Matt Rhule addresses how he will fix Nebraska's close losses

In Nebraska‘s first season under coach Matt Rhule, some things felt very familiar. In particular, the team’s penchant for losing close games continued.

Nebraska lost seven games. Four of them were by a field goal, while another was within a touchdown.

But rather than be discouraged by the near misses in 2023, Rhule came away impressed with his bunch and positive about what it means for the future of the program.

“What might to the outside world look like, ‘Man,’ to me looks like unbelievable job by a lot of people to get everything this close and to battle like this,” Matt Rhule said.

In the team’s final game of the regular season, Nebraska lost to Iowa 13-10. The team had a miscue that proved costly, and Rhule explained it. His team losing close games and not quite having the personnel yet to be where he wants doesn’t make up for some of the gaffes.

“That doesn’t excuse to the question about having to call timeout there, your last timeout there, I mean that’s ridiculous, right?” Matt Rhule said. “But there will be a day when we have seven wide receivers traveling with us and active and those things won’t happen. We’re just not quite there yet, and that’s why I’m so proud of these guys, because they battle and they fight and we don’t make excuses, we just come back. But I think that’s the key moving forward.”

Nebraska came up close in the loss to the Big Ten West champions, but ultimately it didn’t have enough in the tank.

“I think they ran the ball on us at times,” Matt Rhule said. “I think we have to continue to develop our run defense. And our ability to run the football, we couldn’t run the ball in the game to the level that they wanted. And that’s what they do really well. He’s been there a long time. They have a formula. We came down there, battled, just couldn’t quite get it done.”

Overall the key is that Rhule believes his team is headed for better things down the road. This first season was just the start of the foundation for the program.

Rhule wanted to make sure he recognized the team’s accomplishments this season, even if they weren’t always plainly visible in a 5-7 season.

“It’ll all be fixed. Yeah, it all will improve,” Matt Rhule said. “Maybe this is about where we are right now. Whereas sometimes people see it from the outside like, ‘Man they messed that up,’ or ‘Another short loss.’ I look at it as like these guys, how many guys go down and they just continue to put guys in and we just battle.”