Body Blows: Jamal Rule Needed 17 Touches to Announce Himself

Husker fans, the best thing that happened Saturday was not the 49 points. It was finding out what Nebraska has at running back.

Jamal Rule played his first college football game against Ohio. He touched the ball 17 times. He scored three touchdowns and gained 169 yards from scrimmage — 122 on the ground on 15 carries, 47 more on two catches.

His third career carry was a one-yard touchdown.

Before any of it, he almost lost it on the hill

The most honest thing Rule said afterward had nothing to do with football.

“It was a long time dream come true. It was even better than I was expecting. Just walking out onto the field and seeing all of the fans, I teared up a little bit because I was like, wow, it’s just great to be here.”

That is a freshman describing the Tunnel Walk in front of 85,577 people, less than an hour before he put Nebraska’s first points of the season on the board.

Mekhi Nelson had already seen it coming. He was in the locker room before the game and could hear Rule through the wall.

“I had to bring him back before the game — he was just too hype. I’m hearing him in the room next door screaming. I came over, I knocked on the door like, yo, save it for the field. Don’t use all your energy.”

The number is bigger than it looks

No Nebraska freshman had rushed for 100 yards in a season opener since Adrian Martinez ran for 117 against Colorado in 2018 — and Martinez was a quarterback. You have to go back to Tierre Green in 2004, and 112 yards against Western Illinois, to find a Nebraska running back who did it.

Rule got there on 15 carries.

Matt Rhule saw the first one coming. He told offensive coordinator Dana Holgorsen before the game that Rule’s first play would be the short-yardage look, and that it would go for a touchdown.

“I bet you his first play is going to be on short yards for a touchdown — and it was.”

Rule loves that call for a reason most people would not guess. The blockers in front of him are defensive linemen.

“I love that play because y’all seen on defense — they’re very dominant. And they always tell me in practice, if we run this play, it’s gonna work.”

Where the standard comes from

Asked whether the game met his expectations, Rule did not do the aw-shucks thing. He said he expected it — and then explained why in a way that was more revealing than he probably intended.

“I hold myself to a really high standard. My dad instilled a hard-working mentality. Whenever I did good, he never — he always nitpicked me, said that wasn’t good enough. So I hold myself to a really high standard. Sometimes it’s my downfall, because I get really hard on myself.”

His quarterback needed four words for the same assessment. Asked about Rule, Anthony Colandrea said: “He’s a stud. I think he has shown us in fall camp that he could go, and he showed it today.”

Then, on scoring three times:

“I expected to have a pretty good game. I didn’t expect to find the end zone three times. It surprised myself a little bit, not gonna lie.”

He also spent an unprompted forty seconds on his offensive line — naming them, insisting the credit starts there, and describing what he does when he gets to the end zone.

“I always try to dap them up, make sure they feel appreciated whenever we get touchdowns.”

“Body blows”

Ohio’s defense held up for a half. Nebraska ran for 204 yards on its last 21 carries, and Ohio’s head coach found Rhule afterward to tell him his team had simply been worn down.

Ask the freshman about it and you get the same idea in language nobody on a coaching staff would use.

“We like to say we gave them body blows. You know, every play is working their body. Taking their life away. Little chunk plays turn into big plays.”

Asked directly whether Ohio got tired, he would not take it.

“I wouldn’t say fatigue set in for them. I’ll just say we harped on our execution a little bit more.”

Nelson, who rotates in and out with him, put the same thought in even blunter terms: “If they’re cut, bleed the cut, until they finally put their hands down and knock them out.”

What it means

Nebraska’s depth chart still lists three running backs and no starter, and Mekhi Nelson put up 129 all-purpose yards of his own on Saturday. Nobody is taking the job from anybody this week.

But one of them is a true freshman who has carried the ball 15 times in his life at this level, and has already done something no Husker back has done in twenty-one years. Nelson, asked to describe him, did not talk about the running.

“You don’t really see that in true freshmen. Usually they’ll come in, they’ll be tiptoeing, they wouldn’t really want to talk to everybody. That’s not him at all. He’s gonna talk his mess to the defense, he gonna hype us up during practice. Jamal’s not your average true freshman.”

Husker Nation, keep an eye on the hill. He is going to be walking down it a lot.