Notes and Quotes

Check out some notes, quotes and audio from today's practice as Head Coach Bo Pelini talks about how the team is coming back from last weekend's game and Eric Martin talks about his first game making the calls and his personal philosophy on hating the guy on the other side os the ball.

• As far as Bo, he was back to being less than talkative today, so not much to report outside Rickey Thenarse being fine after having endured some pretty nasty cramps in the game last week. He practiced today. There aren't any other injuries of note, from what I could tell.
• Bo said that he thought after reviewing the film that both the defensive line and secondary played well. Of course, he threw in the fact that they need to improve in some areas, but seemed generally pleased with how they did.
• In talking to Eric Martin, he said that he was the primary play caller for the game. But he said that if there were times where he didn't know what the call was or wasn't sure, he would defer to David who would tell him, and then he would make the call. Martin said that until Monday of last week he hadn't made a call of any kind.
• In a brief conversation with Barney Cotton, there was a question posed about the bigger splits the offensive line is taking right now. Cotton said that they are actually only six inches wider then the splits they took last year. But he said that as a spread team, those kinds of splits fit in with what you are trying to do.
• Back to Martin, kind of a funny story, but someone asked how much Martinez talks to him considering the fact that they are roommates. Eric said that Martinez was talking about being in a bit of pain after the the Idaho game,where he did take some pretty good shots. But Martin added that since he doesn't like offensive players that much, he wasn't paying a lot of attention to Martinez' complaints. "He was telling me how bad his wrist hurt, and I was just laughing at him the whole time," he said.
• Martin talked about a story from his prep days where he said he got his first taste of not liking the guys on the other side of the ball. That's also where he developed his penchant for hitting. "One of my high school assistant coaches, he was a linebacker from Michigan State. And everyday we would do crazy hitting drills like 20-30 minutes and just run at each other and hit each other," Martin said. "He made us not like offensive players, so that's where I got that mentality."
• He said that the byproduct of that was a defense that played mean and was mean. "We would get personal fouls all the time and he enjoyed that stuff," he said.
• Another Martin note of interest is that you hear about players saying that they don't want to hurt whoever they hit. They want to have an impact, but they don't want anyone getting injured. Well, when it comes to practicing against his own team, you bet, Eric said he is just trying to do his job and he's not trying to do anything that might damage the other player. But when it comes to the opponent? "Oh, I don't care. If he (is) on another team, I don't show no sympathy for nobody," he said. "You stepped on the field. There's a reason you stepped out there. You wanted to play this sport. This sport involves contact. I am going to go one hundred miles an hour on you all the time. That's just the way it is."

Post Practice Audio

Bo Pelini - Listen to Audio

Linebcker Eric Martin - Listen to Audio

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