Nebraska Looks to Shed 'Soft' Reputation vs. Northwestern

If you put it on tape once, it’s a mistake. If you put it on tape twice, it’s a reputation.

For Nebraska, they’re entering another game week looking to shed one of the worst things you could say about a football team – they’re soft.

The Huskers got punched squarely in the jaw last Friday, and they didn’t swing back.

Minnesota maintained its intensity from start to finish in their 24-6 win over #25 Nebraska. | Matt Krohn-Imagn Images

“That starts with me,” Nebraska coach Matt Rhule said. “We preach ownership, and I did not have the team prepared to be the more physical team. (Minnesota was) the more physical team, and they made the plays you have to make to win the game.”

They not only made the plays to win the game, but they made them while never letting Nebraska get back up from the first knockout punch. With how ugly NU’s second half in Minneapolis was, it’s easy to forget that it was just a 7-6 ballgame at the half.

Nebraska gave up one long run that set up Minnesota’s only touchdown of the first half, but it was that punch that was enough to knock the air out of anything Nebraska wanted to do the rest of the game.

There’s no need to rehash the Husker no-show in Minnesota any longer, but how the team is taking to all the criticism this week is the new focus. They just wrapped up one of their more physical Tuesday practices of the season, and a lot of it comes off the emotions from how they played last week.

Nebraska coach Matt Rhule says his team is "pissed off" after not being able to match Minnesota's physicality in a 24-6 loss to the Gophers. | Matt Krohn-Imagn Images

“The team’s kind of pissed off, and I’m super eager to get it fixed,” NU quarterback Dylan Raiola said Tuesday. “Just taking punches and not swinging back – I think that goes back to having pride for our university and pride for this football team and the work we put in.”

Rhule set a similar tone during his Monday press conference.

“I’m pissed off,” Rhule said. “I’m pissed off at the coaches, I’m pissed off at myself. I’m mad. I don’t know how to say it any other way than that.”

Some of that anger and frustration also comes with a heavy dose of embarrassment. If you’re reading this article, you’re up to snuff on the fact that football’s a physical game, so when you dramatically fall short in that particular category, it’s a lot more than just having a few X’s and O’s off the mark.

For a second-straight year, Nebraska started their season 5-1. Unfortunately, for a second-straight year, their seventh game of the season was a humbling shot back to reality. Tuesday, some players even admitted they started to feel a little too good about themselves heading into the Minnesota game.

Nebraska tight end Luke Lindenmeyer was one of many players Tuesday who admitted the team's 5-1 start led to some of them taking their foot off the gas. | Kenny Larabee, KLIN

“We were going in maybe wanting to put on a show rather than be ready for a 60-minute fight,” Nebraska tight end Luke Lindenmeyer said. “Once you start winning and you come back in the fourth quarter and have great drives and you’re feeling good, then you kind of lose sight of what you’re built on. It sucks that we had to have a loss to have motivation to get back to that, but that’s what it took.”

The bruises haven’t healed just yet for a Nebraska team that is spending most of this week trying to solve its toughness concerns. In the 24-6 loss to Minnesota, NU only recorded one sack and barely pressured the Minnesota pass game. The Huskers also gave up an astonishing nine sacks of Dylan Raiola and for some reason, the defense started diving at the feet of people they hoped to tackle.

It was a snapshot of a team that didn’t want to get their nose dirty, and it resulted in one of the more embarrassing losses in quite some time, which is saying something. That’s probably why Rhule and Raiola are far from the only guys pissed off this week at practice.

Matt Rhule confessed that he knew P.J. Fleck was going to have a team that came in looking for a fight, but he was unable to get that message across to his assistants and inevitably his players. | Matt Krohn-Imagn Images

One of the big talking points of the week is that Rhule couldn’t get through to the team that Minnesota was going to be an all-out brawl of a game. While Rhule took ownership of the message not getting through, he also laid some of the blame at the feet of his assistants, and it’s got them in a fighting mood this week as well.

“There’s never been a fight that I’ve been afraid to be a part of,” Nebraska defensive coordinator John Butler said. “There’s never been a fight that I’m not willing to participate in. We’ve got to get that message across to our players. I don’t disagree with what coach said. It’s our objective and our responsibility to carry out that message and make sure those things don’t happen again.”

The Huskers have a short turnaround to figure out how to be tough as they’re welcoming in yet another team known for its physicality – Northwestern. The Wildcats are riding a four-game winning streak into Lincoln with their last two wins being an upset win over Penn State in Happy Valley and a 19-0 shutout win over Purdue last week.

Talk about no rest for the weary.

Northwestern is riding a four-game win streak into Lincoln, and yes, the Wildcats are known for being one of the more physical teams in the Big Ten this year. | David Banks-Imagn Images

“Every week is going to be like this,” Butler said. “Every week is going to be a fight. It’s going to be who plays better and who comes and plays more physical and is more aggressive and executes harder and plays harder. That’s the identity of this league. It’s lining up and stopping the run, running the football and in these types of environments.”

Lindenmeyer says he loves the fact they have another physical team on the schedule this week.

“I think it’s a perfect time to play a team like that,” Lindenmeyer said. “Good test for us, and (we’re) ready for a physical game. We’ve just got to fight. We’ve got to do our job. We’ve got to not get into our feelings and go with the highs and the lows of the game, but just stick to our standard and stay at our high level of playing.”

To stay at a high level of playing, Nebraska will first need to return to a high level of playing. When you get outmuscled for 60 minutes and only put up six points on the road with a national ranking behind your name, you’ve fallen from grace a bit.

Nebraska coach Matt Rhule has emphasized that the Minnesota loss didn't "happen" to his team. Instead, he's saying the Huskers "allowed it to happen." | Matt Krohn-Imagn Images

A promising sign is that Nebraska’s head coach didn’t shy away from his team simply not showing up to play football last Friday. He preached to his guys that none of what happened Friday “happened” to them. Instead, he made sure they knew it was because they allowed it to happen. They missed tackles, they missed key blocks and they ultimately made the errors that resulted in the loss.

However, self-reflection time is over, and it’s now time to see what type of Nebraska team will come out of the tunnel Saturday against Northwestern.

“Good teams don’t lose two in a row,” Rhule said. “Good teams, when they lose, they get mad and they fight back, and you’re seeing in college football right now teams losing four in a row because when they lose, (they’re) like oh well, the season’s over. We don’t have those kind of guys.”

Senior linebacker Marques Watson-Trent says unlike previous teams he's played for, losing stings for this team, and they have no plans to close up shop for the rest of the season. | Dylan Widger-Imagn Images

“I’ve been a part of teams where losing really didn’t matter,” NU senior linebacker Marques Watson Trent said. “Here, it matters to (the) extreme. The season is not over yet, but we take everything so serious and that’s the most important thing. We expect to win every game we come out here.”

It’s another morning kickoff for the Huskers, which means they’ll need to get the proverbial engines revved up early on Saturday, and if Tuesday’s physical practice is any indication, that anger won’t be subsiding anytime soon.

“If fans spend their money this week to show up and watch a team diving on the ground to make tackles and guys getting pushed back into the quarterback, then I’d boo us,” Rhule said. “We better show up.”

“We need to go in every week ready for a fight,” Lindenmeyer reiterated. “They’re a great team, and I think we have something to prove as an offense now after that last game, and we know what we’re capable of. This is a perfect game to do that.”

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