Nebraska coach Matt Rhule spoke of empathy and checking in on others in light of the Marshawn Kneeland tragedy. Dylan Widger / Imagn Images

Nebraska coach Matt Rhule ended his weekly media conference with a three-minute message on the importance of mental health, following the death of Dallas Cowboys player Marshawn Kneeland from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

“It’s especially poignant seeing the tragic news out of Dallas today and understanding that none of us know what people are going through,” Rhule said. “That’s why I think we all should be careful about what we say to people. I think we should be careful about what we tweet about people. I think we should be cognizant of what everyone’s going through.”

Kneeland was in his second season with the Cowboys after being selected in the second round of the 2024 NFL Draft. He played in seven games this season, starting three. He had 12 tackles and one sack.

The coach’s remarks came in response to an unrelated question, as he emphasized the importance of his players regularly checking in on one another. As Nebraska gets set to travel nearly 1,500 miles to play UCLA, Rhule told his players that road trips are a chance for them to build relationships with their teammates.

“I told our players they should take their headphones off in the cafeteria and sit down with someone and say, ‘How you doing, man? What’s going on with you?’” Rhule said. “Because somebody that we’re talking to that we’re saying, ‘What’s wrong with that guy? Man, that guy’s messed up.’ Instead of saying, ‘What’s wrong with them?’ we should all say, ‘I wonder what happened to him’ because everybody’s suffering.”

Rhule also mentioned a pair of personal experiences. In 2015, former NFL linebacker Adrian Robinson — who played at Temple while Rhule was the team’s offensive coordinator — died by suicide. Later that year, Robinson’s family announced that he was diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).

Nebraska HC Matt Rhule took 3 minutes today to talk about mental health following the tragic death of #Cowboys DE Marshawn Kneeland:

“Our generation of kids — my kids — they all just say, ‘Yeah, I’m fine. I’m straight.’ You really gotta unearth it. … That young man scored a… https://t.co/eR5zGGRp4D pic.twitter.com/0uuvOuMSwR

— Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) November 6, 2025

“I will forever for the rest of my life think about the time that I saw Adrian Robinson right before he took his own life,” Rhule said. “And I saw him on campus. And I was walking this way and he was way over there. And I was like, ‘I need to catch up with Adrian because he had got done playing.’ And a week later, he left this world, and a month later I was giving the eulogy. I just wish in my life I could go back and just stop and say, ‘Hey, how you doing?’ It’s not really what you [ask] but it’s on my heart and I just shared it with the team.”

Rhule said members of Gen Z, such as his own kids, will say, “I’m fine, I’m straight,” when asked about their mental health. He said it’s important to try and “unearth” people’s struggles.

“I would encourage everybody today with your own kids or the people you worked with, just check on them. Because that young man (Kneeland) scored a touchdown just a couple days ago. On the outside world you think he’s at the pinnacle, but he’s dealing with something and I don’t know what it was. But I pray for him and his family,” Rhule said.

“That’s the weight of coaching young people today. They’re going through a lot, way more than I went through growing up. Just a sad, sad story,” he added. “But I also know this. There’s probably someone on my team going through something very similar. In what ways can I be there for them, can we all be there for them? I think that’s the blessing we have of having another week together.”

Nov 6, 2025

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Sam Jane is a trending news writer for The Athletic. He has previously worked as an intern for The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Post, MLive and other publications. He is a senior at the University of Maryland, where he was a sports editor for the campus paper, The Diamondback.