Football Video & Report: Dec. 19

Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule met with members of the media following practice on Friday. He discussed the offensive staff.

“Every good offensive coordinator wants to have guys who help in all kinds of areas. You have a guy helping you on third down, you have a guy helping in the red zone, and they’re all going to work together, but having someone take the run game and bring the things to you and then Dana (Holgorsen) can pick what he likes. Dana is ultimately the decision maker; he is the guy in charge. He calls the plays, he puts together the installs, he does the scripts, but having guys bringing ideas in, and Lonnie (Teasley) and Geep (Wade) will just work tremendously well together.”

Rhule also talked about new defensive edge coach Roy Manning’s fit with the team.

“Roy (Manning) is an accomplished coach. He has been a lot of different places. At the end of the day we want to coach really well and we want to retain great talent. He has recruited some of the highest level players in the country. Rob (Aurich) is bringing in his system, wanting to bring some guys in that understand his system and can teach his system. I have had a chance to coach against Roy when he was at Oklahoma and I was at Baylor, so I didn’t know Roy at all. I met him when he came here. It was just a great fit for Rob wanting to have guys who can come in and can be a part of what he teaches from day one and not having to teach the whole staff it. Right now one of the greatest things I’ve been a part of is being in the room with Phil Snow and Rob and just watching the lack of egos in there has been unreal. Moving forward once the bowl game is over we are putting in Rob’s system, so having guys that know that system will just speed up the process.”

Rhule spoke on special teams coordinator Mike Ekeler helping on the defensive side.

“He is doing it for the bowl game. There might be a world where that happens, but what I don’t want to do is rob Peter to pay Paul. What we have done on special teams this year has been a major, major, major jump, and now that our players know how good output can be from doing the off season drills and all the things that Coach Eckler has us do I think the buy was great last year and will be twice as much. We have had a couple other schools try to hire some of his special team’s assistants or at least interview them, Josh Martin and Nick Humphrey. For me I know this, this is the special teams system I will use the rest of my days. He could continue to help on defense, but I’ll have to wait and see how Rob feels. One of the great things about getting Rob here early was to just to A, get to know the players, but B, also to see the coaches that are here to see how we can put together the best defensive staff possible.”