Unsurprisingly, there is quite a bit the Nebraska football team has to improve after its loss to Penn State, and they have to do it in a short period of time. However, while head coach Matt Rhule knows some areas were lacking on Saturday night, he's quite happy with where freshman quarterback TJ Lateef is after his second career start.
Rhule also knows that Lateef was far from perfect. However, during his Monday press conference, the Husker head coach made it clear he saw improvement in a tough situation.
"You go to Beaver Stadium, you're in silent cadence – that's hard for a quarterback," Rhule said. "Mentally, I thought he was elite. He didn't make the catastrophic mistake… He moved the offense, we just didn't score enough touchdowns in the red zone… I think the biggest thing was he was trying to run guys over, and his teammates saw that for a young guy, he wasn't intimidated."
What Rhule saw in TJ Lateef that Nebraska's numbers don’t show
Lateef himself would likely admit he needed to play a little better. Still, he wasn't always allowed to do so. Penn State's blitz package was quite effective against a Nebraska offensive line that has struggled most of the season.
It's also hard to see what Lateef could have done to really help NU make Saturday night a competitive game since John Butler's defensive unit was mostly helpless against the Nittany Lions' rushing attack.
With no real positives coming from Saturday night, Rhule looks at the Penn State game as another opportunity for the Nebraska quarterback to get even better.
"Every day that TJ gets is another day for him to grow, and I think he grew in that game. I think his teammates saw that when bad things happened, he didn’t let it affect him. He just wanted to keep playing."
Lateef will get to show that he's grown even more on Friday morning when Nebraska takes on Iowa in the regular season finale for both teams.