Football Video & Report: Sept. 12

Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule met with members of the media following Thursday’s practice. He spoke on snapping improvements on field goals, previewed Saturday’s game overall and talked on injuries.  

“It’s a big factor,” he said. “You go out there and you’re trying to hit a golf ball and you have a bad lie, it’s a lot different than hitting it off the turf at TopGolf, right? Then there’s the anticipation of, is going to be a good lie or not, changes things as much as anything. After Tristan (Alvano) missed his kick, I said ‘You’re letting the snap affect you too much,’ because on the first field goal, he almost had to stop the kick. We’ve opened up that competition this week. We have two snappers, we will have one punt snapper and one field goal snapper. It could be the same guy.  We’ve opened up to both of them because we have capable guys but right now the fear or nervousness of the moment has not let them snap the way they are capable of. So yeah, we’ve opened up the job.” 

Rhule touched on the familiarity of the coaching staff at Northern Iowa and eliminated the negative way of thinking.

“I don’t really know anyone there,” he said. “I looked at Trevor Penning when he was coming out from Northern Iowa. I’m assuming it’s his brother at left tackle, he’s a draftable guy. They have at least three guys who are draftable on their offense. I’ve known them from afar. I have a lot of respect for what they’ve done there. My thing is scheduling. Years ago Chip Kelly, when he was head coach of the Eagles, I was the head coach at Temple. We were talking, he was saying that his philosophy schedule wise was he never wanted to play Troy or play schools that dominate. I don’t want to play against schools that know how to win. Knowing how to win is a true skill. I’d rather play an FCS school that loses a lot, than one that wins. When I was at Temple, my first season I lost to Florida, I lost to an FCS school. When I was the offensive coordinator, we almost lost to Villanova. Those guys know how to win. They win all the time. So now I know, playing against Northern Iowa they know how to win. They’re ranked. Their heart rate doesn’t go up. They don’t expect something bad to happen. They don’t say ‘Here we go again.’ The main thing that I've tried to do since being here is to eliminate all the negative structures. It’s cultural. It’s not a player. So Northern Iowa has winning. That’s what’s scary about them. They know how to win. They expect to win.” 

Rhule gave updates on Javin Wright’s injuries. 

“We’ve gotten some good news,” he said. “He did a bunch of tests yesterday. There’s a chance that maybe around that Purdue game one of those weeks. Maybe we can get him back in some sort of role. We’re hopeful that medically everything continues to trend in a really good direction.” 

NU will face off against the Northern Iowa Panthers on Saturday, Sept. 14 at 6:30 p.m. (CT) at Memorial Stadium. The game will be broadcast on the Big Ten Network, with radio coverage by the Huskers Radio Network.