Nebraska Head Coach Matt Rhule Pre-Michigan Press Conference
Opening Statement
“Excellent team. They’re the number two team in the country for a reason. It’s a great opportunity for us, experience for us. We’ll see tomorrow, Heinrich (Haarberg) and Jeff (Sims), in terms of how they practice. Obviously, Heinrich didn’t finish the game. I don’t think it’s much, but I’ll reserve judgment until I see him. We’ll see where Jeff is at, so we have a full picture of that. Luke Reimer will be questionable for the game as we sit here right now. We’ll see where he’s at. With that, I’ll see what questions you guys have.”
On how he makes the team see the Michigan game as more of an opportunity than a challenge
“We’re going to play every team we play. No one came to the University of Nebraska to not play good teams. We started off with a tough schedule. We played on the road the first game. We had some tough breaks in that game. Had a touchdown before the half – you’ve never heard us complain about anything. We’re not here to complain. We’re not here to make excuses. We’re here to play good football and win. We went to Colorado, a top 25 team at the time. They probably still are. I haven’t seen it. We played them. We’re just going to play every week and battle. This is a great opportunity. We have good players. We expect our players to play well. This game will be about blocking and tackling and covering, getting open and making throws. We’ll just play it and do that every week for eight weeks and see what happens.”
On the team being No. 6 in rush offense and No. 1 in rush defense
“It’s a step in the right direction for the blueprint of what we want to do. I’m not a super, super big stats guy in that I think sometimes, they can be misleading. But, for a team that was 108th last year in rush defense – we played a Big Ten team, we played a Pac-12 team, we faced a team in Northern Illinois. We’ve faced some good teams. I think it’s trending in the right direction. This is a team that’s going to come in, that’s trying to prove a point on the ground against you and run the ball at you. Guys have to be up for the challenge. Just from a 50,000-foot view, what we’re doing and the blueprint that we want to have, is moving in that direction. We just have to keep accelerating it each week.”
On the effectiveness of practices and achieving what they want
“I get a little animated on the sideline sometimes. We had a play late in the last game where one of our players overran. It’s all we talk about, is tracking the nearest hip and their angles. He overran a play and I screamed at him ‘all those spring practices and all those fall camp practices for that?’ Again, we had the game won and I was challenging the guys to have a little fun with them. We believe that everything that happens in the game happens in practice – good and bad. We’re going to build this program by developing. That comes through practice, by challenging our guys. Even something as silly as, we practice on Wednesday nights, the last two weeks down on the grass fields. We take a break, we go in the locker room, we come back upstairs and go in the stadium. We did that for multiple reasons, but even when we went out after the weather delay, it was like ‘hey, this is team compete, man. Let’s treat it like a Wednesday night.’ I think what we’re asking the guys to do is working in some ways, we just have to stay with it until it fully comes to fruition.”
On how much Michigan is in line with what he wants to build Nebraska to be
“Everything. You think about when Coach (Jim) Harbaugh first came in, he was taking over after a couple years of not being a great program after being a great program. He recruited. I worked at one of his camps when I was the head coach at Temple. You guys probably don’t remember, but he was the guy that started the satellite camps. It was a big controversy at the time. He was the first person to go at 12:01 to someone’s house for recruiting. I did that. I didn’t like doing it, but I did it, because he was doing it. He’s had a real impact on the game. Sometimes I’ll have recruits say to me ‘well, Coach, are we going to be good? Should I go to Michigan?’ Well, he did it. And that’s what we’re doing. His blueprint for building that program, for the way that they play, a lot of those things are similar. Obviously, we want to have a little bit of an option element at times, too. So there’s differences, but the overarching blueprint for being great on the o and d-lines, having good quarterback play, being physical at tight end, all those things – that’s what we’re doing.”
On Anthony Grant’s and Emmett Johnson’s performance on Saturday
“I thought it was good. We just did the TV show, and I know we had three sacks. A couple of those were ‘RPOs’ where it’s not there. Heinrich (Haarberg) has to just hand the ball off or get out of the pocket and throw the ball away. I said to him like don’t start being something you’re not, please don’t be that guy, you know. If the play is not there than as a team I hope we’ve all learned that if a play is not there than don’t make a bad play worse. We took a sack late in the game and four minutes on a play that we should never take four minutes on a play. Like I told the team, ‘Forget who we’re playing this week and focus on our team.’ Just because you win doesn’t mean there’s not the same issues if you were to lose. So, to answer your question I thought they did a good job. We missed one blitz pick up and Heinrich had to get outside of the pocket and throw it away. Pretty exotic blitz package from Louisiana Tech and we’ll be tested this week. All of these guys on defense Coach (Jesse) Minter and all of those guys, they know. They know protections, so we’ll have to do some things with the backs and the quarterbacks on the run game, with those third downs maybe. I thought our tailbacks did a good job.”
On Bryce Benhart’s growth
“Obviously I can’t talk about too much beyond, I can only talk about what I saw from last year and I think he’s playing well. Those guys are doing what’s asked of them. I think when you add the option component in, that adds a lot to the offensive line. There’s a lot of understanding the box count and who the read key is and the pitch key, and all of those different things. But I think Bryce is playing well, they’re certainly going to get tested this week and with the edge players that Michigan has. But you know, I think all those guys in the offensive line, they come in every day, they work, they battle, they get in games, they fight. Again, because of the way we play offense you get to some of the games and it’s a little different than what you expected, right? So, they have to kind of adjust early in the game to see how people are playing us. I think Bryce is one of those guys that does a great job at that.
On Tommi Hill’s play overall
“Yeah we just, I just love Tommi Hill. I think he’s explosive, I think he’s dynamic, I think he’s tough, I think he’s smart. You know, he was about to do the kickoff return and we got a holding call but that was his first kickoff return in the house and he fumbled it. He was the first guy who was like that’s on me. That’s terrible coach. You know? So I just think when you have good players you use them right? So, he was going to be a starting corner. He got hurt. He’s kind of a rotational corner for us. He worked twice as hard, so he’s helping us on the offensive. Initially it was kind of as a big play threat and then last week, we just started using him more, you know. You’re practicing on offense, you’re practicing on defense. So, if I have a good player I’m going to try to use him as much as possible. So, he has the mind, a lot of guys couldn’t do it. He has the mindset and competitiveness and the intelligence to do it.”
On Tommi Hill’s ability on offensive versus defense
“Probably a little more on offense, depending on the period, right. You know, he’s going to go over on some of the passing periods on defense. So, because I have a good staff I try to skew the periods where this is more of a Tommi focus on offense or a Tommi focus on defense. I have young freshmen who are redshirting and we’re already starting to deal with him. I just think when you have good players you try to utilize them.
On the preparation for Michigan’s run game
“I believe that iron sharpens iron. I believe you get better at practice. I think going against each other has helped us. You know, because we go against each other on Tuesdays and Wednesdays we compete against each other. So, I think that’s really helped us. Michigan is a good team up front in terms of their defensive line, in terms of getting off blocks. They’re not really trying to fool you necessarily. I mean, they will pressure you. They are as good a team in terms of playing with their hands and you think you have a window and they get off. So you have to be content with two and three and four yard runs. You have to get your backs to run hard. There’s not going to be gaping holes against Michigan. It’s not going to happen, it’s going to be that type of a game. Our guys get better from practice. I also think our guys get better from the trade teams that we have. When you can recruit a bunch of really good players and they’re not necessarily playing and you’re willing to rotate guys through or have some guys take some scout team reps. I think it helps them but it also really helps your starters.”
On the defensive line
“I think on the defensive line we are playing with more extension, we are getting off blocks, we are finishing line movements. The communication, dealing with ‘Hey, they are in this set.’ I think all of those things have gotten significantly better. I think we get off blocks better than we had earlier. I think we are doing a good job of that and the run game and the play hard. That is one thing about our guys. They play really really hard up front.”
On Teddy Prochazka
“Turner (Corcoran) is a starter. Teddy has a role. We bring him along every week. Every week we think, ‘Who gives us the best chance to win?’ Right now they are kind of in the roles they are in. We’ll see how this week goes. Teddy’s healthy but it’s just a matter of getting his feet wet but each week we are just going to play who we think gives us the best chance.”
On Luke Lindenmeyer
“I thought this week Lindenmeyer was the guy. I think he’s a big man. He is really good in tight confined spaces and getting his hands and running his feet. A lot of the runs we ran last week were off tackle runs. We ran the Teddy (Prochazka) and Lindenmeyer at the point of attack power off tackle power, we ran the off tackle toss play which I have never ran that play before, 40-41 pitch, Ron Brown taught me that play. He’s been fighting for that play for forever. I’ve never seen a guy happier on the sideline in my life. That’s a true old Nebraska play but Luke’s making those plays go because of the ability to block at the point of attack. When you watch Michigan, things are great when their defensive ends at the point of attack versus tight ends. We have a lot of guys that we trust. We’ll use a tackle. We have to play well but Luke’s really done a nice job for us and helped us add a component to our offense.”
On Heinrich Haarberg
“I think Heinrich has done a great job at running the option, running the zone reads, running the speed option. A lot of them he’s keeping right now so sometimes I don’t know if people know it’s the option but it is, he’s just kind of keeping the ball and running for big runs. He’s done a good job at communication in the huddle. The same problems are still there. We still dropped the snap on the first drive of the third quarter. We still just reached down instead of falling on it. We reached down to pick it up and he scampered so we still have a lot of coaching to do and I can only say that because Heinrich is such a team guy. He recognizes it so he’s a young player. He’s going to make good plays. He’s going to make mistakes. I just like that he kind of has the mindset that we preach about what’s next like whatever happens he’s going to come back the next play. It’s really great when you have guys who aren’t sensitive that you can coach. You don’t have to worry about how you say it to them and Heinrich, he’s that guy so we can coach him. I thought in the passing game, hitting that seam route to Billy (Kemp IV) in the two minutes before the half, I thought he did some things, finding (Thomas) Fidone II on the touchdown, I thought he did some really good things. There’s some other things I left out that I thought we could have made so keep accelerating him week after week and if he’s playing, we expect him to play well.”
On the sequence right before halftime
“I know it felt weird. I know the crowd was getting antsy. At the very least I did not want to give them the ball back. I did not want to risk a punt, they have a good returner. I wanted to get the first first down. That play that went to the huddle took a little bit of time, maybe we would have just gotten the ball and run a play. I thought once we got the first first down, things would be tilted in our favor and we had enough time outs to be able to manage that so maybe would I have done it differently? I don’t know, I don’t really get that option. I did feel that we got down close to the field goal that we should make. Tristan (Alvano) can make that field goal. We’re going to keep kicking him until he gets comfortable and makes the kicks but I thought that was managed fine. For the situation where we are right now in that game, I wanted to get that first first down because when you think about it, we talk a lot about that middle eight, the last four minutes of the first half and the first four minutes of the second half. We had the ball coming out of half, we go down if we make that field goal, we score in the first drive coming out, that’s a ten-point swing. To me that’s how you win games. You go all the way back to Minnesota, we go down, score a touchdown, we don’t get it, we end up throwing the pick so it doesn’t work out for us but then we come out and score the first drive coming out of the half so those 10 and 14 points swings to me are how you win games when you’re facing good teams. I was glad to see Heinrich (Haarberg) operate in that two minutes. I was glad to see him find the seam because they hadn’t played a lot of cover threes. We expected all these other covers and they come out and cover three. He finds the seam route so that was really good reps for him so as he continues.I keep telling the guys as they continue to play well and continue to show us what they can do, the more you open things up and let the guys go so it was good to see him do that.”
On how fans feel about Haarberg
“I can’t pay attention to that. If I ever started to pay attention to that, I would lose the moral high ground with the rest of the players. I remember years ago I was Coach of the Year at Temple and we’re walking down the street and some guy’s like, ‘Coach we love you’ and I remember looking at (Ventell) Bryant and saying, ‘Is that real?’ and he said, ‘No’ because he sat in the stadium last year and heard me booed so I think it’s important for our players to understand we love it when people love us. We love it when people support us but if you are going to be a quarterback, there is going to be a time when everyone’s upset with you. The best players can’t let it be anything other than that. I’ve seen both sides of it. That’s not about the outside world. I’m saying with our guys here, just focus on today. A lot of our guys are just worried about football. Make everything football and things will work out for you. They think I’m corny, I show them every Kobe Bryant video possible. We all have a craft. Master your craft. I’m sure it’s a great story right now. We’ll see how it is on Sunday if he plays so I just want him focused on football.”
On how Haarberg has dealt with eyes on him
“I always see them here, right? I don’t see them outside. He seems like he’s been great about it. We talk a lot about what we think the guys should do, but they have to do it. It seems like it’s been great, but we have to figure out what it is. I have no concerns about that with him, though. He seems like a pretty humble kid, from everything I’ve seen. It’s all fleeting. It’s day-by-day, man. You’ve got to perform today. You have to perform every single day that you’re out there.”
On how he manages the quarterback situation this week
“I play the guy I think gives us the best chance to win. It’s unique in that, I have a guy that was the starter, that couldn’t finish the game, really. And I have another guy that was the starter this past game that couldn’t finish the game. I have two quarterbacks that couldn’t finish the game. For me to sit up here on a Monday and say ‘this is what’s happening’ – this isn’t gamesmanship. Both guys do the same thing, really. My job is to get everybody ready. Chubba (Purdy) was going into the game as the number three, and he was down there at the end of the game, playing. We get Chubba reps. Everything we do is reps, reps, reps, reps, reps, reps, reps, because I don’t know who the hero is going to be this week. I don’t know who the hero is going to be next week. We just try to split the reps because we get so many reps because we’re always doing multiple drills. It’s the Nebraska way, and we do it, so that helps us, as opposed to most teams.”
On what concerns him on Michigan’s team
“They’re all excellent players. I think, when you look at a team like Michigan, I think that you look at everybody that they have. You look at all the great backs that they have. Their quarterback is an excellent player and he can beat you with his feet. Just when you think you can overload the box, he can pull a zone read down. He can run a quarterback bounce play. He can spin it. It’s an excellent, excellent, excellent offense, put together with a great offensive line, great tight ends, great backs. It’ll challenge every single aspect of every single thing you do defensively, because they’re not afraid to say ‘hey, we’re going to run this ball and get it to the unblocked player.’ The standard for them is ‘hey, make that guy miss. And if he tackles you once, you have to make him miss the next time.’ That’s the way we look at football, and when we’ve had big plays, it’s a play like Heinrich (Haarberg), where the guy is unblocked and he makes him miss and scores a touchdown. I’d say they’re good at what they do. It’ll be a challenge for our guys – a good one.”
On what makes J.J. McCarthy arguably the best quarterback in the Big Ten
“I think they’ve got a great passing game. He’s got tremendous protection, so he’s got time and he operates on time. He knows where to go with the football. If you play man against him, he goes to the route that they designed to beat man. He attacks coverages. As I said, he’s excellent with his feet too. He’s a dual-threat quarterback that plays as a pro-style quarterback, but when he needs to, he can run. He’s got poise. The game is never too big for him. I’ve watched a lot of tape on them. I watched them last year, I watched them this year. They’ve beaten two 3-1 teams. They’ve beaten two teams that were undefeated other than playing them. They beat them pretty soundly. He’s played against good competition. He’s just good at everything he does.”
On if Blake Corum reminds him of anyone
“Corum is an excellent player. I don’t know who I’d say, necessarily. I think he’s got elite burst, vision, lateral quickness. He’s tough to tackle. I think a lot of people make the mistake – if you try to tackle him low, you’re going to bounce off his legs. Who that is, I’m not great at those kind of things. I’m sorry. He possesses a lot of traits that make him hard to tackle and hard to defend.”
On what he’s seen collectively from the linebackers
“At the two inside linebacker positions, not necessarily counting the jack – jacks all kind of do a little something different, so we try to utilize those guys based on what we’re doing. The other guys, Javin (Wright) comes in on third down a lot to cover and they play hard. They’re physical, they tackle. Nick (Henrich) has got his feet under him now. We’ve played a lot of those guys because, if we got into a situation like this, where we’re not sure if Luke (Reimer) is ready to go, we have other guys that have a lot of reps. I just always feel like there’s nothing worse than asking a guy to go in and play in the fourth quarter when he’s standing there all game. There’s nothing worse than telling a guy to go start game six when he hasn’t played. So we’ve played a lot of guys. When you face a team like this that’s physical, that’s going to run the ball right at you, you better have guys that are ready to go and other guys that are ready to step in. I think the linebacker group has played well and they have to play well again this Saturday.”
On how he builds mental toughness
“I think a lot of that comes to the offseason. I could talk for hours on this. I believe that toughness is a skill, I believe it’s a muscle. I don’t believe it’s something that you’re innately born with. I believe it’s a skill. There’s a great book by Steve Magness, it’s called ‘Do Hard Things.’ I think that great coaches and great organizations scaffold and give guys hard things to do that they’re capable of doing. The old school, make them do things so hard that they quit, that’s not really what it’s supposed to be. We’ve tried to be a team that asks our guys to do things that are well within their range, but that are really hard and teach them that there’s a positive application for pain and to embrace the things that are hard. Eventually, that mindset starts to flip. The modern day, protect your kids from going through hard things, is not good, in my opinion. It’s not this caveman approach of ‘cuss the guys out and beat them up,’ it’s about keeping everything within their approximate range of ‘hey, you can do this.’ Never ask them something they can’t do, but consistently stretching their comfort zone. How do you do that within the season? You have to blend sports science with mental toughness and understand that because of the attention that’s on what these guys do – if I could make them all turn off their social media mentions, I would. But I can’t. That is one of the hardest things. You have to build mental toughness so that they can withstand that one day, someone says something great about you and the next day it’s not. I do think it’s about our entire offseason approach. It’s really about, everything that we do, is to build a toughness and a resilience that builds players up, not beats them down. The shame to me in society now is that people think of coaches as people that are on the attack, because there are some that are like that. Great coaches scaffold and build and keep bringing players to a level just beyond what they think they’re capable of and then you look up one day, and they’re so much better. And they’re so much stronger. And they’re so much more mentally tough. The last thing I’ll say – this is probably way too long, but I like a question like this – I believe that mental toughness in today’s day and age is also about just being present. The ability to be where you are, the ability to be in the moment. That’s one of the things that I keep challenging our guys. Some of our players aren’t playing at the level they’re always capable of because they’re a play ahead. The play starts and they’re already trying to do what they think is going to happen instead of just being in the moment. ‘Hey, guys, just catch the snap. Hey guys, just put your eyes on the receiver. Just do exactly what you’re trained to do.’ As teams get good and as they get confident, they start worrying less about everything that’s happening around them and they start being more in the moment. That’s Dr. (Brett) Haskell. That’s Corey (Campbell). That’s the coaches, and that’s also the players and the commitment they make to their mental health and mental strength and competitive mindset.”
On how he balances mental health and mental toughness
“Well I think it’s the same. I think of mental health as a continuum. On one end you have an elite, competitive mindset and on the other end you would probably have - and again this isn’t my take this is Dr. (Joanne) Perry of Carolina or Dr. (Brett) Haskell - true mental illness. We are always somewhere on the continuum. We tell our guys if you broke your leg, you’re going to see the trainer. If you’re sore you see the recovery guys. Even when you’re feeling great we still ask you to get in the ice and make sure your body is being taken care of. It’s the same thing with your mental health and mental wellness and mental approach. When you’re really struggling you see somebody. When you’re kind of going along we are still working constantly on our mindset and our mental health and our mental approach and the way we see things. And then our anxiety. A guy like me. I struggle with anxiety. I sit there and can’t sleep at night. ‘Man, what’s going to happen?’ That’s just football. Imagine my kids, my son. I just try and talk openly with our guys. I struggle with worrying about what’s next and with being in the moment so whether it’s taking two days a week and doing mindfulness with the players to make sure we’re building that skill of being present or if it’s having these resources, I think all of that is one continuum as well as health so if these things over here are struggling, it’s really hard to deal with this and we want to have an organization that knows what’s going on with the players. It’s really hard to be present and it’s really hard to be mentally tough when your mom’s sick at home, when someone in your family just had something happen to you so we don’t want to be an organization that’s football only and so we try to have a welcoming presence where guys know within our building they can be psychologically safe, they can talk about the things they have going on, they have resources, they have people that care about them so I think that’s our job. I think football’s the fun part. The real job is making sure these guys’ lives are okay and again, today’s day and age it’s not just their physical health, it’s their mental health, it’s the decisions they make. We are constantly working on that. Mental toughness is not beating players down, it’s building them. You don’t build muscle by not lifting. You don’t build muscle by saying, ‘Hey you’re strong.’ You build muscle by lifting and I believe we build mental toughness by doing hard things that are in our proximal range and we just get better and better and better and better. I read about it so that I can adequately be able to explain it to players and then I let Dr. Haskell and the experts actually really talk about it.”