Rhule Talks New Tradition, Spring Practice Progress

Nebraska Head Football Coach Matt Rhule met with members of the media following the fifth spring practice on Tuesday.
 
Rhule touched on a variety of topics, including how important it is for coaches to let players be themselves.
 
"One of the best players I ever coached was Stephon Gilmore, one of the quietest guys I have ever been around," Rhule said. "One of the benefits of playing for our staff is that we do not try to change who you are.
 
"A lot of coaches want you to fit into this cookie cutter mold. I think it is really affecting young people. I have guys on this team that are into photography or they are into cooking and then they go to other places that want them just to be a football player. These guys are not football players. They are young guys that play football. I want them to be themselves… I do not need spokespeople. I need leaders. I do not need people who are great in front of the camera.
 
"A lot of people talk about a lot of our videos. If you notice in our videos we post, and I am proud to post those, they are always of us working. They are never of us talking. They are always of us working and the program is built on work. It is not built on hype."
 
Rhule also talked about how he preaches learning from mistakes to his players.
 
"One of the challenges I told the team is that this is such a great group of guys and they do not want to make a mistake," Rhule said. "Playing football and being good at football and practicing is about making a lot of mistakes and correcting the mistakes. The key is to not make repetitive mistakes so trying to get them to relax a little bit."
 
Rhule was also asked about awarding single-digit jersey numbers to the "toughest" players on the team, a tradition he is continuing at Nebraska after previously utilizing at Temple, Baylor.
 
"It started when I was the offensive coordinator at Temple, then I did it when I was the head coach there and then when I was the head coach at Baylor," Rhule said of players earning single-digit numbers. "I got really tired of having a guy in my program who had spent three years as number 47 getting ready to play and wanted to wear No. 1 or No. 3 and he had earned it and then we would give it to a recruit.
 
"What we decided was 0 through 9 would go to the nine or 10 toughest guys on the team. When I say 'toughest', we define that for the guys. Really the guys who best exemplify what it means to be a Cornhusker, to be accountable, to be dependable, to be tough, hardworking, competitive every single day. As we get into training camp, the players will vote on it, and we hope it becomes a tradition. As we have embraced all the great traditions that are here, hopefully this will be something new that people will get in to."
 
Rhule was also asked about how his staff has attacked recruiting during spring practice.
 
"We have had recruits here every single day from that first Monday," he said. "We want to be open. I thought a big part of it was we had a lot of former Cornhusker football players here this past weekend. It was great to host them. I think any time you have two Heisman Trophy winners at our practice it is cool. I thought it was a great vibe all around. There were lots of high school coaches, a ton of recruits and their families and former players.
 
"It was a really good weekend, and I think in recruiting a lot of people are curious. Wherever I go, people are asking 'Hey are we going to land this guy?' We don't put time frames on things. We want everyone to get here to see it, to see the staff, to see the campus, to see the opportunity, to see the building right behind us and hopefully we can get them back for spring game and official visits and we will have a good class."
 
The Huskers will continue their spring practice on Saturday. The annual Red-White Spring Game presented by FNBO is set for April 22, at 1 p.m. (CT). Tickets for the Spring Game can be purchased on Huskers.com or by calling 1-800-8-BIG RED.