INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. - Nebraska football head coach Matt Rhule is energized by his team’s performance last season.

The Huskers finished 5-7 and missed a bowl game for the seventh straight season. But five of those seven losses came by just one score. Rhule is entering his second season as head coach confident the program is on the right track. 

“You understand that hey, if we just fix one or two things we could be a really good team," Rhule said. "We don’t have to do an overhaul, we don’t have to fire a bunch of coaches, we don’t have to change the offense and defense. We really just have to win the turnover battle.”

Turnovers. That was the detail that kept coming up during Rhule’s Big Ten Media Days press conference on Wednesday. The Big Red gave the ball away 31 times last year and only took it from their opponents 14 times. It’s created a sense of urgency with the head coach.

“We have to find a way to go from -17 to plus seven," Rhule said. "We have to find a way to get that done. We’re going to practice it, we’re going to coach it, we’re going to allocate playing time based upon who protects the ball but also who takes it away.”

Fans have grown tired of close losses, a trend that predates Rhule.

“The close losses at Nebraska are not an affliction. We don’t need to get out a voodoo doll. We need to hold the ball properly, knock it out, make one more catch, have a little more confidence. Go make one more play and win a couple more games and all of a sudden, we’ll be talking in a different tone.”

Rhule think this will be the group talking in a different way by the end of the season.

“I see a confident team," Rhule said. I see a team that understands that games are going to come down to the final seconds. The narrative about close losses, we’re going to turn that into close wins.” 

Rhule thinks the Big Ten is well-positioned to have a big influence in the College Football Playoff.

“I think four teams from this league should get in every year because this is the best league," Rhule said. "This is the NFL of college football in my mind. It stretches from coast to coast, different time zones, different weather. That’s not to diminish any other leagues, the SEC’s amazing, these other leagues are great. The challenge in the Big Ten is going to be really difficult, travel, weather and great teams.”

Rhule wants to be one of those Big Ten teams that’s in contention for the College Football Playoff. But first is bowl eligibility. Nebraska hasn’t played in a postseason game since 2016, the longest drought in power conference football. Rhule said it to the Big Ten Network: the season is a failure if the Huskers don’t make a bowl game.

“We got so close last year and we kind of fumbled it away," Rhule said. "To me that’s the minimum. We’re going to go to a bowl game, we have to go to a bowl game. At the University of Nebraska, every single season, we should expect to go to a bowl game, win a bowl game and be in the hunt for a conference title. Be relevant.”

If he regrets anything from his first season as head coach, it came from the first two games. Rhule says he was used to the NFL where crowds generally aren’t as loud as at major college venues. He says the crowd noise played a factor last year, particularly against Minnesota and Colorado to open the season.

“Just getting readjusted to the crowd noise and the passion of the fans in the Big Ten, the atmospheres that we’re going to have to into," Rhule said. "We have to be better on the road. I wish I would have taken that to heart and gotten that advice.”

Nebraska will play at Purdue, Indiana, Ohio State, USC and Iowa in the fall.