Fall Camp Video & Report: Aug. 29

Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule met with members of the media following Thursday’s practice. Rhule discussed expectations and preparation ahead of Saturday’s home opener against UTEP. 

“Should be a great weekend. I don’t ever ask people to come to things for football but I will say this is a great weekend just for athletics,” Rhule said. “I hope all the Nebraska fans will take advantage. Obviously there’s a soccer game tonight, Sunday we play Creighton, 1:05, and it’s the 30th year of women’s soccer. I’ve been to several games, my daughters love the team, and I think it’s a milestone for Coach (John) Walker. He’s been so good to me, I can’t thank the other coaches on the staff enough. Coach (Fred) Hoiberg, Coach Amy (Williams), it’s a great fraternity to be a part of. We have all this winning, we go down to Kentucky, we beat Kentucky. We have the tournament this week in the Ameritas tournament, it’s time for us to do our part. I’m excited for us to hopefully play well on Saturday and join the fraternity of winning.”

Rhule touched on the expectation for the offense.

“I just want them to play well,” he said. “I want the team to look the way it’s supposed to look. I want to play hard, play physical, I want to have clean football. I want to protect the football, I want to be aggressive, I want to block their pressures, their excellent defense, excellent pressure unit. Recognize their fronts. Dylan (Raiola) will have a challenge, and the other quarterbacks will have a challenge in recognizing their coverage structures. They’ll check when we check, they're a really well put together team. I want us to play well, that’s all I care about, and I want that for the whole team.”

Rhule discussed their overall thoughts 24 hours out from kickoff. 

“Honestly, there’s a lot of nerves,” he said. “I bear a tremendous responsibility to do my job well for the players. You get into game day and the decisions you make, even something as new as a two-minute timeout – I’m just making sure that I’m constantly in the moment and that I’m doing a good job for our players. I get nervous, but I’m also really excited. I’m really excited for the guys. This is a good football team. We have to make the step of playing like a good football team, but we are a good football team. I really like this UTEP team. I really like Scotty Walden, I like what he’s done. I’ve watched everything. I listened to him at a coaches show last night with my wife in the car on the way to dinner. She was like ‘can you talk to me?’ and I said ‘one second honey, I’ve got to listen to this.’ I like what he’s doing, so I think this is a really good matchup for us and a really good game for us. I’m excited to see these guys play. I’m excited for our team to get back out there in front of the fans. We get spoiled here in that you have this amazing experience at the spring game. Then you have this amazing experience when we had the 1890 practice. We were playing in front of thousands of people. You get a little spoiled, but there’s nothing like game day here. I haven’t coached many games like this, so it’s really exciting to me.”

Rhule also spoke on the advantages with students being on the opponent sideline.

“Especially now with the tablets and the communication, the teams that communicate best on game day are going to win,” he said. “Our students are amazing. Our boneyard bash, we had thousands of people here. I think having the students and having the band makes that more of a hostile environment. We’re a very kind group, – it’s Nebraska nice – which is awesome, but for two, three, four hours, let’s make it hard on them. We go places sometimes and it’s hard to communicate on the bench. That’ll be hard. The sun shines into your eyes on that side, that’ll be hard a little bit. One of the most small but big things is that the chains are in your way. Literally, we were on the visitors side for 12 games last year and I was trying to move and they’re moving. It’s a little cleaner. The (Nebraska’s) sideline is a little shorter because the field is not flush, it's tilted. The sideline is a little smaller on our side, but I think the students, and you heard Troy (Dannen) say it, the students have an opportunity to impact the game. Our band, who’s fantastic, has an opportunity to impact the game. That’s great, and our crowd on third down impacts the game. Sometimes our guys think they’re great pass rushers, and I’m like ‘the tackle didn’t quite hear the snap there.’ James Williams had one last year where the tackle didn’t move – thank the fans, bro. All those things are fun about playing at home.”

The Huskers open the 2024 season at home on Saturday against UTEP. Kickoff between the Huskers and the Miners at Memorial Stadium is set for 2:30 p.m. (CT) with live television coverage from FOX. The game can also be heard across the Huskers Radio Network.