Matt Rhule puts Nebraska football special teams, wide receivers on blast

After Nebraska football’s big win against Colorado, head coach Matt Rhule made a promise. He said he knew that some of his players were going to feel pretty bad about themselves once he addressed the areas for improvement despite a 28-10 win.

On Monday, he kept his promise and put a few Husker players and a few Husker units on blast. He made it clear the play from some of them simply wasn’t acceptable or up to par.

In doing so, the Nebraska football coach came off as unusually harsh. However, he’s made it clear before that when he does that, he does it with love. He does it because he wants to make sure everyone gets better. And, thanks to Notre Dame’s loss to Northern Illinois, there is a walking-talking example of when a team gets complacent and buys into their headlines too much.

When Rhule was done offering his criticisms, few on the offense or special teams avoided the sword. Though it was special teams especially that bore the brunt of his attacks.

Nebraska football coach puts team on blast post-Colorado

With the Cornhuskers allowing a long kickoff return, missing a chip-shot field goal and allowing a punt to be blocked, he said the performance against the Buffaloes was the worst he’d seen from special teams in a long time.

However, he did also say that he felt that Ed Foley is just the guy to fix it. The question is just how long a leash Foley will have. Special teams have been far from special in the two years that Foley has helmed them now. 

While Isaiah Garcia-Castaneda has improved the punt return unit some, that’s about the only area that’s improved since he arrived in Lincoln. One has to wonder if another performance like Saturday officially starts to warm Foley’s seat up.

The punt and kick units took the most criticism but they were definitely not alone. Specifically, Rhule said the wide receivers did not block well on the perimeters. That’s a situation that showed up a bit against UTEP. 

Finally, the Nebraska football head coach gave a sort of blanket criticism of the offense in general, outside of star quarterback Dylan Raiola. While saying that he thought NU could have scored “42 to 50 points,” he added that he "told the offense a lot of them have to pick their intensity up to his level.”

The Huskers will get to pick up that intensity this Saturday in a game that is officially dangerous not just because Nebraska football will be on “let down watch” but because Northern Iowa is a Top-25 team in its own right, entering the FCS poll this week at No. 21.