Matt Rhule on Michigan: 'Really couldn't stop them'

Nebraska coach Matt Rhule had a hard time saying his team got “pushed around” by Michigan, but that was the reality for his team for much of the game. The Wolverines won the trenches on both sides of the ball, got big plays from junior quarterback J.J. McCarthy, and sent much of the Cornhuskers’ crowd home at halftime.

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Rhule lamented missed opportunities and mistakes. The Cornhuskers had quite a few. At the same time, he acknowledged that Michigan played a great game, led by McCarthy.

“Obviously, a disappointing day. A lot of credit to Michigan; they’re a tremendous football team,” Rhule said. “We really couldn’t stop them today. They were methodical converting third downs in the run game, got some fourth downs early, some big plays. The early turnovers didn’t help.

“I hate to use the term pushed around, just because that’s a big term for me as a coach to say. I have to see it. I will say I heard a lot of it today … I did not see us not being able to control the line of scrimmage to that level. I thought it would be more of an even game in the run game.”

But it wasn’t. Minus a meaningless, 74-yard touchdown run late in the game, the Cornhuskers couldn’t run the ball. They got one, 16-yard run from quarterback Heinrich Haarberg, but the long run from the regular backs was 6 yards. Still, Rhule wouldn’t say Michigan came out with more intensity.

“I don’t want to sit here right now and say that our guys didn’t want to play hard. I don’t think that,” Rhule continued. “I think that would be a lie about who they are and the team that they are. They are the number two team in the nation. I kind of alluded to it the other day, like we are the number one rush offense and rush defense. He [Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh] was going run for 300 yards against us and send a message. I don’t know if it wasn’t intensity. I still think our guys are trying to figure out if they are good enough to play these teams.

“I thought their quarterback made some excellent throws. Man-coverage, we were all over the guys. They made plays, and we had enough pass rush at times. There were a lot of things defensively that didn’t go our way, starting with DeShon [Singleton] injured on the first play … alot of things happened that we have to get corrected. The good news is we got to see probably the best run game [we’ll see], and people probably will copy that.”

More than anything, though, Michigan proved to the Cornhuskers how big the gap was between the two programs.

“They’re the number two team in the country,” Rhule noted. “We’re not in that conversation right now.”