10 things we learned from Nebraska's press conference

Nebraska head coach Scott Frost and several players met with reporters on Monday for their weekly press conference inside Memorial Stadium to preview this week's road game at Maryland.

Here are 10 of the most interesting things we learned from the day...

Nebraska took some big steps in the right direction against Wisconsin on Saturday, but the final result still ended in another loss.

The Huskers are officially out of room for error in their quest for bowl eligibility, as they must win both of their two remaining games to clinch a postseason berth for the first time since 2016.

For that to happen, Frost and his players said it would have to start with NU taking the next step by eliminating all of the could-haves and should-haves and finishing on opportunities.

Frost said a lot of that killer instinct needed to finish drives and plays was developed by confidence, and the only way to gain that was by winning.

"We just need to win,” Frost said. “That’s it. You can’t put any more on it. In some ways, winning is a habit, and losing is a habit. I think there’s a few too many guys on our team who are conditioned to not win. We need to flip that and make sure winning is a habit. To do that, you have to get one, and it’s been too many weeks since we’ve gotten one.”

One of the highlights for Nebraska on Saturday was the breakout performance by Dedrick Mills, who went off for a career-high 188 rushing yards against one of the best run defenses in college football.

With Wan’Dale Robinson scratched from the lineup due to injury, the lion’s share of the running game was Mills’ for the taking, and the junior took full advantage with the best rushing day by a Husker this season.

Robinson was on the depth chart for the Maryland game, but his status will continue to be monitored throughout the week. Should he be held out again on Saturday, Mills said he was ready to take on another big workload.

“I played like a dog, I ran the ball really well, ran hard, physical and I didn’t let one person stop me,” Mills said of his coaches’ evaluation of his performance. “I’ve been able to show a lot of my team what I can really do and produce on the field, and I feel like I earned a lot of that trust from them.”

Mills said he was a little sore on Monday, and Frost said the JUCO transfer got dinged up a bit and had to sit out a couple of series in the second half vs. Wisconsin. But Mills had no doubt he’d be ready to roll come game time.

After a disappointing first half of the season that was made worse by missing two games to a knee injury, Adrian Martinez is slowly starting to look like the player many expected he’d be coming into the year.

The sophomore had one of his better performances of 2019 against a formidable Wisconsin defense, putting up 309 yards of total offense (220 passing, 89 rushing).

By nature of his position, Martinez received plenty of criticism for Nebraska’s offensive struggles this season. But he said he’s been able to stay the course by ignoring all of the outside noise.

“Me being honest, when I first got here, I loved social media, and then kind of over the course of time, I don’t even have Twitter on my phone anymore,” Martinez said. “That’s just kind of the way it's been, and it's been my way of handling it. That’s just how it goes. Especially during the season, you want to try and tune out as much as you can and just focus on the guys inside the stadium…

“As Coach (Mario) Verduzco and Frost say, praise and blame are all the same. If you read the good stuff, you got to read the bad stuff. I’d rather just take that out of the equation.”

Needing all the help it could get against Wisconsin’s power running game, Nebraska was without not one, but two starting defensive linemen on Saturday.

Senior nose guard Darrion Daniels had been out all week with a lingering injury, but senior defensive end Carlos Davis was an unexpected addition to the injury list just before the game.

Frost said Davis had been dealing with an injury during the week, but the staff didn’t know he wouldn’t be able to play until he told them he couldn’t go on Saturday morning.

“Carlos was beat up all week with an ankle," Frost said. "He was less than 100 percent all week, but he did some practicing and it took me by surprise on game day (that he couldn't play).”

Both Daniels and Davis were listed as starters on this week’s depth chart for Maryland, but both will continue to be evaluated leading up the game.

It’s hard to argue that Saturday was the best all-around effort of the season for Nebraska’s offensive line.

The Huskers racked up nearly 500 yards of total offense and had 307 sack-adjusted rushing yards against the Badgers’ dominant defensive front seven.

However, the offensive line gave up four sacks, seven tackles for loss, and only helped manage three touchdowns on eight drives that finished inside UW territory.

“A little more grit, a little more want, that’s what it all comes down to,” senior right tackle Matt Farniok said. “We’ve done it pretty much all year, we’ve proved that we can move the ball, we’ve proved that we can really do what we need to do before, but we need to find just a little more something, whatever it is, we need to find a little bit more within ourselves across the boards.

“There’s no wishing that we’re gonna score, we are going to score. There’s no other second thoughts about it.”

The conversation over where Farniok is best suited to play on the offensive line has been going on for a couple of years now, as some think his future is more suited at guard instead of tackle.

Farniok is aware of those discussions, and he said on Monday that he was open to potentially making a position change next season if his coaches asked him. All he cares about is helping his team win.

“Whatever they tell me to do and whatever is best for the team is all I care about,” Farniok said. “I want this place more than ever to start rolling and start getting wins because people here have worked so hard, and they have given everything they have.

“I want more than anything to be a part of that and finally getting over that hump to get Nebraska back on track to where it should be. Whatever they need me to do, I’m more than willing to."

Frost was fairly critical of Nebraska’s defense following the loss to Wisconsin, saying if they could ever get the point where they were allowing less than 30 points per game, “I like our chances with where our offense is going, but we've got to get there on both sides.”

On Monday, Frost explained that his 30-points comment was based on a stat from when he was coaching at Oregon. He wasn’t exactly sure on the record but guessed that the Ducks were roughly 61-2 during his tenure when scoring 31 points or more.

“That goes all the way back to my time running this offense at Oregon,” Frost said. “I forget the exact number, but in seven, years we were something like 61-2 when we scored 31 as an offense. Don’t quote me on that precisely, but it was a real high winning percentage when 31 seemed to be the magic number.

“In certain games, you point the finger at one phase of our team, and in other (games), it’s another one. We’ve won games 9-6 and 13-10 here so we just got to put it all together as a team. Just right now when it seems we play well in one phase the other two aren’t as good and vice-versa, so we’ve got to put a complete one together as a team.”

With Daniels and Davis out, Nebraska had to turn to some young and inexperienced players to step up and provide depth vs. Wisconsin.

One of those included true freshman Ty Robinson, who played a career-high 14 snaps against the Badgers in his first real action as a Husker.

“There are bright spots there with the way some of our guys have been playing,” Frost said. “Several of them have gotten opportunities to get in and get their feet wet in college football, and I think they did a really good job. Ty Robinson stands out from Saturday. He held his own out there.”

Nebraska’s special teams were an all-around disaster against Wisconsin, and one of the most glaring issues came with the kickoff unit.

Not only did the Huskers give up an 89-yard kickoff return for a touchdown moments after taking the first lead of the game in the opening quarter, but they also averaged a dismal 23.5 net yards per kickoff without a single touchback.

Sophomore Barret Pickering took over the kickoff duties on Saturday, replacing William Przystup, who hadn’t fared much better in recent weeks.

Frost said that position would be open for competition once again this week, with walk-on Matt Waldoch being one of the candidates for the job.

“We’re looking at everybody,” Frost said. “Matt’s got a chance. There’s a couple other guys who have a chance to help us.”

Frost has said several times throughout the season that Nebraska has some strong player leadership in its locker room, but not nearly enough of it.

He spoke on that issue again on Monday, saying the Huskers needed more than just a handful of guys willing to have a voice on the team. Frost also said there were players on the roster who were going the wrong direction in terms of rebuilding the culture that he wanted.

“We still don’t have leadership where we need it to be,” Frost said. “We have some good leaders but not enough, and we still have a few pieces that are working against that. That doesn’t help.

“But we have been really young on offense all year. Some of those guys like Austin Allen and Jack Stoll; Matt Farniok has been a good leader for us all year; Adrian. A lot of those guys are young, though. We’ll be in a better place when those guys are senior leaders and in charge of everything and setting the standard for everybody…

“We need to make sure we clear the path for the kids who want to be leaders, that there’s no obstacles in their way of being leaders and continuing to put them in positions where we can challenge them to take charge.”