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Is Troy Edwards still on the team?
La Tech Game Week Thread
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La Tech Game Week Thread
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Underrated dude. Athletic freak & special teams beast.
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It was a fine thing to be home. Even if it's a new home for Matt Rhule's staff and you're still figuring out some of the gameday vibes in Memorial Stadium.
He was too dialed into coaching to watch the drone show closely going into the fourth quarter of Nebraska's 35-11 win over Northern Illinois. But his daughters loved all the surroundings during the game. "Did you see this? Did you see that?" he heard from them. So bring back those drones for night games, the coach thinks.
"The only thing I'd say is – this might be popular, it might not ... I just wish they'd bring back DJ Kool 'Let Me Clear My Throat.'"
He did his research before taking this job, as he's said before. Just one request that he mentioned during a light moment during his hour-long appearance on the 'Sports Nightly' radio show with Greg Sharpe on Tuesday. He said he'll let the experts in gameday stadium operations handle that.
He's locked into getting the football right.
And it sure felt better in Lincoln this past weekend after two tough losses to start the year. Rhule doesn't ever remember starting a season with two road games in a row.
"It's really unusual. But we tried to make the best of it, right? Make it into a good thing in learning a lot about ourselves. I think to come home and have that energy, have everyone around, I thought it was great. I think the biggest thing for me is obviously we're going to always feed off the energy. We want to celebrate with the fans and have them all be part of it.
"But we want to make sure that when we catch a touchdown or intercept the ball or get a sack, that we're celebrating with our teammates. And I thought the guys did a great job of that. You could feel the joy and the passion and the energy. Because if the teammates love each other, the crowd feels it, the energy just grows. That's what I wanted to feel and I felt it."
That carried to the final play. Rhule wanted his kickoff team to fair catch it just so he could get some specific guys on offense in the game.
Trevin Luben got a carry and ripped off a nice run. Roman Mangini had a block that knocked a guy off the screen. "He was kind of high stepping. it was awesome." Rhule pointed out it was Lincoln native John Goodwin's first time getting in a Husker game.
"And what was cool about it was seeing the way the team responded to that," Rhule said of the game's last play, a first play for some. "Because, again, the things I believe in: team, loving each other, brotherhood, all those things. Everyone thinks it's gone away with NIL and transfer and all those things. I think it's more applicable than ever. So seeing them respond like that meant a lot."
– Jeff Sims is improving with his health, and has practiced this week, but there's still some work to do in a few areas it seems.
"I think the biggest issue for him right now is to be able to run the football, run the options, zone reads, quarterback draw... " Rhule said. "And then scramble in the pocket, he's probably not quite there. But he's been a great teammate, he's great on the sidelines ... So really we have three quarterbacks that we feel can go in the game and all three are working really hard."
– When you have a running QB like Heinrich Haarberg or Sims, Rhule pointed out sometimes the third down looks you think you're going to see as a QB are actually different. That is, you're thinking maybe man coverage and pressure and instead they're playing Cover 2 and thinking about you running it. "So I thought he did a nice job managing the things that were thrown at him," Rhule said of Haarberg.
– A fan sent an appreciative text to Rhule about the team's tackling so far. "We tackle a lot," Rhule said.
He said a lot of head coaches are offensive-minded spread coaches and call a lot of plays, so at practice there's a lot of quick resets. Rhule said the Huskers run to the ball at practice and have defenders strike blockers and vice versa. He said players buy into it.
He also reminded players on Tuesday that some might be playing only 15 to 30 snaps because Nebraska is rotating so much, so they need to practice their tackling because it can be gone in a minute if you don't do it. You need consistent great angles and great effort to do it well.
"Tony's got the boys doing it and we just have to keep it up as the weeks go."
Rhule thought even in the spring he had a good tackling team.
"I haven't had many bad tackling teams," he said. "I'm certainly not a defensive guru. That's all on Tony (White). But the way we practice I always believe we'll have a defense that whatever our talent level is, we'll maximize it because we let our defense practice and a lot of people don't anymore."
– Rhule said the Huskers have always believed in playing a lot of guys on defense but he's never played as many as this year.
The 3-3-5 bendable system Tony White has perhaps helped that cause.
"Hey, Jimari starts off at JACK. He's playing outside backer. We get some injuries. He gets injured. He comes back. We put him at defensive end. He's flexible. Princewill played defensive end for several weeks, now he goes to JACK. So that's what I love about this system."
But Rhule credits the player for the way they're taking it in. More reps brought guys on faster. And they are a team of guys that likes to do extra, he said.
– The Huskers went to the QB sneak – quite effectively – on short-yardage situations on Saturday.
A fan asked if Rhule gives thought to opening it up more on second-and-1. No, Rhule answered. He did a study of New England when the Pats were rolling, and when they had second-and-short he saw how often they went to direct runs to pick up the first down.
"Especially when you're not a tempo offense, you just want to suffocate people, you want to stay on the field. Will there be a day when we do something like that? Maybe. We have a lot of work to get to the point where (we would). But we won 11 games at Baylor, and were playing in the championship game, and you could see us on second-and-1 running quarterback sneak and fullback dive. We want to stay on the field and make defenses defend us."
Body blows is the goal, Rhule reiterated.
"Just accumulation of reps. A lot of people run the ball early and if they're not having complete success they get away from it. We believe runs in the first quarter equal long runs in the fourth quarter so staying on the field is really important."
– The Huskers were actually going to throw that pass that went for 26 to Marcus Washington on the first play.
But it felt better throwing that pass left to right so the Huskers ran an option on first down to get the ball to the left hash.
– Rhule felt the defensive stand after the turnover was the moment it showed how the Huskers were going to play as a team. Against Colorado, "I didn't love the way we always responded as a team. And there was never anything negative. But it's not just about saying, 'Hey, don't worry about the offense, let's go out and play.' Or saying, 'Hey, let's not worry about the defense.' Great teams say, 'Hey, let's go pick up the offense.' 'Let's go pick up the defense.'
"When you do this long enough you understand that right now maybe the defense has to pick up the offense sometimes. Eventually that will flip. There will be moments when the special teams have to do that ... We just want them to understand that. Like all this is about is all of us playing together, having each other's back."
He thought Haarberg played with more freedom after that stop.
"Because you cannot play quarterback thinking, 'If I make a mistake I'm coming out.' Or 'If I make a mistake we lose the game.'"
– Rhule said there was some sort of party for the scout team on Monday night, "Because I thought they gave a great look."
– The upcoming foe Louisiana Tech presents a lot of challenges with its offense.
Rhule has connections to the team's coach Sonny Cumbie. He has a lot of respect for its offense and said playmaker Smoke Harris is dangerous. It's a great style offense that you have to play team football against, Rhule said. Some similarities to what Colorado did.
"I think they ran the ball for 241 yards last week so they're not a drop-back passing only. They can move it."
– When it comes to Friday practices, Rhule said he wants it to be close to full speed. Tuesday and Wednesday are real physical, Thursday is more of a recovery and walk-through. And then, "We want to treat Friday practice like the first two drives of the game and when we walk off that field on Friday and it feels crisp, we feel like we've put the work in this week, we should have the right to feel confident."
– Rhule said long before he even considered becoming a Husker coach, he coached Ameer Abdullah and found him to be one of the classiest guys he's been around.
There's a story attached to this too. At every coaching stop, Rhule's wife, Julie, would have a different position group over to the house for dinner on Thursday nights.
Ameer showed up with the running backs one week as you'd suspect. Then he came again the next week with the receivers too. Rhule grew close with him. He called him a great friend and got messages before the last two games from him.
But back to their time in the NFL together: A lot of times older guys will buy the players and coach of their position groups Christmas gifts.
Rhule laughed. Head coaches get nothing.
"But I got a book. And I got it from Ameer. It had a beautiful inscription in it. I wont say what it says, because it's from him to me, but it stayed with me during a hard time and it stays with me to this day and it's something I always think about as we're trying to get this thing to where we want to get it to."
247sports.com
He was too dialed into coaching to watch the drone show closely going into the fourth quarter of Nebraska's 35-11 win over Northern Illinois. But his daughters loved all the surroundings during the game. "Did you see this? Did you see that?" he heard from them. So bring back those drones for night games, the coach thinks.
"The only thing I'd say is – this might be popular, it might not ... I just wish they'd bring back DJ Kool 'Let Me Clear My Throat.'"
He did his research before taking this job, as he's said before. Just one request that he mentioned during a light moment during his hour-long appearance on the 'Sports Nightly' radio show with Greg Sharpe on Tuesday. He said he'll let the experts in gameday stadium operations handle that.
He's locked into getting the football right.
And it sure felt better in Lincoln this past weekend after two tough losses to start the year. Rhule doesn't ever remember starting a season with two road games in a row.
"It's really unusual. But we tried to make the best of it, right? Make it into a good thing in learning a lot about ourselves. I think to come home and have that energy, have everyone around, I thought it was great. I think the biggest thing for me is obviously we're going to always feed off the energy. We want to celebrate with the fans and have them all be part of it.
"But we want to make sure that when we catch a touchdown or intercept the ball or get a sack, that we're celebrating with our teammates. And I thought the guys did a great job of that. You could feel the joy and the passion and the energy. Because if the teammates love each other, the crowd feels it, the energy just grows. That's what I wanted to feel and I felt it."
That carried to the final play. Rhule wanted his kickoff team to fair catch it just so he could get some specific guys on offense in the game.
Trevin Luben got a carry and ripped off a nice run. Roman Mangini had a block that knocked a guy off the screen. "He was kind of high stepping. it was awesome." Rhule pointed out it was Lincoln native John Goodwin's first time getting in a Husker game.
"And what was cool about it was seeing the way the team responded to that," Rhule said of the game's last play, a first play for some. "Because, again, the things I believe in: team, loving each other, brotherhood, all those things. Everyone thinks it's gone away with NIL and transfer and all those things. I think it's more applicable than ever. So seeing them respond like that meant a lot."
– Jeff Sims is improving with his health, and has practiced this week, but there's still some work to do in a few areas it seems.
"I think the biggest issue for him right now is to be able to run the football, run the options, zone reads, quarterback draw... " Rhule said. "And then scramble in the pocket, he's probably not quite there. But he's been a great teammate, he's great on the sidelines ... So really we have three quarterbacks that we feel can go in the game and all three are working really hard."
– When you have a running QB like Heinrich Haarberg or Sims, Rhule pointed out sometimes the third down looks you think you're going to see as a QB are actually different. That is, you're thinking maybe man coverage and pressure and instead they're playing Cover 2 and thinking about you running it. "So I thought he did a nice job managing the things that were thrown at him," Rhule said of Haarberg.
– A fan sent an appreciative text to Rhule about the team's tackling so far. "We tackle a lot," Rhule said.
He said a lot of head coaches are offensive-minded spread coaches and call a lot of plays, so at practice there's a lot of quick resets. Rhule said the Huskers run to the ball at practice and have defenders strike blockers and vice versa. He said players buy into it.
He also reminded players on Tuesday that some might be playing only 15 to 30 snaps because Nebraska is rotating so much, so they need to practice their tackling because it can be gone in a minute if you don't do it. You need consistent great angles and great effort to do it well.
"Tony's got the boys doing it and we just have to keep it up as the weeks go."
Rhule thought even in the spring he had a good tackling team.
"I haven't had many bad tackling teams," he said. "I'm certainly not a defensive guru. That's all on Tony (White). But the way we practice I always believe we'll have a defense that whatever our talent level is, we'll maximize it because we let our defense practice and a lot of people don't anymore."
– Rhule said the Huskers have always believed in playing a lot of guys on defense but he's never played as many as this year.
The 3-3-5 bendable system Tony White has perhaps helped that cause.
"Hey, Jimari starts off at JACK. He's playing outside backer. We get some injuries. He gets injured. He comes back. We put him at defensive end. He's flexible. Princewill played defensive end for several weeks, now he goes to JACK. So that's what I love about this system."
But Rhule credits the player for the way they're taking it in. More reps brought guys on faster. And they are a team of guys that likes to do extra, he said.
– The Huskers went to the QB sneak – quite effectively – on short-yardage situations on Saturday.
A fan asked if Rhule gives thought to opening it up more on second-and-1. No, Rhule answered. He did a study of New England when the Pats were rolling, and when they had second-and-short he saw how often they went to direct runs to pick up the first down.
"Especially when you're not a tempo offense, you just want to suffocate people, you want to stay on the field. Will there be a day when we do something like that? Maybe. We have a lot of work to get to the point where (we would). But we won 11 games at Baylor, and were playing in the championship game, and you could see us on second-and-1 running quarterback sneak and fullback dive. We want to stay on the field and make defenses defend us."
Body blows is the goal, Rhule reiterated.
"Just accumulation of reps. A lot of people run the ball early and if they're not having complete success they get away from it. We believe runs in the first quarter equal long runs in the fourth quarter so staying on the field is really important."
– The Huskers were actually going to throw that pass that went for 26 to Marcus Washington on the first play.
But it felt better throwing that pass left to right so the Huskers ran an option on first down to get the ball to the left hash.
– Rhule felt the defensive stand after the turnover was the moment it showed how the Huskers were going to play as a team. Against Colorado, "I didn't love the way we always responded as a team. And there was never anything negative. But it's not just about saying, 'Hey, don't worry about the offense, let's go out and play.' Or saying, 'Hey, let's not worry about the defense.' Great teams say, 'Hey, let's go pick up the offense.' 'Let's go pick up the defense.'
"When you do this long enough you understand that right now maybe the defense has to pick up the offense sometimes. Eventually that will flip. There will be moments when the special teams have to do that ... We just want them to understand that. Like all this is about is all of us playing together, having each other's back."
He thought Haarberg played with more freedom after that stop.
"Because you cannot play quarterback thinking, 'If I make a mistake I'm coming out.' Or 'If I make a mistake we lose the game.'"
– Rhule said there was some sort of party for the scout team on Monday night, "Because I thought they gave a great look."
– The upcoming foe Louisiana Tech presents a lot of challenges with its offense.
Rhule has connections to the team's coach Sonny Cumbie. He has a lot of respect for its offense and said playmaker Smoke Harris is dangerous. It's a great style offense that you have to play team football against, Rhule said. Some similarities to what Colorado did.
"I think they ran the ball for 241 yards last week so they're not a drop-back passing only. They can move it."
– When it comes to Friday practices, Rhule said he wants it to be close to full speed. Tuesday and Wednesday are real physical, Thursday is more of a recovery and walk-through. And then, "We want to treat Friday practice like the first two drives of the game and when we walk off that field on Friday and it feels crisp, we feel like we've put the work in this week, we should have the right to feel confident."
– Rhule said long before he even considered becoming a Husker coach, he coached Ameer Abdullah and found him to be one of the classiest guys he's been around.
There's a story attached to this too. At every coaching stop, Rhule's wife, Julie, would have a different position group over to the house for dinner on Thursday nights.
Ameer showed up with the running backs one week as you'd suspect. Then he came again the next week with the receivers too. Rhule grew close with him. He called him a great friend and got messages before the last two games from him.
But back to their time in the NFL together: A lot of times older guys will buy the players and coach of their position groups Christmas gifts.
Rhule laughed. Head coaches get nothing.
"But I got a book. And I got it from Ameer. It had a beautiful inscription in it. I wont say what it says, because it's from him to me, but it stayed with me during a hard time and it stays with me to this day and it's something I always think about as we're trying to get this thing to where we want to get it to."
Rhule on the radio: Looking for joy and energy Saturday, he found it from Husker team in first home game
Husker head coach Matt Rhule on a variety of subjects during an hour-long radio appearance
247sports.com
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Nebraska Football: Haarberg should start the Louisiana Tech Game
ESPECIALLY if Sims is not 100%. Let Heinrich gain valuable experience.
Jarek_Shearer Sep 19, 2023, 1:05pm CDT
When I was asked what my thoughts were on the potential for Heinrich Haarberg starting during the 5 Points of Contact Podcast after the Colorado game, I tried to do my best to deliver an ok(ish) scouting report of our backup QB.
I’ve been out of high school for approximately half of my life now, but I still like to keep up with the last football team I played for from time to time. I watched Haarberg start a handful of times, particularly his Senior year to see what he would be like. I was pleased with what I saw.
To me, it wasn’t a big surprise that he was capable of taking care of the football, whether it was with his feet or his arm. He gained a handful of extra yards by running guys over. I know many of you would prefer he slide so he doesn’t take a shot, but trust me, it hurts FAR LESS when YOU are the one delivering the blow to a defender.
Defensive players can’t damage the legs in a one-on-one situation when you are going into their chest with your shoulder pads. Now if multiple defenders are around, then please for the love of God get down. Having a healthy QB might be the last bastion of hope in any offensive position at the rate we are going.
Haarberg was fairly accurate with his arm. Going 14-24 is nothing to write home about, but when it involves 2 TD passes and 0 INTs AND a win, then job done. He definitely has his favorite target in roommate Thomas Fidone, but he looked to get the ball in the hands of his receivers as well. He completed a pass to seven different guys, which means he can distribute the ball if the game calls for a pass heavy attack.
I think this would be a good time for Matt Rhule to use Haarberg to gain valuable experience. Not because Sims has turned the ball over, but because Haarberg will need to use this opportunity to learn how to be a Power 5 quarterback. Giving him game time against non-power 5 teams will help him learn how to slow the game down for himself. It eases some of the pressure off of Sims to return from injury too soon and also prepares Haarberg in case of emergency situations later in the year.
Sims is the undoubted starter according to Rhule when healthy, so why not let Sims rest for another week and have him ready to go when Michigan arrives? Why not let Haarberg have another week to see what he can do? If Heinrich goes out there and plays like he did again this week, isn’t it better for Nebraska to have a healthy starter completely ready for conference play? If Haarberg improves, isn’t that also better for Nebraska?
Husker fans love a Nebraska kid who plays well for the home state team. There is a sense of pride felt by home state players who give it their all for 90,000 fans week in week out. The fans have an affinity for everyone on the roster, but the Nebraska kids get far more love as one of our own. Let Haarberg be the darling Nebraska kid one more week, then throw whoever the best option is we have at Michigan.
Go Big Red!
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Let Me Clear My Throat would be nuts during the light show.
One of my favorite moments as a Husker fan was when we beat Michigan St on that Brandon Reilly late TD. After the game everyone stayed in their seats and they had that song on full blast. It was a hell of a party.
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Naw fam lets play .05 seconds of random honky songs then Thunderstruck
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They also played it that year against Wisconsin after we went ahead on Jano’s long TD run in the 4th.
That was a blast until…well…you know…
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HughJanus
Der Viener Schlinger
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I fucking hate thunderstruck
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It was sweet when they had a snippet of nirvana to start of the light show
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