Turnovers were Nebraska’s bugaboo in 2023, as a solid defense and special teams unit were undone by an offense that contributed heavily to a -17 turnover margin for the squad. It’s a trend that head coach Matt Rhule expects to cut down in 2024.
Rhule even quipped in an interview with FOX Sports’ Joel Klatt that curbing the turnover issues is about the most important thing facing his team.
“I always like when Phil Steele’s magazine comes out every year and one of the things he uses to predict success the next year is usually ‘close losses’ and those usually lead to close wins and turnovers lead to turnovers,” Rhule said. “Let me tell you this right now: If we are -17 again this year, I’m going to be playing golf. They won’t have me back as the coach and they shouldn’t. Because it was a phenomena that kind of built on itself, so obviously I didn’t do a good enough job. But we won’t be that this year.”
And to highlight just how much turnovers cost Nebraska in 2023, just look at the margin in the seven losses that the Cornhuskers took: -15.
When Nebraska was closer to even ground in the turnover battle, it managed to reel off its five wins.
But the good news for Rhule and Co. — and part of what he is banking on and coaching toward — is the bounces that fell unlucky for the Cornhuskers in 2023 are likely to be friendly or neutral bounces as things regress to the mean. That, combined with a bit of intentional tweaking to ensure the offense hangs on to the ball has Rhule confident in the turnovers being cut back.
“And again, you talk about building, how do you do that? You — I think you just don’t panic,” Rhule said. “You go through that year and you say, ‘OK guys, listen: If we just fix a couple things, we’re going to be a really good team.’ So, I know we’ll be better on offense. We were really good on defense. We were pretty solid on special teams. We don’t take into account enough in the Big Ten the weather. People think it’s, ‘Ah, whatever.’ No. There were games where it was 30, 40, 50 mile per hour wind in our face two quarters a game. So I adapted as the year went on. I kind of really watched coach [Kirk] Ferentz. I told him last night, I know Nebraska and Iowa are rivals but I look up to coach Ferentz and how he played the field position game.
“Now we enter Year 2, we’ll be better with the turnovers, we have a better idea of how to win in the Big Ten. Now the Big Ten’s changed but we’ll have a better idea with most of the teams and how to win.”
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