Matt Rhule Breaks Silence on Why Nebraska Called Timeouts When Illinois Had the Ball: “Clock’s Not a Factor”

In the Big 10 Conference, the Cornhuskers lost a nail-biting thriller in overtime against the Illinois team and the fans are questioning the team’s decision to call for a last-minute timeout.

In the post-match press conference, Coach Matt Rhule was questioned about the bizarre decision to call for a timeout when the Fighting Illini had the ball with minutes to spare on the clock. He responded that ‘he was going by the book’ to either stop them or to give his team a fighting chance.

“I mean you’re going to try to call timeout so that you know if they do happen to score because either way, the clock’s not a factor for them. We’re just following the book, calling the timeouts so that if they did score we’d have a chance to run, go back and score again.” 

The coach explained that it was his attempt to stop the Illinois team from getting a field goal as their kicker John Hohl would have scored a field goal from the 40-yard line. He added that it was also a contingency plan to make room for the Nebraska team to run back if required.

In the 4th quarter of the game, the Fighting Illini were making a last-minute attempt to score points with less than 2 minutes on the clock.

Coach Rhule called for two timeouts between the play, the last one with just 45 seconds remaining on the clock and the opponent team standing on the 48-yard line.

His tactics were enough to take the game into overtime but the Cornhuskers failed to redeem the last chance and fell to the Illinois team.

Nebraska couldn’t finish a single play as Dylan Raiola was sacked three times. The Fighting Illini, on the other hand, made no mistakes and took the game with a clean touchdown pass.