Mizzou/Nebraska Post-Game Quotes
11/5/2006 12:00:00 AM | Football
Nov. 5, 2006
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Head Coach Gary Pinkel
Opening Statement
"First of all, I felt that Nebraska played an excellent game. They are a very good football team. I'm obviously disappointed. (We) got in a little bit of a deficit there and fought back in it through the fourth quarter, and put ourselves in a position to have an opportunity to win. I was encouraged by that. But (we) just made mistakes and obviously weren't consistent enough against a good football team to win."
On the game
"We have to play better. We have to play consistently better. And we will. We'll get there. I feel very confident with that, and we will learn from it. There was probably a lot of people at halftime that weren't even giving us a chance of staying in the game, and we battled through that pretty good. But we have to play better."
On the upcoming games
"We're just focusing on our next game. We have a bye next week. That will be good. There are a lot great things that can happen in the season here. We knew that these are tough football games, but (we'll) stick to what we do - continue to build. We still can have a great season here. There is a lot out there. So that's what we'll do. And (we'll) focus on getting better. We just have to play better for four quarters in games like this."
On if Chase Daniel was off today
"Well, he's not perfect. When he misses a throw, we kind of look at each other and say 'What's wrong with Chase?' because he is so accurate. (He) just got out of sync a little bit. And it wasn't just Chase. Protection was down a little bit. We didn't run the ball as well. We had some three and outs. He had two tipped footballs that were intercepted obviously and resulted in 14 direct points. Chase is going to continue to grow and become a great player. He competed to the end to try and give us a chance to win."
On Nebraska's third-down swing passes
"People do that to us all the time. They did a good job. They had a good gameplan. Give them credit. We got rolling pretty good, and I thought we moved the ball pretty good in the second quarter. They did some real good things, but we see everything with our offense. We're pretty much prepared for everything."
Defensive End Xzavie Jackson
On the disappointment of losing this game as a senior
"It's okay, it's just a football game. There are still two games left in the regular season, so I'm just going to go out there and play hard."
On the importance of the two remaining games of regular season
"It's not that important. It's just a football game. You win and you lose every week, and you never know the outcome until it happens. You see the second half, we had a chance to win, so you never know. So we're just going to there and keep playing hard and let the outcome come to us."
Placekicker Jeff Wolfert
On the mood in the locker room following the game
"We're down, it hurts. It was a big game in our season and it's unfortunate we couldn't have won it, but we still have two games and a bowl game left so we have to pick our heads up and come back ready next week to play."
On the upcoming bye week
"I think it will give us a chance to refocus. We've had nine games straight so this will give us a chance to refocus."
Wide Receiver Will Franklin
On offensive problems in the first half
"We just weren't making plays like we usually make. None of the playmakers for us, Chase (Daniel), Tony Temple or any of our other guys were making plays and that makes it tough on our offense when you don't have anyone out there making plays."
On whether the lapse in the offense was a mental issue
"I really don't know. We go out there and work every day. We go out there and prepare our best for our games on Saturday, but we just haven't put it together yet."
On how hard the team is taking the loss
"We're taking it real hard, knowing what this game meant for us and being in this position two straight years in a row. It's really hard right now."
On whether the team panicked when the score was 24-3 Nebraska
"No, not at all. We've been down 24, 26 before but we know what our offense is capable of. We practice situations like that. Practice bringing it down and moving the ball and trying to get the score back one play at a time, but they really just kept the pedal on the gas and kept going though."
On how close did a possible Big 12 title seem and how far away it may seem now
"It's still out there. It's a long season and any day on Saturday any team can win. And Nebraska could win out in front of everybody, but they still have a tough schedule just like we do, so hopefully we can take advantage of the next two games."
Quarterback Chase Daniel
On what head coach Gary Pinkel said after the game about the rest of the season
"Coach addressed the team and told us after the game that we can have this, we can have a great season still. He told us he's never doubted our toughness at all, and I think we fought hard in the second half and just came up short."
On people saying 'It's just the same old Missouri"
"You know people can say that if they want to, but we know we're a different team and we can still have a great season."
