Eh, I think this is one of those "people read into it what they want to" type of things. There is basically no difference between "explaining what happened" and "blaming someone else" other than how the statement is interpreted.
Coaches are in a lose/lose position. If they talk about what went wrong on the field they are blaming the players. If they speak more generally the are just spewing "coach speak."
Under Pelini, the vast majority of fans went out of their way to put almost all the blame on the coaches and very little of the blame on the players. For at least the first two years under Riley a lot of people were finding any way they could to blame the players and make excuses for the coaching staff. But I think it's pretty clear now that the true story was a lot closer to the inverse of those two situations.
