Nebraska Head Coach Matt Rhule Bye Week Quotes

On the team schedule during the bye week
“We did our normal Monday. We replaced afternoon meetings with study hall, so the guys could get a good jump academically. We’ll practice Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and then we’ll give everyone off Friday, Saturday, Sunday and come back to work on Monday.” 

On the ball security on offense
“I think we’re second in the Big Ten on turnover margin. I just went through the number with the team. It’s a good example of putting your mind to something and getting it done. We won the turnover game this past weekend, so that’s every game except one. Only one game we’ve tied and the rest of the games, we’ve won. It’s been months and months of work and it’s also something we were working on last year. It wasn’t coming to fruition, I still think the work we did last year, this off season, and this year in training camp has helped. The guys are protecting the football and they’re running violently but still have great ball security, so it’s been a good thing.” 

On the turnover margin and being the most physical team
“I think it’s a work in progress. I think we’ve been a very physical team. Playing Illinois, I didn’t think we were the more physical team. I feel like we were looking at the scoreboard instead of playing the next play. We were just worried about winning, which ultimately comes from me. I think we’ve been a very physical team, but we have a long way to go. Culture of execution, I think penalties going into last game we were 120 out of 134 in terms of most penalized teams. On the flip side, if you look at our games, we’ve had 47 penalties thrown against us and 47 penalties thrown against our opponents. They’ve been highly highly penalty-filled games. It’s not like we’re getting destroyed by, like they have 11, and we have three. That is something I’d like to see improved. I’ve talked to the guys about improving. When I’m talking about penalties, really all I’m talking about is pre-snap penalties which we eliminated last game for the most part, and 15-yard personal fouls, the things that happened at Illinois that aided all the scores. I think we’ve improved in that area. There are certainly things we have to work on, things we have to get better at, we know that. Special teams is a tale of two things. You have the last two games, you have five or six balls put down inside the 10. Punts down that landed inside the 10. You fake a field goal, you tackle them on a fake punt. We fake a punt, they fake a field goal, we stop them. Then you have two blocked field goals, obviously, you have two blocked punts. To ever have two blocked punts and not lose the game is almost impossible. Credit to Nate Boerkircher, the play he made on that blocked punt. He runs the guy down and tackles him at the two so we’re able to have this epic goal line stance. I think that’s one area. I think our run game offensively is not where it needs to be, we’re not hitting the home run plays. We’re getting out and getting 12 yards. There’s a lot of very specific things we’re going to have to work on. We’re doing a good job at self-scouting ourselves right now to see what the best things we do are.”  

On Riley Van Poppel and redshirts halfway through the season
“This was a targeted decision. He’s going to play in this game. He’s a physical run-stopper. He was excellent on the goal line so he was going to fit into this game. We look at all the guys, some of them have one game left, some of them have two games left, some guys haven’t played yet, they have four. I think every guy is a little different. The way we build the team is to redshirt the guys we can and let them develop and play them the right amount. James Williams is out there, has a big game statistically, so we knew the decision to redshirt him last season was the right decision. Now you see a much more developed player in my opinion.” 

On accessing quarterback play 
“I think he’s (Dylan Raiola) been great. He’s had some wow moments. He gets us in the right checks. I think he protects the football. We had the one interception on the RPO this week, that’s a well-coached defense they’re physical. The wind was hard early in the game and so I think there were some lessons. We knew in the game that we needed to be the best way to win that game was for us to get up and make them play differently. Make them play a way they didn’t want to play.  Dylan and the guys led us to two touchdown drives. With three of the drives in the second half, we started inside the five, it was hard to get in the rhythm. That’s not an excuse, we have to get in the rhythm that way. I think Dylan is the guy who the others on offense look to. We can continue to help him improve his run game. I think he will get better every week.”

On teaching moments for the running backs and creating breakout plays
“If you go back through that game, whether you throw a screen to Thomas (Fidone II) early and they tackle him low. We throw the ball to Jaylen (Lloyd), We didn’t just call that thinking we would get a first down. We think that’s a touchdown and he gets a tackle low with one hand. Yet, you go back to the Illinois game, our defense was struggling, and every time they scored we answered. The guys made plays. I’m not a ‘Hey, just do your job” guy I am a “Hey, do your job and then go and make a play.’ Part of that is not getting tackled. We’ve gotten tackled low a lot through the first six games. It’s a unique balance that we didn’t tackle great the last two weeks at least at the level I want. We went live versus the scout team on defense, on Tuesday and Wednesday. We tackled to the ground and it’s easier to do because you’re doing the tackling, you’re less likely to get hurt. After the first two drives, we tackled much better than we have this year. It’s hard to say, ‘Hey, go tackle these guys right here. Hit (Thomas) Fidone at the ankles. Hit Emmett (Johnson) at the ankles.’ So you’re trying to always do drills. It’s not just manifesting itself at the level I want. It’s part of us coming up with a strategy and practice. That play, Dante (Dowdell) stiff-arms him and we need to do that. The week before, Washington made all of those safeties miss and had 207 yards rushing. I also know if you face a team led by a good head coach, when they give up a lot of yards rushing, they aren’t going to give those up again. So, next week you have to be ready. They played really well on defense. That’s a major area for us. Those 12-yard runs need to be 50-yard runs.”

On Ceyair Wright and balancing his play with Tommi Hill’s return
“Ceyair has done an excellent job. He’s competitive, he’s tough, he’s smart. He’s helped us on the special teams. He made that play on the back fade of the goal line, where he reached back and made a play. The goal line stands weren’t great calls by Tony (White). They were good calls by Tony, but the guys made great plays. (Isaac) Gifford is man-to-man. He’s ineligible, so he runs right through and hits him. Ceyair picking a ball down. It’s just elite focus. Ceyair’s really helped us during this time with Tommi as he comes back. I think it’s probably too early. We are always talking about ways we can help ourselves. I’m not sure I am ready to know that yet. We hope to get Tommi back. We thought he was going to play in that game until kickoff. He ran out, and he kind of couldn’t just go, but again we have Ceyair, so we aren’t forcing Tommi to come back too early. We want him to come back and be healthy. So hopefully Tommi can have a good week of practice, and then between the three of those guys, we will rotate them around.”

On blocking pods and fixes in the second half against Rutgers
“The first one, Isaac (Gifford) blocked the wrong guy. I say that because I don’t think anyone here would question his determination. It’s the fact that they brought the gunner in, and he just missed it. Then, they had a couple of long runs. He came over to me and said, ‘I got it. I messed up.’ The second one, our personal protector just didn’t make the block. They were challenged in every regard.” 

On if Brian Buschini had the option to do another fake punt if he saw the opportunity
“If I could go back, I probably would have faked the punt on the first one. Because we knew they were going to do that. We knew that the corners were going to sit there. We knew we were going to be able to throw it with the wind and our punter. I believed in Brian (Buschini). It’s one of the best things I’ve ever seen. It was the fact that this kid gets hurt and he can’t even move. He’s on the turf field out there during halftime trying to see if he could get his back loosened up to throw because we were going to throw. He found a way to get it done. I think all the guys recognized that this has to improve. It’s also my job to show them that we have to eliminate the catastrophic things because the other things are all trending in the right direction. Our kickoff coverage has improved. Our kickoff return didn’t have that many opportunities for that and the punt rush, we got close to blocking one. Buschini again, flipping the field that last punt was a big play. Him faking that punt, they didn’t come after us after that play. It flipped the field. Then, the next punt he punts the ball down to the five, and then they never really rushed us again. That last punt I was scared to death they were going to come through. The fake punt slowed them down a little bit.”

On how rare it is for teams to let gunners run free
“It’s an old Frank Beamer, Virginia Tech thing. They used to rush the punt and leave the corners off at nine yards, they just stood there and watched. These guys are doing it at five yards. Not many people have a punter with an arm like ours does. He can throw, throw. He threw a 22-yard honey-hole shot. That’s hard to do. Thankfully Buschini has one of the better arms on the team to be quite honest. He’s good at that stuff. We had Johnny Hekker at Carolina, who’s epic at this stuff so we have some of the stuff that they had, so it worked.”

On injury updates
“I think Tristan (Alvano) is going to potentially begin the process of testing and seeing where he’s at, and whatever that means in terms of when he’s comfortable and healthy. There’s Tommi (Hill), up until kick-off, we thought he was going to go, so it’s just a day-by-day thing with him.”

On Blye Hill
“We had him up ready to go, but we didn’t play him because Ceyair (Wright) played so well. To me, you’re looking at a guy who has four open games in the next six games. Pending a bomb going off, you’re probably going to play him for four games. Amare Sanders has a game left, Larry Tarver has two games left. These young players we’re developing and getting better and better and better. They have some opportunities here. Blye (Hill) wants to play so if Tommi or if Ceyair were to get hurt, Blye would be right there. Jeremiah Charles has done a good job at stepping in as needed. He’s out there fifth corner two weeks ago, and now he’s the third corner, with Tommi out. It’s really been Tommi and Blye out, so credit to him.” 

On why Heinrich Haarberg isn’t used more
“I think he needs to play more. So I don’t disagree when a fan says that. The challenge is having a lot of good players on offense. The offense has me saying, ‘give Jacory (Barney Jr.) nine times, throw the fade to (Isaiah) Neyor, why is Fidone catching it five times, get (Jahmal) Banks eight catches, why hasn’t Carter Nelson touched the ball today, hand the ball to Janiran (Bonner) on the reverse.’ We have a lot of players that I want to see touch the football. If you think about what’s happening on the perimeter, if we can just get our run game up to 180 yards per game between the tackles, this is all of us, the o-Line, throw the RPO there when they blitz, have to make someone miss. If we can just improve that number, I feel like the overall thing would happen. Part of it is that we spend so much time getting Heinrich ready to be the second quarterback that that’s what delayed it a little bit. I don’t disagree, but I also will say that the offense is stacked. The offensive staff will hear me say that every day about Fidone. They hear me say that about all these guys every day.”

On Indiana’s 6-0 start and the Big Noon Kickoff game
“I’m not surprised by it. The team they had at James Madison was an excellent team. The world has changed, you come somewhere now, and a lot of your good players come with you. They brought over a lot of guys that know how to win and they have a great coaching staff. The Cignetti family if you’re from where I’m from, they’re a legendary coaching family. Coach Cignetti Sr. was as good as there was and both brothers are great brothers. He’s turned around every place he’s been and two or three years ago, Indiana had a good team. It’s not like they’ve been in the gutter for a long time, they’ve had good seasons, and he comes in with swagger, he has a really good quarterback that transferred in. They had some good players that were already there. They had some great wideouts and they’re rolling. They’re following his demeanor and they play with a lot of confidence and swagger, so it’s great. It goes back to what I was saying – all of training camp, of looking at the schedule before the season saying what games were easy and what games were hard, it’s not the way of college football anymore. How many teams have lost to teams you never would’ve thought they would’ve lost to. You never would’ve thought Alabama would lose to Vandy. You never would’ve thought that USC would lose to Minnesota. The portal, transfers, and NIL has changed all of it. That’s why there’s no undefeated NFL teams. It used to be that a player would say that ‘I got offered from Ohio State, I’m going there.’ Now he might get offered from Blue Mountain State and that’s the top school in the country and we’ll give you x amount of money and another school that’s two pegs lower on the pecking order of recruiting will give him three times that. For these guys he’s their 15th best recruit, but for these guys they can’t get the ones above him, so we’ll just get him. So now the kid is like ‘do I go there for 50 grand or do I go there for 250?’ Why were the teams of the 90s, early 2000s, and 2010s so dominant? It’s because they stacked up all the talent and when guys got hurt, the next guy that came in was an All-American. Now the All-Americans are all spreading out a little more, so it’s just different. In the end, it’s a tremendous example that the roster is a completely different roster this year than it is next year. You guys got stuck with me, I didn’t get to bring anyone with me. They didn’t let me bring (Christian) McCaffery, they didn’t let me bring Brian Burns. We came in here and just having been building with the guys that were here and trying to recruit, more of the old school ways. It’s a different world now and we just have to adjust to it.”

On if players have talked to him about transferring and wanting to redshirt
“I’ve had no one say they’d like to leave and redshirt. My main conversation is to tell them they should redshirt. I don’t believe that if they are playing like, Jacory (Barney Jr.) shouldn’t redshirt, he’s playing. If you’re playing eight plays a game as a freshman or playing 50 plays a game as a senior. Look at Ty Robinson right now. Was he that way last year?  He was good. He’s gotten better every year. That extra year for him. I believe in redshirting, I believe in the old-school process. It does take parents and players who trust you. At the same time, if a player says to me ‘Coach, this just isn’t right for me I want to transfer.’ I’m not going to throw them off the team. That’s not my way. I haven’t had anyone come to me and ask to transfer.”

On Ty Robinson playing 61 snaps
“I think it’s worthy of praise. I’d like to try to keep it at 40-45 snaps. It was a little different because there were some subtle things, like Tony (White) getting out of his comfort zone and playing with three different personnel packages. He played with three true linebackers. What that allowed us to do is get us to where we had a lead. Now to me, playing 60 plays when you’re pass rushing that’s a lot different than 60 plays of power ISO, so getting the lead and letting Ty (Robinson) pass rush. He’s in great shape and practices hard. Last year he had that shoulder injury. I told him ‘if you get into great shape and play hard you can’t play hard for 15 snaps in the game.’ I think playing 61 plays is a credit to him.”

On the feeling going into the second half of the season
“I didn’t set any goals out. I just want to be relevant, at least we are relevant. I still wake up at night upset that we lost to Illinois. It’s the God’s honest truth. After we win, I’m happy for 20 minutes. Then I’m like, let’s get ready for what’s next. I’m proud of our players though. I’m proud of the work and lack of distractions, the selflessness, the growth. I’m proud of a lot of those things. The second half of the season will be the same to me as the first. After Illinois, I could just feel our team and our coaching staff wanting to win this game. I enjoyed this game better where the guys just go and play. I am going to do my best to go 1-0 every week. Even in the bye week, I’m going to be great this week. Even some of that has to do with rest, getting away, it’s practicing the heck out of the young guys. That’s really all I look at.” 

On how often he does two days of tackling in a week
“So I haven’t ever really done that. My teams at Temple and Baylor, they would’ve come out on Tuesday and thudded okay and then on Wednesday I had to show them the bad plays and they had to go out and tackle. They had an edge to them. We really hadn’t gotten them back yet in the last two weeks. We were better against Purdue but to me, the game is easy when it comes down to tackling. I told the defense you’re going to have to win third down. Rutgers gets in a lot of downs. I think it was just epic how well they did. I told the offense the key for you is just to score touchdowns in the red zone. Their defense is in the top 10 in red zone defense. We were there twice, we scored twice. It might be a reverse sweep, but we got there twice and got in the endzone. I told special teams to just steal possession and we stole one. I didn’t think we were going to get two punts blocked but we stole a possession. So it was all of those things so part of that was tackling. When I was at Penn State, every Tuesday our defense tackled the scout team so I decided we were going to have to tackle. The great message to our guys is they put a little more in, they got a lot more out.”

On James Williams
“He can be whatever he wants to be. He was on the scout team last week. This wasn’t like, this is going to be a big James Williams week. Get Riley Van Poppel, Sua (Lefotu) in there, let’s get ready to go. He wants to play, so he goes over to the scout team when Terrance (Knighton) sends him over, and he gets good reps, good tackles and works and all of a sudden, it shows up during the game. I know James, I know his heart, I know who he is as a person. He’s a really, really wonderful young man. We had the D-line at our house two weeks ago, and my kids love him, and my dogs love him. He’s just got that heart, and I think everyone rallies around him. He made some plays. What I really liked was, I’m not big on all the ‘look at me’ stuff. I’m old school that way. I loved after his one sack – I always like to watch the TV copy – he’s pointing at Jimari (Butler) and thanking him. Jimari (Butler) did an excellent job getting up the field so he could get up and under. To me, it’s selfless. I think Terrance has done an excellent job in that room of building a brotherhood and camaraderie where they all root for each other. I’m proud of James a lot. He’s doing well in school, he’s doing well socially, he’s a really good dude.” 

On recruiting during the bye week
“We won’t do much this week. We might go see one guy here, one guy there. We’ve been sending some guys out along the way. We’re going to use the second bye week as the big recruiting week. This week to me, this started in July. We started training camp in July. Most Big Ten teams, they didn’t go six in a row like we did. Some did, but not many. I really want the coaches and staff and players to work and take a little time to refresh, come back, and we’ll play three games then have a bye week. That bye week, we’ll go recruit, and we’ll use the rest of our days. To your point, the change in the schedule has made it a little bit harder. There’s no December recruiting now. Most of the days, I’m going to try to use them for my days.”

On similarities between the mindset after the Michigan loss last year and Illinois loss this year
“I’m a button pusher, there’s no doubt. That’s my job. There’s no doubt. I described it to the players today as the whack-a-mole game. Last year, it was turnovers. You fix turnovers, and all of a sudden, penalties show up. Now you’re like, penalties. All of a sudden, field goal block. Boom, punt blocked. As the years go on, the lessons are learned. The lessons I’m talking about or Tony (White) is talking about start happening amongst the guys. When we refer to culture, that’s really what it is. I think we’re unbelievably physical in the spring and in training camp. There’s just a natural inclination for people, as the season goes on – Mitch (Cholewinski) comes up to me and talks about player load. You naturally want to cut back. To play great defense, you have to practice great defense. We practiced hard the Illinois week, don’t get me wrong. I just think that, again, we’re learning how to do things. Notre Dame lost to Northern Illinois and the next week, they came out against Purdue, and they looked like they were on a mission. I remember watching that, and that’s what happens to teams. We still have a lot of things to figure out about ourselves. Last year, after Michigan, it was like ‘I will not tolerate quitting.’ That’s all that message was. It was, you can lose. We don’t want to lose. But people are not spending their money to come to a game and watch us lay down. That’s not happening. We certainly didn’t quit against Illinois. I just think against Illinois, when we got to the moment, it was tight. It came down to the fourth quarter the last two weeks. It’s two seven-point games. I didn’t think in either game that our guys panicked. I thought they played until the end of the game. Hopefully we’re making some progress in that area.”

On the thinking during pregame
“There is no thinking. So much of this is just passion and energy and excitement. We’re going to come together and celebrate each other. Our team really, really revolves around certain guys. When Roman Mangini goes out there – and he went against (Malcolm) Hartzog, who’s a starter – those two guys battled, and it just lights the team up. We might not do it next week, who knows what we’ll do. It’s just something that seems to make sense. I think so much of this thing is getting out of your head and going from your heart, and it just felt like at Purdue, we maybe needed that – didn’t need it, but did it. I don’t know if I told you the whole origin of it. When I worked for one of my mentors, George DeLeone, he would talk over the years about playing at Nebraska. This is what he said – I don’t know if this is true, people might say I’m full of it, but this is what he told me. He said the O-line would line up, and they would put the D-line or the linebackers and run into them. The O-line would run into them, as the other team came out and half the time, you lost the game before you even played them. You came out and saw the physicality of Nebraska and the pipeline, and you were like, ‘it’s going to be a long day.’ We were at Temple at the time, and we said we were going to do Oklahoma drill at the 45-yard line. I still have coaches that’ll say it to me. Then we got to Baylor, and kids were like, ‘we’re not doing that, let’s do pat and go and get open.’ So we stopped doing it, and I was fired up for the Purdue game. I said ‘give me two guys’, and this week, three guys came out when I asked for an o-lineman. There’s not much to it, just a way to celebrate being physical.”

On Micah Mazzccua going out during the one-on-one drill
“I was pleased when they all came out. The hardest thing is when one guy won’t leave, and you have to referee it. I was happy for Micah. He wanted to get in there. He played, he was the jumbo tight end, he caved that edge down. Micah played the way he’s capable of playing. Micah can be whatever he wants to be. He’s like everyone else, he just has to stay focused day by day. He really helped us in those crucial moments. We went for a fourth-and-one on our own 30 or 35-yard line on our first drive. We were three-for-three on fourth down if you count the fake punt. That was not a game we were going to play conservatively. Him and (Luke) Lindenmeyer, (Nate) Boerkircher, (Barret) Liebentritt, all those guys, running the power play. I was happy for Micah, hopefully we can build on it this week.”