In their second year under head coach Matt Rhule, the Nebraska Cornhuskers are turning plenty of heads. They have enough talent throughout the roster to be one of the better programs in the Big Ten in 2024.
Recently, Rhule sat down with Greg McElroy of Always College Football, ESPN’s College Football Internet show, and discussed where Nebraska is as the summer rolls around.
“Year 1 here was like year two at Temple or Baylor.—it’s funny; I always felt like we did our best job coaching at Temple and Baylor in year one,” said Rhule. “Sometimes, that’s when you’re under the most pressure and duress. People are questioning what you’re doing. But I look back, I say, ‘Man, we saved the program at Baylor in year one.”
“Here, the program didn’t need to be saved. Scott Frost had done a good job; he brought in talent, there were good players here, good people. What we have to do is we have to take our program and that’s really the challenge right now; we’ve got to stop being the team that loses the close games.”
Rhule did give Frost credit for the talent that he acquired during his tenure as Nebraska’s head coach. As he continued car with the cornhuskers head man lamented a change in mentality. Initially, as Rhule saw it, Nebraska’s late-game struggles in his first season had more to do with the previous coaching regime than himself. However, he has since changed his stands on that and is working on making the Cornhuskers into a team that knows how to finish a game strong.
“What I believe is close losses: if you stay focused, if you get your team to not worry about the result but just focus on executing that play and doing what they do, close losses become close wins,” Rhule said. “And eventually, close wins become big wins… we just went right back to the drawing board. So I think I think we’re ahead of schedule, but that schedule really shows up on the fall. And if we come out on the fall first two games by a point at the end of the game, then we aren’t where we want to be.”
Rhule’s Cornhuskers finished last year 2-4 in one-score games. In 2023, the Cornhuskers had six games decided by eight points or fewer, including four straight losses to end the season with three of them by way of a field goal. This is why the Nebraska headman is assuring that he implements the right mentality over the summer to prevent the trend of last year’s team from impacting this year’s.
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