Matt Rhule calls out college football players for playing for personal brand, 'excessive trash talk'

The Nebraska Cornhuskers and head coach Matt Rhule are coming off a bye week. That gave Rhule an opportunity to watch some games around the country and he didn’t love what he saw.

As he explained at his weekly press conference, Rhule feels that too many college football players are playing for their personal brand and are committing an excessive amount of trash talk during games. It’s a style that he added that he doesn’t want his own team to play with.

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“One thing about college football right now,” Matt Rhule said. “There’s a lot of guys out there and the whole time they’re playing, they’re playing for their personal brand. Like, they could do something for the team, they could take a knee, they could step out of bounds, they could end the game. Instead, it’s all — watching college football is really hard now. It’s all trash talk, and really excessive trash talk.”

Matt Rhule gave the example of waving goodbye to an opponent you beat, even citing Iowa as being a team that’s done this to Nebraska. He also noted that the act of trash talk isn’t something he’s against, but the manner in which it’s used.

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“You beat a team and you’re waving goodbye at them. Iowa did that to us last year. Sometimes with rivalries, I get it, but I don’t want to see our team do that. I want to see — if you watch me, I shake their hands. The players we game planned for, I shake their hand. I just struggled with that a little bit this weekend watching college football. Every time a guy makes a play, it’s like he has to turn and tell the guy he made a play. Trust me, I’m all for a little trash talk,” Rhule said.

“But there’s a way to do it and a way that doesn’t disrespect the game and disrespect your opponent. Because, truly, playing against good teams allows you to show what you can do. You can’t show what you can do when you play bad teams, you do that when you play good teams.”

This week, Nebraska is traveling on the road to play an unbeaten Indiana team. It’s a game that he wants his team to play in a respectful manner.

“So, Indiana gives us a chance to show what we can do, but as much as anything else, I want us to respect the game and I want us to respect what it means to be a Nebraska Cornhusker,” Rhule said. “I have a lot of respect for Coach [Curt] Cignetti and his staff and their players, so I hope we play a certain way.”

That game between Nebraska and Indiana is set to kickoff at 12:00 p.m. EST on Saturday, October 19th.