Football Video & Report: Oct. 24

Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule met with members of the media following the team’s practice on Thursday. He spoke on how he thought the week of practice went.

“I think it’s been a good week. Guys, as you’d expect, battled back from a disappointing week last week.  We have to get to the game. We will see but it’s been a good week. I think we got better at everything. There’s no time in game weeks when the opponents are too good in the Big Ten to have these large philosophical chats. Like Satt (Coach Marcus Satterfield) talked about the other day, I don’t want him worried about the yards per play. I want to worry about blocking #91 from Ohio State. We have to be very in the moment. You go out there this week and say ‘Hey, third down, what are they going to do? What are we going to do?’ I think we had a really good week. Some of the issues in the kicking game have been so glaring, we have to fix some of those things. We’ve been working on those since the bye week. We also have to get ready for Ohio State and what they do. There’s not a lot of time. Not a lot of reps. At the end of the day, we put last week behind us and move forward. We get ready for this amazing football team we are playing.”

Rhule also talked about tight end Thomas Fidone II and his impact on the team.

“When you have a game like that and the score isn’t going your way, you still have to go play. You can’t control how everyone else is playing. I thought Thomas caught the ball with his hands, one versus man and made some big plays. He’s getting better and better and better. I thought he had a really good bye week. He sprained his ankle a little bit, so we were worried if he was going to be able to play. He came out and he played and he’s playing really good football. He’s a guy that you always want to have involved in the offense.”

He discussed the challenges and opportunities that an opponent like Ohio State presents.

“They have no weakness. They’re probably one of the top two or three rosters in football and a great coaching staff and great schemes. It’s just one of those deals where you have to go play well. It starts with the simple things, things we’ve talked about all year. Last week was the first week we didn’t win the turnover battle. So, it ends up the way it ends up. You come back this week and you don’t reinvent yourself. You say ‘We have to win the turnover battle.’ Coming out of the bye week, on offense, we talked a lot about getting better on third down. We were 7-of-16 on third down last week. I just think Ohio State is a great team. It’s a great opportunity for our guys. We have a lot of really, really, really good football players – guys who are going to play for a long time in the National Football League, both seniors and freshmen. You have a chance to go challenge yourself against the best, where you are, and develop it from there. I don’t think it’s any one specific thing, other than we have to go play well.”

The Huskers will face the Ohio State Buckeyes on Saturday, Oct. 26 at 11 a.m. (CT) in Columbus, Ohio. The game will be televised on FOX with audio coverage from the Huskers Radio Network.