“Yeah, absolutely. Thought we were prepared. I thought we were ready. Put that, you know, put that purely on me.” – Matt Rhule when asked if he was surprised by outcome of the game.
Some will want to chew
over being on the wrong end of another sound thrashing in a conference game, and honestly who can blame them, but I want to quickly put it behind me and concentrate on channeling my dark emotions fully on the dog-ass Iowa Hawkeyes and all the low-rent behavior they embody. I have to believe they will get their comeuppance after a fully-deserved win by the Cornhuskers – at least until those beliefs are crushed into dust once again.
However, a collapse like last Saturday’s night’s deserves a look back and an explanation from the head coach. And, per usual, he was honest about the game play and shouldering the blame for not preparing the team better. What may have made it worse was the players perhaps wanting to get a”W” against his alma mater, knowing what that would mean to him.
“I think a lot of our guys – they really wanted to try… I think they wanted to win the game – probably for me in some ways – and I hate that for them. I wanted them to play free.”
And, following more questionable calls and decisions offensively inside the opponent’s 10 on the opening drive, things went south defensively in a hurry.
“I think the first eight plays on defense, they had a missed assignment. I’m pretty good about never throwing people under the bus; I’m not throwing them under the bus. My point to them was, ‘You’re way better than you played.‘“
And he refers to an avalanche and a collapse on this next one, but I have to be honest. The collapse started with that Penn State opening 98-yard drive. Penn State rolled 98, 82, 75 and finally 14 yards (set up by the punt return and Wilson penalty) on their four first half drives. The avalanche started with around 11 minutes left in the first quarter, not 4 minutes left in the half.
“And it… feels like an avalanche. Sometimes you go back and look at and it’s 10-3 with four minutes left in the half, and then we had what was like a little bit of a collapse, right? They kick the ball off to us. You know, we have a mishap, we have a sack. (There’s) the 15 yard penalty on the punter, they score again all of a sudden, the 10-3 becomes 23-3.“
To their credit, the Huskers never stopped battling, but things were basically done at halftime. After a Penn State TD to open the second half, the offense found the end zone and the defense got a stop, but a 7-7 score for the frame was their only reward. Penn State eased off the pressure and the final was 37-10, a score which made the game sound closer than it was.
”So that being said, that game was over. I told the guys, “Get on the plane thinking about next Friday. And if you’re not all in, get on, go sit in the back and play. If you’re all in, move forward. And I’ll put this L on my chest.”
Part of putting the “L” on the chest should probably entail admitting things were much worse than just a flurry before halftime. But that being said, it doesn’t change the fact they’ve got to learn their lessons from Happy Valley and put that night behind them, because the Hawkeyes, who hate Nebraska just as strongly as we hate them, would love nothing more than to kick a Huskers team while they’re down – especially with the knowledge they were gifted a second straight 13-10 win after being doubled up 334 to 164 in yardage in the 2024 contest.
And Matt Rhule, despite trying waive off any bad blood at the beginning of his press conference Monday, acknowledged it was time for him get a win over the Hawkeyes, adding:
“So the game coming up this Friday, it means the world to us. It means the world to me.“
