Matt Rhule explains why he brought up last year's Northwestern game for Nebraska players

On Saturday, Matt Rhule and the Nebraska Cornhuskers won a tight game against the Northwestern Wildcats. This comes a year after Northwestern was able to beat Nebraska in Ireland to start the season.

That was a game that Nebraska felt it should have won and Rhule brought that game up for the players ahead of this year’s game. Rhule explained that this wasn’t about motivating his time, but about giving them an opportunity to grow.

“I don’t bring things up like that as motivation, like, ‘These guys got us and,’ I don’t believe in that,” Matt Rhule said. “What I do believe is that everything that happens in our lives prepares us for the next stage of our life, and [for] most people it’s so painful that they don’t want to learn from it. But there’s a positive application of pain.”

Matt Rhule has seen and experienced that positive application of pain before. Notably, that includes his time in the NFL.

“Like it was painful for my wife, for my kids, and I to go to games — it was painful for me to go to games and have my kids sit there at Carolina and have them boo us. I’ll be honest with you, when the crowd boos here, I almost go back there a little bit. I can feel myself. It’s one of the reasons why I came here, because I didn’t want to go somewhere like that, what I went through,” Rhule said.

“But there’s a positive application of pain. I’ve learned, ‘You know what, Matt? Do what you think is right.’ If you want to go for it, go for it. If not, not. Same thing for our players.”

Matt Rhule explained that he was giving his team the message to learn from last season and focus on the things that they can control this season.

“So, my message to them, because Ron did a great job in chapel for the guys that were in chapel, I just said, ‘We haven’t played 60 minutes of just us playing together. Let’s try to play 60 minutes.’ I don’t know if we did because weak things, but we just kind of battled back and forth, and I didn’t bring up the Northwestern game at all until I think brought it up at the game,” Rhule said.

“I was like, ‘The shame of the Northwestern game last year was there was a narrative that we lost because we had a surprise onside kick. What are you talking about? That’s not why you lost. You lost because they scored more points than you.’ I told them at halftime, ‘Stop looking at the coach to make a different call. Stop worrying about the playcalling. Our players have to go beat their players.’ So, in the fourth quarter, I’m saying to them how often in life do you have a chance to go back and redo something? We have an 11-point lead. Let’s go play.”

Ultimately, Matt Rhule explained, this is a lesson that he hopes will go beyond football for his players.

“So, I want them to understand that because as they start businesses and they have families, tough things are gonna happen, and I don’t want them to be like the people who are victims. I want them to say, ‘This happened to me, I’m gonna use it for good. I’m gonna learn from it, and I’m gonna move forward.’ So, it’s not a mixed message in my mind,” Rhule said.

“I’m more saying, ‘Why did that happen? Because we were worried about all the wrong things. Tonight, let’s just go play the next snap, the next play. Don’t worry about offense. Offense, don’t worry about the defense. Let’s have each other’s back.’ I mean, Ethan Nation jumped in the game and played and played well. So, that’s kind of the message if that makes sense.”

Matt Rhule, Nebraska plan to catch Georgia as perceived hardest-practicing team in college football

Georgia, a program that has won two straight national championships, is known as one of the hardest-practicing teams in college football. Now, Matt Rhule wants Nebraska to catch Georgia as the perceived hardest-practicing team in college football.

“We had one scout come in and said, ‘Man, you guys are the second hardest practicing team I’ve seen in college football.’ I had him tell the team that. Because I think sometimes they look at me like, Why are we practicing so hard? Well, when a guy comes up and it’s gonna be two names, and he looks at the guy from University of Nebraska late or as a free agent, he knows these guys know how to practice. Those are the things they ask. Obviously, they’ll ask me some more things about guys but the base thing is that: What’s the football character, learning? If it’s a first round pick, maybe more about, ‘Coach once he has some money is he going to continue to love the game or does he know the game just to make some money.’ Those are the things people are asking me,” Rhule said.

“We’ll catch ’em. It’s University of Georgia. And that doesn’t mean Alabama — that’s gonna go viral. I’m gonna have all these fan bases yelling at me. I’m just saying what another person said of the teams he’s seen. But I know how Georgia practices. It’s been great to have MJ [Sherman] here to tell our guys, you know on Thursdays when we come out guys in baseball caps and we walk through, they’re in shoulder pads and helmets.”