Rhule Recaps Indiana Game, Previews Oregon

Nebraska football head coach Matt Rhule met with members of the media on Monday to address the upcoming game against Oregon this Saturday night. 

“Just going back to last Saturday, obviously a disappointing day for us in terms of not being able to find a way to win that game,” he said. “My credit goes to Indiana. I thought they made the plays they had to make to win a battle like that. I thought our guys were ready to play; they answered the call time and time again. But when we watch the tape from Saturday on Sunday, I think you have a team that’s angry and knows they let one get away. We were certainly disappointed, but not discouraged. We also understand that’s what it looks like. You have to not play really well for 55 minutes; you have to play well for 60. Each and every one of us, coaches, staff, players- know we have to be one or two plays better. I encourage the guys to be one or two plays better. Every one of us, so we can win that game when it comes back in the future. We turn our sights to Oregon. The No. 25 team in the nation. Unbelievably talented team. It’s one of those teams that instead of saying “number this, number that,” you can say their names since you’ve seen their names since they were freshmen in high school on the On3 sites and all of those different sites. You know them by name; you know how talented they are. They’re really well-coached by Coach (Dan) Lanning. Back-to-back CFP’s and still competitive on both sides of the ball. We have a really big week of work to go on the road and go into that environment, that crowd noise. It’s a late, late game. I’ve never coached a game that late, but none of that really matters to us. We have to make sure we are prepared, focused and have a great week of practice.  

Rhule analyzed why he went for it on fourth down against Indiana. 

“I followed the analytics,” he said. “The analytics said to go up until 4th-and 10. I just felt like I was going to follow the analytics and put the ball in Anthony’s (Colandrea) hands. We had just thrown the end cut and we had holes that we thought were open. If you want to win that game in that field position, we need about 20 yards to kick a field goal. I’m going to put it in Colandrea’s hands. Guys were running open on every play. There’s a 3rd-and-10 play where, if you go back and watch the tape, Jacory (Barney Jr.) is coming open on a shell across. If you catch that ball, it’s a touchdown. There’s a reverse where we went and three guys are coming across, there’s one guy there. One guy blocks that guy; it’s a touchdown. I don’t always follow the analytics, but I felt like our defense would get the stop. Most importantly, I felt like I needed to put this ball in my guy’s hands. I will ride or die with Anthony Colandrea all day, every day. I think when those two things collide, when they’re both the same thing. When it’s like, ‘those guys have been open,’ when you’ve seen that they’ve been open, obviously they challenge you. Indiana challenges you in a great many ways. With their simulated blitzes and their twist games. They were spying the quarterback a ton in a three-man rush. They challenge you. When you look at, ‘hey, we have guys that we feel like are open,’ the analytics say to go. At the end of the day, I wanted to put the ball in our offenses’ hands. It’s like we take the ball and say, ‘go make it happen.’ They made it happen for large parts of the day.” 

He discussed Nebraska’s field goal struggles against Indiana.

“I think we have had our share of issues so far in the last couple of games,” he said. “I think early on I tried to kick a couple really long ones into the south end zone when we had the game in our hands so that Kyle (Cunanan) who I have tremendous confidence in, you know that south end zone it can be like the green monster a little bit because you know the wind is coming and I knew there would be a day like there was on Saturday so I wanted to kick a couple long ones into it but obviously we had a missed extra point against Maryland, we had a bad snap against Maryland so I can’t live in a word of confident, not confident, I have to be more like air on the side of going for it. I think that was unique because it was before the half. I think we would have played that differently, we probably would have run the ball there and some of those different things that we do in the red zone, but because it was kind of in that two minutes before the half, we were throwing the ball, got the false start on the center so went for it on 3 and whatever it was, like 3rd and 15, and caught the ball just out of bounds and then kicked the field goal so I thought that we played that as the two-minute. You know if we have a great week of practice, then I will lean towards that. With Anthony, we basically have been like, hey, we are going to try to play four downs, not because we do not trust our field goal game, but because we believe in the weapons we have on offense. We got stopped on the first drive down there in the red zone, and then that play, I think we just played it a little different because we ran out of time, but I think it just has to be something that gets cleaned up this week before we go to Oregon.”

Rhule spoke on how the team will need to be prepared for the different quarterbacks that they could face on Saturday. 

“We’re preparing for all three quarterbacks,” he said. “I have a lot of respect for Dante (Moore). I don’t know his situation. I hope and pray he’s alright. I hope and pray that Nico (Iamaleava) is alright. What you’re seeing in our league right now, I think of the next five opponents we face, they played with their backup quarterback in at some point this past weekend. It’s just parts of college football, especially in this league when you’re playing really good defenses and physical people. Their offense is their offense. They do a great job of stressing you with zone reads and RPO’s and different run schemes. Last game, they had two tailback wildcat stuff, you’re seeing from UCLA and they did as well. You’re preparing for all of it. When they had to make a change and had to play the other two quarterbacks, it’s the offense that stays very similar. I think when you watch them, the backs are great. Dakorien Moore is great, (Evan) Stewart is great. They have elite skill. To me, it’s not necessarily as much of the quarterbacks; all of the quarterbacks are talented. It’s who poses a zone-read running threat, because I think that changes a little bit of how you play. Who poses a quarterback draw threat and it just comes back to matching the receivers. If you look at us, we’ve done a good job on stopping the run. We’ve given up explosive passes and they have explosive pass-receivers. We have to defend them more than anything else.”

The Nebraska Cornhuskers will travel to Eugene, Ore, on Saturday, Oct. 17 to challenge the Oregon Ducks at 10 p.m. (CT). The game will be televised on FOX and can be heard across the Huskers Radio Network.