Nebraska Head Coach Matt Rhule Has One Big Regret From the Indiana Loss

The Huskers' head coach has one decision that he would change now if he could. A decision that may have caused the blowout loss to the Hoosiers.

Sep 7, 2024; Lincoln, Nebraska, USA; Nebraska Cornhuskers head coach Matt Rhule walks off the field after defeating the Colorado Buffaloes at Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Dylan Widger-Imagn Images / Dylan Widger-Imagn Images

Nebraska football was embarrassed on a national scale in its 56–7 loss to Indiana on Saturday.

It was supposed to be a great matchup between two teams that are looking to contend in the Big Ten conference. Instead, it was a beatdown of epic proportions. Nebraska did not even look like they belonged on the same field as Indiana. The struggles were evident from the very beginning that the Huskers' defense was outmatched versus the Hoosiers' dynamic offense.

Nebraska's head coach Matt Rhule discussed some of what went wrong for his team during his press conference on Monday.

“We struggled at the corner position," Rhule said. "They isolated some one-on-one throws and those are 50/50 balls. You should win 50% of the time and they won most of them. We were maybe a little bit more off and they took free access. The game came down to the run game. We were not able to stop the run. In some cases, some inexplicable, we’re blitzing into the run – and there’s an unblocked defender. Just didn’t tackle, didn’t play well."

Saying that Nebraska did not play well is an understatement. They were down 14-7 with a few minutes left in the first half. Then the part of the game that Nebraska has been great in this season showed up, but this time the Huskers were anything but great.

"It’s 14-7 with four minutes left in the first half," Rhule said. "We call that the middle eight, the last four, and the first four. We’ve been historically very good in that area and we weren’t. We weren’t good."

The Huskers' head coach then started talking about one regret that he had about the way he handled the beginning of the second half. He thinks that he can pinpoint the reason why the score ended up being as lopsided as it was.

"As a head coach, you always have to start with, what do I regret, what do I not regret? Coming out in the second half, it was 28-7, we drive the ball down and its 4th and 8 or 4th and 9. We probably should have kicked a field goal there. The analytics say no. The analytics say go for it. There’s a big part of me that always wants to show the guys that you’re always playing to win. A lot of times in that game, it felt like we were playing not to lose."

In an effort to show his players that he still believed in them, it seems like Rhule made a decision that he did not believe in. Despite the good intentions of trying to go for it on 4th and long, it was a decision that backfired and made the defense pay the price.

"I think defensively, the minute you lose the edge of playing to win and you’re trying not to lose, a really good defense becomes really average really quickly. I put them in harm’s way in the second half by going for it on fourth down, trying to get back in the game... I just can’t wave the white flag. I can’t not try to get back in this game. To answer your question, I think that’s what made the score so bad."

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