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OPENING STATEMENT
KIRK FERENTZ: Just good afternoon to everybody. Wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving in advance. Came awfully quickly, that's for sure.
Talk a little bit about the Penn State game and move on to this week. As I said the other day, we're thrilled to get the win up there. We knew it was going to be hard-fought. It was. The bottom line is if anybody was at the game or watching the game the score was not indicative of how chose the game was. What you expect in Big Ten play, certainly.
I thought our guys did a good job in the first half, being ready to play. Came out, got off to a good start. Finished the half in good position with the stop on downs, taking it in for a touchdown, building the lead.
Games are never over. Certainly the end of the third quarter, took me back to 2002, similar circumstances, ended up being an overtime game. Happy with the way the team responded. You never know what is going to happen in those situations. Team responded well, came out with a victory.
A lot of positives coming out of the game. The guys up front on both sides did a good job. When we hit the film on Sunday, there's a lot of things we still need to get a lot better at. That's usually true after any game. Really the case the other day. Certainly a lot of things to work on, but it was a good team win.
That being said, it's a quick turnaround for us and our opponent. You finish Saturday, boom, it's right on you for the next game. We're playing Friday. A short week. Thanksgiving meal here on Wednesday night. Typically we'll have the families, our families, all the coaches and staff families, kind of make it more of a family-type dinner. With the COVID situation right now, it's going to be pretty sterile, just the coaches, players.
We'll do that on Wednesday, then normal travel and pregame routines on Friday, Thursday Friday, which would be our normal Friday Saturday routine. Nothing too monumental about that.
As we turn or attention to Nebraska, we have the same six captains as we did a week ago: Chauncey Golston, Nick Niemann, Matt Hankins, Mekhi Sargent, Tyler Linderbaum, and Keith Duncan.
Really nothing on the injury front other than to say Kyler Schott. Is working his way back now. He won't start the game, but he'll play. I don't know what kind of condition he's in right now. We'll have to see how that goes. We're going to get him back into the mix. Coy Cronk might have a chance. We'll see what that looks like as we go along.
Moving on to Nebraska, a couple things. Obviously we have a lot of respect for their program. Strong tradition they have there. Just very strong fan base. Very loyal, supportive fan base, just like we enjoy. A lot of respect for them.
I think you look at this, it's a trophy game. Really all you have to do is look at the last two games since Coach Frost has been there. We played two really competitive games against each other, literally went down to the last play in both games. That's what you expect from a rivalry game. I would expect more of that this week.
That's what we're trying to prepare for right now. I'm sure they're going to be a determined football team. We're not sure which quarterback we'll see. I do know this: they're both extremely dangerous. That's going to be a tough, tough preparation for our defensive football team.
Offensively, they play a 34 scheme. That's a whole different set of circumstances trying to match your offense against a 34 team.
We don't have a lot of time to practice, but we have to make good use of the time we have, our meeting times as well, because it's tough preparation on both sides.
That being said, there's no school this week. That's a little bit unusual. Everyone has time to really do what they need to do. Hopefully they don't have too much time where they get distracted, do other kinds of things.
Once again, being back in Kinnick. Sorry our fans can't be there, but we appreciate their support. The Wave, having a chance to look to the kids and their families on Friday. All of us know, a tough situation, but over the holidays, hospitals, are a real challenge. Hopefully we bring a little daylight into all their lives on Friday. We'll look forward to that certainly.
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