Rhule on the radio: Opens up about exit meetings, Jeff Sims' turning point

Matt Rhule made a one-hour appearance on the Huskers Radio Network on Monday night, giving extensive thoughts on a variety of topics.

He opened up about the player exit meetings held during the last week of April and players transferring out of the program, he detailed the turning point in Jeff Sims that he saw during five weeks of practice, and he also took a look ahead to the summer and fall – as well as explain why he wanted a grass field installed on the outdoor practice facility.

Nebraska has seen 12 players announce their entry into the transfer portal ever since the book closed on spring practice April 22.

The most notable, of course, were quarterback Casey Thompson, defensive tackle Stephon Wynn Jr. and running back Ajay Allen – who announced his transfer to Miami on Monday night right as Rhule went on air.

Rhule didn't mention any departing player by name, but he opened up a bit more about the process of the exit meetings, which largely reflected what he discussed shortly after the spring game.

“That time with the players, the ability to sit down with each young man and talk about where they see themselves, their strengths, their weaknesses, their feedback – it’s really valuable. You learn so much," Rhule said Monday. "In fact, I’m always feeling a little bit conflicted like, man, I should do this more often. But I think it’s good for them. A lot of times they have a lot of things that are on their heart that they wanna share. I think we definitely got better as a program during that time.”

Those exit meetings coincided with the second week of the spring's recruiting evaluation period – a 39-day window between April 15-May 31 in which assistant coaches are allowed to visit high schools on recruiting trips, with the exception of each Sunday and Memorial Day during that period.

The assistants were already missing out on a chunk of that recruiting time as they wrapped up spring ball. Then they missed out on more during the week afterward due to those exit meetings.

Aside from an in-state trip or two from special teams coordinator Ed Foley and tight ends coach Bob Wager, the coaches remained in the facilities until those were all wrapped up because Rhule felt "it was really important for me that every guy on the team had a chance to meet with their position coach, their coordinator and meet with me as well."

Going into the meetings, Rhule gave the same directive to his staff that he says he gave his assistants at Temple and Baylor: Full honesty and transparency. Talk to every one of your players as if they're a family member you've been close with your whole life – be it a nephew, cousin, younger brother or your son.

"With our own kids, we’ll tell them the truth, but sometimes maybe we struggle to say things like that to our players," Rhule said. "I wanted them to tell them what their strengths and weaknesses are, what we thought their role would be. For some guys, they might come here and they might be a great player, and all of a sudden we show up and it’s just a little different scheme. If they wanna get on the field, then it’s not quite the same scheme fit. I think it’s really important that we’re honest with the guys. We’re not telling guys that they have to leave. If they wanna be here, if they’re dyed in the wool, ‘Hey I’m a Cornhusker, and this is where I wanna be’ then great. We had guys say, ‘Coach, I wanna be here no matter what. Whatever my role is, if it’s to be on the scout team, I love this university.' Other guys say, 'Coach, I wanna play,' and other guys say, 'Coach, I’ve graduated and now I gotta get on the field.'"

Rhule says that he and the staff handled each situation on a granular level on a player-by-player basis.

Looking at one position specifically, quarterback saw the most attrition as 50 percent of the scholarship players at the position all entered the portal (Thompson, Logan Smothers and Richard Torres).

When discussing the quarterback departures, Rhule said “Us being a new staff, we had the flexibility with some guys."

He did not add more explanation as to what "flexibility" entailed. He did say that the talks with the quarterbacks "were great conversations" and also made it clear that the team would by welcoming if a player chose to return – but, again, he did not mention any names.

“(Quarterback is) different than playing linebacker, tight end or running back. You don’t really rotate," Rhule said. "If a guy’s in a situation where it’s his time to play and he really wants to play, I’m OK with a guy going into the portal and seeing if there’s a better situation to get on the field. And if not, we’d love to have somebody back. I know that might seem counterintuitive to a lot of people, but when you’ve been in the NFL like I have and guys go through free agency, you want everyone to walk into everything with eyes wide open."

Through the first six spring practices, multiple sources told Inside Nebraska that Sims was struggling with accuracy and making some erratic throws and decisions. He was still trying to get accustomed to a brand new program, offensive coaches and Marcus Satterfield's system.

The staff was throwing a lot of information at Sims right out of the gate, and some patience was involved while waiting to see and hear if it continued throughout the spring's duration.

It seems Rhule was waiting, too.

The Husker coach said on Monday that Sims began to break out right in the middle of spring ball. Sims' proverbial turning point came during Practice No. 7 – the day the Huskers held their first scrimmage. In the week leading up to the first scrimmage, Rhule had mentioned wanting the quarterbacks to go live, and what Sims showed that day was one reason why.

“That’s where you really saw the jump," Rhule said. "He was live. He made some plays with his feet. He hit a couple big deep throws. When you look at the Big Ten, if you look back to last year’s game against Iowa, the ability for us as an offense and as a team to run the football, be physical, be relentless with it, be a body-blows team that just tries to not worry about knocking you out but at the same time having the ability to be explosive in the passing game.

"In that game, some big passing plays led to a lead. I think we see that with Jeff. He can operate the offense, he can extend plays with his feet, he can push the ball down the field. That showed up in the first scrimmage, then the second scrimmage and then the game. So I feel really good saying that’s who he is.”

Rhule has spoken multiple times about why he wanted a physical spring and why he wanted the Huskers to play a real game on April 22 – a full game with fully live tackling that included the quarterbacks.

On Monday, much of his explanation stayed the same. He did, however, add extra details that he's had physical practices featuring live tackling during all of the spring games at his past stops and that the Huskers' large roster allowed for a more expanded format because it was "the most guys I've ever had in spring."

The bigger picture, though, remained the No. 1 reason: This spring was a pivotal time to correct the issues of the past that have plagued the program in recent years.

“I’ve said it before – when you’re 4-8, you’re 4-8 until the next season begins," Rhule said. "We’ve gotta earn the right to talk about winning. We’ve gotta earn it. ... We need to get good. We don’t need to worry about other teams. We just need to get good. So playing the spring game and playing a full game was really important for us heading into this fall – so we earn the right to go compete to win against Minnesota.”

That serves as an ideal segue to one of the points Rhule later touched on in the interview: Opponent prep is already underway, and it has been since Day 1.

“We really started right when we got here," Rhule said. "I think it’s really important to figure out, ‘What’s the key to winning in the Big Ten?’ You have some teams like Colorado that has a new staff, so you’re pulling things from a bunch of different places and probably won’t have a true picture until the fall. Teams like Minnesota that have been there for a while, I try to watch a little bit of those teams every day. They’re just constantly in your brain. As you make decisions right now, you’re doing those from a context of what’s gonna work, and what’s gonna be appropriate, in the fall. That’s the fun part of the job. It’s the football, and we like to do it.”

A seemingly random news drop came last Tuesday when it was announced that Nebraska is installing two new grass practice fields to replace the turf on the outdoor facility at Hawks.

The news may have come as a bit of a surprise, but it was another operation in this program that's changing under Rhule. Ironically, or perhaps not ironic at all, is that the installation is coming months after a debate drummed up in NFL circles and became a brief, hot topic during the season: turf or grass fields?

The majority of current and former players who spoke up were in agreement: turf fields are harder on your body, and they prefer to play on natural grass fields if given the choice.

“In Carolina, we went from grass to turf. In the course of that, as the NFLPA comes in and other people come in, you learn a lot," Rhule said. "People will debate this, but as a general rule, injuries are higher on turf than they are on grass. When I came in here, there had been a rash of knee injuries going into this season. There had been a bunch of ACL (injuries) over the last six years, a bunch of meniscus (injuries). Football’s a violent game, but we already have turf on the indoor. I wanted to put grass outside because I believe it’s safer. We’re gonna work on there every day, we’re gonna be on there every day. When I was at Baylor, we had two grass practice field. At Temple, we had a turf field. You make due with what you have, but we had the opportunity to do it so now we’ll have two turf areas, two grass areas and a (turf) stadium."

Will that turf surface on Tom Osborne Field one day be replaced with grass?

“In terms of the long-term, I’d have to get into Memorial Stadium and start to really feel what it feels like and be out there before I can make a statement," Rhule said. "I just feel like one of my jobs is to give the guys the healthiest surface, the healthiest operation possible.”

In addition to exit meetings, Rhule said the strength staff put the players through some final spring testing such as 225-pound bench press workouts and timing them in the 40-yard dash.

After that, the players were given a break to get some rest, get off their feet, get the chance to travel home to be with family and hit the reset button. It'll be that way for three more weeks before summer conditioning starts up on May 30, the day after Memorial Day, followed by another break around Fourth of July.

"It was important to give them that rest time," Rhule said. “When we come back, we want them to be recharged and ready to go this June.”

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