Matt Rhule jokes he would prefer 9 a.m. kickoffs: 'Kegs and eggs and football'
If it was up to Matt Rhule, all of his football games would be kicking first thing in the morning.
During his press conference on Monday, Rhule discussed the challenges of keeping his team ready during the day ahead of a night game. In his answer, he expressed his dislike of them with him in favor of playing as early as possible.
“I hate it. I mean I hate it,” said Rhule. “If it was up to me, we’d play at nine o’clock in the morning, you know. Kegs and eggs and football. Let’s go.”
Nebraska has since taken a lot into account for their game-day routine. Rhule wants his players as active as possible throughout the day leading into the game with them having plenty to do, both actively and to rest, ahead of kickoff.
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“Yeah, you know, really, we’ve done, I think, a really good job of changing our schedule around. We even changed the last week based upon the feedback of some of the guys on the staff,” Rhule explained. “So we now get up – we have brunch from like 8:30 to 10:30. We have buses coming over here because a lot of the guys – like, we have a lot of veteran guys that get up at six in the morning every morning, come over because we practice in the morning. So, like, they have recovery available for them. Then we come over here and we do our walkthrough in Hawks.”
“We’re kind of moving around, we’re walking through until about 11:30 and then we get back, get lunch over there, and then guys go up to their rooms for a couple hours. So, you know, they get out of the hotel, they get a little fresh air, they get over here where they’re comfortable,” Rhule continued. “Then games are on, then we come down at 2:30 and we kind of do our neuro-charge where we’re bouncing balls and waking up, and we do a quick special-teams callout. Then optional chapel and meal. So we try to break the day up, you know, as opposed to just sitting.”
Regardless of what the Cornhuskers do, though, Rhule himself just can’t do nothing during the lead up.
“Like, with my ADD, I can’t – I mean I just can’t sit through all that. I’ve got to get over here and do something,” said Rhule. “You know, I kind of grew up in the era of, like, being in the hotel, you know, don’t go back to the building. But our building is so nice. We come over here and I think that has helped us a little bit.”
However, Rhule wants fans to know that that’s just his choice for how he wants Saturdays to be. He gets that their home crowd in Lincoln is only that much better depending on how late their games start.
“There’s no doubt. I think, for us, night games are the best. I mean, it’s a weapon. It’s an absolute weapon,” said Rhule. “I’m just saying I was talking about from my preference. I mean I like to get done with the game, go home. I went home and watched Oregon play Boise. That was a great game, you know. I mean, I like that stuff, right. That was just me being selfish.”
“For the team, night games are amazing because, you know, the crowd is so electric,” Rhule said. “The home atmosphere? I say that because it’ll help us win.”
Waiting all day can be a lot to maintain for any team or program. Still, the ‘Huskers are doing what they can to adjust to them as they go with three of their four announced kicks set to be at nighttime.
“I think that change has really helped,” said Rhule.