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Nebraska Football
Postgame Quotes vs. Akron
Sept. 6, 2025 (Lincoln, Neb.)
Nebraska 68, Akron 0
Head Coach Matt Rhule
Opening Statement
“It’s the things that differentiate us in recruiting, so I want to thank the students. Great crowd tonight, so thank you to everyone who came. It was the first time since 2009, not that the history of it matters, we played a lot of players. Every player that could play got in the game, maybe one or two didn’t. We were able to get a lot of players into the game, a lot of players that work hard, who sacrifice, so we put them in and were able to play to the standard. The shut out was a really exciting moment for us. Proud of the guys, proud of their effort this week. They practiced hard and they went out and they overcame some early self inflicted wounds and played the game pretty clean. Proud of that. Excellent to see Jacory (Barney Jr.) and what his punt return did. Had 87 yeard. Keith was just telling me that’s more than the season total from the past couple years. We knew we were going to have good opportunity with that. It’s all these things mixed together. The defense having good field position so we can be aggressive on the punt return, it’s guys holding guys up. Having guys like Derrick Branch and Vince Genatone who do great jobs on those teams. Having young guys like Kahmir Prescott who step up. Really proud of that. Finally, Luke Lindenmyer at the very end proposed to his girlfriend, I’m so embarrassed, I don’t know her name, but she’s a lovely young lady and she’s a Scarlet and he proposed and she said yes. Excited for him.
On tonight’s complete performance compared to last week’s
“I thought we played pretty well last week, I mean it wasn’t good enough, I’m always going to look for better, I am going to say it's not good enough, we were a pretty good football team last week. I think I’ll watch the tape, I'll just try and do the same thing I did last week, just look at the things that were good, look at the things that were bad. Obviously a first goal inside the five and to not get it in is not good enough, to fumble the ball on the goalline is not good enough, but at the same time we kind of came back with a what’s next attitude. I hated the fact that they were able to drive the ball before the half and have a chance at a field goal. I hated the fact that they were able to drive the ball to start the second half, but credit to our guys they came off and they blocked it. I loved the intensity of our guys on the sidelines, the Bufords demanding that we block it, so i’'m sure there’s going to be lots and lots of things and we’re not here to comment on the overall, we are here to just keep fixing all the things we see and different things will come up, but in general all three sides put it together, so I’m pleased with that.”
On Kade Pietrzak
“I was disappointed that we didn’t play Kade more last week. The way we have it stacked, it’s Cam (Lenhardt), Williams (Nwaneri), and Kade at the same position. They’re all three really good players, it’s just sort of the position. They all fit that. So just trying to move guys around, Cam Lenhardt played nose tackle tonight at one point, he was in our five-down package. Kade is an excellent player, he makes big plays, he plays really hard. The more he plays, the better he’ll get. Cam was one of our captains tonight. Cam elected to have surgery this week. He went Tuesday afternoon for surgery. He elected to practice Tuesday morning which means he couldn’t eat after midnight, so he went out to a full-padded practice. Which everyone acts like our practices are crazy, our players come out like “coach we’ve got to do what today.” Cam walked out there with no food in his stomach, had a little bit of water and some gatorade, had surgery and practiced the next day. When people ask me about year three, it has nothing to do with me, it’s about guys like Cam. We just to have to continue to find ways to get Cam, and Williams, and Kade on the field. That’s one of the things that Terry did a great job of this week as did John. We had a lot more packages to play different guys in as we get more comfortable. We had more packages where Donny (Donovan Jones) went in, and we had three corners. Really nice job by the defensive staff to make sure that we were rotating guys, not just rotating them, but giving guys roles. Gabe Moore played his first football for us tonight, and he didn’t have his first full practice until Tuesday of this week. It looked like he played pretty well too. Looking forward to those guys continuing to ascend and improve.”
On what surgery Cam Lenhardt had done
“It was something on his hand. Something he was able to play through. He had something with his thumb and his hand. He played with a cast tonight.”
On confidence for players going forward
“You know Quinn (Clark), for me that’s a special Husker moment there. His father, great player here, passed away. I’ll never forget when we offered him, Coop and I were in the end zone of camp and he kept running around. Vershaun and Damon and a bunch of guys kept sending me his tape and I said ‘get him to camp’ and we got him to camp and he’s this big athlete walking up and finally walking up. We were in the north end of Memorial and I said ‘where’s your mom’ and he said ‘she’s right there.’ Ironically she was standing right there, and we walk over and offered him a scholarship in the end zone of Memorial Stadium. You think about his father not being there, but probably looking down on him in a place that meant a lot to him. He scored that touchdown and you know me, I’m the most non-celebratory person. I yelled at Dane () to go get that ball and we got that ball for him. Quinn was the guy that was coming on. Mekahi () knew Mekhi (Nelson) was coming on. I was really proud of Mekhi. We’re both from PA, so we talk a lot of trash to each other and the only thing he said to me all night was ‘hey do you want me to make another tackle on kickoff,’ because he made a tackle on kickoff. A lot of those guys are really good players and their time is coming. My challenge to the guys both before the game and during halftime was to finish the game and have a killer instinct. Not let people lie around and I thought we did that. We were in there and Marques (Buford Jr.) was like ‘we’ve never done this before, we’ve never had a 68-0.’ It’s not an FCS game, that’s a group of five team. Happy for them that they did that. At the end of the season we won’t talk about this game. We did it and now we have to move on.”