Matt Rhule never worried about Nebraska responding to adversity

Following a brutal Week 1 loss to Minnesota, Nebraska gets the unenviable task of heading to Colorado to face the talk of college football in the Buffaloes. But even with a loss on the record and a tough environment ahead of them, first-year Cornhuskers head coach Matt Rhule isn’t worried about his team shrinking in the face of adversity.

Plus, there will be more adverse moments to come, even against the Buffaloes. On top of shaking off the loss, there will be a hostile crowd, an early game adrenaline rush to weather, and so much more that Rhule’s team will need to weather.

He’s not concerned about them being unable to handle any of it.

“Yeah, I have no concerns about our guys ever responding. I think, as I talked about, 2021, 2022, there were some times with some tough losses where they didn’t respond great. I never worry about that with this group. That is the challenge. And then once you get to the game this weekend, we’re going to have to respond. We’re going to have to respond to their tempo, the early surge of the game. We’re going to have to respond to, it’s going to be an electric environment, all the things around the game,” Rhule said.

But once the ball is kicked off and the teams descend into the myopic world of a football game, Rhule knows his players can drown out the noise.

They might come up short because of a talent imbalance, bad bounce or something else. But Rhule doesn’t seem worried that his team will wither when the lights get hot and bright.

“But once the game starts, it’s really about what happens in between the white lines,” Rhule said. And we’ve got a lot of guys who played a lot of football. We’ve got guys who played Ohio State and Michigan and Georgia and Alabama and Penn State. We’ve played a lot of big football games here at Nebraska, so this is another one. This is a great game and I’m hoping that our guys. They have all week, but they respond in the game to the highs and lows that come.”

It will be a rivalry renewed between Nebraska and Colorado on Saturday

On the Colorado Football Coaches Show, Buffaloes head coach Deion Sanders laid out the stakes. He might not have a history in the rivalry, but he knows how deep it can run. As such, Sanders is making matters personal this weekend.

“This team, this is a personal game. Not only does it mean a lot to you. It means a lot to us. And we want to represent our home. We talked about something about homes. Nobody’s going to come in my home, my natural home and whoop me. Nobody’s going to grab me out of my car and whoop me. Nobody’s going to come anywhere I call mine and whoop me,” Sanders said. “We gotta have that same passion, that same energy when it comes to this game. We’re not gonna let nobody come into our house and whoop us. It’s personal.”