Postgame quotes: 2026 Nebraska football vs. North Dakota

Matt Rhule

Opening Statement
“Well, first of all, it was an honor to be out there with Coach (Tom) Osborne as he was honored as the only living member to go into the Nebraska Hall of Fame, so I just want to congratulate him, and I’m sure he’d be the first to say that all the people that played for him, worked for him, his wife Nancy, his family have been very good to us, and we’re very grateful. I just wanted to make sure we had the team out there to support that, so I appreciate your guys’ patience waiting for us to come inside.

Good win versus a good team; I have a lot of respect for their program. I’ve been here now a couple of years, and this is one of the hardest teams, preparation-wise, to get ready for. I’m sure they are going to win a ton of games. Very difficult schematically to deal with. I thought Coach Aurich and the defensive staff did a really nice job. Our defensive players did a really nice job, they had two explosives early in the game and then after that, two first downs well into the third quarter. We did a nice job on third down. Offensively, there were some moments that weren’t as good as we would have liked but any time we rush from 200 yards, we are going to be pleased with that.

It was a good win versus a good team. There was some good, some bad. We will continue to try and improve those things but we’ve gotten through non-conference play. Two teams with winning ethos, winning mindsets. Bowling Green’s team that’s tough and physical that’s going to battle, for us the non-conference schedule is what we needed. We were able to get out of it mainly healthy. I don’t know Carter (Nelson’s) prognosis at this point so hopefully Carter Nelson, our thoughts and prayers are with him. We were able to take the starters out and put the red in with some time there, let TJ (Lateef) continue to work; we have a lot of confidence in TJ (Lateef), and they took the ball down the field.”

On the team’s sack and tackle for loss numbers
“I don’t think blitzing is aggressive. They play basically all the run game and the RPO game and in base. When we got them in 2nd and 10 and we thought they were pressure. We brought some pressure and the guys got home. Tonight, the biggest thing is that we stopped the run on first down, we were able to create some negatives. This is the first team that we played that was going to drop back. A lot of the air teams said ‘Hey we are not going to drop back’ and so we were able to get some pressure, make some plays. When the offense scores and gets up. You are able to continue to be aggressive.

One thing that I was most happy about was coming out at the half, it’s 17 to nothing, getting a three and out, getting a great punt return, one play touchdown. Unbelievable effort by a lot of guys, obviously Jamal (Rule) great run, great effort by Kwazi (Gilmer) on that play. We talked a lot to our guys about grit and mental and physical toughness. That was as great an example as I can think of. The guys executed those plays and made the tackles and sacks when they had to, but they also had to cover those guys so there wasn’t a guy wide open.”

On receiving the opening kickoff
“I think anytime it’s a game that has any weather in it, we’re gonna take the ball. I think anytime that we win the toss and there’s potential of thunderstorms, we knew there’d be rain late, we knew it was a really windy game early and we wanted the wind in the 4th quarter. So to me it’s less of a mentality of ‘early’ as much as it is ‘let’s have the wind in the 4th quarter,’ because obviously if you take the ball and in the second half they take the ball, you have the choice of which way you want to kick. That was our first thought process, and we knew that they deferred, and I thought we’d come out hot and I’d listen to them talk, and they had talked a lot getting off to a good start, and I figured if they want to get off to a good start, let’s put our offense out there and go answer.

I thought we were aggressive early, it was 4th and one and a half, on our own 45-yard line on the second drive and we handed the ball off to Jacory (Barney). If you want to win, guys have to make plays, Jacory (Barney) made that play, and we just felt they were gonna come out and play really well.”

On if the team has taken a step leading up to Big Ten play
“Yeah, this is one of those games where you sit there knowing you’re playing them, and I don’t live in fear of anyone else, but I live with healthy respect and I have tremendous respect for Coach (Eric) Schmidt, for their offensive coordinator, for the way that they play, for the amount of special teams tricks that they’ve run. They’ve been together a long time, even though he’s a new head coach, and they’ve put up a lot of points.

So I think any time we hold someone to 7 points… sometimes you see teams, they’ll play and FCS or a Group of Five team and they beat them by trick plays and stuff like that and they’re just double moving them, and we try to do some of those things too, but I thought we ran the football well, there were other times we didn’t. I thought we protected the quarterback well, there’s other times we didn’t, but I thought we made progress in those areas.”

On clean execution and avoiding turnovers and penalties
“Yeah, there was the late hit out of bounds, I just saw the replay, it didn’t look egregious to me, and there was the hold on the punt return; I looked at the iPad, it looked to me like the kid tripped over someone else’s feet. Now I’ll have to watch the TV copy tonight, I don’t sleep much after games. I’ll watch it and I’ll watch the tape tomorrow, see where that was, but I thought the execution in terms of those areas, I think we’re doing a nice job of protecting the football, we didn’t punch the ball out or anything like that, but they also weren’t getting the ball in play very much, we were kind of knocking it down pretty early. I like that focus, I think the biggest thing was just some of our landmarks.

They brought a lot of pressure tonight, and I would’ve liked to have hurt it a little bit more. We had some opportunities to do that, great job on the intermediate throw to Kwazi (Gilmer) on the right side on I think the first or second drive, and the offensive line did a great job picking that up. But they seem pretty tuned in, just some of those punt return penalties we’ll continue to work on. But when I looked at it on the iPad, I wasn’t upset about it, but I’ll go back and check.”

Anthony Colandrea

On the mindset for setting the tone of the offense
“Yeah, I think Coach Rhule talked about it earlier in the week that we just want to go attack them, and that’s what we did. We went down there and scored.”

On not having hesitation
“I think Coach Rhule has a lot of faith in Coach Holgerson when we get past the 50, with fourth downs and off we’re in. Coach Hol (Holgerson) called a great play there.”

On setting the tone
“I was thinking about jumping over him, or running him over. I try and run them over and set the tone for the game. It worked to an extent. I think we executed to a point; we honestly didn’t execute that at a high level tonight but we have to clean things up.”

Jamal Rule

On bowling ball celebration
“Right when I scored, I kinda wasn’t thinking about it until I scored. I was like let me do something that symbolizes me and a lot of people have been talking about my bowling so I was like it would be perfect, so I did it.”

On coming out half strong and being a part of that
“It was great, we feel like the past two games we’ve been a little lackadaisical coming out of half. We really harped on that this week. It was good being a small part of that.”

On North Dakota providing prep for Big Ten play
“Definitely, North Dakota is a great team and I’m glad we got to play them. They showed us some of our flaws and some of the things we need to work on, but we gelled together as a team in that game as well.”

Riley Van Poppel

On the defensive front
“I just think it’s all a mentality. I think we haven’t been up to par where we want to be of our own  expectation the first few games to getting to the quarterback. We know we’ve been getting a lot of, I think it’s 10 to 15 true dropbacks between two games which isn’t a lot. We’ve been getting a lot of max pro, four vs. seven. Play action pass our big emphasis has been the transition rush. So it’s going into practice and honing in on that, how can we get better at that. But then also your traditional drop back stuff, how can we tackle the quarterback. So I think for us it’s a big mindset thing, like we know what we have up front, we know we can get after anybody. So its just going out there and executing.”

On breaking through the first run
“I was thinking to myself, it is kind of the first time of my career, obviously besides Illinois my freshman year, I went out there and made a big impact play on my first drive out there. It definitely feels really good to go out there, and like I’ve said, we’ve been focusing on transition rush, and it was a transition rush, I thought it was run-play-run and then boom it escaped off and get back there. The biggest thing when I got back there was just don’t get juked out, I’ve been there before and as a big guy, you’re always scared of that. Just getting them on the ground was a great feeling, having my guys around me, and then just seeing it lead to more.”

On being able to tell when the defense is getting to the quarterback
“Yeah, you can definitely see, and I think we emphasized that this week, because we wanted to get him off his mark. We didn’t want him to be comfortable back there, and so I think when you come out early, you get to hit him a few times, you get some pressure a few times, early in the game, it throws him. He starts to feel that he has to be more cautious in the pocket, he’s not comfortable back there. I think any quarterback, across the board, if you do that to him coming out, they’re gonna struggle. Obviously, you can feel the switch, and I think you just have to tighten it. Knowing he’s going to look to get out quickly, he’s not going to sit back there as long, so it’s being really good with your hands and your eyes.”

Gunnar Gottula

On success on running the ball
“The coaches gave us a really good game plan going into the week. Everybody did a good job locking in on that. The opening drive you kinda saw a lot of guys execute and everybody executes and does their job, good things can happen for us.”

On North Dakota’s play style
“Credit to them, they are a great team, great discipline team and they do a lot of different things. It also comes down to maybe one guy here and their not executing or messing up the play. It’s just tons of different things that can happen in a game, it’s on us, to focus on us and make sure we execute.”

On Anthony Colandrea
“It’s pretty easy to go out there and fight for a guy like Anthony (Colandrea) back there, quarterback. He takes on the identity of our team which is just tough, grit, brotherhood, relentless- execution, he’s just a gritty, tough dude. Seeing him do stuff like that, that’s just him and his personality. It’s easy to block and work for a guy like that.”

UND coach Eric Schmidt

Opening Statement
“I think it just comes down to big-boy football. The team that could run the football and the team that couldn’t won and lost tonight. So give Nebraska a lot of credit. Just think they’re much improved from what I saw a year ago, you know, defensively got us behind the sticks a lot with a lot of you know sacks, TFLs, explosive plays, and those are hard things to be able to overcome for our offense. So I thought we’d be able to move it a little bit better. So credit to Coach (Rob) Aurich and those guys over there; they’re playing at a high level.

And then defensively, I just felt the first quarter way too much on our heels. Didn’t tackle very well. They came out with just a mindset that they’re going to run the football, and we couldn’t stop it. And then I felt like you know the second and the third quarters it got a little closer and tighter. We started to compete better, but the play coming out of halftime on defense is unacceptable. It’s a miscommunication where it’s a crucial time in the game for us to be able to play well and try to keep that thing, 17 to nothing, and we couldn’t do it.”

On Nebraska’s sacks and tackles for loss
“I think pressure, right? Like they disrupted them. You know, we didn’t do a good enough job up front. Be able to give them time. We got to be able to block better. We got to be able to establish a run game. I think that’s where everything starts and ends. With us we’re second and nine, and second and 10, and second and eight a lot.

Like there’s you know there’s only so many things that that we have in those situations and we can’t stay on schedule and then you know to find a way to be able to go score to make it 24 to seven and then you know once again not be able to play complementary football I thought was disappointing so it’s not all on the quarterback, I get it the quarterback, the offense coordinator, the head coach those guys are usually going to get criticized when you lose, and they’re going to get the praise when you win. I think Jerry was trying to do a lot tonight. We just didn’t give him enough time and opportunities for him to go out there and be successful.”

On figuring out Nebraska’s run game and Anthony Colandrea’s impact
“Our guys figured out they were running outside zone. All right, like point blank, like everybody in the stadium knew what was going on, and we still couldn’t stop it. So it was bad on the play caller, me, not doing a good enough job of being able to get our guys lined up and playing, and good on them, man. They stuck to a game plan and have an identity of who they want to be, it doesn’t matter what you do. That’s who they’re going to be, and I thought we made some adjustments. They did a good job early on.

I thought going for it on fourth down was a big play. We thought maybe we’d get off the field there. You know, they come back and score then on that possession, and then just some third downs. I think their quarterback has made a world of difference too as well. They’re better on defense, and then their QB’s really good. He’s probably missed a couple. The one right before halftime, he missed the guy coming underneath, who could have maybe been a first down. But he’s a good player, man. He’s dialed in and knows what he wants to do and takes care of the football. He’s a good leader.”