Sept. 8, 2001

Recap?|? Final Stats?|? Notes

Head Coach Bob Davie

General
Obviously, we weren’t a very well prepared football team. I take responsibility for that. I don’t care how many games Nebraska has played. I don’t care how many people were in the stands. I don’t care what the crowd noise was. There is no excuse. No excuse. I take responsibility.

On The Start Of the Game
I know that early in the game adjusting to the speed of the game, not having played a game, I was worried about the first drive on defense. Nebraska takes it down and scores. The first play of the game, the first game of the 2001 football season, we put the football on the ground. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? A team that turned the ball over eight times all last year, the first play of the 2001 season we put the ball on the ground, that’s my fault. We didn’t do a good enough job. Then we throw an interception, they complete one pass on us, its 14-0. We snap the ball over our punter’s head and we are a team that last year I think had the best special teams in college football. We go out there and snap the ball over the punter’s head. It doesn’t matter that its a new deep snapper. It’s no excuse. At the end of the first half, we have a chance. We have a third down and 11, I make a stupid call. We zone-fired, they hit the tight end behind us. Just no chance to win. No chance to win when you are not prepared to play in the first half.

On The Positives
I credit our guys in the second half for competing. I thought defensively once we got settled down a little bit, we made some plays and made some hits, made some contact at the end of the game. That is one positive. The second positive, Shane Walton blocked a punt. I thought he did a great job of knowing their scheme. We didn’t make the call, he made the call. He came over and told us that it was there. He deserves the credit, no coach deserves the credit from that. He blocked the punt and he made the call.

On The Rest Of The Season
As I told our team, we are not going to leave our season here in Lincoln, Neb. We are not leaving our season out here. We’re going to get this thing right. I’m disappointed right now in our offense. Too many penalties, too many self inflicted mistakes. Once again, we had that deer in the headlights look. We got a little bit better in the second half, but still not enough to win at this level of football.

On Nebraska Tight End Tracey Wistrom
I give Nebraska credit. I was concerned about their tight end coming into the game. We had a hard time matching up. There were a couple times we had man to man coverage and we had a safety on him. We couldn’t even cover him with a safety, let alone a linebacker.

Notre Dame Post Game Player Quotes

Quarterback Matt LoVecchio
On offensive performance
“Whatever happened out there, we need fix it quick. We need to put points on the board. The defensive did their job in the second half, shutting Nebraska out, and we didn’t. Throwing an interception, fumbling the football, it all led to momentum swings.”

Defensive End Ryan Roberts
On defensive performance
“The defense in the first half made some mental mistakes and bad decisions. In the second half we just made the adjustments, played better and shut them out. All we did in the second half was play to our ability and eliminate the mistakes. We showed what we are capable of doing the rest of the season.”

On Nebraska’s athletes
“They are not better that us, they just played better than us tonight”