Nebraska football coach Matt Rhule and several players met with the media following Saturday’s 14-7 win over Rutgers. The Huskers improved to 5-1.
You can watch Rhule’s full appearance above. Read a portion of what Rhule had to say below, and keep on scrolling for video of comments from Dylan Raiola, Brian Buschini, James Williams and more than half a dozen others.
Opening Statement
“I wanted to pass on my condolences to the Clare family. I believe he [Pat Clare] was our second Academic All-American, but that was a heavy heart when we heard that news this week. But a life well lived and a legacy well lived. I want to say thank you to Ndamukong Suh for coming back in his own quiet way. He didn’t want to give a big speech, he just wanted to meet the fellas and answer questions. He said a couple things I said all the time, and I looked at Deshon (Singleton) and he said ‘yeah coach when he says it, it just kind of hits different.’ Ndamukong and his family, just so blessed that they were there. Finally about the game, that was a close win. In many ways that was a tough day. Credit to Rutgers, credit to Greg Schiano. They did a ton of things against us, but we didn’t turn the ball over but once. We won the turnover battle, I thought it was as great as defensive performance as I’ve been around. Six plays inside the two. Whereas maybe two weeks ago against Illinois, we were kind of looking at the clock worried, were we going to win, I thought this game the guys just wanted to go out there and keep playing. They would’ve played another series if we let them. Proud of the guys, proud of the team, team win, and Buschini was an all-star again today.”
On big impact plays by the defense in the second half
“We knew it was going to be a challenge. We talked a lot about the run game. We knew number 0 (Dymere Miller) was quite a player. One of their wide outs, (Ian) Strong, was down. We knew how good of a player (Athan) Kaliakmanis was because he beat us last year at Minnesota. It was the same type of game. 14-3, whatever it was, he makes the play down the stretch taking two minutes. It was like groundhog day. He gets the ball back, he’s going to go down there and score. This week, our defense practiced harder here than they probably have in two years. I think what they put in came out when the game started. It was a lot of different guys who played a lot of different guys. Really adverse situations. Really a lot of third and fourth down stops, which was critical.”
On adjusting to the run defense
“I think it was two things, they played the first quarter into the wind so they ran it a ton, the wind was really a factor, people won’t see that a lot, but the wind was really a factor. They had the wind in the second quarter so they threw it more. If you go back to the first half, a lot of those plays were missed tackles. Isaac Gifford comes off the edge, hit him in the back field and just misses the tackle. It wasn’t like they got us on this scheme, so grateful we have iPads now because we can look at them now and say it’s not a scheme thing, we are just missing tackles. They had the one third and 22 after the sack and they chucked it down and he made a guy miss and got it to fourth and three. We started to play some man, we played some bigger guys. Tony (White) is a 3-3-5 guy but he was playing some five down with two jacks today, I’m really proud of him. It was like him leaving the family almost, but he did what we needed him to do. We played some three man rush, some three two. He has three different personnel groupings out there, I thought we won third down and fourth down. That was my key to the defense this game. I said the defense had to win third down. Rutgers gets into a lot of third downs and if we won them, we would get off the field. If they stayed on the field they would wear us down and that is what we were trying to avoid.”
On Brian Buschini
“He was great, he got hit hard. We knew we were going to call that fake punt, we almost called it the first time, and then almost called it at the five-yard line when they blocked it. They were bringing ten guys, and there was no one covering him and then we finally called it the third time. Brian, we thought, was the unsung hero last week, and I say he’s the unsung hero this week. He did a great job on the last one. We were asking him to one-step punt versus the all-out max block. He saw them drop out so he slowed down and took three steps, and he just boomed that kick. We took the ball today wanting to have the wind in the fourth quarter and them going into the wind in the fourth quarter, that’s why we took the ball. That ball got up in the wind and it spiraled, and spiraled, and spiraled around. Had that young man tried to catch it, it would’ve been a tough catch. I’m really proud of Brian, he showed the heart of the lion out there.”
On James Williams
“I think James (Williams) is a guy that’s trying to do better. He’s doing really well in school. He’s growing in every facet of his life. I’m very proud of him. He practices really hard and as a result, he plays really hard. This is a week where we did a lot of stuff with big people. There were reps this week where he, Ty (Robinson), was going over to the scout team to give the offense a look. No agendas, no egos, just trying to get better at their crafts. Because we took the ball early and because we took the lead, we were able to get a little bit of a lead and pass rush at the end of the game, which kind of changed everything.”
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