Matt Rhule sees it that way as Nebraska bounces back from its 56-7 loss to Indiana and prepares to play Ohio State, one of the greatest bullies in the area.
“When something like Saturday happens and you’re at your lowest, you start by asking yourself, ‘What can I do better?'” I told the guys as we began the meeting on Monday. “Then you look at the tape,” stated Matt Rhule, head coach of the Huskers. The guys in the locker room don’t tell you, ‘Well, I believe it was this, I think it was that.’ You don’t read about it. Return and ask yourself, “What did I not do well enough?”
Rhule was watching the tape of the loss to the Hoosiers on the flight home, then twice more on Sunday, then once again Monday morning.
“Because all the answers are on the tape. ‘Hey guys, look at this, look at this, look at this.’ I think when you do that and you start with reality and you start with yourself, it doesn’t ever feel like it’s me versus them,” Rhule said.
“I’m not sitting up there saying, ‘You guys didn’t do this’ and ‘you guys didn’t do that.’ We didn’t play our best game in any way. And that was a team that was going to try to embarrass you if you let them. So we took the loss, we come back and we regroup.”
A key part after getting waxed like that, Rhule said, is to show all those findings on tape that could’ve changed a play that in turn changes the direction of a game.
Like not going to block a safety on a bubble screen when driving to the 15 and trying to cut it to 28-14 midway through the third quarter. A play that eventually leads Nebraska to fourth-and-8, a forced throw, a pick, the confirmation of a rout.
Rhule remarked, “It’s all inner related,” “Avoid missing the kickoff at the two. Allow the ball to cross the boundary line. The game would be different if you allowed the ball to go out of bounds, got it at the 35, and then gave us two first downs like we did.
That was what I wanted them to see. I want them to know that Indiana publicly challenged us as well. I’m not sure how successfully we confronted them. That is something I take personally.
The talent of the Ohio State team Nebraska will play at The Horseshoe on Saturday is undeniable. The No. 4 Buckeyes are thought by some to have the nation’s most talented group. Additionally, they will be recovering from two weeks of stewing.
But Rhule wants to see his guys bring a mindset believing in their abilities and ready to fight.
“If we spend the whole game playing Ohio State looking at the scoreboard hoping to win, we’ll get our face beat in,” Rhule said. “If we go out there and challenge them because we all think we’re good football players and we want to play in the NFL, and their players are going to play in the NFL … So if you’re an NFL player and I’m an NFL player then I should compete with you. If I back down from you then I’m not really an NFL player.
“So I want our guys to go out there and compete and see what happens and then I want to come home and play UCLA and do the same thing and do it for five games.”
Rhule said the Huskers watched the first half together as a team. Something he learned from Tom Coughlin. He mentioned operations like the SEALs and Blue Angels who gather together after a mission and take ownership of what happened.
Actually, though, I just want them to see how everything comes together. When you forget to block the safety, a bubble screen is flung to the left. That results in second-and-10, which in turn results in fourth-and-8. All I want is for them to realize how interconnected they are. Because occasionally we’re out there and ask ourselves, ‘What’s happening?’
“But all you have to do is make the block. Simply do your task. When you’re 5-1 and have only fallen behind for six minutes this season, it’s easy to speak about it a lot. However, it’s simple to go back and tell them, “Okay, I know it was bad, but let’s look at this, if we did,” when you’re getting your tail kicked the way we were.
The tape is the kind of fact checker impossible to dismiss.
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