Iowa players call out Nebraska and Matt Rhule for pregame disrespect after win

Iowa linebackers Jay Higgins and Nick Jackson had a lot to say about Matt Rhule and his team after the Hawkeyes beat the Cornhuskers with a last-second field goal.

According to Higgins, the problem began before the game when Rhule was doing Iowa’s pregame warmups.

“Our guys are warming up, doing our pregame and their head coach was going through warmups,” Higgins told reporters after Iowa’s 13-10 win on Friday. “So we knew straight away what kind of game it was.”

Higgins was right as the tension created by Nebraska carried over into the pregame coin toss. As the Iowa captains extended their arms for the traditional pregame handshake, the Huskers’ captains refused to return the favor, collectively looking downward or blankly forward.

Sharp.

Then, on Iowa’s first defensive series, Higgins said he approached Rhule on the Nebraska sideline and approached the Huskers’ captains, who refused his handshake.

“It probably wasn’t a good idea not to shake our hands,” Higgins said he told Rhule during the game.

To which Rhule responded, as Higgins says, “Who are you?”

The early drama initially benefited Nebraska as they took a 10-0 halftime lead. Iowa then scored 13 unanswered points in the second half, including a game-winning 53-yard field goal as time expired from kicker Drew Stevens.

Higgins made sure someone shook his hand after the game, found Rhule and ran toward him with his arm outstretched.

“After the game I went up to their head coach and shook his hand because they didn’t want to shake our hands before the game,” Higgins told the media after the game. “And told him a good game.”

As they digested the disrespect shown to them from Nebraska, Harris and Jackson discussed whether their head coach, Kirk Ferentz, would do something similar.

“No, no, no, never,” the two repeated before finishing their thoughts with a pitch for their program. “Come to Iowa and be a Hawk, see the difference.”

Friday was Higgins’ final game against the Huskers, but there’s plenty of bad blood boiling ahead of the next meeting between Iowa and Nebraska.