What did Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule say about Minnesota during his weekly press conference?
Earlier this week, Nebraska head football coach Matt Rhule met with the Nebraska media, and while the big talking point coming out of the press conference was Rhule’s answer regarding the Penn State job opening, the Huskers’ head coach also spoke about the Golden Gophers and this upcoming Friday’s game.
Here’s what Rhule had to say about the Gophers.
Rhule on Minnesota and this Friday’s matchup
“Excited to go on the road, Keith tells me we haven’t won road games in back-to-back weeks since 2006. Which is mind-boggling. Quite a challenge.
They’ve beaten us five times in a row. For me, it’s a great measuring stick for where we were two years ago when we first got started. To now. They do a great job. Top 20 in the country in turnover margin. I know Coach Fleck, who I have a ton of respect for, I know he preaches plus three. We were minus three last game.So when you’re minus three, you have about a 7% chance of winning. So our guys overcome. But we can’t continue to do that. So we’ll work on it and see what happens this week.”
Rhule would later add.
“When you watch how Coach Flex’s team plays, they have three defensive touchdowns this year. They’re one of the least penalized teams in the country. Now, we’ve become a very not very penalized team, which is great.
“They’re one of the top teams, as I said, in the turnover margins. If you look at the things that they do well, they win the turnover battle. They don’t give up explosive plays. The quarterback’s an elite player. For us, it’s like, hey, if we go out there and we’re minus three, then we are who we were three years ago, and we shouldn’t be that. We’re better, so we should just not give the game away and make it be a competitive game and try to win the close games.”
Rhule on Friday’s game being a breast cancer awareness game
Friday night’s game between the Gophers and Huskers will also be a breast cancer awareness game. Rhule discussed the importance of such a game.
“I shared this the other day — my wife lost her mother, and my mom had breast cancer. It affects one in eight women and is the second leading cause of cancer for women in the United States, aside from skin cancer.
If it’s detected early, there’s a 95% survival rate over the next five years. You can live a good, full life.
So what’s the point of wearing pink? It’s to raise awareness and support those who are fighting it, and to raise money. My wife owns a dry bar, and this isn’t just publicity — she gives $10 off every blowout for breast cancer awareness because we know what it feels like.
Yesterday, I asked our team, ‘Who here has a woman in your life who’s been affected by breast cancer, or cancer of any kind?’ Every single player raised his hand.
I think it’s a great thing for football teams to do. The hashtag we’re using this week is ‘Who taught you how to fight?’ That came from a speech I gave our first year — completely off the cuff — after watching my mom and my mother-in-law, Donna, fight every single day. No matter how they felt, they were still our moms and grandmoms.
That’s why it’s so personal for us. We love doing this. It just didn’t work out for us to do it during a home game this year because of all the other causes we support, so we decided, hey, we’ll do it at Minnesota.
One of our players asked me — still a little mad about the Indiana game — ‘Coach, can we wear all white for a game this year?’ I told him, ‘If you wear all white, you better win, because every time we do, people say you’ve got to play great.’
The uniform doesn’t determine how you play, but this week we’ll wear all white with some pink accessories.
To me, it’s really about asking yourself, who in your life taught you how to fight?
I have tremendous respect for P.J. Fleck and Heather Fleck. I texted him to tell him what we were doing, and he immediately said, ‘We want to partner with you on that.’ He wanted both programs to come together — because this is bigger than the outcome of a game.
Both teams are doing it. It’s two classy college football programs uniting for a cause that’s bigger than football. Then, once the game kicks off, we’ll go compete — and the team that plays the best will win.”
Stay Tuned
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