Five Reasons to Believe Matt Rhule Will Build a Long-Term Winner at Nebraska

Happy fall camp, Common Fans. It’s the first full week of August and the Nebraska football team already has a week of practice in the books.

Thank God. The dog days of summer are coming to a close. The best time of year is once again upon us. Something is just missing when college football is not in season; there’s simply nothing better than Saturdays in the fall.

At the Common Fan Podcast, we’ve done our best to help you get through the offseason with plenty of Husker football obsessing. It’s never the wrong time to start looking at next year's schedule, talking about the games that will define the season, or dreaming about the playoff. And we had a great time with our summer series looking back at the one and only Tom Osborne. If you haven’t had a chance to catch that series, you’ve got plenty of time before the season kicks off.

Today, we’ll drill down on a big picture question: whether or not Matt Rhule can build a long term winner at Nebraska. What do I mean by long term winner? I’m talking about a program that’s consistently in the top 25, consistently competing for conference championships, and occasionally winning the conference and/or getting to the college football playoff (CFP). Of course, we’d all love to see another run of dominance like we witnessed in the ‘90s. And we should never stop chasing that kind of excellence. But considering where the program has been the last 15 years or so, I think Husker fans would be thrilled with a top 25 program that was regularly playing meaningful games in November, and even into December.

Speaking of December football…one thing I can’t help but wonder when watching the various conference championship and CFP games is how close Nebraska might be to the teams on the field. The evidence, going back many years now, is mixed. Are the Huskers the team that only lost by four (21-17) last season to eventual national champion Ohio State? It’s wild to think the Big Red had the ball with a chance to win at the end of that game. Or, is Nebraska the team that got steamrolled (56-7) by an upstart (but also playoff-caliber) Indiana team? Of course, this is a different year and a different team. But the point is, every season it seems we have multiple examples at both ends of the spectrum, with far too many ending in Nebraska losses. One day it can feel like the Huskers are just about to get over the hump; the next day it can feel like we are absolutely nowhere.

So, can Matt Rhule break through in Lincoln? Can he get Nebraska back to respectability, relevance, even dominance? Let’s look at the reasons why it might happen.

Willingness to Make Changes. A running theme on our podcast–and something we’ve heard from multiple guests over many months–is that Matt Rhule doesn’t stand pat. He’s going to turn over every rock he possibly can to try to build Nebraska into a winner. In that vein, the Huskers will start Year 3 of Rhule’s tenure in Lincoln with a different offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, and special teams coordinator than the guys who were in those positions at the start of the 2024 season. Rhule brought in Dana Holgorsen, considered one of the best offensive minds in college football, to lead the offense with three games to go in the 2024 season. In the offseason, he went out and got Nebraska native Mike Ekeler from Tennessee to lead the special teams units. And even on defense–where previous coordinator Tony White left for Florida State–Rhule not only replaced White with John Butler, but also brought in Phil Snow, his longtime defensive consigliere, to help advise the defense.

In bringing in Holgorsen and Ekeler in particular, Rhule replaced two guys he has coached with for a long time: Marcus Satterfield and Ed Foley. To me, these moves show he’s not messing around. He’s not waiting or hoping for things to get better; he’s being proactive in making changes to improve the coaching staff. Previous coaches have arguably been too stubborn or resistant to change, whether that meant being loyal to assistant coaches or refusing to change their schemes. That won’t be the case with Rhule.

Staying Ahead of the Curve. When Brian Christopherson joined us on the podcast earlier this year, he made an interesting point about where Nebraska is positioned in the new, ever-evolving landscape of college football. BC had this to say: “I think when you listen to Rhule, there's this optimism that Nebraska is positioned and can navigate this to get back to the elite. And so we'll see. Maybe two or three years from now, we're sitting there thinking…you know, I didn't love every road we took to get here with what college football is, but...I'll be dang, Nebraska's sitting up there again. They figured out how to do it better than the rest.” He went on: “In so many ways, whether it's strength and conditioning or nutrition…I think for instance, Nebraska is ahead of people in nutrition again. I think Kristin Coggin is that good. That stuff makes a difference. So you’ve got to find those six, seven, eight things like that where you feel like you're in the top five, and then it's hard-pressed to think you can't be in the top five on the field at some point if you actually nail those things down.”

One thing Tom Osborne was known for was constantly being an innovator, and being on the cutting edge when it came to nutrition, strength and conditioning, and other off-the-field areas that add up to make a major difference on the field. Rhule was singing from the same song book at Big Ten Media Days, when he talked about how Nebraska has the best facilities in the country; how they’ve made investments in nutrition and sports science; how they will be making investments in remodeling Memorial Stadium; and much more. He understands and appreciates the need to keep pushing until Nebraska turns those things into an advantage.

NIL and Revenue Sharing. How many times have we heard the lazy national media narrative about how hard it is to recruit to Nebraska? It’s not a state surrounded by countless four and five star high school players (like California or Texas or the Southeast), and every year Nebraska doesn’t win big, it gets harder and harder to convince top talent to come to Lincoln. I’ve never fully bought into that line of thinking; there are some far flung places of the country that have far fewer advantages than Nebraska that have been able to build winners in college football. That said, I will concede that recruiting is more competitive than it’s ever been, and it will be challenging to bring in top tier players until the Big Red is winning consistently.

That said, the fact that players can now make money from their name, image, and likeness (commonly referred to as NIL), as well as directly from universities through revenue sharing, can be the great equalizer. And if you listen to Rhule’s comments at Big Ten Media Days, he seems extremely optimistic that Nebraska will have the resources to be competitive in the new college football landscape. He talked about how Nebraska is the only Big Ten school with no debt. He talked about how the Peed family, as well as others, stepped up to ensure the Huskers have the NIL funds they need to be competitive. I think it’s also important to point out how he is embracing this new age instead of scoffing at it. For those of us who grew up in a different era of college football, the fast-moving changes to the sport over the last several years can be cause for discomfort. But Rhule realizes the necessity of keeping up with the changes to remain competitive, and he will make sure Nebraska does just that.

Prioritizing Defense. Historically, Nebraska best teams–the national championship teams of the 1990s for instance–played dominant defense. Suffocating, game-changing, smack-you-in-the-mouth-and-then-take-the-ball-away defense. Rhule is known as a guy who prioritizes defense, which is one reason he’s always felt like a great fit in Lincoln. And we’ve seen the results to back it up during his first two years at the helm.

While the offense has been inconsistent at best and impotent at worst, and special teams has been an absolute disaster, Rhule quickly flipped the defense upon his arrival, and it was the strength of the team in both 2023 and 2024. In 2024, the Blackshirts were 18th in the nation in total defense, and 17th in scoring defense; in 2023, they were 11th in total defense and 13th in scoring defense. Former defensive coordinator Tony White gets a lot of credit for this performance as well, but it seems clear that Rhule will always prioritize defense. Despite losing White (who took the same job at Florida State) and numerous starters and contributors to both graduation and the transfer portal, you get this sense that this staff is confident that the defense won’t take a step back this season.

His Track Record. Husker fans all know the story by now: Rhule is a turnaround artist. He took over complete and total dumpster fires at Temple and Baylor, and turned each into winners. By year three at Temple, he turned the Owls into a 10-win, conference championship winning team, and by year three at Baylor, he turned the Bears into an 11-win team that played in the conference championship game.

Will he be able to replicate that kind of success at Nebraska? College football has changed drastically even since his time at Baylor, and there are no guarantees. But it’s clear Rhule knows how to build a program, and he knows how to instill belief at a place that has suffered a lot of losing. You can tell from the early interviews out of fall camp that the coaching staff is excited about this year’s team, and expects to be competitive in every game.

The 2025 season will tell us a lot about the future of Nebraska football under Matt Rhule. You can count this Common Fan as one who believes he will build the Big Red into a consistent winner.

As always, GBR for LIFE.

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