Tad Stryker: Negative November Turns Up the Heat

A feeble finish, including Friday's ugly loss to Iowa, freezes the trust and momentum Rhule had built.

Iowa Hawkeyes quarterback Mark Gronowski outrushed and outpassed his counterpart, TJ Lateef. | Dylan Widger-Imagn Images

Much like a trackside flagman at a superspeedway waving a banner of green, Matt Rhule just signaled the start of open season on himself and his coaching staff.

It’s unfortunate, because Rhule is trying to run the Nebraska football program the right way, and he’s one of the more open and honest CEOs of any major college football team in the nation. In many ways, especially those relating to changing the culture of the Husker locker room, he’s been quite effective. But the criticism is inevitable, and much of it warranted, because of the brutal facts that unfolded on the field Friday in front of the 410th consecutive sellout crowd at Memorial Stadium.

In a game where Kirk Ferentz’s staff and roster outperformed nearly everyone not named Emmett Johnson on Rhule’s, Nebraska crumbled in the second half as a four-loss Iowa team pulled away to beat the Big Red 40-16 on Senior Day at Memorial Stadium. Somehow Ferentz, who has absorbed plenty of criticism of his own east of the Missouri River, now has won in Lincoln for the seventh time in a row.

TJ Lateef scans the field behind guard Henry Lutovsky. Lateef completed 9 of 24 passes for 69 yards and no touchdowns. | Dylan Widger-Imagn Images

The biggest disappointment among many for Nebraska on Friday was the suppression of the resilient spirit that carried the Huskers throughout the 2025 season, which had kept them from losing back-to-back games until they were dispatched by Iowa on the heels of a 37-10 loss to Penn State.

Rhule and his coaching staff produced and directed their third non-competitive outing of the season. This one, unfortunately, was a matinee, so all the kiddos could see it unfold in real time. The only consolation is they can say they got to see EJ at the top of his game. Was this his last time in a Husker uniform?

Johnson deserves every accolade, every bit of praise that will come his way. The junior running back stands out like sterling silver. Against Iowa, Johnson rushed for 217 yards and a touchdown on 29 carries. The young man deserves a spot on the All-Big Ten first team, and serious consideration for All-America honors as well. Johnson has now rushed for 100 yards or more in five consecutive games, something no other Cornhusker has done since Ameer Abdullah in 2013.

Nebraska running back Emmett Johnson takes off on a career-best 70-yard run against Iowa during the first quarter. | Kenny Larabee, KLIN

It was just the fourth time in the last decade that anyone has cracked the Hawkeyes for 200 rushing yards (Penn State’s Saquon Barkley with 211 yards in 2017, Wisconsin’s Jonathan Taylor with 250 in 2019, and Minnesota’s Mohamed Ibrahim with 263 in 2022.)

Through 12 games of his junior season, Johnson has 1,451 rushing yards and 12 touchdowns, including more than 1,000 yards in nine conference games. No Husker except Abdullah had ever broken the 1,000 mark against Big Ten opponents. Couple that with the fact that Johnson was not running behind one of the conference’s better offensive lines, his 5.8 yards per carry, his toughness and reliability (no injuries in 251 carries) plus his elite ability to catch the football (46 receptions for 370 yards and three TDs this year), and he’s a probable Day Two NFL Draft choice should he decide to move on. His biggest weakness is his pass blocking, and he would undoubtedly be a Heisman Trophy candidate should he return to Lincoln next fall to work on that issue.

Iowa defensive coordinator Phil Parker outdeueled Nebraska offensive coordinator Dana Holgorsen for the second season in a row. One of the most fundamental questions that emerged from this debacle is how and why Holgorsen got so little out of his offense on a day when EJ gave him the best he could give. Holgorsen set up the Huskers for failure.

I, for one, was beguiled by TJ Lateef’s ability to keep Iowa’s defense honest with his feet and anticipated he would run some keepers on the read option. I was completely wrong about that. For whatever reason, Holgorsen determined that Lateef’s running ability would never show up on the field of play. Late in the first quarter, he apparently suffered a minor hamstring injury, which is ironic, because the game plan appeared designed primarily to limit any risk to Lateef whatsoever. Lateef never caused Parker the slightest bit of stress in the first quarter, while he was still fully healthy. His passing (9-for-24 for 69 yards, no touchdowns and no interceptions) was ineffective, even though he generally had enough time to throw. Part of the blame for Lateef’s bad day lies with his receivers, who had a lot of trouble getting open, but when they did, Lateef often missed them anyway.

Nebraska wide receiver Dane Key and his teammates had a tough time getting open against the Hawkeye secondary. | Kenny Larabee, KLIN

It’s hard to believe how few points the Huskers got on a day when they rushed for well over 200 yards. In some ways, that’s a miserable reprise of the Scott Frost era, which was characterized by success between the 20-yard lines but far too often, failure in the red zone. Ultimately, that’s an offensive line issue, and the common denominator there is o-line coach Donovan Raiola.

Meanwhile, defensive coordinator John Butler was thoroughly outclassed by the sturdy but often scuffling Iowa offense, something that is exceedingly difficult to do. The Hawkeyes scored four touchdowns in four red zone trips. What was considered the strength of the Blackshirts, their pass defense, broke down badly at times. Just as I would never have predicted that Nebraska would outrush Iowa, I never would have thought Iowa quarterback Mark Gronowski would more than double up Lateef in passing yards, although Rhule’s postgame comments seemed to indicate that the secondary often was asked to cover for Nebraska’s season-long inability to contain the run with their young, undersized front seven.

A win on a battleship gray day in late November would have done a lot to solidify Husker Nation’s confidence in Rhule, but an embarrassing three-score setback ratchets up the angst tenfold and works against everything he’s trying to accomplish.

Nebraska football fans will be barking, and there’s reason for that. In fact, if Mike Ekeler had not returned to Lincoln to bring order to the kicking game, the Huskers likely would’ve had a losing season. At the very least, Nebraska fans are justified in asking themselves, “Was 2025 a better season than 2024?” It’s hard for even the most hopeful, supportive Nebraska fan on the planet to watch that Iowa game and say that Nebraska is gaining ground on its rival to the east. The pressure will be on for Rhule to make some changes.

Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule reacts to a non-call on a play that resulted in a third-quarter safety. | Dylan Widger-Imagn Images

Rarely in the history of college football has a fan base been so loyal, so supportive, for so long, while getting so little back from the team and coaching staff in terms of success on the field of play. Has that payback improved under Rhule? Yes, it has to some degree; his 19-18 overall record in Lincoln is only slightly better than Mike Riley’s, but much better than Frost’s. Rhule inherited a mess when he arrived, and he has done a lot of work to build an infrastructure that still needs refining. But he has a devil of a time beating teams with a winning record, and the lack of progress in the trenches says there’s still a long way to go for Nebraska to be taken seriously as a threat for the Big Ten’s upper echelon.

Despite having possibly the easiest Big Ten schedule they’ve ever had, the Huskers lost three of their last four and finished 4-5 in the conference. It was a huge missed opportunity for Rhule and his team. One of the youngest rosters in the nation will be better next year, but with Ohio State, Indiana, Oregon, Washington and Illinois on tap in 2026, the improvement might not show up in the win-loss record.

You should ignore the voices you heard on call-in shows after the Iowa game, agitating for Rhule and his entire staff to be run out of town on a rail. Starting from scratch with a new head coach now would be a calamity, a huge unforced error, by a Husker football program that by all indications is in line to land a highly touted 2027 recruiting class. However, the voices calling for thoughtful, targeted changes on Rhule's staff should be taken seriously.

Trust, but verify. Rhule deserves support; he also deserves the scrutiny he has brought upon himself.

---

---

Stay up to date on all things Huskers by bookmarking Nebraska Cornhuskers On SI, subscribing to HuskerMax on YouTube, and visiting HuskerMax.com daily.