Matt Rhule confirms Nebraska has appealed targeting penalty, first half suspension for Mikai Gbayor

Matt Rhule confirmed Nebraska appealed the targeting penalty on Mikai Gbayor , but the linebacker will miss the first half against Northern Iowa Saturday.

Gbayor was assessed the penalty in the 28-10 win over Colorado for his hit on QB Shedeur Sanders. Sanders was in the middle of a slide and Gbayor made contact to the head.

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Rhule explained the process of appealing the penalty, since he and others did not consider it malicious in nature.

“Yeah, he’s suspended for the first half,” Rhule confirmed . “You can file an appeal. So we filed that in the latency … We never want our guys to hurt anybody. I was really happy that Shedeur was okay, but, you know, it’s kind of a late slide. (Mikai) didn’t launch and go down with his head. I mean, there’s certainly some that I thought in that game that were going to be targeting, but we didn’t get, so and again. So, yeah, I hope Mikai’s able to play they would play, but if not, you (others like Vincent Shavers and Stefon Thompson) will be ready to go.”

Rhule likes a little less rules and targeting is certainly a strict one in football. Sometimes, it’s really tough to judge the penalty and the intent behind the contact.

“I’m probably more of a … libertarian when it comes to these things. I like less rules. So I like less structures. That’s right? Thank you. Okay good,” Rhule said. “The difference in the NFL is you get a FedEx on Friday saying, you know, it wasn’t even a penalty, but you owe them 40 grand. So, you know, you have to go back to the onset of it, when they first just put the target rules in.

“People were laying people out and dancing over them … If a guy does truly, truly targets with intent, you know, the punishment is severe enough that you don’t. I think it’s legislated a lot of it out, you know, now we’re kind of getting, sometimes I think nitpicky about this or this. It’s hard to play defense these days.”

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Rhule and Nebraska take on Northern Iowa without Gbayor for the first half Saturday at 7:30 p.m. ET.

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