Head Coach Matt Rhule Pre-UCLA Press Conference

Opening Statement
“It was obviously a great football game this past Saturday. As I said after the game, I’m proud of our guys and the effort and all the things they brought forth, the resiliency during the game. At the same time, we made key mistakes in all three phases that didn’t allow us to win the game. We started this morning working to correct those. We’ll try to get better for UCLA. They’re really an excellent football team that’s had a really tough schedule and is playing their best football of late, so we have our work cut out for us. We’ll try to make the improvements from the Ohio State game to the UCLA game the same way we did from Indiana to Ohio State.”

On Rahmir Johnson and Tommi Hill’s availability
“I don’t know about Tommi (Hill), Rahmir (Johnson) is back this week, he will practice tomorrow.” 

On Dylan Raiola’s run game
“One of the key things from Dylan (Raiola) is he can do it. He has the ability to scramble and look down the field, but then also take advantage and run. One of the really cool things I’m having the chance to experience with him is watching him grow each week. In the Indiana game, there was a play where he started to scramble and stopped and threw it back, and as I watched the game with him, he was like ‘I should’ve run it there.’ I don’t even know if that’s right or not, but that’s what he took away from it. Every week he is trying to find one, two, or three things to improve upon. We heard Coach (Ryan) Day’s press conference last week. When I watch their defense, they look like a big time defense. They were taking a lot of questions about their defense and he talked about doing some different things. When you play a team coming off a bye, you better be ready for anything to come out. There was way more man-free pressure. Usually, a Larry Johnson defense is a four-man rush and ‘let’s go eat.’ There was way more pressure, and part of that was him navigating that and recognizing that in the game. When you bring man-free pressure, if you pick them all up, there’s no one for the quarterback. He got out and took off and ran. To me, Dylan has an algorithm in his brain, so every time you add something to it. He added it so in terms of during practice, he’s always trying to improve and get better.”

On how much Dylan Raiola has improved from the UTEP game to now
“Better and better and better. So much of that game was getting the right play here, getting the right play there. Think about it, you’re a freshman quarterback going out in front of 100,000 people all of whom already have a feeling about you since you were once committed there. Another one of your freshmen drops the kickoff return and you start on the one-yard line. You bobble the opening kickoff. The thing I loved about Dylan (Raiola) was that he just settled down. He gave his chances. If you go back over the last four games and calculate in all of the defensive pass interference yardage because we throw so many go-balls, that would add in to what he’s done passing yard wise. I think he sees the things he’s improving upon, there’s no better teacher than experience. I think he’s getting a ton of experience. They threw a lot of things at him this week. Rutgers threw a lot of things at him, but they threw a lot more things at him this week than what he’s seen in the past and I thought he adjusted and handled really well.” 

On what leads to fixing missed throws
“That was a play where they’re bringing all that pressure, they’re bearing down on you, the wolves are at the door. He came out, he saw three over three-man, he recognized the leverage and he checked to that. That wasn’t a call; that was an option he had, he checked to it. I think he just sped up and let it rip, and he just missed the throw. Part of this teaching is going back and looking at all the things you do well. He has the ability to look at all the things he does well. The things you do well should give you confidence, the things you don’t do well, that’s what spurs you forward. He missed that throw and so then it was just a ‘why,’ was it bad mechanics, was it you sped up because you saw these things and knew you had a touchdown, so you wanted to get the ball out of your hand. When I watch the game with him, I watch the game with him usually differently, kind of as the head coach, because Glenn (Thomas) is going to do all of the football stuff. But for me, it’s here’s these six, seven, eight plays, why did they happen. I’ll let him tell you his thoughts on it because to me you just have people coming at you, you see them open. He knows what’s going to happen a lot of times before it happens, and a lot of times that anticipation leads you to a hurry. I thought he didn’t hurry.”

On Dante Dowdell and the run game in the second half
“When people don’t really blitz us and pressure us, we’re a good running team. We struggle when people pressure us. Dylan (Raiola) did a good job when they weren’t pressuring us, getting to the right run. We ran some wham plays and some trap plays, which are really good plays. We got the ball to second level. We need at some point for one of these plays to go to 80. I’m not throwing anyone at it, it’s just what we’re working on everyday. We’re working on it constantly. Dante is a big back, he’s going to punish you.  Rahmir’s (Johnson) and Emmett’s (Johnson) come in and they hopefully make you miss and take it further. I thought in many ways there were some really good things in the plan. When they pressure you, then you throw those fades, those globe balls, you’re trying to take advantage of man coverage hoping to hit them. We hit some, we got some pass interferences and extended drives on others.” 

On the Big Ten’s statement and his conversation with the league
“I’ll first say this. I commend the league for putting out a statement. The worst thing I can do is get up here when I’m trying to get our team to look forward to UCLA and be talking about the calls that went against us in a loss. I think that’s very forward thinking of Commissioner (Tony) Petitti and of Bill Corollo, who’s the head of officiating, and I think it’s what should be done. We all just want transparency, in everything. I come here and you guys ask me ‘What happened on this play?’ or ‘What happened on that play?’ and I do my best to be transparent and answer them. That was a game, you guys hear us talk about situational football, we’re trying to master situational football, the last drive of the half and the last drive of the game. When you have one timeout and you think it’s a spot, it just makes it hard to coach. That was difficult and they addressed it. That’s really all I want. I will say this, I think one of the hardest jobs in the world right now is to be an official. I grew up in an era, when I played college football, I stood next to Coach (Joe) Paterno. The officials went out there, they had their whistles, they threw their flags. There weren’t 52 camera angles because games weren’t on national TV. They threw the flag and you lived with it. Coach Paterno wouldn’t yell at the officials, that’s just how football was. Now we’re in a world where we have instant replay. The first instant replay was to overturn the egregious stuff. Now, we can fix things. Last week, there were three seconds on the clock, and all of a sudden, there were six seconds against Indiana. Now, as an official, if I’m calling the game, I’m calling the game on controversial calls with ‘what happens if it does get overturned?’ If it’s close, there’s a fumble and they think the guy is down, they’re instructed to call it a fumble so the play continues, and replay can overturn it. Replay, if it’s close, will go with the call that stood. Even if that’s not what the official thought. The amount of things that must be in those guys’ heads, God bless them, and there’s 100,000 people and they’re running backwards trying to say, is it DPI, is it OPI? It used to be that the officials had to go over and talk to each other. Now, they have a microphone and they’re talking to each other during the game and they’re confirming things and I feel for them. I’m never going to get up here and complain about judgement calls. That’s not my thing. I’ve talked about replay. Last year, we had three plays, where the next day they said the replay was wrong. That’s hard for me. It used to be, replay was in your own building. You’d see the replay official before the game and he was going to go out and make the call. Now, replay goes off to an essential site somewhere. It’s probably the best system in the world. I advocate for the players. I advocate for the coaches. I’m also going to advocate for the eight guys out there calling the game. I’m going to give them my opinion at times. I’m never going to cross the line. I do want to say this because I want my daughters and every person in Norfolk and Duquesne and everywhere in the state to hear it. Both times I’ve gotten a flag this year, the next day they said it never should have been a flag. So I don’t disrespect officials. I stay on the field. I coach the way I’ve coached for the last 12 years. I’m aggressive but defensive. No one on my sideline talks to the officials. The officials will always tell you discipline. I appreciate the statement, but I do want to say it must be very hard to be out there making those calls, and there was a really controversial OPI in the Ohio State-Oregon game, and they called it pass interference. So what ends up happening, over the next couple weeks, there’s all these points of emphasis and they’re talking about OPI and all of a sudden we show up and we get two OPIs on the last drive of the half and the last drive of the game. You guys have watched us, I don’t know how many OPIs we’ve had this year. These points of emphasis that hit you each week – something happens and we change the kickoff return mechanics. As a coach, I can’t change what an 18-year-old does or a 22-year-old does on three days notice. We went through camp, we went through all the officiating training, officials come to practice, we’re told to do things a certain way, then as the season goes on and things happen, officials have to adjust. We have to adjust. All of a sudden you get into a game like this and all this stuff happens. I appreciate the transparency. I do want to make sure everyone understands where I stand, though. I advocate for the officials. I think we should let them call the game and it shouldn’t change as much as it does based on this and that. We should just let them call the games and live with the result, like we live with the players’ results. I appreciate that. Some tough things went against us. We’ve had replay go against us. We’ve had my penalties go against us. I don’t want any more apologies on Sunday. It can’t happen against UCLA. Can’t happen against Iowa. These things can’t happen moving forward, so I’m very forward-thinking. I appreciate Bill (Corollo), I appreciate Tony (Petitti), I appreciate Troy (Dannen), I appreciate everybody. But it can’t keep happening to us. It needs to be fair. That’s not about the guys making judgement calls. They’ve got a tough, tough, tough job. Tell us what the rules are and we’ll go from there. That’s my take. I hope it’s okay that I say that. We’re not going to sit here and whine about whether it was a hold or not. During the game, I’ll yell. When they false started, I yelled ‘hey, that’s a false start,’ but then the play is over and you play the next play. We have to play better. Before we worry about the officials, we have to worry about ourselves.”

On Willis McGahee IV
“Willis is earning it. I think that’s the biggest thing. He’s so talented, he’s earning with his preparation, what he does in practice. It’s a hard position because you’re really playing three or four positions. Sometimes you're a d-end, sometimes you're an outside linebacker or a will-backer. I think he has great mentorship in that room from M.J. (Sherman). We got production out of him which was awesome. His snaps will continue to go up. I’m proud because he is earning them. He’s earning the snaps. It’s not just talent or production. That comes from practice. I’ve been really pleased with him in practice. I think you’ll see a lot more of him moving forward.”

On summarizing what they are good at on both sides of the ball
“We’ve faced two top 10 teams in the last two weeks. It’s way easier to focus on what we are not good at than what we are good at. The best thing for me is to just focus on UCLA right now. I think this week will tell us where we are coming off these last two games. I think we can see that with this next three week stretch. We talk to our guys about ‘Hey. college football is about November, December and January.’ We beat Colorado and left them for dead and they are alive and kicking. When we played them we were like they are pretty good on defense. So, we’ve been through all these good things and bad things, these tough moments. We have four games left. Games that in the preseason people thought we’d be underdogs and struggle to beat them. We will find out we will play them. I will say, we learned a lot with our mindset these last two weeks. Now we are carrying it forward against UCLA, the bye week and then play three more. The thing is, we have to have the same intensity that we had last week. We were embarrassed at 56-7. That’s when you hear me talk about the process. When the players are young, they think I’m saying ‘it’s okay to lose, just do your best.’ That’s not what I’m saying. I say, like Coach (Joe) Paterno said, ‘wake up every day running scared.’ The focus in our office is what we aren’t good at, not what we are good at.  I’m like ‘Hey, let’s go fix this.’ You just hope over time they get less and less. As it pertains to UCLA, they are going to challenge you with their run defense. They are big and physical, athletic on defense and teams that normally run the ball will struggle against them. They pressure you and play man, all the things that at times have bothered us. So, this is a real opportunity for us this week to show that we fixed some of those things. Offensively, they are a sophisticated offense that can run the football but really can throw it as well. A sophisticated NFL passing offense. For all the good things we did, we gave up three explosive plays in the passing game last week. We’ll have to show that we can handle that. Special teams wise, we are making such great growth in some areas. Then something pops up like fielding kickoff returns. We have to continue to find a way to make plays in those areas. Johnny (Hohl) kept us in the game. We just need to keep finding the next thing to improve on. I think the best thing we do as a team is we improve. We get better at the things that are beating us. The guys came in today very focused on what we didn't do as opposed to what we did do.”

On screens
“I completely understand why people are frustrated, at the same time, what I’ll say is, ‘you go block that front without throwing a couple screens.’ They’re absolutely dominant. There’s some kids that feel really bad on our team because they see the heat that (Marcus) Satterfield’s taking or I’m taking, and they know that if they had a missed assignment, and had they blocked their man-to-man defender, the ball would’ve gone for about fifty. That being said, you have some things built in. If we’re running this play, if they bring zero blitz, we’re throwing a screen, that’s what most people do. They threw the screen, and we just didn’t make the block. We look at everything like we have to be better as coaches. There’s one thing you’re not allowed to do in our building, you can never say the players weren’t good enough. You can never say ‘so-and-so wasn’t good enough’. The screen-game wasn’t good enough, to have two on the final drive. I can understand why people can be frustrated by that. We came out and threw the go ball to Jamal (Banks), he caught it, and he got the offensive pass interference. We came out and threw the back side in cut versus cover two, the targeting play. They came out and played man, and we went to the screen. I wish we could go back on those things, but the screen-game hasn’t been terrible for us, but it was not very good for us in that game. It’s one of those games we thought we were going to be able to screen them because of their pass rush. Even plays where we were putting Wood (Janiran Bonner) in motion and running as fast as we could to block the defensive end and handing the ball off. He missed one in a crucial time, but yet they weren’t quite running up the field and rushing us as much as they were because they had to play the screens. So much of football is complementary. There’s things I really regret from that game, some of the play calls we called, some of the defenses we called, but that’s ball. It wasn’t good enough, it hurt us in crucial situations, and we got to be better. We went in with a plan, thinking we needed to able to do that, and in the key moments at the end of the game, it didn’t work out.”

On the current record and what’s being chased
“I believe everything happens to you for a reason. We were five and three last year. We were playing Michigan State and we lost. We lost the rest of them. We’re chasing something. We went out to Indiana. We were five and one. I felt like the guys were chasing something a little bit. That’s why I said I didn’t do a good enough job putting them in the right mindset. We came back last week and we were playing to play. We have to redeem our name. We have to play for pride and play with heart and character. That’s what you saw. I won’t talk about anything other than that this week. You learned what it looked like against Ohio State. Carry that forward and we’ll do that each and every week.”

On what stuck out to him on Ohio State’s film
“It should start with the stop and the run. I think a very important that I’ve talked a lot about here is the third down. If you want to be good, you have to be good on third down. If it’s second and seven, you’re probably going to run it to get it to third and three, third and four, you better convert those. For us to hold them to one of ten on third down, never allowed Coach (Chip) Kelly and Coach Day to call multiple runs and wear us down. If you watch what they do, they throw the ball on the perimeter to wear you out and they come downhill and run it right at you. I thought our guys won third down, so we were able to get off the field. That way we covered them, we did a good job. We also stopped the run. Those two things go hand in hand. Those are the Achilles heel. We gave up three big plays. It’s hard to win when you play against big offenses that give up big plays. It goes back to when I was asked about our offense and not making enough big plays. I thought that’s what the defense did well. When you watch some of the guys play, I thought it was the best some of them have looked. They played with a unique relentlessness that they’ve now put on tape. They have the standard they now have to match.”  

On UCLA transitioning into the Big Ten
“Even me coming here last year, and it’s your first time in the Big Ten. Learning the structures, learning the personalities, learning the towns, learning the travel, learning the style of play, the weather. All of those things matter. When you go into a new conference, you’re trying to figure out who wins in this conference. The unique thing here is we’ve all joined a new conference. Think about who we’re playing this week, you guys have covered Nebraska for a long time, seeing Nebraska vs. Ohio State is common. But having that followed up by UCLA and USC is not common. We’re all just in this period of trying to recognize what the conference is, and the effects of travel. Imagine had this been an 11 o’clock game for them.  When I was at UCLA, we played Kansas, it was an 11 a.m. start. We had a 5 a.m. West Coast wake-up time and that was a challenge. All of those things are unique, and then how it affects you in recruiting. When you go to different conferences, you’re trying to figure out where you want to recruit. When we talk to kids now in California, they know that they’re probably going to have Nebraska go out to California every year. We’re probably going to have a USC or UCLA game every year, and that can be a cool thing in recruiting. We’re trying to do that, I’m sure they’re trying to figure it out. USC is recruiting kids here in Lincoln and Omaha. It just changes the footprint of everything. We’re all seeing a whole different version of college football moving forward, every team in the SEC has a loss. There’s still three unbeaten in our league, so that will probably change at some point with some of those guys playing each other. Just college football in general is changing.” 

On if he and Tony White would have got connected without UCLA
“We didn’t spend much time together, that’s what’s unique about it. He’s just a really good dude. When I first met him, we just kind of hung out together. When he was in coaching, we reconnected because a player was leaving and transferring to Baylor, and they were going to take him. We talked on the phone a bunch about it. I love what he’s done as a coach and I love what he did at Syracuse. I think the job he did last week was impressive. Someone needs to talk about coordinators becoming coaches. Being a coordinator and a coach are two completely different things. What he did last week to get his guys back and ready to play is head coach-like. That’s what head coaches do. They’ve got to have their teams bounce back from adversity and not complacent with success. I thought Tony (White) did a great job in that. He was a really great player and a really great coach and person.”  

On how long it’s been since a home game
“Yeah, no doubt it definitely has. I told you guys once before when we’re on the road, I tell you how much I love being on the road. Even last game, my kids didn’t get to see it, my daughters weren’t there; they were at Husker volleyball. I like being here, I like our fans, I like our families. At the end of that game, we had three or four snap issues that hurt us in crucial moments. Being at home, with our crowd and the crowd noise, it’s really an advantage for us. I was hoping it was going to be windy and snowy, but whatever it is, it’ll be great, and it’ll be great to be back home.”

On Thomas Fidone II
"He came to us, me and Coach Satt (Satterfield) three or four weeks ago. He asked what he needed to do. He blocks he’s a complete tight end. When you see what he’s done in the last couple of weeks. We talked about just focusing on certain aspects of the route he’s running. He’s got great long speed, so getting him down the field, but he also can run out of breaks. He wanted man last week on the hook route against Indiana on third and 8 on the goal line. I think he’s been showing up in practice, and Dylan (Riaola) has a lot of confidence in him. Last week that route was man and he ran an option route, saw his own, and sat it down. He’s a relentless guy who wants to be great. He’s always seeking to improve. I think giving him a couple of specific things to work on and then he’s done that. Dylan feels it. The coaches feel it. They are trying to get into it. The thing is when you’re a tight end and you start catching the football, they start trying to take you away. So, he ran through that contact last week and made a great play. Hopefully we can get him a couple more things.” 

On how Jaylen Lloyd has progressed in his sophomore year
“I think Jaylen is an excellent receiver. He had the hamstring in the summer and in fall camp and missed some time. I think he’s really got a good connection now. You go back to that play, even on the goal line, when to put the ball in his hands, and he gets hit at the four and drags it down to the one-and-a-half-yard line. I think you’ll see him continue to emerge. I don’t want to say develop but emerge and get more and more opportunities. We have some guys on the scout team – Malachi (Coleman), Quinn Clark, Isaiah McMorris, and those guys – they’re developing. This is the kind of year that we have to take advantage of. We lost Barret Liebentritt for the year, our starting fullback who’s been such a key part of our short yardage and goal line game. We had to go up and over on the touchdown. Unfortunately on the one we got stopped, but also the one we scored, Elijah Jeudy and Ty Robinson had to step out there and play fullback for us. We took Caleb Benning on the road this week, we took Braylen Prude on the road this week, we took Donovan Jones – guys we feel like are really emerging – Amare Sanders. This is the time where the four-game redshirts are available to you now. You might see some of those guys stepping into some roles.”

On Barret Liebentritt’s injury
“He broke a bone in his back, really, on one of the best blocks I think I’ve ever seen. He’s been a key, key part of what we do. He’ll be out for six to eight weeks. It’s not life-altering, he’ll be fine, but he’ll miss the season.”

On the team’s response to his philosophical comments
“I have a really close relationship with most of the guys. Most of my conversations with them are one-on-one and I didn’t really bring that up. I will share this with you – my question to all the guys has been, what did you learn this past week? I think a lot of them learned that we belong and can play with anybody when we do x, y and z. Then my second question is, what happened two weeks ago? I think the one thing we’re learning, and I know I’ve said this all along. Don’t play the logos. Indiana is an elite team. Ohio State, we knew it was Ohio State and we had a chance to play them. Don’t play the logo. Just go play the guys. I know a lot of guys know that sometimes they have to go through this game of confidence to recognize that ‘hey, I played really well against Ohio State. I’m a good player. I should carry that forward.’ If you guys have kids, I don’t know how often they listen to you. My son is a freshman, I don’t know how often he listens to me. Sometimes, young people have to do it themselves before they decide it’s true. We’re in that stage, and we didn’t panic after Indiana. We’re not going to panic now. We’re going to try to beat UCLA this week and go 1-0.”