Husker coach Matt Rhule on a variety of topics during his radio appearance.
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.»