What They Said: Nebraska HC Matt Rhule talks loss to Michigan

Opening Statement

Obviously, a disappointing loss for us. One in which if we’re smart about it, we can hopefully learn a lot about ourselves and about where we need to improve, where we’re headed. Credit to them. They made the plays they needed to make. We certainly had our chances. We started off with a great drive and they stopped us on fourth and short and got the ball back with great position. Missed the field goal and then battled back. As you guys know, made it even at halftime. The field was tilted against us in the second half. They made a long 56-yard field goal, which ended up being the difference in the game. Battled back. That last third down, not the last one, but the second and last one, we had several chances to get off the field. Third and 16, I think third and 14, whatever it was, third and 15. Couldn’t make the plays. Long stretches of that game where we couldn’t protect. Number one, I thought for them was magnificent. Barham was a handful and felt we settled down as it went on and protected better for a while, but still some key moments where it wasn’t good enough and then obviously the run game for them. Two plays in the first half, but just too many big plays to win a football game like that. We battled. Appreciate the effort of the guys, but it wasn’t good enough.

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On whether he felt Michigan’s physicality wore down his defense towards the end of the game

No. We just missed a tackle. We didn’t throw a screen. They checked a sprint out. We got them to the third down because before that, I think they were one of whatever on third down. Got them in third and three. They saw the blitz. They looked to the sideline. They check. They run the sprint out. Pick route. We just have to tackle it. Then they ran a screen. They saw the blitz again. They ran a screen. John was being really aggressive. We were one-on-one in the open field, so those missed tackles to me weren’t necessarily about physicality as much as they were their guy made a play in space, and we have to make that play. The third and 15 they got him down in the field goal range I thought they just made a good check. We have to make a tackle there. I thought we showed good physicality, obviously inside the five. They had first-and-goal inside the five, and the guys stopped them. It’s gonna be really easy to say, oh, it was the D-line. There’s plays where the safety’s one-on-one. They definitely missed the tackle. Haynes is an excellent back. Upmost respect for him. He made the plays that you have to make to win those games. You look at what he did. He had three catches. He had all the carries. They couldn’t throw the ball against us very well, but they certainly made the explosive run plays. That’s a factor of the entire defense.

On whether the long TD run by Bryce Underwood was due to missed assignments

No. We’re in quarters. They go to the quarterback draw. We have line movement, take away the empty draw. Someone has to get off and make a tackle. It’s a tough play. It’s a tough play against that, but if you get in five wides and you run quarterback draw, it’s gonna be a tip play. You need a D-lineman to make a play. We’re gonna have to, as a team, get past, and I’m not saying anything about our team, but we’re gonna have to get past the perfect call world. You have a call. Someone’s gonna be stressed on someone. They’re gonna have to make a play. The long run, we ran some line movement. They blocked it. The ball gets to the safety. It’s quarters. You have a fit safety. We just didn’t make the tackle. That’s those defenses. You have to make that play on those defenses, and 22 played well.

On what he feels like his offensive line can learn from the loss

I didn’t have a ton of issues with the run blocking. There’s a couple times we checked to some runs. We started going into a lot of RPOs in the game, and they had a hard time defending some of the passes. When they had us give the run, there were some that split. There obviously were some ones that didn’t. You’re kind of hitting your head up against the wall for one or two games. I don’t know that I can say much about the run game yet without really watching. It would just be reactionary. In pass pro, I thought there were times where we just gave them too much credit. We were backing up. We were catching them, like, what are they gonna do, and just not really being super physical. Not trying to be physical, but just not challenging it. Then all of a sudden, we went on long stretches where we did protect. In the second half, I think some of that went away. They pressured us. They brought blitzes. They challenged our running backs. That’s what they’re good at. We knew going into the game it would be about stopping the run and our ability to pass protect, getting to their quarterback. We got to their quarterback a couple times, but just couldn’t get into third long enough.

On whether the plan was to throw the Hail Mary before the half

It wasn’t necessarily the plan. It was second and long. The last thing I wanted to do was give them the ball back. I let the clock run down, I think, to 25 seconds and called timeout so that we could run a third-down play. Third-down play didn’t work out quite what we wanted. I anticipated them calling timeout and trying to make us punt. Luckily for us, our punters are pretty good at getting outside the pocket so I wasn’t worried about a block, but I anticipated them calling timeout with 12 or 13 seconds and trying to block the punt. When they didn’t do that, I let the clock run down to one and called timeout and said throw the Hail Mary. The only thing to me about this game I didn’t want to do is have any regrets that we didn’t try. We didn’t try to play. I didn’t want to go out there and play close. When you’re in the RPO world sometimes you’re handing off then you’re handing off a second time and you’re like dang gum we really wanted to throw the ball there. That was just a, hey, we’re going to take our shot and it worked out. Once all the sadness dissipates on our end, there will be a lot of things to build on in terms of plays like that. Plays where we jumped up and made a play. Those are the building blocks of hopefully getting to where we want to get to.

On what went into the fourth down play to start the game

The analytics to me are overwhelming. Analytics are fourth and three is a go. Fourth and four, you should go. It’s not even close. If you want to beat Michigan, you’re going to have to get those plays. We ran a speed sweep with a quarterback, you have three options there. It’s kind of the same thing we did at the end. Twice fourth and one. We’re running RPOs. We’re not going to trick our way into things. You’ve got to play. You’ve got to make the plays. We’re going to give our guys a chance to make the play. On that one ,unfortunately, we didn’t, but then they punt the ball right back to us. We had the ball at the 30-yard line. Some of the things we talked about. Inside the five are things we have to be better at. At the same time, there are other times we did make the plays. The Hail Mary, the plays at the end. There’s a lot of analytics that goes into it. Analytics tell you to be really aggressive, to be honest with you.

On whether he needs to remind the fans that sacks aren’t always on the offensive line

I think the fans were elite today. It was an amazing crowd. The last thing I have the right to do right now is say anything. There was too much pressure on the quarterbacks, too much sacks. I would say it’s always the function of everything but, at the end of the day, they overwhelmed us some at times. I did feel like, though, the field got tilted against us a little bit in the second half. I did feel like we progressed a little bit at the end of the first half. We moved the ball in the third quarter. I’ll have to go back and look at it. Again, I think number one for them is — he was an inside linebacker. They moved after the last game to outside backer, and I thought he was dominant last week. I think he’s a dominant player. There will be a lot for us to learn from. Our fans are elite. They’ll be back out here in two weeks when we play Michigan State. We’ll have to just learn from this.

On fielding the punt at the goal line turned the tides of the game

We don’t want him to field that one at the two. He also fielded the one off the bounce and changed the field with the field position. He had another one later that I thought he was about to step out of. He’ll be the first to tell you I wish I wouldn’t have caught it there, but we still had some plays there where he could have knocked it out. I thought Archie did an unbelievable job of spinning the field as best he could. Even the one time they got one or two first downs they make that long, long, long field goal. We just have to make another play or two. Honestly, this sounds boring, but step out of one, make a tackle here and all of a sudden the game changes. You go back and forth in a Big Ten game like that, it ends up 30-27, get the onside kick. You could have told me we were going to go down the score the way we were playing. You just have to make one or two more plays.

On whether he thought the Hail Mary would give an emotional boost to the team coming out of the half

I think our guys were emotionally very invested in it. It wasn’t like a lack of effort. I thought they had the quarterback run, which is a good run. Someone has to get off and make a great elite play. We covered them all day. There was no big plays in the passing game, so we did that well. We had to make a couple more tackles in the run game. It’s a big time back, and he hurt us. We can’t walk away from that. I thought when it got even but still the issues are the issues. We’re having a hard time protecting the pocket. We’re having a hard time stopping the run in all areas. I was just going to get to halftime and say Hey, what do we do? Even at the end, we had three or four third downs. I don’t know what they finished on third down. I think three of them were on the last drive. Three of them were third and long. You make one of those plays, the game changes. We didn’t. We just moved forward. I thought, at the end of the day, we’re playing to win. We took our shot at that play and it worked.

On whether he likes where his team is at

I don’t like where we’re at right now. I feel like someone hit me with a hammer right now. I wanted to win the football game, and I thought we would win the football game. It’s like anything else. There’s things that were exposed that have to be improved, or we won’t be the team that we want to be. There’s other things that I thought were excellent. It’s just going back and, methodically, the same process, the same approach we had after games we’ve lost. There were games we’ve won. I told the team I watched Georgia-Tennessee and Georgia beat Tennessee last week. A game Tennessee probably should have won. I didn’t leave saying Tennessee’s done. We’re gonna have to improve this and improve that and ascend from there. I’m sure we’re disappointed, but, you know what? We’re gonna play a bunch more games. We’ll get back to work. Like I said, I thought the guys competed. The other team competed as well. Michigan competed as well. I thought that was a good Big Ten football game. Just we came out on the wrong end of it.

On having Bud Crawford in attendance

I’m disappointed we didn’t get the win for Bud but I thought it meant a lot that he would show up for us. He could be anywhere he wanted to be in the world right now if he wanted to and he chose to be here with us. I know it’s disappointing but I will say I saw the wrestling team out there celebrating what they did. Obviously, Bud Crawford was there. I think it was a great day to celebrate Nebraska and all the amazing things that are here. Hopefully, our volleyball team wins tonight as well. I think in the time that we’re in right now Bud’s a unifying force for the people in the state of Nebraska. Very grateful that he would be there. I wish we could have done our part a little bit better but at the end of the day I hope people appreciate that we’re working and the guys gave their all. We just have to get a little bit better.