Welcome back to "Big Red Wrap-Up".

We are joined by the 31st head football coach at University of Nebraska, Matt Rhule.

Coach, we appreciate you taking the time.

Absolutely, thank you.

You've been through this a lot, and as we're taping this you're about 10 days away from the game.

Has camp gone like you thought it would, had you planned?

How's it been?

It's been great.

It's probably gone better than I thought.

Everything from moving into the dorms to some of the activities, we've had a lot of fun.

And it's been good for me, to see we've been really physical, practiced really hard yet we're coming out really healthy.

And so, it shows that they did a great job in the summer with Corey and the strength staff.

How's that balance been?

'Cause you started long enough ago where you could hit every day almost.

How has that been working around the NCA rules?

It's tough.

They've changed 'em since I was last year.

You can only be in full pads eight times before the first game.

I don't believe in it, I think it's wrong.

I don't think you have a chance to really callous your body, but they let you have helmets and shoulder pads and our guys do a great job of being physical while still staying off the ground.

And so, I've been pleased with our guys.

They really believe in practice.

They believe in, our message is simple.

You're trying to master your craft.

The only way to do that is to practice.

And so, they've really taken to it.

And as a result, because everyone's going at the same speed, we've come out pretty healthy.

Obviously, the close losses over the last few years is something that people talk about a lot.

Is there a secret sauce that you've discovered over your years for winning those one score games?

I think you have first have to learn how to win.

Well, I think really at first you have to learn how not to lose.

Eliminate losing football.

Then you start playing good football and you learn how to win.

And then eventually, there's a third stage of playing championship football.

And those games come down to, two-minute drive or a last play or a great sack to end the game.

And so, we're learning how to eliminate losing football and how we'll play really good football.

And I believe it comes down, it's everything.

It's the way we travel, it's being on time to study hall, it's being hydrated.

All the little things that don't seem important actually really are.

And so, the guys have bought into them even when they haven't understood it, they've bought into it.

And I see us making huge strides.

So I hope it happens this year.

I hope this is the year that we have a lead and finish the game.

I hope this is the year that maybe we're behind and come back and win.

But it'll definitely happen.

You are a no stone unturned kind of guy.

I can tell how even when you were talking about the practice field and saying, you wait a few days for it to settle.

Is that based on your years of coaching or coaches you had that you worked for that you are so into the details?

Dr. Susan Elza, who's our chief of staff, she told me that one day, she said, "You're the most particular guy I've ever met in my life."

I said, "I don't know if that's a compliment," but I think if we say we're gonna do something a certain way we should probably just do it that way.

And I wanna be intentional.

I want our staff to be intentional.

So we think about everything.

We don't wanna just fly by the seat of our pants.

So I think I learned a lot of that from Joe Paterno.

I mean, coach was very much that way.

He would stand up in front of us and the year was whatever it was, how old am I?

1995, 1994, 1996.

And he'd be reading off practice schedules from 1982.

"Hey, we did six minutes of this five..." But he was so intentional about everything we did.

You recognized that there was a purpose to it.

I worked for Tom Coughlin who was as particular and strict.

And I saw from both those men were both Hall of Famers, say something, plan it out and then do it and be unwavering.

And so, I'm trying to do the same thing as best I can.

You were only on the job for about a month when you went out and got Jeff Sims out of the portal.

What was it about him that you saw on tape at Georgia Tech and or talking to him, what'd you see in him?

Well, I've watched Jeff for several years.

The head coach at Georgia Tech was a great friend of mine so I watched a lot of games and I think he has elite potential.

He's got a ton of talent and I like who he is as a person.

When Jeff was fired, the head coach of Georgia Tech was fired about the same time, I was out.

And so, we talked a lot and he really believed in Jeff.

Getting to know Jeff and talk to him.

You could see the personality you could see the traits, you could see all the things that are gonna make him a great leader.

And we were lucky that he chose us.

He had a lot of options, but he chose to come to the University of Nebraska.

And I'm grateful that he did.

I think he's gonna be a really good player for us.

Out of all the things that are coming outta this camp wide receiver injuries and obviously losing a body as well, how is that coming about?

And is there a number that you wanna have where you can say, I got five guys I can count on or six guys I can count on?

Well, I've always wanted to have five receivers that can all go in the game, without a drop off.

And obviously losing Xavier was difficult, it was tough, a for us, then b for him.

Losing Marcus Washington early with an injury, but he's played a lot of football.

Whenever he gets back I'm not too worried about Marcus, getting his legs back underneath him.

He's played a lot of football, he had a really good summer, had a really good camp 'til he got hurt and a couple days he did practice.

He's a vet, he'll be back.

If we can get to five guys then great.

And I think, what we do have is we have a bunch of freshmen that are really talented.

And I'm not afraid to play freshmen.

In the recruiting process, I tell them all, "You're gonna get a chance to play."

So, we're working overtime to get them ready to go.

But I like that room, we've got competitors, we have tough guys, we have guys who can get open.

We'll just bring the freshmen along with them.

Yeah, you mentioned freshmen and you also mentioned that you need veterans to win in the Big Ten.

Is there a position that you feel more comfortable playing a freshman?

That's a great question.

I think it really comes down to each individual person.

I started a freshman quarterback at Temple my first year.

I started a freshman quarterback at Baylor.

After about game four, I put both of those guys in and they started every game for me 'til I left.

So, yeah, that's a really good question.

I think probably, I don't really wanna play a ton of freshman offensive line.

In the back end, the athletic positions, the running positions, when you're a freshman your body might not be as built up, but at receiver, at running back, at DB, if you can run, you can run.

And so, we were fortunate though that a lot of guys came mid-year.

So Cam Lenhardt, Princewill.

Those guys are all gonna play.

They're ready to play.

They did our naturals, they did our off season.

They're almost like sophomores even though they're actually only freshmen.

We think as football fans we know what's happening on an offensive line.

And I know we don't.

Tell me what you saw from these guys who are a lot of 'em returning that you say this offensive line will be better or it'll look good, it'll serve as like you want it to be.

Yeah, I think our offensive line's gonna play well.

I mean, they function as a group, they work as a group.

We have a commitment.

The way that we try to run the program is we do a lot of good on good ones on ones.

And the thought process of that is when you get to the game, if you've had to pass protect against Ty Robinson all week, if you've had to zone block Nash Hutmacher all week, you hope that when you get to the game, you're prepared.

You're hoping that our guys on defense are better than the guys you're playing against or at the same level.

So I like where our group's at.

They're tough, they're physical, we took the knee braces off them.

It kinda changed a little bit of, in terms of the way that we train them.

Donny's in year 2 with them.

I think Donny's as good an all line coach as I've ever been around.

So I'm excited for the guys and then the system that Sat has, we don't wanna be flashy, Marcus isn't trying to set any records, for yardage.

We wanna win games and so we'll play to their strengths and I think as the year goes on, we'll adapt a little bit when we play some games see what we're really good at, and then, and stick with it.

Do you have a philosophy in terms of rotating at all in the offensive line?

Do you pick five guys and they go the whole game?

Or do you try to bring younger guys in and work 'em in?

Yeah, we love to have seven guys that can go in the game.

And if we can play all seven, that's great.

It gives guys a chance, especially early in the year to get their feet underneath them.

Lets you play guys that are fresh.

And also at the same time, when a guy gets banged up in the middle of the year, which usually happens, someone's not going in at crunch time for the first time.

So we'd love to play seven guys, but they all have to be above the line, they've all gotta be good enough.

And I think we have 6 or 7, 8 guys that we feel good about going into the game and playing.

So we're right there.

So I think you could see us rotate some, a lot will happen in the next 10 days that'll make some of those decisions easier to make.

I have a real appreciation for the 3-3-5, 'cause I was working in New Mexico.

Rocky Long was there, Bronco Mendenhall was there.

We got a chance to go watch practice.

The concern fans have though is the Big Ten, big offensive lineman they're gonna try to run the ball on your throw.

How do you deal with that in a 3-3-5?

We were last in the league and run defense last year -playing a different defense.

-Right, right.

I don't think it's really the scheme.

I think it's how you do things.

I'll always believe that, right?

We were a top 25 defense at Temple 3 outta the 4 years.

And we played a 4-4-3.

We went to Baylor, we switched to a three down front like this.

We were one of the top defenses in the nation our last year.

Went to the NFL, we went to a more of a five down approach.

I don't think it's as much to me about what we do, it's how we do it.

Can we get off blocks?

Can we tackle, do we run to the ball?

Do we affect the quarterback?

Do we punch the ball out?

I love the versatility of Tony's scheme.

It's fun, it's aggressive, it's difficult to block.

I'm not an offensive head coach.

I'm not a defensive head coach.

I'm kinda right there in the middle.

And seeing it from an offensive perspective how hard it is to deal with, I think it's pretty good.

Yeah, teams are gonna line up.

They're gonna try to bully us.

They're gonna try to knock us off the ball.

And I say that sincerely about what happened last year.

We can't be at the University of Nebraska and be last in the Big Ten in terms of rush defense.

We've gotta be up near the top.

And I don't care.

Whatever we have to do to do that, we'll do.

Yeah, in terms of, you meant getting after the passer how does a 3-3-5 help you with that?

'Cause you notice that there's five guys, the line of scrimmage, any of 'em could be coming at any time.

How does that help you in getting the passer?

Yeah, I think when you go to an odd front when you're in three down or you're in four down the offense has to really be on the same page.

You basically have three known rushers and now you're trying to identify, hey, who's the fourth, who's the fifth?

When you're a four down team which I've been many years, hey, here's the four guys.

We've gotta block these four.

So through disguise, through multiple looks, we're trying to create mismatches, we're trying to create confusion, we're always hoping that maybe they'll turn a guy loose or we can get one of our best rushers on the running back, we're on the worst offensive lineman.

So to me it's kind of a chess match.

And the great thing is is Tony's not inventing this defense for the first time.

He's been calling it, he's been running it.

He knows how to adjust it.

And I've had a lot of fun watching him do that so far.

I'm mostly intrigued by finishing drive rate.

It's my favorite analytic.

It really tells you who's gonna win games and it's based on red zone offense, right?

Can you kinda give us a philosophy on coaching red zone offense?

Yeah, we wanna score a touchdown about 70% of the time that we're in the red zone.

It's really hard to do.

We don't pay attention to red zone scoring percentage.

For us, it's all about red zone touchdowns.

And we think on defense, a field goal's a takeaway, it's a turnover.

If they kick a field goal, we don't pay attention to it.

On offense, we'll take field goals but we're not super-excited about them until the fourth quarter when it matters.

So, I think every game's a little different.

Some games you're trying to collect points on offense.

Some games you're going forward on fourth down you have to kind of take each game based upon what you think the outcome's gonna be a little bit differently.

But we wanna be able to run the ball in the red zone.

It's one thing to run the ball up the field, that's great.

But you have to be able to run the ball when it counts down in the red zone.

You have to have red zone threats guys that you can create one-on-ones with who can win.

And I think the quarterback running the ball in the red zones are a really key factor.

It's one thing to run 'em up the field, that's great.

But you get down there, points matter and running the quarterback can really help you.

I have two sons.

I don't know if I could leave one behind, even with our grandparents.

How are you dealing with first being away from your family and now having your son finish his senior year away from you?

Yeah, thank you for asking me that.

My wife and daughters got here last Monday.

And I have a tradition every year whenever my daughters show up from camp I give everyone off the rest of the day.

And so, the guys are pretty fired up, but we moved into our house and really happy to have them here.

That balance, I love them obviously.

And so, having them here is great after a long time apart.

And then, yeah, Bryant was here for two weeks.

He was in the dorms.

He was one of those guys pranking the coaches and all things.

I mean, it was really cool.

I'm really grateful to our players the way they kind of took him in as one of their own.

It's what makes this group special.

So I hate that he won't be around, I hate that he won't be at the first game.

He hasn't missed a lot of games over the years.

But I'm proud of him as I told him, "You're a man now, go do your own laundry.

Go learn what it takes to to live on your own."

And Julie and I just have to trust that we did the right things over the last years.

I hate that I'm not with him, but I appreciate and I love him for the fact that he let me come do this.

Give you a couple of rapid fire questions.

Runza or chili and cinnamon rolls, if you had to pick just one?

Oof, gosh.

Chili and cinnamon rolls.

-Sorry Runza.

-That's okay.

T-Bone, ribeye, New York strip or a different cut, -does it matter?

-New York strip every time.

-New York strip, really?

-Yeah controversial, but yes, true.

Well, it's a Italian one, right?

I mean, we have a lot of Italian steakhouse in Omaha for that.

And then you only have two choices, rare or medium rare?

Well, I'll say this, probably rare, but I always say as the chef decides I love if the chef thinks it should be medium rare.

I believe chefs are artists, so I let them do their thing.

Yeah, we saw you go to SmackDown and you did the Kenny Chesney concerts.

Which one, if you had to choose between one going to Big Wrestling or going to Kenny Chesney?

I loved them both, but I'd go with Kenny Chesney.

I thought no one performs, like he performs.

Yeah, this one's important to me as I grew up a Penn State fan.

So '86 or '94, better team?

Wow, that's a great question.

Ah, man.

'86 obviously was my favorite team, -'cause I was young.

-That defense.

Diehard Penn State, Shane Conlan.

Giftopoulos, Trey Bauer.

But yeah, I'd say '86.

Yeah, I always look back, we have an argument here at '94 because of Nebraska.

-Oh yeah, no doubt.

-Penn State.

So yeah, that's my favorite team as well.

-Coach, we appreciate it.

-Hey, thank you.

-Good luck this season.

-Yes sir.

Thank you for taking the time.

Thank you.

We'll back with more "Big Red Wrap-Up".