Rhule Previews North Dakota Matchup

Nebraska football head coach Matt Rhule met with members of the media on Monday to address the upcoming game against North Dakota on Saturday evening.

“I’m obviously really pleased with the game on Saturday,” he said. “I’m really pleased with the tape. I thought we showed a lot of improvement from game one to game two. Some areas are still sticking out for us. Our punt return game, it was great we blocked a kick, that was awesome. We proceeded to make a mistake on the handling of the ball and then had three penalties on that. It’ll start at practice tonight and continue through the week. I feel like we have a guy in Jacory (Barney Jr.) that should be up for the Jet Award and can lead the country, but we have to have better play around him. It’s not any one person, we just have to do a better job in that area. We’ll continue to fight to be better in pass protection. Our quarterback got hit too many times and continued to find a way to improve pass rush, even though there were probably only six drop-back pass opportunities in the game. As we play different teams, there will be more drop back opportunities for different teams as they schematically do differently. We’ll continue to improve that. From a recruiting perspective, great crowd, great atmosphere. Just any night game at Memorial is special. I just can’t emphasize to our fans and our students how striking it is to the young men from all over the country to see what’s here. Just a special thanks to the Walter Scott Foundation and all of the people who put on the America 250 drone show. I know my daughter stayed out and watched that. Just as a father, celebrating our country and the sacrifices to get us to our way of life, I thought it was really cool. I had the opportunity to watch it on YouTube and thought it was unbelievable. It’s amazing what they can do. I thought it was really cool. With that, we look forward to another week of being Memorial Stadium, another night game. Obviously, the concert afterwards, I’m a Cole Swindell fan myself, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to go to the concert myself. I have work to do. I think it’s cool, the commitment from our athletic department and our university to entertain people and give people great experiences. For us, on a day where we’re honoring Coach (Tom) Osborne, I want to make sure we play at a level that he’ll shake his head at in a positive way. We have a lot of work to do this week to improve our team and get ready for an excellent football team. I’ve had the chance to coach in the FCS. There’s great players in the FCS. Andrew Marshall is playing unbelievable for us right now, unbelievably well. It’s not a surprise. He’s an FCS player. Jamir Conn is playing really well for us right now. He’s an FCS player. I think the team we’re playing against is as well-coached and disciplined, well-playing, well-executing of a team I’ve seen in a while. Coach (Eric) Schmidt has done a great job. He got to the second round of playoffs last year. We obviously have some familiarity with him. Rob Aurich worked with him, I think multiple stops. Some of our guys played for him at San Diego State. They do a great job. The offensive line is probably one of the most well-coached teams I’ve seen in a while. They have good players and they play really well together. The quarterback, (Jerry) Kaminski makes the whole thing go. They have wideouts that can get open. In their first two games, they had 42 points at halftime. We couldn’t do it on Saturday. I think it’s a really good opportunity for us to go out and battle for a win and play a team that knows how to win. I’ve always believed that in my formational years as a head coach sitting there, talking about scheduling with Chip Kelly, he was the head coach of the Eagles. He came to our Pro Day and I remember him telling me that ‘I’d rather play this Power Four team than this team that knows how to win.’ I remember myself as the offensive coordinator at Temple losing to Villanova one year. Those kids at Villanova, they just know how to win. You see it every year. It’s not spoken in fear, it’s spoken in great respect for the North Dakota football program. What I’m seeing on film. I don’t get caught up on too many other things, I look at the tape. It’s there, they’re a team that executes, they make a great plan. This is an opportunity for us to take steps for this week. I’m excited to have the game. I wanted to make sure I expressed my respect for the way that team plays.”

Rhule spoke on UND quarterback Jerry Kaminski and his position in the FCS. He noted that the North Dakota and Montana football teams perform at a high level. 

“They do a great job schematically,” he said. “When you come to a place like Nebraska and you're playing in the mix of the weather and elements. When you put on the time of the North Dakota States, and you’ve seen how North Dakota State has transitioned to FCS, they looked pretty dang good. You look at the Montanas and Montana States, North Dakotas. They have great mixes of power run football, they can run the football and power football. They can get into spread and sling it, as you watch all of those FCS teams parentally with national championships. It's not just about winning early, it's about winning late and handling the elements, so all kinda have both offenses. When you watch (Jerry) Kaminski, he's got great weapons, they can get spread, then can drop back, they can throw the football. They are an elite running team – 12 personnel, 11 personnel, they can play action off of it and play action is a tremendous equalizer, they can throw the RPOs. As we came out to Bowling Green last week, they copied a little bit of what Ohio did in terms of some of the zone reads, zone read option stuff. We understand we will probably see that each week, that is certainly what they do. When I watch Kaminski he is a tremendous facilitator of getting the ball to the open guy, he goes to many different people. Top 10 offense in the FCS, I think a top 15 defense. Probably would be in the top 10, if they played four deep each of the first two games. When you see a man like Kaminski, you can see he understands exactly what these playcalls are looking for and he gets the ball to the right guy and then their players make plays.” 

Rhule discussed his admiration for the rigor of coaching and play in the FCS. 

“I think talents are more spread out now more than ever,” he said. “First there were COVID years and then the portal has limited amount of high schools kids a lot of people take, so a kid that ten years ago might have gone to a power four team now might go to a group of six team, a kid that might have gone to a group of six team now might go to FCS. I think a lot of kids are seeing it as a vehicle to get on tape and show what they can do. I always tell kids if you're having a good experience, never mess with happy. But a lot of kids want to try to move up and all that so the vision wise again. I talked about two players on our team who started as FCS players but you look at the guys on our team that are producing. They all have different stories, but I mean who, I mean no one produces more for us in the running pass game than Luke Lendimeyer. He started as a walk-on. Andrew Marshall started at Idaho, Dwayne McDougle started at Idaho. Jamir started at Southern Illinois. You can’t measure a kids talent, sometimes recruiting is based on maturity or size when they're fifteen or sixteen, some kids grow. I’ve always said when I was in the National Football League and I flew out to look at offensive lineman it always struck me I never came to Nebraska, but I went to North Dakota State. I looked at kids at Wyoming like how is that happening and it’s like just the patience that you have been able to have historically at FCS schools were you take a kids thats 6’ 5”, 240-250 and trust me we’ve we do all kinds of studies on offensive lineman and all the sudden that 250-pound tight-end is now a 320-pound offensive tackle and he’s getting drafted first round and you don’t always have that luxury of patience at the FBS level or not everyone does it how some teams do. I just think you know there's just less kids getting scholarships and I think that’s dissipated in the junior college division two the FCS and all those different places. But the North Dakota’s and the North Dakota State’s when they were FCS they’ve been good for a long time and there’s a lot of good football players in the Dakota’s and there’s a lot of good football players in Wisconsin and Minnesota and Nebraska, Wyoming. So there’s a lot of good players and those guys do such a good job of mining them. One of my really good friends is the General Manager CFP caliber program. And I know for a fact that every time North Dakota, North Dakota State, South Dakota, South Dakota State, Montana, Montana State they offer an offensive lineman they evaluate him immediately because they just trust them and that’s what we did at Temple right. Like I go back to Temple, when we offered somebody I knew immediately kid was gonna have a Syracuse or a UCONN or a Penn State maybe, maybe not always Penn State, but they were gonna have those offers pretty quickly because you know we laid our eyes on a lot of guys and I think they do an elite job,” explained Rhule. 

Rhule additionally spoke on Nebraska native Trace Thaden and North Dakota's offensive line.

“He is a fantastic player. Across the offensive line, I mean I had Pat (Stewart) do a full study on their offensive linemen and where they all came from. Unfortunately their pass rusher is hurt and he also is a Nebraska kid, they have eight on the roster. I am watching the Oregon game and I see Devon Jackson take one back and these were obviously kids here before I got here but there's lots of good football here in this state. I think their offensive line is as good as I have seen in terms of technique. I don’t even know their offensive line coach and I look forward to shaking his hand after the game and I love watching guys that play with great technique and precision. I love their play style, and when I say play style, I mean how physical and violent they play and they have them,” observed Rhule. 

The Huskers will play at Memorial Stadium on Saturday Sept. 19 at 6:15 pm (CT) against the North Dakota Fighting Hawks. The game will be televised on the Big Ten Network and can be heard across the Huskers Radio Network.