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Huskers Were Too Tight in Second Half Against Illinois, Matt Rhule Says

After an overtime loss to Illinois, Nebraska will travel to Purdue for the season’s first road test. Rhule said Monday that the Huskers will be without starting left tackle Turner Corcoran, who injured a hamstring during Friday night’s loss.

Joe Hudson

Nebraska Football Coach Matt Rhule - Pre-Purdue (Monday)
Nebraska Football Coach Matt Rhule - Pre-Purdue (Monday) / HuskerMax
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Head coach Matt Rhule had injury updates and plenty more to say Monday about Nebraska football’s overtime loss to Illinois and the Huskers’ upcoming game at Purdue. The full video of Rhule’s press conference is above, and below are Kaleb Henry's notes; scroll down farther for more coverage, the latest depth chart and more.

  • Turner Corcoran out “for a while” with a “significant hamstring injury.”
  • Tommi Hill day to day.
  • Ceyair Wright played pretty well.
  • Gunnar Gottula came in and played well. “Overtime got away from us” but Gunnar needed more help there.
  • Illinois had a lot of yards after contact. “Second week in a row I’m saying that” and it’s disappointing.
  • “At the end of the day, we didn’t get off blocks.”
  • Tackling isn’t at the level that has been shown before.
  • DeShon Singleton got fooled on the tight end swapping between eligible and ineligible, but “gonna have to be more disciplined” when things come up.
  • “I don’t think anything was good enough in that game.”
  • Had some good rushes but “a lot of errors on defense I haven’t seen us make since last year at Michigan.”
  • “None of it was quite good enough and we still had a chance to win the game.”
  • Expecting more blitzes against Nebraska’s O-line and Dylan Raiola. “I’d blitz him.”
  • Need more discipline on picking up blitzes and responsibilities.
  • Dylan did well on figuring out Illinois going back and forth between zone and man coverage.
  • Long punt return for Illinois was a “bad punt” that outkicked the coverage to the wrong hash.
  • Same thing happened on kickoff coverage.
  • Team needs to play looser. “It just felt really tight out there in the second half, except for some guys. Dylan doesn’t feel tight. He’s out there saying ‘let’s go play.’ ”
  • Have good character and leadership but just need to play a little bit better.
  • Can’t worry about officials or a call that goes against us.
  • Wants guys to stop worrying about past results in tough situations in games.
  • Game should not have come down to John Hohl’s field goal attempt.
  • Tristan Alvano wasn’t getting any better last week so shut him down for the week (as of Wednesday). Building him back up.
  • Brett Maher is on staff working with specialists. At practices and meetings. Has consulted with Ed Foley for a while but with new rule was able to officially add him during camp.
  • “Hate that we’re still in the learning-how-to-win phase”
  • Defense has a lot of ownership over what they should be doing.
  • Need to run the ball better. Wanted “like 25 carries for Dante.”
  • Would like to get Emmett Johnson more involved in the offense.
  • “As long as we win, I don’t care if we run the ball once, or pass the ball once.”
  • Micah Mazzccua could play other positions on the line but Rhule needs to see it in practice.
  • Getting the team ready for the first road game of the season after four straight home games.
  • Knows the fans will travel. “I hope our guys are looking forward to it.”
  • Purdue giving up rushing yards to running quarterbacks doesn’t equate to what Nebraska does and game plans to do.
  • “We practiced hard.” Not happy about not being the more physical team Friday.
  • Purdue runs outside zone well.
  • If someone is going to help the team win, they’ll play. Only if they can’t help win (depth, experience) will they redshirt.
  • Wants to see defense make some more plays.
  • Heinrich Haarberg is one of the guys Rhule would say isn’t being utilized enough.

You can also watch Matt Rhule's press conference with commentary from Kaleb Henry here.

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Joe Hudson
JOE HUDSON

Joe Hudson has operated a Husker-related website since 1995 and joined forces with David Max to form HuskerPedia (later renamed HuskerMax) in 1999. It began as a hobby during his 35 years as a newspaper editor and reporter, a career that included stints at the Lincoln Star, Omaha World-Herald, Philadelphia Inquirer and Denver Post. In Denver, Joe was chief of the copy desk during his final 16 years at the Post. He is proud to have been involved in Pulitzer Prize-winning projects in both Philadelphia and Denver. Joe has been a Nebraska football fan since the mid-1960s during his childhood in Omaha. He earned his bachelor of arts degree in journalism and economics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1976. He resides a few freeway exits north of Colorado Springs and enjoys bicycling and walking his dogs in his spare time. You can reach him at joeroyhud@outlook.com.

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