Nebraska left Autzen Stadium with a 17-14 loss to Oregon, but Matt Rhule made it clear after the game that he wasn’t interested in piling on junior quarterback Dylan Raiola.
Raiola, who came off the bench in the fourth quarter, helped Oregon seal the win with a pass to tight end Jamari Johnson in the endzone. Still, Rhule spoke warmly about his former quarterback when asked about the ending.
"Anybody that's played for me, I'm always gonna root for," Rhule said post game. "You know, I want the kids to all have success.
So obviously, you know, good for him to fight back from what he went through last week. At the same time, came at our expense in the end.
So I'm just going to focus on our team."
Rhule added that he didn’t think it was "respectful" to Nebraska or Oregon to go further into individual performances after a loss like that.
The Cornhuskers came out of the night with 242 total offensive yards, the same overall total as Oregon, but they couldn’t finish enough drives to take control. Rhule pointed to fatigue in the run game as a major reason the game tilted late.
"I think a lot of the - you know, I won't take anything away from them. I think a lot of it was fatigue.
You know, I think just the we were on the field too much all night, you know, and something they did a nice job of - they just kind of constantly stayed on schedule. But it was really a lot of the run game, you know, was second and six, it was third and 2/4, and one," Rhule said
He also said Nebraska needed one more big play and noted that Victor [Evans III] “came up really big twice.” On the final snap, Rhule said Oregon got pressure off the right edge against Nebraska’s left tackle and was “probably was four or five inches away, from knocking the ball out of Raiola's hands," Rhule added.
Rhule was also asked whether the late kickoff had anything to do with how Nebraska looked as the game wore on, and he pushed back on that idea. He said he “would never” use the timing as an excuse for the second-half issues.
Even with both offenses struggling, the defenses kept the game tight throughout. After back-to-back losses, Rhule said the night fit into the challenge Nebraska expected when it scheduled teams like this.
"Yeah, I'm not. You know, I don't think we're the type of team that's going to not stay with it.
You know, Indiana is as good team as there is in the country. This is as talented a team as there is in the country.
Going into the year, they said we were playing these two teams. I mean, you know, I thought they were two really good teams, and so having a game like this, you see how far you've come," Rhule said.
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