'Two Plays Away from Being a Top 10 Team': Matt Rhule Addresses Nebraska's Back-to-Back Losses

For the second straight week, Nebraska let a winnable game slip away. It hurts, but the Huskers can't afford to dwell on what could've been. They'll look to use the bye week to collect themselves and prepare to change the outcomes from here on out.

“Saturday’s a game that we could’ve won,” Rhule said. “To be honest, Saturday’s a game that we should’ve won… I give credit to Oregon for finding a way to win that game.”

“I believe, as we look at (ourselves) as a football team, we’re a team that has lost the last two weeks,” he continued. “That’s unacceptable, and that’s not okay. I also think we’re a team that’s probably two plays away from being a Top 10 program, a Top 10 team.”

“At the same time, we have failed. I have failed each of those last two games,” Rhule said. “Both are true. So, all I know is just to go back to work and try to find a way.”

Several factors contributed to the loss, and Rhule took responsibility while making it clear that the players must be held accountable, too.

“We won’t win the games we want to win until we win the fourth quarter,” he said. “We won't win the games we want to win until we control the line of scrimmage on offense, until we win third down. Those things have not happened.”

“I say all of that to say that ultimately all of that, 100 percent, rests on my shoulders,” Rhule continued. “I have to do that. But at the same time, our team has to understand that you don’t get to have it both ways. You don’t get to say, ‘I’m going to play in the pros’ and then play another pro player and not block him.”

“It’s not any one thing, and it’s not any one player… To win games like this, on the road, packed house, ton of pressure, ton of stuff on the line, you have to make one more play.”

Making those plays will only get harder as injuries mount. The Huskers entered Week 7 relatively healthy, but Saturday's loss left them dealing with attrition like never before.

“We came out of it really banged up,” Rhule said. “(Isaiah) Mozee will be out for a while. Jamal (Rule), he couldn’t go on it (his leg), but hopefully we’ll have a chance to have him back for Washington… Anthony (Jones) played that whole game on a broken foot. He’ll have surgery and be out for a while.”

“(Vincent) Genatone will have to have season-ending surgery; he’ll be out,” the head coach continued. “So, we lost a lot of guys in that game. That’s kind of the Big Ten."

Injuries contributed to the Big Red's offensive struggles, but Rhule sees the bye week as an opportunity for his staff to identify what needs to improve on that side of the ball.

“I think when you go back to the last two weeks, you want to be able to run the football, and you want to win third down,” he said. “But I think you have to win up front. I mean, really, at the end of the day, we haven’t won enough up front.”

“I don’t think it’s any one thing necessarily on offense,” he continued. “I think it’s all of it… We need more production out of the run game, and it’s not just the offensive line… This week is about stepping back and looking at what we’re doing really well.”

Special teams have been another area of concern. Against Oregon, the Huskers turned the ball over on downs while attempting to punt and repeatedly lost field position on kickoff returns.

Nebraska lost a combined 22 yards of potential field position on three kickoff returns in the third quarter that could have been fair-caught. With the Huskers managing just 60 yards of offense during that time, those lost yards only made their job more difficult. Rhule said the Huskers will likely fair-catch kickoffs moving forward.

“I told them to fair-catch it after that,” the head coach said. “We came out of last year with a philosophy (that) we weren’t going to return any kick that was over a four-second hang time or that was into the end zone. That was something that I wanted to do last year, and the special teams coordinator (Mike Ekeler) wouldn’t always do it. So, changes happened.”

“Those were all returns that were blocked up good; they weren’t elite hang times, they weren’t deep,” he continued. “But if you’re not getting out to the 25-yard line, what’s the point? So, I was just like, ‘Fair-catch the rest of them.’ That’s probably something we’ll do moving forward.”

As Nebraska looks to regroup during the bye week, Rhule remains confident the Huskers can compete in every remaining game. He also knows they must execute in critical moments to turn potential losses into wins.

“I’m not going to live in the world of how the last two weeks have gone,” he said. “...We played well enough to win, and then we didn’t win.”

Stay up to date on all things Huskers by bookmarking Nebraska Cornhuskers On SI, following us on Twitter/X, and visiting HuskerMax.com daily.