Matt Rhule explains how he handles Jeff Sims after quarterback change

Over the offseason, first-year Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule brought Jeff Sims in as a transfer quarterback. Initially, he started for the Cornhuskers but a slow start and injuries ended up costing him his job as the starter.

Now, with Sims just a play away from starting again at Nebraska, Rhule needs to manage him and make sure that he stays ready and confident.

“I wouldn’t want to speak for him, I just know that Jeff puts as much time in as anybody else,” Matt Rhule said. “Tough scenario to get put in there and all of a sudden you go in and play and it’s not like you’re going there to toss the ball around, which is usually as a quarterback what you’re going in to do. We put him in there and ran him.”

Ultimately, Rhule believes in Sims and has loved his attitude as he’s embraced a new role on the team this season.

“I have a lot of confidence in Jeff Sims. I think Jeff is a competitor. You’re the starting quarterback, you get banged up, someone else goes in, they become the quarterback. You watch when we do the videos that we do. It’s one thing to see a guy celebrate – like Heinrich [Haarberg] scores and you see him celebrating like, oh what a good teammate. I watched and saw when he threw to Malachi [Coleman] on the sidelines, they showed the cinematic view and as he dropped back, you could see Jeff putting his hands up like ‘touchdown’ as it happened because Jeff cares about the team. So, I have nothing but admiration and respect for Jeff. He’s ready when his number is called, he’s ready.”

Matt Rhule emphasized that beyond Heirich Haarberg and Jeff Sims, he also thinks that Chubba Purdy can be a good quarterback for Nebraska now that he’s healthy.

“Chubba is back to form and I’d have no problem putting Chubba in a game. We have three really good quarterbacks. To me, the fumbles are something that falls on me.”

How Matt Rhule has embraced Nebraska tradition to endure tough start

It was a slow start for Nebraska in Matt Rhule’s first season in Lincoln. Since then, however, the Cornhuskers have bounced back and HuskerOnline’s Steve Sipple explained how embracing tradition has helped Rhule.

“Rhule really embraces the past here. Not only embraces it – he uses elements of it,” Sipple said.

“You were around when Nebraska was running pure option – down the line, traditional option during the [Tom] Osborne years, during the [Fran] Solich years. Now they’re doing it again. It wasn’t anything that the offensive coordinator, Marcus Satterfield, knew how to teach – he had to learn. He had to learn himself. They run quite a bit of the option attack with Heinrich Haarberg. And, I mean, he’s 6’5, 220. When he turns the corner? It’s business time. He’s pretty good running that, he’s pretty good keeping the ball.”