Matt Rhule doesn't want any more officiating apologies issued to Nebraska football
The Nebraska football team and its head coach are more than fed up with poor officiating. Even if Matt Rhule understands that the men he’s growing quite frustrated with have an incredibly difficult job to do. Especially in the modern era.
The Huskers were caught up in bad officiating yet again this weekend. Despite several blown calls, they almost managed to upset No. 4 Ohio State. On Monday, Rhule talked about how close the team came and the fact that he’s tired of being told that calls that impacted a game were in fact, incorrect.
“I will say this,” the Nebraska football head coach told the assembled media. “I think one of the hardest jobs in the world right now is to be an official. I grew up in an era when I played college football, I stood next to Coach Paterno. The officials went out there, they had their whistles, they threw their flags. There weren' t 52 camera angles because every game is on national TV. They threw the flag and you lived with it, right? Coach Paterno would yell at the officials and that' s how football was. And now you' re in a world where we have instant replay. And the first instant replay was to overturn the egregious stuff and now we can fix things.”
Nebraska football head coach doesn’t want apologies about penalties anymore
“So now as an official, when I'm calling the game, I'm calling the game on controversial calls as if, well, what happens if it does get overturned? So they go with, like if it's close to being a fumble, they think the guy' s down.”
“They might, you know, kind of instructed a call to fumble so that the play continues and then replay can overturn it. But replay, if it's close, will go with the call to stood. Which is a good thing. Even though that might not be what the official thought. So the amount of things that must be in those guys' heads, God bless them.”
Rhule went on to say that he really does understand how hard the job is. However, he can’t stand there to be any more mistakes.
“I don' t want any more apologies on Sunday. Like, it can't happen against UCLA. It can' t happen against Iowa. You know, these things can't happen moving forward.”
It’s a safe bet that Nebraska football fans aren’t going to be very happy to hear about these kinds of apologies anymore either.