Nebraska football coach Matt Rhule and several players met with the media after Saturday’s 14-7 win over Rutgers. The Huskers improved to 5-1.

You can watch Rhule’s full performance above. Read part of what Rhule had to say below, and keep scrolling to watch a video with comments from Dylan Raiola, Brian Buschini, James Williams and more than half a dozen others.

Opening speech

“I wanted to express my condolences to the Clare family. I believe he (Pat Clare) was our second Academic All-American, but it was with a heavy heart when we heard the news this week. But a life well lived and a legacy well lived. I would like to thank Ndamukong Suh for coming back in his own calm way. He didn’t want to give a big speech, just meet people and answer questions. He said a few things that I said all the time and I looked at Deshon (Singleton) and he said, ‘Yeah, coach, when he says it, it just kind of hits different.’ Ndamukong and his family were just so blessed that they were there. At the end of the game it was a narrow victory. In many ways it was a tough day. Thanks to Rutgers, thanks to Greg Schiano. They did a lot of things against us, but we only turned the ball over once. We won the turnover battle, I thought the defensive effort was as great as I’ve ever seen. Six games within the two. While we were kind of looking at the clock worriedly maybe two weeks ago against Illinois, wondering if we were going to win, I thought the guys just wanted to go out there and keep playing that game. They would have played another series if we had let them. Proud of the boys, proud of the team, the team win and Buschini was an all-star again today.”

Here’s to big impact plays from the defense in the second half

“We knew it would be a challenge. We talked a lot about the running game. We knew No. 0 (Dymere Miller) was quite a player. One of their wide outs, (Ian) Strong, was down. We knew what a good player (Athan) Kaliakmanis was because he beat us in Minnesota last year. It was the same kind of game. 14-3, whatever it was, he manages to get the game over the line, which takes two minutes. It was like Groundhog Day. When he gets the ball back, he’s going to go there and score. This week our defense practiced harder here than they have probably in two years. I think what they put into it came out when the game started. It was a lot of different guys playing against a lot of different guys. Really adverse situations. Really a lot of third and fourth down stops, which was crucial.”

When adapting to run defense

“I think it was two things: they played the first quarter against the wind so they got a lot done, the wind was really a factor, people won’t see this a lot, but the wind was really a factor.” They had the wind in the second quarter, so they threw more. If you look back at the first half, a lot of those plays were missed tackles. Isaac Gifford comes off the edge, hits it in the backfield and narrowly misses the tackle. It wasn’t like they dragged us into this plan. We’re so thankful we have iPads now because we can look at them now and say it’s not a plan, we’re just missing tackles. They had the third and 22 after the sack and they threw it away and he made a guy miss and put it on fourth and third. We started playing a guy, we played some bigger guys. Tony (White) is a 3-3-5 guy but he played five times less today with two jacks, I’m really proud of him. It was like he was almost abandoning the family, but he did what we needed him to do. We played either Three Man Rush or Three Two. He’s got three different personnel groups out there, I thought we won on third and fourth down. That was my key to defense in this game. I said the defense had to win in the third period. Rutgers has a lot of third downs and if we won them we would be off the field. If they stayed on the field they would wear us down and we wanted to avoid that.”

About Brian Buschini

“He was great, he got hit hard. We knew we were going to call that fake punt, we almost called it the first time, and then we almost called it at the five yard line when they blocked it. They brought ten people with them and no one covered him, and then we finally called for the third time. Brian was the unsung hero last week, we thought, and I say he’s the unsung hero this week. He did a great job on the last one. We asked him to do a one-step punt against the all-out max block. He saw them getting out, so he slowed down, took three steps, and just did one kick. We took the ball today because we wanted to go into the wind in the fourth quarter and they wanted to go into the wind in the fourth quarter, so we took the ball. This ball rose into the wind and spun and spun and spun in circles. If this young man had tried to catch it, it would have been a difficult catch. I’m really proud of Brian, he showed the lion’s heart out there.”

On James Williams

“I think James (Williams) is a guy who is trying to do better. He’s doing really well at school. He is growing in every facet of his life. I’m very proud of him. He trains really hard and therefore plays really hard. This is a week where we did a lot with big people. There were replays this week where he, Ty (Robinson), went to the scout team to take a look at the offense. No plans, no egos, just trying to get better at your craft. Because we won the ball early and took the lead, we were able to get a little lead at the end of the game and get a pass rush, which kind of changed everything.”

Further post-match press appearances can be found below.

Dylan Raiola

Ty Robinson

Marques Buford

Brian Buschini

Thomas Fidone

Isaac Gifford

Javin Wright

Nash Hatter

DeShon Singleton

James Williams

MORE: I-80 Club: Nebraska wins a one-score game to move to 5-1

MORE: Nebraska football hands Rutgers first loss, 14-7

MORE: Nebraska football leads Rutgers 14-0 at halftime

MORE: Stryker’s pregame perspective: Radical surgery for Memorial Stadium

MORE: Nebraska football commit sets state record with 8 touchdowns Friday