What Can We Learn From Matt Rhule's Third Seasons At Temple And Baylor?

It’s year three at Nebraska for Matt Rhule.

The most consequential season yet for Nebraska’s head coach is rapidly approaching. For me, the 2025 season has been the one I’ve had my eye on since all the way back in late-November 2022, when we first got word that Trev Alberts had tapped Matt Rhule to lead the Cornhuskers as head coach. The reason is fairly obvious; his teams have historically had massive jumps in year three.

At both Temple and Baylor, his programs got off to terrible starts in year one – 2-10 at Temple, 1-11 at Baylor – before taking a step forward in year two – 6-6 in the regular season at both stops, with Baylor tacking on a seventh win in a bowl game. But it was year three, with plenty of production and continuity back, where his teams truly shone.

The 2015 Temple Owls went 10-2 in the regular season before losing in the AAC Championship Game, as well as the Boca Raton Bowl, to finish 10-4. At Baylor, he was even better. His 2019 Bears squad went 11-1 in the regular season before falling to Oklahoma in overtime in the Big 12 title game. They’d go on to lose to Georgia in the Sugar Bowl, Rhule’s final game as Baylor’s head coach.

2-10 to 6-6 to 10-4 at Temple. 1-11 to 7-6 to 11-3 at Baylor.

It’s no wonder so many of us wondered what he could do at a place like Nebraska.

I remember thinking to myself in the lead-up to 2023’s opener against Minnesota that surely his first-year floor wouldn’t be as low as it was at Temple or Baylor. Sure enough, Nebraska went 5-7, bettering his first two stops by three and four games, respectively. Lest we forget, Nebraska was 5-3 at one point, well on their way to their first bowl game since 2016, before they lost four games in a row by a combined 16 points, including by three points each against Maryland, Wisconsin, and Iowa. Still, though, Nebraska did improve upon their 4-8 record in 2022.

Year two again showed growth. Instead of needing eight games to pick up five wins, Nebraska’s 2024 squad needed just six. But a disastrous four-game losing streak to finish October and start November had Nebraska reeling. Could they really lose out and miss on a bowl game again? Thankfully for Husker fans (and Matt Rhule) the answer was no. They ran Wisconsin off the field on senior day, dropped the Black Friday game to Iowa (in horrifying fashion, no less), and picked up the program’s first bowl win since 2015, beating Boston College 20-15.

Nebraska capped their 2024 season with a Pinstripe Bowl win over Boston College. Mandatory Credit: Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images | Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

While the 2024 squad didn’t match the four and six-game win improvements of Matt Rhule’s second-year groups at Temple and Baylor, they did improve upon 2023 by one win in the regular season and two wins overall.

Which brings us to 2025. Does Matt Rhule still have his year three magic?

To answer that question, I decided to take a look at three categories:

Returning experience: How does Nebraska’s returning experience compare to what Temple brought back in 2015 and what Baylor brought back in 2019?
Transfers: In an era of the transfer portal, can Nebraska’s new players fill the holes the team has?
Where else do the programs match up: Were there similarities from years one and two at Temple and Baylor that we can apply to 2023 and 2024 in Lincoln? And if so, what did it mean for year three?

In the end, it leads to the most important question; what will it mean for Nebraska football in 2025?

Let’s dive in.

Returning experience

College football has changed quite a bit since Matt Rhule took over Temple in 2013. In particular, roster construction is so different now. If Matt Rhule took over Temple today, could/would he attempt to build them up like he did over a decade ago? Given the number of players that go into the portal after their first bit of success in the Group of Six, I’d guess not.

But in 2013 and 2014, Rhule and company were able to develop the roster and set themselves up for a big 2015, in large part because of how few holes they had to fill.

In the 2015 season-opener, Temple defeated Penn State 27-10. The Owls would ultimately finish the season 10-4. | Matthew O'Haren-Imagn Images

Going into 2015, 96.8% of total passing yards returned from the 2014 Temple QB room. For rushing yards, the number was 79%. 79.5% of all offensive line starts returned, and on defense, the numbers were staggering. In terms of total tackles, the defensive line returned 89%, the defensive backs 85.1%, and linebackers an otherworldly 97.1%! Across offense and defense, the only real question mark with production was at wide receiver, and still the Owls brought back 66.6% of all receiving yards.

And yet, that number is better than what Nebraska brings back in all but two categories; passing yards, where the Huskers bring back 100%* of their QB passing yards, and defensive back, where 88% of DB tackles return for the Blackshirts.

*What makes this 100% number particularly interesting is that (a) Heinrich Haarberg is now at tight end and (b) I made sure to mention “QB passing yards” above, because punter Brian Buschini did add 38 passing yards to the ledger on his own.

With 83% of their offensive and defensive numbers back in the fold, the Owls ranked sixth in the entire country in Bill Connelly’s “returning experience” metric.

For Baylor, it was more of the same. Four years later, Bill Connelly had updated his metric, and it now went by “returning production.” What hadn’t changed? Matt Rhule’s ability to bring back a high number of players and raw production. 75% of Baylor’s production from 2018 would return in 2019, ranking the Bears 20th in the country. With 81% of passing yards, 84.3% of rushing yards, and 71.5% of receiving yards back, only the offensive line and the 19 combined career starts entering 2019 worried people. On defense, it looked eerily similar. 92.9% of tackles by linebackers returned, as did 68.9% of DB tackles. And while the Bears only had 51.1% of tackles back on the defensive line, it still is a higher number than Nebraska’s 35% at the same position group heading into 2025.

Overall, Temple and Baylor beat Nebraska at almost every spot.

Returning production for Matt Rhule-led teams at Temple, Baylor, and Nebraska. | Josh Peterson

Counting for transfers, Nebraska’s returning production in 2025 still falls well short of what both Temple and Baylor had in 2015 and 2019 respectively, coming in at 50th in the country according to Bill Connelly’s numbers.

But what about the transfers?

Now, here’s where things get interesting.

Bill Connelly's returning production numbers for Temple, Baylor, and Nebraska entering Matt Rhule's third seasons. | Numbers: Bill Connelly/Graphic: Josh Peterson

Let’s start at wide receiver. In 2025, Nebraska brings back just 935 total receiving yards. Nebraska’s first, second, and fourth-best pass catchers are all gone, with Jacory Barney’s 447 yards the most returning by a single receiver. Emmett Johnson’s 286 take up the bulk of the rest, with Carter Nelson, Heinrich Haarberg (two catches for 16 yards!), and others adding to the total. Frankly, there’s not a ton there.

But, what about the transfers? In 2024 alone, Dane Key, then at Kentucky, caught 47 balls for 715 yards. Add in former Cal wide receiver Nyziah Hunter’s 40 catches for 578 yards, and suddenly the Cornhuskers go from 935 receiving yards returning to more than 2100, even if the majority of those yards didn’t take place at Nebraska.

Former Cal Golden Bear Nyziah Hunter is expected to make a big impact on Nebraska's 2025 offense. | Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images

Outside of rushing yards*, it’s like this all over the place. Notre Dame transfer Rocco Spindler brings 40 games and 23 starts worth of experience to Lincoln. Elijah Pritchett brings 29 games worth of experience with 11 starts from Alabama.

*Nebraska didn’t bring in a single portal running back, so they’re mostly relying entirely on Emmett Johnson, as well as freshmen or players with limited production in their Cornhusker careers.

On defense, Marques Watson-Trent is probably the most ballyhooed addition to the roster, bringing 37 career starts and 49 games of experience from Georgia Southern. He finished his career ranked second all-time in school history with 363 tackles and had three seasons with 100 total tackles, including 16 games with ten or more. Dasan McCullough saw three years of time at Indiana and Oklahoma and brings 79 career tackles, including ten for loss and four sacks.

In the defensive backfield, Andrew Marshall comes to Nebraska from Idaho, an FCS school, with 14 starts, 26 games played, 72 total tackles, including 50 alone in 2024, as well as eight pass breakups. Not to mention, he had touchdowns on both kickoff and punt returns, plus over 500 career return yards. Jamir Conn will also make the jump from the FCS, with all 11 of his career starts coming in 2024. He had 57 tackles, six pass breakups, and a forced fumble in 2024.

On one hand, Nebraska’s returning production is pretty much down across the board. On the other hand, Matt Rhule is doing everything possible to make up for that with experience at the Power Four, Group of Six, and FCS levels.

Will it be enough?

What similarities are there from Temple and Baylor?

Well, besides all the returning production in the passing game? Here’s something I think you might like. You know how Nebraska has really struggled in one-score games under Matt Rhule*? Well, that was pretty common across his first two years at both Temple and Baylor.

*We don’t have to limit this discussion to the Matt Rhule era, do we? Nebraska is 17-46 in one-score games since the 2014 Holiday Bowl vs. USC.

With the Owls, his 2-10 group in 2013 finished 0-5 in games decided by a single score. In the first 11 games of 2013, they were 0-3 in one-score games, before they picked up a 10-3 win over Tulane in the final game of the regular season. While they wouldn’t go to a bowl game, it would get them to bowl eligibility and move their record to 6-6.

Meanwhile, Matt Rhule’s first Bears team in 2017 finished 1-11 overall and went 0-4 in games decided by eight points or less. His 2018 Bears team was a little bit better, finishing 3-2 in one-score games. Along the way, Baylor went 6-6 in the regular season; the bowl win pushing them to 7-6 overall.

Sound familiar?

Through two years, Temple was 1-8 in one-score games. Baylor was 3-6.

In year three, Temple went 2-1 and Baylor went 5-2 in those same types of games, with the Bears picking up a double-OT and triple-OT win in the process.

If this trend were to hold at Nebraska, the program that’s gone 3-10 in one-score affairs across Rhule’s first two seasons is looking at a nice jump in 2025.

Matt Rhule's teams struggled in one-score games at Temple and Baylor in the first two seasons before going above .500. — Matt Rhule's teams struggled in one-score games at Temple and Baylor in the first two seasons before going above .500 in year three. Can it happen at Nebraska? | Josh Peterson

What does this all mean?

I mentioned it above, but look at those regular season records. While Nebraska’s 5-7 in 2023 was much better than the 2-10 and 1-11 seasons Temple and Baylor had, the second season for Matt Rhule at all three stops has the identical 6-6 record in the regular season. Throw in the bowl win his Bears had back in 2018 – a 45-38 comeback win over Vanderbilt in the Texas Bowl – and it’s hard not to see how strong the parallels are.

But again, what does it all mean?

Baylor's 2019 24-10 win over Texas came in the midst of a breakthrough 11-3 season. | Jerome Miron-Imagn Images

Record wise, the tracks are similar. Roster makeup? Not so much. Continuity on the coaching staff? Ditto.

Perhaps the lessons learned here are that you can pick and choose what you want from the Matt Rhule experience to fit whatever narrative you’d like surrounding the 2025 season.

If you’re a believer in Matt Rhule’s way of doing things – how the team practices, what’s it like on the day-to-day, and his ability to find talented players that are ready to break through – then I imagine you’re looking at the 2015 Owls or 2019 Bears as something the 2025 Cornhuskers can replicate; that this can be a 9-3 or better team. The sport has changed all over the place, but it’s still football.

But if you worry about the lack of continuity, the lack of proven Nebraska production, and look at the one-score losses not as a year one and two problem, but a systemic problem inherent to Nebraska football? Well, I imagine you’re leaning closer to 6-6 or 7-5; the same program it’s been for a decade. The only difference is that the guy in charge is a little better than what Nebraska’s had prior, but he's coaching inside a sport where the parameters have shifted against him. The "old" way of doing things isn't possible anymore.

45 days until we find out which side is right.

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