Matt Rhule has Nebraska playing much improved football to open the 2024 season. However, fans were greeted with an unfortunately familiar feeling after losing to Illinois in overtime in one of the most anticipated games for the program in recent memory.

In fact, FOX broadcaster Joel Klatt had a particularly brutal take about that performance. While calling Ohio State’s Week 4 game vs. Marshall, he said the Huskers looked like one of Scott Frost’s old teams in the 1-score defeat.

On Monday, Rhule met with the media to discuss the game and admitted it feels like Nebraska just needs more discipline in every area of the game:

“That sounds like coach speak, but it really honestly is where we are right now. These games get tight, and then our team gets tight and starts doing uncharacteristic things,” said Rhule. “That’s my job, I have to find a way to get us over the hump.”

Overtime was especially not good enough and is an area of the game Rhule described as “a debacle.” He also said it’s a good sign the team still had a chance to win with all the miscues, but Rhule also knows the challenge is now to get this team to “enjoy the battle” without getting tight in tight games.

“None of it was quite good enough, and we still had a chance to win the game. That shows the progress our guys have made that with all those mistakes… all that stuff, we still had a chance to win the football game,” Rhule described. “But really it just wasn’t good enough.”

Now, the Huskers will try to regroup for what is another stretch of very winnable games for the program. Between Week 5 and a late-October trip to Ohio State, the Huskers will face Purdue, Rutgers and Indiana with a chance to stack some B1G wins.