Matt Rhule reaffirms Jeff Sims is Nebraska's starting QB when healthy

Toward the end of Nebraska‘s loss to Colorado, quarterback Jeff Sims suffered an ankle injury. That’s made his status moving forward uncertain for head coach Matt Rhule.

On Monday, Rhule explained that Sims is the starting quarterback at Nebraska when he’s healthy. However, Rhule did acknowledge that turnovers have been a major issue for the Cornhuskers and that the team needs to find a way to limit those.

“I’m gonna see him practice first,” Matt Rhule said. “Jeff is our starting quarterback. So, if this hadn’t happened, he’d still be out there. That being said, we can’t keep turning the ball over.”

Nebraska is 132nd in the country in turnover margin through Week 2. The Cornhuskers have given the ball away eight times already, including four interceptions and four fumbles.

“And when you’re the quarterback, not everything is your fault. They snap the ball and it hits a guy in motion, sometimes that’s the quarterback’s fault, sometimes it’s someone else’s fault. So, this is a top-down, starting with me, hey, we have to be better. We can’t be minus eight. It goes without saying, right? It’s just that can’t be in our building, not out in the world, that can’t be the only narrative in our building,” Rhule said.

“In our building, it can’t just be well, we turned the ball over. It’s 13-7 with six minutes left to go in the third quarter and we lose 36-14, like that’s not acceptable either. So, we’re asking everyone to get just a little bit better.”

Despite those issues that have occurred with Jeff Sims leading the offense, Matt Rhule reaffirmed that he’s the starting quarterback if he’s healthy.

“All that being said, Jeff is our quarterback, but Jeff also has to protect the football. When the ball is on the ground — things are gonna happen, especially on the road, we have to dive on the ball and just hold the ball there. So, I’m obviously not getting that point across. I’m gonna get it across to everybody as we move forward,” Rhule said.

“But I don’t know what he looks like, so I don’t want to comment too much. If he was 100 percent healthy, I’d have him out there with the ones.”

Matt Rhule gave an injury update on Jeff Sims

During his Monday press conference, Matt Rhule shared what he does know about Jeff Sims’ ankle injury.

“Jeff was unable to practice with the ankle, so won’t know more about him until probably tomorrow or later in the week. So Heinrich [Haarberg] and Chubba [Purdy] obviously took the reps,” Rhule said.

“It doesn’t appear to be one of those four-to-five weeks, true high ankle [sprains]. It doesn’t appear to be that. So he moved around last night. We have that training area for the guys who aren’t practicing and he was moving around in there. With quarterbacks, I never know with the ankle what that’s going to mean. So I’d have to see him before I know much more about that.”