REPORT: Rhule Will Not be Leaving Panthers for Oklahoma

The Panthers head coach won't be heading back to the collegiate level. At least, for now.

Over the last few days, some rumors have been floating around that Carolina Panthers head coach Matt Rhule could be interested in heading back to college football. His name has been linked to the Oklahoma and Notre Dame job openings but according to Bruce Feldman of The Athletic, Rhule is not being considered for the Oklahoma job after all.

Late Wednesday night, news broke that Notre Dame is expected to officially offer defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman the head coaching job, per Ross Dellenger of Sports Illustrated. 

With the Fighting Irish likely to promote Freeman, this almost guarantees that Matt Rhule will be back with the Carolina Panthers in 2022. Following the loss to the New York Giants, Rhule's name started to pop up for jobs such as USC, LSU, and a few others. He shut those rumors down by saying that he wants to build a winner in Carolina.

"I have one of the greatest jobs you can have. I left an unbelievable job at Baylor with a long-term contract and great people for a place to come here. I built two football programs and when I say I, I mean my staff, and I built two great football programs at the college level and I wanted to try and do it in the NFL. We went through a tough first year like I expected. We're in the middle of the second year and it's been back and forth and we're not quite where we want to be but you don't get to say that you like to build and then get upset that you didn't inherit something. We're building something. I hope every guy here knows that I'm in it with them for the long haul to get this thing done. It really affects me every day when I take the elevator and I see the two championship trophies. Like, these fans, these people, everybody wants to try to bring a Super Bowl trophy here and it's really hard to do. That's one of the reasons I came here, I wanted to be a part of that. I wanted to fulfill this mission that was started in 1995, 1996. We haven't done it yet but we're going to continue to grind until we get it."

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