago that opener on august the 28th against the fighting illini before going out of conference for three games including a matchup with long time rival oklahoma september 18th on fox before they re-enter conference play against michigan state and happy to have three of the huskers here with us as we're joined by austin allen ben stilley and deontay williams guys welcome great to have you with us let's dive into this and we all know what the expectations are for nebraska football i know you probably all feel hey haven't been able to meet them yet in your career what's it going to take for this program to take that step forward this year austin and be the team that i think you all believe you can be yeah i think that begins with us taking care of ourselves in the in the turnover aspect of the games there's we've lost a lot of one-score games i think you could trace that back to turnovers and you can trace back that back to penalties so i think if we take care of those little mistakes i think the little mistakes should take care of the big mistakes and lead us to more victories ben yeah i think uh you know just us holding uh other players and ourselves to a higher level of accountability is definitely been an emphasis for us this off season um and something we think will take care of some of those self-inflicted wounds we've been having how do you view it deante what do you do to take that step forward uh limited limiting x plays x amount of plays um being very paying attention to the details and uh also just that bonding chemistry that we have together yeah you guys are all elder statesmen on this team so i want to play off that chemistry comment of yours leadership is so important to have great chemistry so how do each of you lead beyonce let me know what kind of leader are you um i'm type of leader that's just on and off the on and off the field uh 100 i'm gonna give you a hundred percent for sure so i know the young guys watch me throughout workouts throughout practice and see how i attack every day so ben how about you yeah um i think it's important um just for for the players to to see you leading um and just to see um you to set the set the level for for effort um set the stanford standard for that um and just doing the little things i think that's a really important aspect for them to see i i like to you know take guys aside one on one and really help them in that aspect but then you know speak what's on my heart you know in front of the group when that's needed as well austin yeah i think my biggest uh my biggest thing is being able to to speak up when times are tough i mean in practice when when everybody's huffing and puffing that's when i the time i feel like i could be the most vocal i think that i feel like that's my biggest attribute to that leadership comment ben and deonta you guys both elected to come back for a sixth year and i these are interesting times in college football you have the ability to go anywhere you want play any for anyone you want you don't have to sit out what made you convinced that this was the right place for you um the fans the fans you got fans crazy fan base um they always have your back win the loss um um the coaches and staff great coaching staff i chose frost because he had a mission to get this program back at top so that's my goal as well really the uh really the the coaches played that played a big role in it um position coaches um our coordinators um and our head coach played a big role in that um but also really just uh us as as seniors and old guys super seniors really wanting to to leave this place in a better place than we found it and had the last season finish for us didn't really sit right with us it's interesting you play for one of the great huskers and scott frost someone who's known incredible success in this program so you have a coach who you're around every day who's been a part of of the glory years of nebraska football now you have an athletic director who's been a part of that as well in trev alberts i realize it's very early in his tenure but to what extent have you been able to interact with him and to get a sense for what makes him tick austin yeah so i was actually on the search community to try and get him uh try to pick a new athletic director for the university but uh i think he's a very well spoken guy he showed that in his opening press conference the other day he's uh he's a guy that's been in my shoes throughout my whole college career i mean he's been exactly he played for nebraska football i mean he knows exactly what i'm going through what i'm going to go through i mean he's been a college graduate he played at the next level he um he's he's been everywhere where i've been where i am now and where i'm going to be so i think it's unique to have a guy like that in a position to oversee our whole university that's been a really cool experience to be on that search committee what were the attributes that you as a student athlete were looking for an athletic director yeah somebody who can lead i mean you at that position as an athletic director you need to lead and uh i think the biggest thing i said what's on everybody's mind right now as an athlete is nil and i think you need to find somebody who is going to be able to to to weave through the whole unknown of what nil is going to bring to college athletics and i think trev alberts is going to be a guy that to he's either going to get it done right or he's going to hire his company to to help us understand and help us get it right because i feel like nebraska has the biggest brand and biggest market for us to capitalize on the nil yeah it's interesting you talk about nil and ben i saw that you and jojo doman had a youth camp that you ran last week and and again a chance to give back to the community but also a chance to to profit off the fact that you're well known and that there are young people who would want to learn from you tell us we're seeing pictures of it right now give us a sense of what you took away from that and the meaning that you attached to that yeah um really a lot of it was an awesome chance just to interact with these kids on a more personal level allow them to to not just see us as people on the tv screen but to bring a realness to uh to us and to you know bring to reality maybe help them bridge their gap between their dreams of hopefully being one day a husker football player deante how are you viewing this nil opportunity well give us a great opportunity to market ourself also give us a great opportunity to help grow our brand after college football after whatever the next level is the nfl and grow your brand after that as well so i feel like this is the best opportunity for all student athletes in general hey austin it's no secret this offense needs to get better we talked about it with coach frost earlier you mentioned in this off season i'm going to use your term here you mentioned there are some dudes who are ready to step up on this offense give us a sense for who some of those dudes are that we ought to expect big years from so i think i feel like we had a really young line last year um and i think those guys have rolled into a more dude job more dude duty they're uh they're guys that now getting into year two year three of their their their spot here on the line and i think they're set up for big things in this offense and they're really what leads us to um to our offense clicking i mean they're gonna get the run game started and they're gonna give us enough time for adrian to do what he needs to do for us to get the pass game going so i feel like on the line we've got a lot of dudes this year and i mean in the tight end room travis vocalic he's he's a dude he's for us he started as a true freshman for rutgers i mean he's he's got a lot of experience under his belt and he's he's very capable of doing anything in the run game and pass game ben and beyonce it feels like the defense has been steadily improving here over the last few years and dionta i'm particularly a fan of your secondary i think you've got some really talented guys back there what's the next step for that unit uh just keep keep growing uh get better we still have a lot of improvements that we need to work on um but as a group as a group in the whole we got as much talent to be one of the best secondary and big team ben where can the defense as a whole make the biggest jump this year yeah i think really for us we've shown spurts we have talented guys but for us it's really just uh being consistent as a whole play in and play out and throughout the whole season being consistent in our scheme and doing our job to give us the best possible chance to win austin everyone always wants to know about the quarterback spot and this year is no different adrian martinez has been a staple here at nebraska and certainly has had some really good moments some issues with turnovers no doubt and i know it's something that he's worked a great deal on where have you seen him develop from where he was at the end of last year to where he is heading into fall camp yeah you can tell that this means a lot to him um playing football at the university of nebraska he's he's changed his body he's lost 15 pounds he looks great he looks like that he looks like a quarterback that's going to lead us in the right direction he like you said he had he had a great freshman year and turnovers kind of killed him last couple years i mean there's no there's no uh trying to hide that fact but he's he's he's taking on more of the role just talking with him he's got he's got nothing to lose here he's going to lay it all on the line he's going to he's going to give nebraska all he's got because nebraska is giving it all to him ben and deontay you guys defend against this offense every day what have you seen from adrian in terms of his development and ben i'll start with you yeah um over the years obviously just leadership wise he's grown leaps and bounds there really commands the offense and in those regards um but also i think just uh mentally he's in a really good head space um currently and um and i think that's gonna pay dividends this year deonte uh just look what ben said his leadership wise um you see how poised he is this year um i know i know that he have he don't have nothing to lose and i'm behind him 100 as a db and then ben gave a great explanation of it so how do you guys define success for this team this year deante we'll start with you uh just prove the world that we could change the narrative of nebraska cornhusker football what do you want that narrative to be we back at the top yeah i think first and foremost obviously uh we got to opener with illinois and so first and foremost in our journey is win that game um come out top there and um really then our initial goal is uh winning the west um and that's what we're looking to accomplish first yeah what do you think about having that week zero all to yourselves austin this notion that college football really will start with that game certainly major college football will start with a focus on nebraska and illinois yeah so i kind of like having the spotlight on us on that week zero game it's going to be a little to be an opportunity for us to showcase what we work on the off-season and what nebraska football is going to be this year look forward to that opportunity i wish it would have been in ireland like it was supposed to be but right circumstances bearing we get to go to champaign and play big ten football week one so look forward to it all right austin allen ben stilley deontay williams guys thanks a lot really a pleasure to visit with all three of you and best of luck this year thanks guys

Channel: Big Ten Network

Views: 25,577

Keywords: nebraska cornhuskers, nebraska, cornhuskers, huskers, football, big ten football, college football, ncaa football, big 10 football

Id: ltkRnNfeGQs

Length: 22min 39sec (1359 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 22 2021