Coaching a college football program can come with a lot of criticism. That’s especially so when you’re at one with a name like Nebraska. Still, through five games, Matt Rhule has done his best to ensure that he, and his players if they so chose, can tune all of that out.
Rhule addressed any outside noise during a press conference this week. He said he leaves it up to his players to choose what they do and don’t listen to since they’re adults who are living in the age that we are today.
“I don’t tell them what to think because they’re not going to listen to me anyway, right? I mean I try to tell my son, ‘Hey, don’t look at Twitter‘. And he’s like, ‘Okay’ as he’s looking at Twitter, right? So I think this is the modern world. You have to decide where you put your attention to,” said Rhule.
To Rhule, Nebraska has much more important things to worry about as the season turns to October. That includes getting themselves back to .500.
For all the disapproval of their record, though, Rhule actually isn’t at all bothered by it. Based on what the Cornhuskers did just last season and their current position amongst other teams in their conference, he knows they’re not alone at the bottom and sees that, from here, the only way left to go is up.
“I’ll just say this – if being 2-3 is the end of the world for us? I mean there’s a lot of 2-3 teams in the Big Ten right now,” Rhule pointed out. “Like, we’re facing one on Friday.”
“I think Nebraska has been 2-3, or some version thereof, the last couple years,” said Rhule. “When you look back at last year, when they got to this point last year, I thought that they accelerated. The team got better and they had some chances to win games down the stretch. Why don’t we just do that? That was the message last night – do that.”
A 2-3 start isn’t ideal anywhere, especially in Lincoln and when you have no wins and only losses against Power Five competition. Even so, Rhule is well aware that the sky is not falling whatsoever as Nebraska looks to even out their record tonight against Illinois in Champaign.