Rhule Meets Media on Monday

Nebraska head football coach Matt Rhule spoke to members of the media on Monday to preface the Huskers’ opening game this weekend. He acknowledged the rigor of the early-season schedule with the upcoming Ohio game. 

“It has been a long training camp,” he said. “I thought the guys did a great job last week coming in and taking advantage of another week while we’re in classes handling their academic load and still getting here. We ended with a mock game on Saturday. I’m excited to get to game week. We turn to a great opponent in Ohio University, who has had four elite seasons since 2022. I’m excited to get back in Memorial Stadium to play in front of our fans. We have a great fan base, but there is something special about our student section. We are excited to get back in front of the students, family and friends, and our fans to play football. They’ve worked really hard and we’re excited to see where they’re at. I don’t think you can talk about a Nebraska vs Ohio football game without talking about Coach (Frank) Solich. I think it was my first spring here when Trev (Alberts) and I talked to Coach and got him back into Memorial Stadium, into the fold. Julie and I had the chance to go upstairs during the National Football Foundation Hall of Fame when Coach (Barry) Alvarez was there, Coach (Tom) Osborne, so many former players, Lance Leipold was there and we had a wonderful night with his family. Coach (Solich) has been unbelievable to me. He comes out to practice. His daughter still lives out here in Lincoln and he was in Boise, Idaho, and he’s back out this way. He is just a wonderful man and a tremendous example to all of us young coaches of always attacking what’s next and being a great player, being a great position coach and being a great head coach taking Nebraska to a National Championship game. When adversity hits, as it sometimes does, always making your next chapter your best chapter. I had the chance to coach against Coach Solich when I was the offensive coordinator at Temple; he was the head coach at Ohio. We went out there and had some battles. He won a huge game to win the MAC East and go to the conference championship game, which he always reminds me about. We also won one at our place in Lincoln that he doesn’t always remember and I have to remind him, but he is a tremendous mentor. Obviously he will be very neutral for this game, but it will be cool to see him out there. They still retain his DNA of being a tough, physical football team. They were down 17-7 last year at Rutgers early on, then they made it 31-31 and Rutgers made a field goal and they battled back. Unbelievably well-coached football team with great players. Coach (John) Hauser has taken over in a unique situation and did a great job in the bowl game. I was talking to Anthony Colandrea; he certainly remembers that game and losing against Ohio. We expect to play our best football. On a side note, congratulations to Dani (Busboom Kelly) and the volleyball team. I have two diehard Husker volleyball fans at home and had a chance to watch a bunch of games this weekend. We watched the Texas game and the Friday night game that we won for the money, which was pretty cool and we watched the UNLV game. Congratulations to those women; I know they’re on a mission, and I know they’ll get it done. We’re trying to do our part and we’re anxious to start with a quality opponent.”

Rhule spoke on the preparation that has gone into the lead-up for the first game and what will happen before the first game.

“The roster turnover is significant in all of college football,” he said. “You're looking at five new receivers coming in, and five new offensive linemen coming in. Some of the players that we think will start for them have played there, but you can't turn on last year's opponent and see seven or eight returning starters. Scott Isphording is their offensive coordinator; I think he is really one of the best to do it, has a great system and they've scored a ton of points. The quarterback, Parker Nevaro, from last year's team, I thought was one of the best quarterbacks in all of college football; he really can play at any level. (Nick) Pulos this year, they announced him as a starter; we watched him at El Camino; we watched (Matt) Vezza at New Hampshire. You try to take a DNA of the team, obviously, Coach (Kurt) Mattix is back as a defensive coordinator, and Coach Hauser has been the defensive coordinator, so what exactly do they do? Coach Mattix was a 3-3-5 guy at San Diego State. They've been basically at Ohio, been a 4-2-5 hybrid defense. They play great defense. In the first games, you have to focus more on yourself than the opponent and make sure that you're doing the things. If you all watch college football this weekend, the first games are usually either won or lost in four areas. Usually in special teams blunders, usually in penalties, turnovers, and you see a lot of bad tackling out there. In the UNC vs. TCU game, we finished our mock game, and my wife had a family event for the coaches' families, a family barbeque; they had a staff/family dodgeball game, while we were waiting for that to start, we were able to watch the end of the UNC vs. TCU game. You want to make sure you have a plan for them if they're in 4-2-5, 3-3-5 or if it's man pressure like Rutgers, where there was a high percentage of pressure. You want to have a plan for them offensively if they are running the quarterback a ton, they have a great RPO game, or if they're in 12 personnel. At the end of the day you also have to manage the things you can control, like tackling and your ball security. Our guys these last two years have done a great job of that these last two years into game one. Our preparation will start tonight for the game week. We started Ohio on Thursday. Our preparation will start tonight and it will really be focused on us with a tremendous respect for them.”

With a new season, Rhule spoke about what makes a good leader and how they will handle captain positions in the future. 

“Our players have a great feel for it; we've been through a lot,” he said. “The guys who have been here have been through a lot, or they've been other places and seen a lot. They understand that if you choose the people in those positions in a popularity contest, you aren't doing them a service and you're doing yourself a disservice. Just because you're a certain position and you’d love that guy to be a leader doesn’t mean that they are a leader; I’ve learned that lesson along the way. There is a great book called “The Captain Class” that talks about all the great teams. Sometimes you don't need your best player to be the leader. We certainly don’t want convenient leadership. Leadership is not speeches, it's quiet conversations in quiet moments. We have a lot of guys on our team. This is the most guys I’ve ever been around where I’ve been like, this guy can be a single-digit or this guy can be a captain. We aren't doing captains. That might change, but we are going to go with game captains and give guys multiple chances to lead and let the tenure of the season let us see who is there. There are guys who have been there and done an amazing job; the guys we brought in are so mature and so seasoned. They have really bought into the culture and I want to see what they do when things get really hard. There are other guys who have had great moments and great leadership but what you did last year is not good enough, you have to do it better this year. I think you do a disservice to players when you don't tell them the truth. A lot of our coaches, they want to tell guys what they want to hear, coaches in general. At the end of the day, every coach got into coaching because they love being around players. If Bryant Rhule, Leona Rhule or Vivi Rhule aren't doing the right thing, I can promise Julie and I are quick to tell them what we think. You have to do that with your players. You have to reciprocate that by when you make a mistake as a coach, saying ‘Hey guys, that’s my bad’ or being vulnerable saying ‘Hey guys I’m not sure how to handle this.’ Luke (Lindenmeyer) and I met this morning talking about the Sunday schedule. I want to make sure the guys who go to church can do that and still get in and help themselves. You have to be very open and honest but I think our players have done a really good job with that.”

With Nebraska’s rich history of defense, Matt Rhule hopes to uphold the standard that has been built. 

“It feels right, it looks right. I believe the defense is connected,” he said. “You’ll hear a coach just sometimes say ‘do your one/eleventh.’ I’ve never believed in that. I believe in Metcalfe’s Law that when three people connect, it produces many more connections. You guys all make a living writing in newspapers and being on TV, but you also make a living on social media. How do you get more followers? You say something, you connect to a follower and another follower gets it. The power of a group is exponentially greater when we’re all connected to each other. In average defenses, they say, ‘You do your job, I do my job.’ In great defenses, defenses connect to each other. They understand that I’m going to spill this to this safety, that’s filling that’s then going to trust that the guy in the backside is running. Bad defenses start saying they’re going to that, I’m going to do that. Great defenses stay connected; they play together. That’s communication. Coach (Rob) Aurich and some of those guys, this will be their first time in Memorial Stadium. When we’re at our best in that stadium, you can’t even hear the play call in the headset. I’m a guy that doesn’t really like music at practice and things like that, except for certain times; I’ve just been blasting crowd noise or music because we’re not playing in front of 15,000 people that can yell the check out. You better have all your guys know that. You better have a great deal of communication. There’s a great deal of trust. There’s a physicality and an effort at which you have to play. Especially in first games, you better run the right angles. You see in the first games, everyone overrunning tackles, because they’re running to where they think they’re going to be and then all the tackling in college football kind of settles down. The snaps over the head. They start to settle down as guys play a game. Especially now, rosters are thinner, you’re paying some players some money and you’re like, ‘Should I play this guy, should I not?’ Fernando Mendoza was the first pick in the draft and I saw him in his first playoff game. You only get good at football by playing. It’s the only sport where you practice more than you play. From what I’ve seen, our guys are trying to run the right angles, they’re using dominant contact, they’re getting off blocks, they’re playing connected. You have to see the first game. I played for Joe Paterno; he would always say that teams make their greatest improvements between game one and game two. We try to make training camp like game one, so we can see where we are and make the proper changes going into the first game of the year.”

Rhule spoke on the running back depth that Nebraska holds and what the standards for playing will be. 

“Everything we do, we play to win,” he said. “This is a fantastic football program that we are going against; we have three backs that we feel like are all in that upper realm of playing, so we will play all of them. A lot of it has to do with this week, which can be a little uncomfortable. Sometimes young players are like, ‘If you could just get me into a rhythm,’ well, Emmett (Johnson) went out and played the other night in the preseason game; it's not about getting into a rhythm. First play better be a flashy play; whether flashy is getting a two-yard run or an eight-yard run, there is no easing into it. We are going to put those guys out there, but part of it is this week in practice too. I won't say for them, like ‘Hey, here's our plan,’ because I want to hold that to us. Our plan is not yet established; we have a great feel for it. I'm going to go through this week and see who practices the best, who prepares the best, who takes the best notes and then how Dana (Holgerson) wants to play. The great thing about our backs is that they are all good at everything. But if you have this play, I’d really love to see this kid run, or this play I’d really love to see this kid run, so we’ll see how Dana (Holgerson) as he goes through the week decides exactly how he’s going to attack. To Bryant's question, we could get out there and all of a sudden is a 3-3 blitz game, we have a great plan for that. We’ve gone against a 3-3 for many years here against Tony (White). Those will be maybe different plays. Maybe it's more this than that, if it's 4-2-5, or like the Rutgers game where they're blitzing us. You go into the game and have a different idea. I can't tell any one player right now, ‘hey were going to target you on the first four plays.’ Just because we get out there and it's a man-free game, then it's going to be a man-free game plan. I feel confident in the backs; I'm anxious to see them practice this week, then play.”

Nebraska prepares to play Ohio in the season opener at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Neb. on Saturday, Sept. 5 at 11 am (CT). The game will be streamed on FS1 and can be heard across the Huskers Radio Network.