The former Temple and Baylor head coach is tasked with rebuilding a program that hasn’t had a winning season since 2016
Nebraska has officially moved on from the Scott Frost era and 2022 season, when on Saturday morning news broke that Matt Rhule has been hired as the Cornhuskers’ 31st head coach. Rhule, who most recently was head coach of the Carolina Panthers in the NFL, will be tasked with restoring a program back to respectability where the expectation will be to no longer post consecutive losing seasons.
Most know that the Cornhuskers were once a college football powerhouse before the 2000’s, but since then the program has seen two decades of mediocre play. Since 2011 when Nebraska joined the Big Ten conference, the Cornhuskers have gone 75 – 72, but haven’t had a winning season since 2016 when they finished 9-4.
Former head coach, Scott Frost, was brought back to his alma mater to restore Nebraska to blueblood status, but never could get the Cornhuskers to take the necessary steps to be a consistent winner. Now, Nebraska looks to Matt Rhule who built Temple into a winning program, before doing the same at Baylor. Rhule’s performance at Baylor was even more impressive since at the time he took over the Bears, the program was still in the midst of dealing with the fallout of sexual assault allegations under the Art Briles era.
For Rhule, it is imperative that he is able to cultivate a program and culture that can develop players into NFL talent, while simultaneously working on building recruiting pipelines into states with an abundance of talent. His past connections into Texas while at Baylor may be beneficial to a program that used to compete for top players from that state when they were in the Big 12. However, even if Rhule can establish pipelines into Texas or anywhere else, developing future talent will be key to his success. To his credit, when asked about this on ESPN College Gameday, Rhule acknowledged as such:
Something to consider moving forward, Rhule will also take over a Nebraska program set to open their new $135 million athletic facility in the summer of 2023. For a while now, insiders around the program have talked about the facilities for the team needing an upgrade. With the upgrades set to open, Rhule can begin his rebuilding and selling of a program to future recruits with a prime example of the investment the university has made to the team’s success.
From what I could see on the message boards, Nebraska fans appear to be cautiously optimistic about Rhule taking over. We all won’t know if this is a good or bad hire until next season when the games start, but you can understand the fanbase being a bit timid about embracing a new coach after one of their own returned and could not produce winning results.
However, if Rhule can turn Nebraska around, he will have all the investment he needs from the university, as well as one of the most loyal and best fanbases in the country to build a sustained winner.