On Matt Rhule's schedule every Monday night is a "family dinner" that includes various members of the Husker team.
Rhule's daughters had been playing volleyball so the Husker head coach walked in at about 5:30 and some of the guys were already there.
Ethan Piper was sitting in a wheelchair with his hand in a cast, leg up, with his mom next to him.
Nouredin Nouili was there also despite having had surgery that morning.
"As I'm talking to Ethan, he's like, 'Yeah, this really stinks but it's probably a really good thing for the team because now Justin (Evans-Jenkins) is getting some reps, you can really develop him.' To think that anybody could think like that," Rhule said in admiration of the injured Husker O-lineman's attitude after a season-ending setback this past Saturday.
There will be ups and downs for those injured players as they go through the rehab process. Rhule has seen it with
Rahmir Johnson and
Dwight Bootle, and others.
"They'll go through all those, but the good news is they don't have to go through them alone," Rhule said on an hour-long 'Sports Nightly' radio appearance. "We're here for them."
Rhule said dealing with injuries – which have piled up for the Husker offense especially – is two-fold for a coach and a team.
"There's the personal component when you've seen everything that
Ethan Piper,
Turner Corcoran, when you see the sacrifices they've made for the team. When you see the way that
Billy Kemp works. That's one component: the personal, emotional part," he said. "From a football perspective, guys, we have to go play. We have to go play to a certain standard."
He pointed out someone like Evans-Jenkins played well in Saturday's 17-9 win over Northwestern.
Teddy Prochazka has started games.
Henry Lutovsky has played a healthy number of snaps in his career.
"We have players who can go win," he said.
>>> Rhule said the Huskers "certainly had to simplify" on Saturday with some things because players like
Jaidyn Doss, for example, hadn't gotten reps like Kemp had. As he pointed out after that game, the coaches had a lot in for Kemp.
"As we get into this week, the coaches regroup. They look and say, 'Hey, who do we have? Who can do what?' We put together a plan with the guys that we have here."
As far as practices go, this time of year you do taper off some.
>>> "But Coach Osborne came to practice, and even as he said to me, 'You can't worry about injuries. You have to play the games.' And if we don't practice well, we won't play well. If we won't play well, we won't win. ... We'll be smart when we can. But this is a physical, violent game. And what's unique is most of our injuries have happened in games, they haven't happened in practice. So practice to me is what is allowing us to win four of the last five."
>>> Rhule wasn't going to use the bye week as a reasoning for the Huskers looking so rough on offense to start the Northwestern game, turning it over on two of the first six snaps, and also having a fumble that wasn't lost but resulted in negative yardage.
"I think the beginning of the game on offense was so bad that to make an excuse for it, my lips would hurt," Rhule said.
The coach acknowledged "there are still things we're unpacking" as to why there are three drives so unsightly off the jump and then all of a sudden it's a group that can put together scoring marches.
"That's what Year 1 is all about. It's about figuring out what makes the players tick. How do we win here? Every week I'm searching for that sort of that Rosetta Stone to really try to get this thing in the right place."
Rhule said there's a piece of it that is like being a high school coach: "It's like, who's walking the halls? Let's get them out for football." In this case, finding your team is finding what they excel at.
>>> He pointed out that when Nebraska takes the field on Saturday it's full of guys who, with few exceptions, should be back next year.
"That to me is what will make Nebraska special. People talk about the transfer portal. That's not really how we want to do it. And we hope our guys stay with us. We hope they feel invested in. We hope they love the way the fan base reacts to them. We hope they love the opportunities here. But we want to build it with our own guys."
>>> Rhule said that true freshman defender Eric Fields hasn't been on the field in a while due to an injury.
"He had like a stress reaction to the bone in his leg. Those are the type of things you want to be smart with. So it's been a couple weeks, where they said, 'Hey, maybe he'll be back this week...' But Eric is coming along. I'm happy with Eric. He's transitioning from high school to college, then you get injured, there's a lot to deal with: study hall and training, and 6 a.m. and being here. He's getting all that adjusted. When he gets it all figured out he's going to be a heckuva football player. He's fast, dynamic, explosive. He just needs to get on the field."
Rhule is "very pleased" with the class of freshmen Nebraska has right now.
"Sometimes when we're a freshman we're so concerned with how much we're playing as a freshman. Sometimes where we're so concerned with where we are, how we fit in, and what's going to happen down the line. When I have a chance to talk to parents, or a high school coach, or the player, I always say, 'Let's just worry about where you are in two or three years.' Sometimes you can be playing a lot as a freshman and have that be the highlight of your career. And sometimes you kind of sit there and you pay your dues and it ends up being the best thing for you."
He believes many of the freshmen players will make an impact in the next two to three years.
>>> Rhule said he's never had a run of turnovers like this – with the fumbles especially.
"It's been plaguing the program for about eight, nine years. What I will say is we've had some games where we've won the turnover battle or been better. So I think it's controllable."
Rhule said he's a bit old-school about it. It simply just comes down to holding onto the dang ball. He wants the coaching staff to have a level of accountability about it too.
That doesn't mean you don't have some aggression. On the first play against Northwestern, the Huskers had a pass wide open to Nate Boerkircher, who may have scored, and the intended target Thomas Fidone was also open. The throw was just off.
"No risk it, no biscuit. We're going to let the ball rip sometimes. But the other ones have to get corrected."
And as well as the Huskers are playing on defense, the takeaways need to get bumped up by that unit.
He couldn't recall a game with as many as eight sacks, like Nebraska had, but not forcing a fumble. "It just seems odd. So we want to just keep working on wining that turnover margin each week."
