Matt Rhule 
Nebraska Head Coach
Postgame Quotes vs. Iowa (Nov. 24, 2023)
Iowa 13, Nebraska 10 

Opening Statement
“I can’t tell you how much I wanted that game for them and to walk off the field winners. For them to lose in that fashion I wouldn’t wish that on anybody. They are winners. Very grateful for that senior class. They stood in the gap. Everyone might not be able to see it yet, but I truly believe they’ve built something really really special. I hate the way it ended. Credit to Iowa. They are a really good football team. They play a certain way. Obviously had our chances down the stretch. We just weren’t able to make it happen. The things that affected us all year, affected us. And we lost the football game obviously.”

On what happened on the pick
“I wouldn’t be able to say. There were obviously no timeouts left. They were trying to take a shot over the top of Jaylen (Lloyd) again. There was a 3 level flood there. They blitzed all three of those downs there. We looked like we picked it up. I would assume they were trying to throw to Thomas (Fidone II) there that’s the lowest part. Must not of seen the defender there. But I’d have to see the tape to see what happened.  With 23 seconds, we are trying to push the ball down the field. Had an open over route and then cut in behind it. Chasing it this way hoping to see the ball past the sticks. Clock it. Then take one more chance on a long field goal.”

On the common threads throughout the season
“Oh it’ll all be fixed. It’ll all be improved. Maybe this is about where we are right now. Sometimes people see it from the outside and they think, ‘wow they really messed that up’ or ‘another short loss.’ I see it as, ‘Man these guys, how many guys go down and continue to put guys in, and we just battle right?’ (Quinton) Newsome goes down in the scheme, (Marques) Buford (Jr.) didn’t really play in the scheme, Blaise (Gunnerson) couldn’t go into the game and pregame. Sua Lefotu is out there just out there in his redshirt year playing nose. What might to the outside world look like, ‘Man, it looks like an unbelievable job by a lot of people to get everything this close and to battle like this.’ So, it doesn’t excuse the question about the timeout there or the last timeout. That’s ridiculous, right? There will be a day where we have seven wide receivers traveling with us and active. Those things will happen. We’re just not quite there yet and that’s why I’m so proud of these guys. They battle, they fight and we don’t make excuses. We just come back. I think that’s the key. Moving forward I think they ran the ball on us a couple times. I think we had to continue to develop our run defense and our ability to run the football. We couldn’t run the ball in the game to the level that we wanted and that’s what they did really well. He (Coach Ferentz) has been there a long time. They have a formula, we came down there, we battled and we couldn’t quite get it done.” 

On Chubba (Purdy’s) game overall
“I thought Chubba was a little bit sporadic early. There wasn’t a ton of pressure so we told him just to settle down and make plays. I thought he started to do that. You know that was a cold, windy day and I think he handled those things well. Obviously, it’s protecting the football. The one play, I know he was trying to throw the ball forward, that was a fumble that led to them getting the ball. We have the ball down at the 20 going in, you talk about the margin of error. We can’t turn the ball over even if we get it back. We put the ball away and run for the first down and that’s how we put away games. People always think you fix things by saying ‘go get that player’, but we have a lot of good players here. Part of fixing these close losses is asking each player to get a half-point better and learn from these things and understand situation football. Situation football will be way different next year when you’re talking about our games. Tommi (Hill) picks that pass off and we have a chance to go win the game. Chubba did a really nice job, made some really big third down conversions. Looking at this we were at 8-for-17 on third downs, one of our best days. That’s a credit to him and he’s only going to get better.”