Nebraska football head coach Matt Rhule is well aware that his tenure in Lincoln has not gone as well as he liked. In looking for changes to make in order to fix things, he's shuffled staff plenty. Now he's even shuffling when the Huskers practice for the first time in almost a decade.
During a spring practice opening press conference on Thursday, Rhule revealed morning practices are a thing of the past. Both in the spring and in the fall, NU will now be practicing in the late afternoon and into the evening. This is the first change to the practice schedule on a wide scale since 2018.
"We've studied a lot of people," the Nebraska head coach said in explaining the reasoning for the change. I think there's a large part of us that likes the morning practices ...But this league's a lot different now. You know, there was twice last year that, you know, we went to the East Coast and they came back and played a Friday game. That takes a toll on your body that week and then certainly the weeks thereafter."
Nebraska football coach Matt Rhule explains shift from morning to afternoon practices
He added that that change is just about looking for whatever benefit they can find.
"We're just chasing edges, you know, we're chasing sleep. We're chasing... Obviously, sometimes here it can be 20 degrees at 8 o'clock in the morning and maybe 50 in the afternoon ... we don't care about the cold necessarily, but the way the grass feels, all those different things."
Rhule went on to say that Texas Tech head coach Joey McGuire made a similar change a few years ago, and it's worked out well for him. He also touched on travel and adapting their schedule in a way that could give the team just a bit of a boost in a year that could be make or break for the Nebraska head coach.