• last year
Transcript
00:00 to be back with everyone to talk about another great season of Big 10 football. We've got a lot of talented coaches and players returning to the gridiron this season, and I look forward to bringing you all the action along with my great team at the Big 10 network. Now please help me welcome to the stage for the very first time. Is the Nebraska Cornhusker head coach Matt Rule. [Applause]
00:25 [Music]
00:47 First of all, it's great to be here, so thank you guys all for being here and covering Nebraska football. I want to make sure I begin by thanking Tony Petitti and the entire Big 10 conference in my short amount of time. It's been first class and all the other coaches have been amazing. I want to thank Trev Alberts who's here with us. I appreciate him giving me this job and giving me this great opportunity. I want to make sure I thank everyone back home, everyone in Nebraska. It's been an amazing six months and I'm excited to get to be back here.
01:16 I brought three players here with me today. Luke Reimer, Jeff Sims, and Ethan Piper. All three of those guys, they're not just here for their own accomplishments and they're all very accomplished. They're also here because they represent our team. I know it's just the beginning, we're just getting started, but I like this team, I like our players, and I hope you see really good football this fall.
01:41 So with that, I'll see what you got.
01:46 We'll start right here to our right.
01:52 Coach, Bill Bender, Sporting News. Week two, you guys obviously played Colorado. They were in the news yesterday. Huge old school rivalry. What do you know about that game and what have you heard about that game since you've come to Nebraska?
02:05 Well, if you know me, you know that I love college football. I'm a college football junkie. And so I remember the great days, Coach Osborne versus Coach McCartney, Rashawn Salam, all the great players that played there. I think it's good for college football. I think it's great when we have regional rivalries where fans can drive to them. I think it's good for the game.
02:26 And so as I was looking at this job, my wife and son and I, we sat down and went on YouTube, watched some of the old games, wanted to make sure they understood what being at Nebraska means and what a game against Colorado means.
02:39 And so I'm excited for it. Obviously, they're doing a great job at Colorado, and we'll try to do our part to make sure that it's a great thing for college football.
02:47 We're going to stay to our right.
02:49 Dustin Schuette, Indiana sports beat. Matt, now that you're at Nebraska, I got to ask this question. Are you a chili and cinnamon rolls guy?
02:56 Yeah, I had never heard of it before, and I was a little scared when I first heard it. But I married a woman who went to culinary school. And as you can tell, I like great food. I love great things.
03:08 And so I actually went to a recruits house, and mom made it for me. And it's a little bit life-changing. It's pretty good. So yes, I am.
03:16 Okay, we're going to go to our left here in the center.
03:21 Hey, Coach, Steve Mark with Inside Nebraska, part of Rivals. You touched on this a little bit before, but what to you is a successful first season for Nebraska?
03:32 Yeah, you know, I've really thought about this, right? I mean, we want to compete in every game we play, right? We play to win the game, as Coach Morris said. So we're going to go out and try to win every game.
03:43 I think there's something bigger, though, for us at Nebraska. Like, there was a time when Nebraska football was feared, and we certainly want to get back to that.
03:51 We want to be a team that you say, "You know what? That team's feared." But we're not at that point yet. We're at a point right now where I believe that we have to take back the respect of what it means to play Nebraska and to be Nebraska.
04:03 I mean, I want people to respect when they see that white helmet with that red "N" on it. And so I want our fans to respect us when they pay their money to come watch us play.
04:11 I want our opponents to respect us. I want all of college football to respect the way that Nebraska plays the game.
04:16 And most importantly, I want our players to respect what it means to be a Cornhusker and what it means to be at Nebraska.
04:21 So this season for me is all about us not just earning, but taking back respect and bringing back respect to Nebraska football.
04:29 And so once you earn respect, then you can talk about being feared, and that's the process we're going to go through.
04:35 We're going to stay to our left, Coach.
04:37 Oliver Vandervoort with Husker Corner. I'm just wondering if there's anything specifically you're doing different to prepare for your first season of the Big Ten than you did for your first season of the Big 12 or with Temple or stuff like that.
04:51 Yeah, I think I've been very blessed that Coach Osborne has been willing to share some things with me.
04:58 We have a little bit larger roster than I've had at other places I've been, and so really practicing in the ways that Coach Devaney, Coach Osborne, Coach Solich did for 42 years of really dominance,
05:11 having multiple stations, multiple drills going on, a lot like we practiced at Penn State.
05:16 But I hadn't done that for many years, and getting back to it this spring has been really good for us.
05:20 So I think that's maybe not about the Big Ten. It's just more about being at Nebraska.
05:25 I'd be a fool if I didn't ask Coach Osborne what the blueprint is.
05:28 He doesn't talk about plays. He talks about the way they practice first and foremost.
05:33 And then I've evolved. Being in the NFL, being at different places. This is my fourth head coaching job.
05:39 I try to be really intentional taking this job about how am I going to do it.
05:43 And I say I. I've got great coaches, and they bring a lot to the table, a lot of ideas.
05:48 And we're going to try to put it together as best we can.
05:52 We're going to go over here to our right coach in the front.
05:55 All right. Coach Lynn Herrington, State Line Power 5. How are you doing today?
06:00 Good. How are you? I'm all right.
06:01 So there's no denying that you have hit the ground running when it comes to recruiting.
06:06 It's something that hasn't been seen at Nebraska since Bill Callahan was the coach.
06:10 And, I mean, you completely locked down the state of Nebraska. I just want to know, was that ideal?
06:14 Yeah. So, I mean, I think the great thing for me was, I don't know if it was great.
06:19 I mean, I was out of work when I took this job. Right. So I had some time.
06:22 And so in between, like, you know, driving my kids to school and pickups and all that, I spent a lot of time looking at recruits.
06:28 And Evan Cooper, who's on my staff, who's really been my recruiting guy, right-hand guy all along,
06:34 we watched not just the kids that were committed to Nebraska.
06:37 We watched the 2023 class that was still out there. We watched the 2024s, the 2025s.
06:42 And what I saw was, you know what, there's a lot of talent in Nebraska.
06:46 And even this year, you know, like, we had 3,000 kids come through our camps.
06:50 Like, we wanted to reinvigorate the camps.
06:52 Everyone from third grade all the way up through seniors in high school.
06:55 And guys came to our camps, you know, from small towns all across the state that maybe weren't on our radar, but they certainly are now.
07:02 And so that was all intentional. And that was part of the reason why we took the job.
07:06 Because if you're strong at home, if there's talent coming from Nebraska, then you're going to win.
07:11 And we have a certain ratio that we want to have.
07:14 We want to make sure we always have hometown kids there, guys who grew up and being a Cornhusker means something a little bit more to them.
07:19 That's really, really important to me.
07:21 And so to keep that talent at home was good.
07:23 And I think that's good when you bring a kid in from Florida, you bring a kid in from Texas,
07:26 to be surrounded by guys that are local that can take them home, that can, you know, show them a little love,
07:31 parents that will, you know, adopt them and, you know, be there for them.
07:34 That's how you have a program like Nebraska Takeoff.
07:37 We're going to stay, we're going to go to our left and back.
07:41 Yep, go ahead.
07:42 Thank you, Coach. I'm going to lean on you.
07:44 When you're a Cornhusker, it means a little bit more.
07:48 Couple of years ago, Nebraska lost at Wisconsin.
07:52 Guys were playing on, preying on the 50-yard line after the game.
07:57 Less than 24 hours, the Waukesha parade tragedy occurred where many lives were lost.
08:05 We give a lot of credit at Wisconsin just seeing your guys there on the field preying less than 24 hours before that happened.
08:14 As a coach, how are you going to continue to build that culture and that climate
08:19 that I think your team is really known for throughout the Big Ten?
08:24 Well, I think our program, our entire program is built on really one purpose.
08:29 You know, we have a mission that we want to be the best team in college football
08:32 and the best program in college football in the way that we do everything.
08:35 But really our purpose and my purpose for taking this job and being in college football is
08:39 so that young people when they're 25, 30, 35, 40 that they say, you know what,
08:43 my life is better because I went to Nebraska.
08:46 You know, and people might scoff at that, but that's why we do what we do.
08:50 We try to attack each and every day, every single player in terms of who they are as football players,
08:55 but who they are as students and also who they are as people.
08:58 And young people right now in our society, I mean, there's never been a time where there's been more peril
09:03 towards our younger generations, right?
09:05 Coming out of COVID, they're way less resilient.
09:07 There's way less connections.
09:08 And so whereas when I grew up, my connections were the Boy Scouts in the high school
09:13 and the local church and all these things.
09:14 Like kids nowadays are suffering from stress and anxiety and depression.
09:18 And a lot of it, people believe, is because they don't have those connections.
09:21 A lot of kids are just connected to their phones.
09:23 And so our program, if you watch it, like we're out in the community all the time.
09:28 And Gus Felder, our player development guy, does a tremendous job.
09:30 And we're impacting the community because I want us to have connections,
09:34 connections to each other, connections to the community.
09:37 A lot of education is online now, but even then we're still doing it in our academic environment
09:42 because kids, they can't leave college and not know how to be in a meeting.
09:46 They can't learn not how to have discourse.
09:48 They can't not know how to disagree with people and learn how to listen to other people.
09:52 Wouldn't the world be a better place if we all knew how to disagree with each other respectfully?
09:56 And then the spiritual component, whatever their worldview is.
10:00 We have players that are Christian. We have players that are Muslim.
10:02 We have players that don't maybe believe in anything.
10:04 Whatever their worldview is, we're there to walk them through that.
10:08 We're there to be there for them because who they are as people is way more important
10:11 than who they are as players.
10:12 And that might not be popular.
10:14 And we all want to talk about transfer portals and NIL and all that stuff.
10:16 That's cool.
10:18 This group of kids is going to wake up in 10 years and all that will be gone.
10:21 And who they are as people will matter.
10:23 So that's kind of our purpose, and I appreciate the question.
10:27 Just a reminder to please identify yourself and your outlet before you ask your question.
10:32 We're going to stay to our left.
10:35 Mitch Sherman, The Athletic.
10:37 Matt, can you speak to the timing of your hire and how it allowed you to impact the program
10:41 in some immediate ways, particularly as it relates to the building, the facility that you're set to open soon,
10:47 and what kind of an impact that can have on your players?
10:51 Well, the Go Big project, the facility that was being built,
10:55 that was started obviously by the previous regime, is I think a game changer.
10:59 You might have heard me say this before, but when my wife walked through it for the first time,
11:03 she's been to a lot of football facilities, she walked into my office and she's like,
11:07 "You better win some dang games because you got no excuses."
11:10 I mean, it's beautiful.
11:12 And it was all set.
11:14 There's not really many changes I could make nor that needed to be made.
11:18 I think the one thing is really a focus not on recruiting but on player development.
11:24 I didn't want the first thing that you walked in and saw to be like our shoes.
11:28 I wanted it to be like our mission, our purpose.
11:30 And so recovery, regeneration, all the things that I've--
11:34 I've had a chance to be around some of the best athletes in football,
11:36 and you see the way that they take care of their bodies.
11:39 And really Trev's allowed us to-- from nutrition to strength and conditioning,
11:42 sports science, recovery, put the best things in the world in that building
11:46 so that we can be on the cutting edge and our players can recover and be as healthy as possible.
11:51 So I'm glad I got there at that time to help do that.
11:55 Staying to our left.
11:57 Hey, Coach. Erin Sorensen with HaleVarsity.
12:00 With your experience-- yeah, I'm over here.
12:03 With your experience playing in the Big Ten but now coming back to coach in the Big Ten,
12:07 can you define Big Ten football, what maybe-- what it was and now what you hope it can be?
12:13 Well, I think that, you know, when I was coming back to college football,
12:18 Julie and I were very intentional that we wanted two things, really.
12:21 We wanted to go somewhere where we wanted to raise our kids,
12:23 and I can't think of a better place than Lincoln to raise our kids.
12:26 And then we wanted to be in the Big Ten.
12:29 I think we have a responsibility as coaches is to prepare our guys,
12:33 not obviously for life but also for pro football.
12:36 When you watch the way teams play in the Big Ten, the way they play defense,
12:39 the way they play up front, the schemes that you see, it prepares them for the next level.
12:43 So I think, you know, you're watching there's a shift.
12:46 There's a lot of new coaches.
12:47 There'll be some more diversity in terms of the offenses.
12:49 Obviously we're bringing in a 3-3-5 defense that not many teams are running.
12:54 So you'll see some differences, but that's-- you know, to thrive in a conference
12:58 as prestigious as the Big Ten, you have to be a little different and you have to evolve.
13:02 And so I'm excited to go through my first year.
13:05 I might have a different answer next year, but I've studied a lot of the teams.
13:08 I have a lot of respect for these coaches and teams.
13:11 We have time for one final question for Coach if we've got one.
13:17 In the back to our left.
13:21 Sam McEwen from the Omaha World Herald.
13:23 How you doing, Coach?
13:24 Hey, Sam.
13:28 A program that is so hungry to win and has been hungry for a long time
13:32 and used to win, how do you keep the players and the staff
13:36 and even the fans from getting ahead of themselves?
13:41 That to me-- not letting people get ahead of themselves, that's the whole key.
13:44 And I'll say it like what I love about Nebraska is it's literally written on the side
13:48 of the stadium day by day.
13:50 Like that's the key.
13:52 So we talk about 42 years-- it wasn't that we ran the ball or ran option
13:55 or played this defense.
13:56 It was this mindset from Coach Osborne, from Coach Devaney, from Coach Solich.
14:00 Like every little detail matters every single day.
14:03 And so we have to earn the right to even talk about playing Minnesota.
14:07 We have to go to training camp and we have to every single day be elite
14:11 in every single area.
14:12 So that is the whole core of what we try to do is to block out all the noise
14:18 and block out all our thoughts and learn from the past, prepare for the future,
14:22 but live in the present.
14:23 And so that present focus is what will determine who we are.
14:27 And right now we have to deal with the fact that guys haven't won
14:30 and they want to win.
14:32 At some point, Sam, we're going to be winning and we have to deal with the fact
14:34 that everyone's going to lose their mind and be happy all the time.
14:37 You're the same person whether you lost or won if you're a good coach
14:43 and good player.
14:44 So we want to have that every single day locked in focus of today's all that matters.
14:50 I really study Coach Belichick a lot and I had a chance to go up and coach
14:55 against him in a practice in a preseason game.
14:58 And one of his key guys was working for us, and I remember him saying,
15:02 "After they handed out the Super Bowl trophy, you never looked at it again
15:07 because that trophy and those rings had nothing to do with the future."
15:11 So for me, our guys know that you can win a national championship in Nebraska
15:15 because it's been done, but we have to concentrate on today,
15:18 not even game one or game five.
15:20 Today, today, today, that's all that matters.
15:22 So I'm trying to do my best job today, and then tomorrow I'm going to do tomorrow.
15:25 I can't wait for Sunday, but I can't forget about Friday and Saturday
15:30 before I get there.
15:31 So that's our mindset.
15:32 That's why I believe that we'll win, and I'm grateful to everybody.
15:34 Thanks for listening to me.
15:35 Thank you, Coach.
15:36 Good luck in your first season.
15:37 Thank you.
15:38 [BLANK_AUDIO]