Post-Game Quotes: Nebraska

Michigan State interim head coach Harlon Barnett

Opening Statement…
Finally, right. Finally got us a victory, very happy for our guys. All we talked about was finish, finish, finish, and that's what they did. We finally finished one and got a victory, really happy for our players, awesome feeling in the locker and we love to have that. The first of four games we have here in the month of November and were going to keep trying to finish, finish, finish everything that we do.

On how the team was able to stick together and pull out the win today…
I think it was a combination of things, our coaches, our players, our staff, our entire staff of just buying in when I first got put in this position. The first thing I talked about at the team meeting was staying unified, we must be unified. Everybody must be pulling the rope at the same end, we can't be playing tug-of-war in our same building, and those guys bought in. Really proud of them doing that and I'll never forget these guys, because every week they bounce back. We set the 24-hour rule, we had some gut punches where we didn't feel well on Sunday, by Monday afternoon we started feeling better and shaking things off, then practice on Tuesday, Wednesday and throughout the rest of the week, they were enthusiastic, high energy, and had great attention to detail and got out and got another one. I think, like I said, it was a combination of the coaches, players, and the entire staff, talking about staying unified and helping one another out.

On evaluating quarterback due to insufficiency and small drives when needed to run the clock out…
I thought they did well, they did well. I thought Katin stepped up, no turnovers, right? No turnovers, he runs the offense, he understands the offense, and the plan we had today, is what we executed. Of course, I didn't tell you all this during the week, I knew this, I knew they were both going to play. The plan was, every third series of a half, that's when we're going to put Sam in; it was one, two, Sam was in, then second half, one, two, Sam was in, and that was it, we said regardless of how they were playing. Now obviously if it got down to the point where we need to say 'Hey, we need to go back and put him back in' we could've done that. We just stuck to the plan, and it worked out for us today.

On what he sees in Sam to trust him to lead the offense at a young age…
Like I said, I say every time I bring up Sam, you should get tired of me saying it, I think some of you guys met him now. But he's very, very confident, on the border of cocky but he's not cocky, he's very confident and I love that about him. He's a competitor too, but I always bring up competitor in Katin, but when you see him going out there confident, he makes you feel confident and that's what confident people do. That's what we have seen in Sam since he's been here, and I think you guys have seen it as well when he's on the field.

On if this Senior Day was better than his…
Yeah, absolutely it was. There was no drama, not like you want drama on Senior Day, but it was better; because I wasn't out there playing and giving up a touchdown. Told you one of those touchdowns were on me, so I was mad about that. But, yeah, it was better, 76-14 is different than 20-17, crunch time, first win, but a great feeling.

On his thoughts when the score was 20-17 and the thoughts of "this can't happen again"…
Can't think like that, I went into finish mode, I just kept saying 'Finish! Finish! Finish,' no matter what, finish, because that's what the young men are going to do. They're looking at us, I say 'us' as in coaches the leaders, me, what direction is he going to go and all they kept getting from me was, 'Finish, finish, finish.' I can't put my head down and go 'here we go again,' so 'finish' was the word of the day.

On what they did to make the defense so effective…
Well, our defense has been playing fairly well over the last several weeks, I mean we had the game against the team down the road, but other than that, I think we've been playing well. They understand what to do, Coach Hazelton and his staff do a great job of game planning and understanding how a team is trying to attack us and our guys go out and execute. I think this is another product of them playing better overall over the last several weeks.

On the locker room vibes after the win…
You know how it is, everybody in there hugging and saying, 'I love you,' they're hugging you and dancing. It was great, kind of what you expect a locker room to be. I know this is the first win and understand we have another game to play, but it was something to celebrate for our guys after the adversity we went through this season. It was very joyful, that's what I'll say.

On what was going through his mind on the final Hail Mary…
'GET THE BALL! Get it, get it,' I wanted to run out there and get the ball. The ball was out, I was also thinking 'Don't let the ball get over our head.' So, when that ball went up, I saw it tipping around I was like 'No, get it down' but we finally worked it out, got it down and got the victory.

On how many people he hugged after the game…
How many people? You'll have to go back and review the tape. I have no idea, it was a lot, a lot of people. That's part of it, when you want to succeed for one other, you're fighting together in the trenches and you're going through what you've been going through. That's when you're going to hug, say I love you and all that kind of stuff.

On the starting secondary, seeing four guys that normally don't play…
Very observant. Good. So I told you all a couple weeks ago, I'm going to be me, I'm going to start being me. You can't be late anywhere, I don't care if it's a minute or two, you can't do that. And so that was what it was.

On what allowed the defense to put that much pressure on Nebraska's offense...
Again, if it's been the best we've played, I'm not sure, I would think so. I mean you watch them just like I do but when you think about it, that was game nine, so now by game nine you hope that everybody understands how we're running certain stunts how we're doing everything, all the plays, how to execute them, working together. Those D-lineman worked together on some of those stunts and they have to do certain things so not everybody has a true understanding of what's going on. You would think, 'Well didn't you come out of camp, and you have spring ball and all that,' but some guys were new to the team and working with one another and then you get injuries and that kind of stuff. I think we've got now a core group that's been working together long enough to understand how to actually run the stunts the proper way and all that type of thing which allows us to get more pressure and execute at a higher level.

On reactions on sideline to, viral clip of coach Dantonio, RPO, and offensive play calling going forward...
Coach D had a viral clip huh? We'll have to get him on his body language. Bad body language for Coach D. But no, that's just a natural reaction, everybody wants to have success and do well so that's just, I didn't see what you're talking about, but that's just natural reaction like when you're at home watching the game. He wants to win just like everybody else. It's not about, 'That's a bad call, what were we thinking.' It's more, 'I just want to see our guys succeed, I want to win, I want to see us win,' it's more about that and we'll go from there. There's nothing that's going to be changed here within the next three weeks or anything like that, as far as that's concerned. Our guys work hard, and they do a great job.

On a truthful reaction to what it was like going through the six-game losing streak and keeping it together...
So you're calling me a liar? You said truthfully. No, I'm messing with you. It does sound like you were calling me a liar, now can I be truthful. I just didn't talk about it, it wasn't like I wasn't being truthful, I just didn't talk about it. It wasn't I wasn't being truthful, I just didn't talk about it. It was tough. I didn't go home and start crying if that's what you're looking for, but it was me and my wife, we would talk, and that's what she was saying; 'How do you feel?' 'What do you think?' You know, those type of things and I would say those type of things that I thought we could do differently and all that kind of stuff but I can't share all that with you guys, to be honest with you guys. But, there have been some things I've been thinking to say and do and probably change a little bit and then I'll share it with the staff and the team and then we'll try to apply it and do it. Some of it, not all of it, but some of it we use and some we go, 'Eh, I don't know if we should do that.' But there have been things that I thought about in the midst of that that I thought we could possibly do better.

On Simeon Barrow, his injury woes, and how his strip sack that closed the game out…
Well, you know, arguably Simeon has been our defensive player of the year. Arguably. You can look at it and study it, but really good football player. I'm happy that he's on our team, I'm fired up that he came back when he did, and he's just a warrior. He's a Spartan, he knows how to go after it, he's a Spartan Dawg. He knows how to keep fighting, he's not an excuse-maker, he's going to keep pushing, no matter what it is, and so love that about that young man.

On Alante Brown, his passing play, and both Harlan's reaction to that and Alante's reaction after the win against his old team …
It was great. He was saying, 'Coach, we can not lose to these guys. We can not lose to these guys because they're going to be talking crazy to me.' So now I guess he's talking crazy to them, I'm sure right now texting and all that stuff, but he's a really good athlete. For those of you guys that know his story, at one point in time he was committed here to coach D and then ended up, long story short, ended up going down to Nebraska. Even when I was at Florida State, he came down on an official visit down there. But really good athlete, good football player, glad he's a part of our team and we knew that he had the ability to do what he did today throwing the ball, he can even run it as well.

On possibly using Alante Brown as an emergency quarterback …
Great question. We haven't talked about that. That's something we have to talk about this week. We knew, like you said, Sam has four games in so we just have to look at it moving forward, how we want to do it but we'll make the best decision that's good for the team, the best for the team, and so will the players, so we'll see how that goes as we push through this next week or so.

Nebraska Head Coach Matt Rhule
Opening Statement…
Obviously very disappointed in the result today. A lot of credit goes to Michigan State, they battled and fought and they're a team that has lost these games this year in the fourth quarter and today they found a way to win it. That's a credit to them, a credit to Coach (Harlon) Barnett and it's a great atmosphere. I am disappointed and it really wasn't our best game today across the board. We didn't tackle the way we normally do. We gave up some big plays. I was told that every scoring drive had a pass play of 25 yards, and I don't know if they ran for 100 yards, but they certainly hit us on double moves, a trick play and a missed tackle. Offensively, in the second half, we couldn't get anything going. I was proud of the guys' effort. They fought at the end to go down and get the ball back and stop them on defense and try to block the kick to give us a chance to kick a field goal or win that game, which I expect us to do. But, overall this performance was not our best.

On offensive struggles…
I think they played us today in base zone coverages on first down and I thought early on we ran the ball well. We had some early down conversions and on second and third down they played man and pressured us, and we just didn't beat those enough. We had some plays I thought we were going to win and sometimes there was pressure, other times no pressure, and we just couldn't connect. You could see at times we had rhythm, timing and a little bit of tempo at the end where we made some plays. But, we were certainly not good enough in the passing game at all.

On their pass defense…
Obviously got hit with the double move, shallow cross. I just feel kind of watching the players on defense, it just never felt as crisp or as right as it ever is. I would say it was even flat. They made some big plays. They made a great catch on the double pass and a great catch on the fade route down the far sideline. That's a play where if you look at it, you're hoping you come across it and pick those balls off. Credit to them; they made big catches down the field, and we were able to get to the quarterback sometimes, but not enough. It just never quite got into the rhythm on defense until the very end. Just not quite what I'm used to seeing from the guys.

On not being able to generate turnovers…
I thought our ball security and all those things have been playing so much better. It was significantly better in the game. We never took the ball away. At the end of the game, we can't have those things happen. We need to make the play. There will never be an excuse from me being minus three. It's minus three and you lose by three. We are a better football team than that. As I said to our guys, we are a good football team. We are finding out what it's like to play games with consequences late in the year. When you're coming in after winning a couple of games, you're finding out who is ready for you. They did not pay attention to you all week, they studied you all week. You're going to have to fight, scratch and claw and not just assume we've stopped them for two drives. There are a lot more lessons to learn from this game. It's painful, but there is a lot to learn.

On if there was any explanation on the late game fumble…
No. Nothing was explained to me. Since we are not at home and we don't get replays unless I see it clearly, I have to count on them. Someone has to tell me if they did this. I could not see that as it happened. We don't have technology in the box. We were hoping the touchdown was going to be ruled incomplete that they caught. I don't know what happened on that.

Redshirt Freshman quarterback Katin Houser
On his reaction today…
It's real for sure. You know, we had some troubles and couldn't get a win, and I feel like today the whole team played together and we were able to finish out in the fourth quarter. I'm so proud of our guys, so proud of our team that we were able to get that win. So, feels good.

On what was going through his mind when they had the lead/what he felt he needed to do…
I feel like the biggest thing to improve on in the fourth quarter is just making good decisions. I feel like the biggest thing is protecting the football. You don't want to force any footballs or try to do something too much. I feel like just getting the ball down, protecting the ball, and then just making good decisions. Checking it down, not trying to force it a couple of windows. Letting our defense play well, which they did.

On the last minute watching from the sidelines…
I'm just cheering them on. I had total faith in them. I knew they were gonna get it done. We had some guys step up and make plays. I'm so proud of how they played. They did really finish out the game for us.

Sophomore wide receiver Tyrell Henry
On what it felt like to give the seniors a win at the last home game…
It was great. My first start, I was able to come out there to get a W. I think that as a team we put it all together. We didn't let nothing stop. We bended, we didn't break. I think it was just a great team, and I'm happy that they got to experience that too.

On if he knew that he would get more passing time with Tre out…
Yeah, so we knew. Yeah, we knew Tre was a little banged up, and so going in we knew that I was going to be in there playing. I was able to get my first start. We need him, he's a key part of our offense. I knew that it was just another guy that stepped up. So, that's what I tried to do. In my personal opinion, I hope everybody knows that like I'm coming to work hard, and stuff like that. It was just me playing football, it's all that was really.

Sophomore defensive back Jaden Mangham
On if he felt like this was the best defensive showing…
I definitely think it's one of our best. I definitely think we still have more to show. It's great for
our defense. There were definitely still a lot of mistakes out there that we have to clean up, and
once we clean those up we could put together an even better game.

On walking through the last pass in the air…
You know, just seeing it in the air, we have a guy to bring it down. But once you see it start bobbling up, it's just a pray moment that it goes down. Thankfully, it did. So you know, once that happened it was just upward joy from everybody on the sidelines.

On if he saw that ball in slow motion from start to finish…
Hahaha, yeah you definitely do. You can follow the ball no matter where it is on plays like those. And that's what I definitely did, so it was great to just see it hit the ground. You know,
celebrate with our guys.

On what it felt like to be in a winning locker room…
It felt great, you know. It was great, seeing everybody happy. Seeing all of this, you know. We enjoy that. Being able to come in and celebrate with our brothers, and you know celebrating with Coach Barnett. Getting his first win. That was a great feeling for all of us. We just still have to keep on building upon it. We still have to keep doing our job. Fighting, can't let this get to us. We still have more games down the road that we have to play.

Freshman quarterback Sam Leavitt

On his thoughts about how things went today...
I was only there for two drives, but for the time being things went smooth. We had a little bump up on the first drive, but that's how the game goes, I was happy about my performance.

On how the difference in starting position between the two drives played into it…
I mean, it's always tough going at the 4-yard line. You're worried about making a play because you don't want to get sacked or anything in the end zone to mess a safety. Just trying to run the play.

On his touchdown pass and how he was able to get that in there…
I know it was Cover One, so I was just trying to hold the post-safety. Then Montorie was able to run a great route, just give him a chance to make a play on the ball and he had an incredible catch.

On the play before the touchdown (3rd and 4, quarterback keeper) and how he looked pretty determined with a good block from Nathan [Carter]…
It's a quarterback run designed with the running backs leading. I'm trusting him that he's gonna make a great block, which he does, like always. Our line held up really well so I was just able to squeeze the gap and get the first.

On if he feels like he's a better quarterback than he was a month and a half ago and in what ways…
Yeah, no doubt. In every way. Just processing the play, taking what the defense gives me, not trying to force balls in windows, just understanding the offense better everyday. Just coming to work. I do feel like I'm a lot better.

On if the hit he took gave him a sense of what receivers go through…
No doubt, I didn't expect it to be like that. When the ball was coming I just tried to catch it and I got smacked. I can't even really remember what happened, it was all a blur. Definitely got rocked.

Redshirt senior defensive lineman Maverick Hansen
On how it feels to finally turn the corner like Coach Harlan was saying...
It feels great man. The team has worked so hard this week and truthfully every week we've worked hard. We were able to pull through this week and finish. We've been coaching finish every single day, we break on finish, and I think a lot of guys bought into all that. Just playing hard and giving everything you have until the clock hits zero.

On the locker room post-game...
Oh it was exciting man, I'm not gonna lie. My ears are ringing right now, I feel like I'm yelling, my ears are just like 'eeeee'. I love it. The guys deserve it, you know, they work so hard and give everything they have and I'm just glad we were able to come home.

On the touchdown in the fourth quarter and how they pushed their way through it and what was different from other games...
We were just talking about just staying neutral when big plays happen like that. You can't panic, you gotta go out there and still do your job and give everything you have. I think we were able to do that. Got a sack fumble and another fumble that we covered, I'm just glad that we were able to come out there and give everything we had and come out with a win.

On what the final minute and a half was like and when Simeon got the strip and knock down…
I was so hype man. I knew that we were gonna do it, I had a feeling. I just believed we were gonna win this game. I had no doubt in my mind that we were gonna win. I'm not gonna say I was scared, but I was a little nervous, on edge you know. Like 'Man, there's still enough time in this game for them to do something with it', but I just had full faith in my guys out there. Knew that they were gonna get the job done.

On Nebraska's running attack and how Michigan State contained them all day and what he thought about that accomplishment …
Nebraska played so hard. They came out ready to go. They were playing for a bowl game and I knew that they were gonna come out hard, hot like that. I knew they were going to come out here like that and give it everything they had, but as far as how we played, we just had to give stacking and keep coming after them and just never quit.

On getting a win here during Senior day...
I love it man. This is the way we needed to finish the Woodshed. I always tell the guys it's bigger than us. It's about the brothers before us and the brothers coming after us. We gotta have some pride about us. Getting this win means so much to us, especially the seniors.

Senior wide receiver Montorie Foster Jr. …
On what was going on in his mind when his touchdown catch was under review…
I knew I had the touchdown catch and I was pretty confident in that one, so I was just glad when they confirmed that. He was grabbing me a little bit but I just had to make that play for my team. From my perspective, the corners were playing pretty aggressive and more short routes and then I made the play.

On his thoughts about the throw from Sam Leavitt…
It was a great throw and we definitely executed on that play, all 11 of us so it was fun. Sam kind of fit the ball between me and the defensive so it was definitely great.

On how satisfying it was to get Coach Barnett a win …
It's great, after the game just seeing him smile and being with his family. Those are moments that we live for so I'm glad that he had that moment and we had our moment. It was definitely fun.

On how he felt winning this game for former Nebraska player, Alante Brown…
He had the confidence and we had confidence in him to put it out there so I'm just glad we got that win for him because that's his old team and it was definitely great to see him out there smiling and having fun.

Graduate sixth-year linebacker Aaron Brule
On what his team means to him after such a tough season…
These guys mean a lot to me. We've obviously been through a lot this season and we've got a group of seniors that want to lead this team and we know the younger guys are on our side to get us victorious today. We did a good job at that and for all the seniors, since it's the last time in the Woodshed today, I think we're pretty happy.

On what was the difference between other games and today's game on defense…
Great defense wants to be on the field in critical situations. After they scored that touchdown, our offense went right out there, and they did what they did. Once again, we wanted to be on the field, I think we got that done late in the game. This week we really just game planned to straight rush them, less games on the inside, and getting guys 1-on-1. Simeon (Barrow) is a really good 1-on-1 rusher, and he made a play when he was supposed to.

On what a win meant for this team, after a 6-week losing streak…
It means a lot, it gives us momentum going into these last three games and we got Coach (Barnett) a win and we got a win for the seniors on senior night, so it means a lot.

On if there was a notable difference between before Coach Barnett started using disciplinary action and after…
Oh definitely, he's a player's coach and he strictly enforces rules. If you're not going to class or late to anything by 0.1 seconds, then you won't start, and things like that. You really couldn't tell the difference today with who was in the game and who wasn't, and I think that the guys who were in stepped up and I think that was really good to get those younger guys some experience.

Nebraska Quarterback Heinrich Haarberg
On his performance in the game…
Obviously three turnovers is unacceptable. That's going to lose us games, especially in this conference. We are going to continue to work on that.

On if there was a play or two that he would like to have back…
Of course. Obviously the two picks, mostly the first one. I've got to see that safety and throw that ball more skinny.

Nebraska Running Back Emmett Johnson
On this young Nebraska team playing meaningful games late in the season…
We've got to play these types of games to get to where we want to get to. I know it was ugly. There were turnovers, but we can learn a lot from losing.

On Nebraska's three-man running back room…
You always have to be ready at the running back position. Those guys can make plays and everything, so having all three of us out there, we just have to all go out there and do our jobs.

Players Mentioned

Alante Brown

Aaron Brule

Montorie Foster Jr.

Maverick Hansen

Tyrell Henry

Katin Houser

Sam Leavitt

Jaden Mangham

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