It may have been a stinger of a loss to Ohio State on Saturday, but it might be about the bigger picture for the Nebraska Cornhuskers football program.
One college football analyst certainly sees the vision head coach Matt Rhule is trying to instill in his second season as head coach. CBS Sports’ Josh Pate pointed out what Rhule had to say after the 21-17 loss on Saturday on his college football program earlier this week.
“I felt like a lot of the things we talk about took hold today,” Rhule said in the postgame press conference. “That to me… that to me is something I feel relieved.
I feel disbondandant that we lost the game, I thought we were going to win the game. I feel… beat up for the guys. But you know, when I say these things I know a lot of people are going to take it the wrong way.”
That’s when Pate cut out of the video, giving his thoughts on what Rhule said. “What I think he’s saying is that they preached certain things during practice this past week, and for that matter they’ve preached certain things in that program about process-oriented thinking over result-oriented thinking,” Pate stated.
He went on to say losing a game like that always “sucks”, but Pate believes that Rhule’s leadership – specifically the Ohio State game – may have unlocked something different.
“What he’s saying, I think, and having been around Matt rule a little bit, is we’ve been preaching, preaching, preaching. We’ve planted a seed. We’ve watered, we’ve watered, we watered, we’ve cultivated. We finally saw it sprout through the surface yesterday,” Pate said.
“If you get a bunch of people, a bunch of human beings, a bunch of offsets of chance, a bunch of heads of humans who can perform at a high level, have God-given ability to do it. If you can get them to shift the way they’ve thought their whole lives in some cases from just focusing on outcome to focusing on process, you have unlocked the key to sustainable success.”
It was an impressive turnaround after getting thumped by Indiana 56-7, especially since it was a road game at Ohio State and the Buckeyes were favored by over 25 points and the Huskers even secured a lead late in the game, the first time the program has done so against an AP Top 5 team in 15 years.
We’ll see if Pate’s belief in Rhule’s words are the truth as we go forward with the rest of the 2024 season and beyond.
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