After a bye week, Nebraska takes to the field this Saturday to face Michigan State. The Spartans are also coming off of a bye week, with their last game being their first loss of the season to USC 45-31. Sparty is 3-1 on the season with victories over Western Michigan, Boston College (Nebraska's opponent in last season's Bad Boy Mower Pinstripe Bowl), and Youngstown St. Matt Rhule spoke with the media on Monday to talk about their upcoming opponent. Here are 3 things that I took away from his press conference
The Blackshirts will need to contain Spartan QB Aiden Chiles
Matt Rhule was asked about Michigan St. signal caller, Aiden Chiles. "He's dynamic, he can run. We'll obviously see the quarterback draw." Rhule is not only worried about Chiles ability to run, but also the way he avoids the rush. "His ability to run behind the line of scrimmage...when needed to, and create plays." Chiles' stats on the season are certainly impressive. He's 70 for 102 in passing for a 68.6 completion percentage to go along with 9 TD passes to only 1 interception. He's also the 2nd leading rusher on the team with 154 yards and 2 more TD's on the ground. Rhule ended by saying, "He's an explosive player...one of the better quarterbacks in the Big Ten.
Rhule wants the team's 'mindset' to be in the right place this week
When coach Rhule was asked about what he did during the bye week, he said he did a lot of recruiting, and a little bit of watching football. After seeing some of the scores of this past weekends games, coach had a simple message for the guys! "You know, how does Alabama go from losing the first game, then they beat Georgia? And how does Florida State go from beating Alabama and then losing to Virginia? And how does Illinois go from giving up 63 points...63-10, to then turning around and beating USC?" Rhule said there were 2 main reasons why, "A: There's way more parity in college football than ever before. And B: It comes down to your mindest...you know what I mean? And so, are you locked in and focused?" Coach also said it came down to his players being able to control themselves by saying, "Making sure that our guys have the best version of ourselves showing up."
Home cooking has been good for Nebraska football
With the exception of the season opener at Arrowhead Stadium, the Nebraska football team has played every game at the confines of Memorial Stadium to start 2025. Some might say that even Arrowhead could be considered a home game, although technically Cincinnati was the home team. The Michigan St game will be the final game in Lincoln before the Huskers have to venture on the road for the first time in 2025. Rhule said, "I think it's been great, we haven't had to deal with the travel component, which is a big part of this league." Rhule then chuckled and said, "we'll be dealing with it...here soon." Rhule went on to say with 18 teams in the league, and this much travel, someone's going to be upset about something. "It's been great to be at home, I like to play in front of my wife and kids, you know what I mean?" He said he likes playing in front of his neighbors, that the players get to bring their girlfriends and meet with them on the field after the game. Rhule ended with "It's pretty cool."
It appears that Nebraska did many things to improve during the bye week. Coach Rhule's demeanor appeared to be focused, with a little bit of anger in there. The Michigan game definitely hurt the team, and now we get to see how they respond this Saturday. Past Husker teams might come out and play to the level of their competition. If Nebraska can come out and play the way they're capable of, I don't see any reason why we don't beat Sparty by 14 points or more. Let us hope that this version of Nebraska football is up to the challenge and bounces back with a vengeance!