Quoted: Stiegelmeier on Nebraska

If there's one thing I want for Christmas, it's a person to transcribe interviews. But I can't have that right now for many reasons, including the fact I don't have a lot of money. So I transcribe my own and there's a lot of notes that come up that a journalist doesn't use and I figured I'd share that with readers. 

So in the first of what could become a series, I share my full interview with SDSU football coach John Stiegelmeier prior to the Nebraska football game Saturday. This took place Monday, Sept. 16, prior to much of the fallout at Nebraska regarding to Bo Pelini but some of the circus in Huskerland is touched upon. Very little of this made the actual story I wrote, so I felt like sharing.

On this game being hyped similarly to USD or NDSU with everyone looking forward to it but only playing Nebraska for the third time in school history.

“I think it’s natural to look forward to this game. I don’t think we’ve overlooked any of our opponents to this point. But I don’t think it’s the Super Bowl and you get so high that you lose track of how to play your game of football. It’s going to be a great test because we’re not going to face better athletes this year or a more storied program. Let’s go play our best football in a very storied environment.

You’ve talked in the past about eliminating awe from your players when the arrive in a place like Memorial Stadium in these FBS games. It's a nice idea but how do you go about that?

“I think it’s how you approach it. You don’t talk down about Nebraska or their program and make fun of the fact that they lost to UCLA. We’re not UCLA. And so I think the main thing is that when you walk into the stadium on Friday, you say “This is what’s going to happen. Get it out of your system,” your parents are going to be here and they’re only going to be excited about you playing your best football. You’re not here to be a tourist. I come by this naturally because when we went Division I everyone talked about “Look where you get to go play.” And the minute I heard that I thought, “That has nothing to do with it.” These guys work way too hard to go in and say look where I got to play. As opposed to, look how well I played.

Given that there’s been a couple Valley teams who have upset BCS teams, does that give your team confidence that they could be next?

I think it’s a unique year for that to happen. When Appalachian State beat Michigan, I did the math. One out of every 82 of those games was an FCS victory. This year is a little out of whack. All I care about is that we go in there and do what we’re capable of doing and not worry about what other teams have done. Being the football team can be what we can be.

On being 3-0 in 2013 going to play Nebraska, as opposed to being 0-3 in 2010 going to play Nebraska.

I think it does, yeah. Although we took the field in 2010, with a unique confidence. We were probably disappointment in where we were that year and we had to prove something against our toughest test. We were ranked high early in that season also, so there’s some similarities between the two. I think these guys because of the success so far, our guys have a little bit more mature attitude about what we can do this time.

On the importance of scoring early

It’s really important. Unfortunately, in our business, after Nebraska losing one game, there’s a lot of pressure on them. That’s an intense environment. Not against us but against them. That’s unfortunate. These are 18 to 22 year old guys and they work hard and there’s way too much importance put on yards and points and wins and losses.

You have a handful of players who got playing time in 2010 at Nebraska and are on the team now. Do you lean on those players to lead your team going down there again?

I may have some of those guys say something. I love the leadership of our football team. I’m sure a number of those guys will probably go to the younger guys on the bus and tell them “Hey, it’s just a football game.” It’s our toughest test and don’t overlook it but don’t get caught up in, “I mean Holy Cow!” It’s not any different from last week except there’s 10 times as many people and you know. [laughs] I’m not making light of the level of play. We just need to go down and play our best football. That’s all we can do.

On the keys to the game

“Put a lot of pressure on our offense. I’ve seldom, if ever, have done that. But we’re going to have to move the ball. They have given up some yards. Again, different matchups but our offense should be able to find its niche and find some advantages. They’re not going to be at too much of an advantage because they are sound but maybe the guy tackling Zenner is at a disadvantage. The guy tackling Cam Jones is at a disadvantage. We have to be better in special teams. We have stunk up the joint the last two games. We just can’t do that down there. Sometimes those are the biggest plays in football, we don’t want that to be big against us. We have to shore that up rapidly and I have faith we’ll do that. Defensively, if we continue to take the ball away, those are huge plays. I think we can do that. For whatever reason, this year has been magical in that regard. Don’t worry about yards, control their speed and take the ball away. 

You mentioned your team has been very strong in the takeaway-giveaway category this year. How do you continue that success against a better team like Nebraska?

We want to keep it going. It adds some belief to the fact that penalties and turnovers and mental errors are huge in the game. Sometimes you look at the box score and you wonder how a team lost the game and then look at those key categories that nobody talks about. There’s a lot championships won by the teams that make the fewest mistakes, as opposed to the ones that make the big plays.

Your defense has allowed a lot of passing yards. Nebraska has a couple of strong passing defense. How will you go about improving your team in that regard?

Coaching with confidence. Too often we’ve coached our guys not to give up the big play. We’re going to try to teach the technique and give them the confidence to make the play. Trust your reads and make the play. We’ll be coaching them up and giving them the best chance. There’s a bunch of matchups in football. If they beat you on a play, it’s one play.