Rhule Discusses Practice, Roster Limits
Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule met with members of the media following the team’s practice on Thursday. He spoke on recruits watching practice and the feedback he’s gotten.
“I want people, if they’re serious about looking at Nebraska, I want them to come watch us practice. Everybody is nice on junior day, everybody is nice on official visits. Come see what people are like at practice. I hope they’ll come away with a couple things. Number one, you see a bunch of coaches who demand but don’t demean. We’re going to coach hard. My nine year old daughter is at practice sometimes. My father, who is a minister, is at practice sometimes. My 12 year old daughter is at practice sometimes. My son is out there every day. It’s a highly demanding, accountable atmosphere, but it’s never demeaning. I want them to see that. It can’t be too far one way or another. It can’t be just rolling balls out and having fun, and it can’t be disrespectful. So it’s going to be that. Number two, the level of instruction. There’s a lot of schools that have really great recruiters, but those guys can’t coach. A lot of schools have good coaches. We’re trying to find the middle. I want them to come see Daikiel (Shorts Jr.) coach. He’s a great recruiter, but he can really teach and instruct, and just carry that on the line down all the coaches. I want them to see that. I want them to see our precision, our attention to detail. I want them to see the atmosphere. I want them to see that there’s no silos. I want them to see that everyone is speaking the same message with different words. There’s only one message here – player development and helping people get better. People say it in different ways. As they walk around practice and see Kristin (Coggin) doing her thing or Gus (Felder) or Dr. (Michael) Stout from a mental performance standpoint, we’re all engaged. One thing I always ask them is, can you tell the difference between the starters and the walk-ons in terms of the way they’re being coached? And they can’t, and that’s important to me. My job is not just to coach the players that I think are going to play. My job is to coach everybody. My job is to make everybody better. I want them to come and see all that and I want them to come see us being a highly, highly detailed, competitive environment but still see guys having fun, still see guys enjoying the competition. I want them to see guys celebrating when a guy at their position might make a play. They’re not mouthing off, they’re not angry when a guy makes a play. They’re celebrating and see the joy that we try to build in our locker room. I think people come to practice and see that. And our practices are pretty cool. You’ve got former NFL players, former Husker greats, high school coaches. Some days you have the governor, some days you have Tom Osborne. There’s a lot of people here and I think it sends a message about how important football is at the University of Nebraska.”
Rhule also talked about getting down to 105 roster players and the spring game plan.
“I’m glad you asked that. It sounds like it's going to stay at 105, from what I’m seeing. We’ve already had most of them with everybody. We’re going to do the Husker games next Saturday. I called Troy (Dannen) last night. I’m going to go live and do some Red and White stuff. We have a bunch of guys that this could be their last time playing in that stadium. We have a bunch of guys that are fighting to make the 105. We have a bunch of guys, that, if they can’t play here, they need some tape to go somewhere else. I’ve waited until after the portal closes. The portal closes that Friday. The guys that are cemented in their spots, they won’t play. Some guys will ask to play or not, but those guys that are battling – some are twos even, but they want to prove they’re a one. We’re going to do the Husker Games. We’re going to bring out a bunch of Husker greats, like the Pro Bowl, but I’m going to put the ball down a little bit and play some live football. No Big Ten Network. If you love the walk-on program and you love Husker football and you love those kids that have, in the face of being told that they’re not going to make the 105, still did the mat drills this winter – I don’t know if I could do that. What Jacob Brandl has done - I just picked him because he’s a walk-on player. I don’t know if I could do what Jacob Bower has done, that I could do the most demanding schedule that I’ve been around. Kids that come from other schools go ‘coach, this is demanding.’ Guys leave here sometimes because it’s too demanding. We’ve got guys who do this schedule after being told, you are not going to be in the 105. So I’m going to put them out there and tell my wife and kids to come watch them play. Could be their last time, maybe they’ll end up being a starter here one day, there’s someone that plays in this thing next Saturday that will be a starter one day. We’ll celebrate the former players, we’ll celebrate the guys. You can see the Dylans (Raiola) and the Jacorys (Barney Jr.) out there doing a bunch of stuff, but I decided yesterday – when they decided it was 105, I owe it to those kids to have one last chance to go out there and put some stuff on tape and if they’re not going to make it, we’ll send that tape to all of the schools. I hope our fans will come out and watch those kids. I thought this would be grandfathered in. I was banking on some of that, then when I was told it was going to be 105…I think you’re going to be able to bring more guys into camp to compete for it. Guys who are out for the year will be the exception. There will probably be more than 105. I can’t tell you how grateful I am for the kids that are still here, knowing their odds aren’t that high. They'll be the guys someday that run the country.”
The Husker Games, presented by FNBO, are set for Saturday, April 26. Fans will have the opportunity to get a preview of the 2025 Husker football, volleyball and soccer teams as part of the Husker Games events.