November 25th, 2022 at 3:22 PM ^
Not a home run hire. Big whiff at Carolina. Unclear whether Baylor was smoke and mirrors small sample size under him. Limited recruiting experience in B1G footprint or plains.
November 25th, 2022 at 3:24 PM ^
It’s Nebraska. It’s a horrible job now. It’s a home run…
November 25th, 2022 at 3:57 PM ^
It's not a horrible job. They may never again contend for the national title, but you can do a lot worse than a place that sells out an 85,000-seat stadium when the team is 3-9.
November 26th, 2022 at 9:12 AM ^
Agreed. It is a decent hire but not a Home-run hire. Rhule is like most flash-in-the-pan coaches. They have a very good year or two and everyone slobbers to hire them. Most of the time, the hire is a bust. Frost and Tucker come to mind, but there are hundreds more.
November 26th, 2022 at 10:13 AM ^
Just announced on Big Noon Kickoff that it's official: Matt Ruhle hired by Nebraska, 8-year contract.
November 25th, 2022 at 4:25 PM ^
Nebraska is a baseball school. Sorta, anyway.
November 25th, 2022 at 4:42 PM ^
Nebraska is a Women's Volleyball school. Harper Murray (Vada's daughter / Kendall's younger sister) is #1 ranked HS player and has committed to Nebraska. Wish she had joined Kendall at Michigan.
November 25th, 2022 at 7:58 PM ^
That "feels" right to me.
November 25th, 2022 at 8:03 PM ^
Nebraska is a volleyball school.
November 25th, 2022 at 3:25 PM ^
Hard disagree. NFL is a completely different animal from CFB (see Saban, Meyer, Mora, etc). He had a great track record at both Temple and Baylor, this is absolutely a home run hire
November 25th, 2022 at 3:32 PM ^
Either way — the west is getting better: ILl., Neb, and Mn. all will be respectable.
November 25th, 2022 at 4:22 PM ^
100. You can draw zero conclusions about a college coaches failure in the NFL
November 25th, 2022 at 4:47 PM ^
I dunno. I doubt that Nick Saban guy will ever work out after cratering at Miami.
November 25th, 2022 at 4:10 PM ^
He won at Temple. Yes, a home run hire.
November 25th, 2022 at 4:23 PM ^
yeah, well, so did Bill C--oh shoot sorry
November 25th, 2022 at 4:26 PM ^
Hoke won at Ball State. Was that a homerun hire?
November 25th, 2022 at 4:53 PM ^
Rhule also won at Baylor. This is probably a very good hire.
November 26th, 2022 at 9:45 AM ^
Hoke was a .500 coach at Ball State, when you include his one really good season.
Even given that it was similar to his predecessor, and worse than BSUs all time winning percentage.
November 25th, 2022 at 5:28 PM ^
Forgive me if I think I’ve heard this before about a Nebraska head coaching hire.
November 25th, 2022 at 4:17 PM ^
Disagree.
Rhule is a solid college coach and seemingly a decent pro position coach. Seems a bit less suited to the NFL game, for whatever reason.
He coached at Temple following the Al Golden rebuild years (I was there) and he did a decent job of maintaining the program and growing the recruiting. He connected effectively with kids and was generally well regarded by faculty/university community as well. His spouse actually worked at the university at the time.
While he did seem to do a very solid job at Baylor it remains to be seen if his recruiting chops are viable in the B1G vs. East Coast where he was well connected. He will have to put his coaching staff back together (i..e, Phil Snow, DC etc.) and he seems intensely loyal.
Interesting hire and interesting to see if it works out.
November 25th, 2022 at 4:25 PM ^
Forget recruiting within the B1G footprint or east coast. Talent's pretty slim and already being ingested by some big time schools. If all he does is recruit Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado and surrounding states, he'll do great.
November 25th, 2022 at 5:28 PM ^
I don't really know much about the Carolina situation besides they tried both Darnold and Mayfield... no NFL coach would win with those two.... so how much does that really reflect on his coaching abilities?
November 25th, 2022 at 7:33 PM ^
Most college coaches do not do well in the NFL. The notable exception is coaching Michigan tomorrow.
Rhule did really well in college. He's not a sure thing--nobody is--but given Nebraska's situation he is about as good as they could hope for. I honestly thought he'd get plucked by an SEC school.
November 25th, 2022 at 10:31 PM ^
Harbaugh might be the notable exception for Michigan fans but he's not the most successful coach to make the transition from college head coach to pro head coach.
Not sure how you divide the pro and college stuff, but Bill Walsh was a head coach in college before he was a head coach in the pros. He won 3 Super Bowls in the pros. He did have assistant jobs in the pros before he was a head coach in college.
Pete Carroll has done pretty good in the pros his second time around. He has a Super Bowl.
Jimmy Johnson won 2 Super Bowls. Before taking the job with the Cowboys he had spent his entire coaching career in high school or college.
Carroll and Johnson are 2 of only 3 head coaches to win an NCAA Title and Super Bowl. Switzer's the other.
November 25th, 2022 at 10:40 PM ^
That's still a pretty short list, and includes three guys (Walsh, Johnson, Switzer) who coached last century. Carroll is the only active coach in that group.
Jim's definitely done better in the pros than anyone currently in college, and he's probably in the 90-95th percentile all-time of coaches who have been at both levels.
November 25th, 2022 at 9:19 PM ^
For NU, Rhule is a big win. Guy can coach. Produced at Temple and Baylor.
Carolina is the outlier; he was not outschemed in that role (e.g. Meyer at Jacksonville) and he lost a lot of close games.
I think Lance Leipold is the only excellent program leader & coach in the mix. Based on a good source, NU could’ve had him with an aggressive push a few weeks ago.
November 25th, 2022 at 10:53 PM ^
Nah, this is wrong. QUICK turnarounds at Temple and a Baylor program that was in deep water. That’s a helluva resume. Lack of NFL success could not be more irrelevant. Totally different situation than coaching a college program.
Rhule’s college resume stacks up with any other realistic coaching candidate out there right now. He was at the top of my wishlist when we all thought Harbaugh was gone last season.
November 25th, 2022 at 3:25 PM ^
Probably.
Beat Ohio State
November 25th, 2022 at 3:26 PM ^
That's what they said about Frost
November 25th, 2022 at 6:36 PM ^
Exactly. And Rhule didn’t even outhit teams at Carolina.
November 25th, 2022 at 6:48 PM ^
Ruhle has had two college jobs and took both of those teams from terrible to pretty good (2-10 in year one at Temple to 10-3 and 10-4 in his last two seasons, 1-11 in year one at Baylor to 11-3 in his third year). He also had a stint at Carolina where he did not succeed.
Frost had exactly two seasons at UCF where he went 6-7 and 13-0.
Is Matt Ruhle a home run? Hell if I know. Does he have more experience and a greater record of success in more places than Scott Frost does? Absolutely.
I suspect he is a good hire, but I won't go beyond that until he's actually coached some games there. If it goes through.
(And yes, Brady Hoke had won at two different schools, so this isn't an ideal test. I will note that it took forever for Hoke to turn around Ball State, and he was only at SDSU for two years. Ruhle won faster in both his college jobs and stayed longer than Hoke at SDSU or Frost at UCF.)
November 25th, 2022 at 3:26 PM ^
TBD. Lots of recruiting to be done there before they will be dangerous, even in the B10 West.
November 26th, 2022 at 12:06 AM ^
They do good through the portal.
November 25th, 2022 at 3:29 PM ^
November 25th, 2022 at 3:34 PM ^
Pretty much the only home run hire they had available to them in any realistic sense. Rhule is a terrific CFB coach and it never felt like it was going to work in The NFL.
If they hired him, they'll be a solid program again very soon. I'd bet on that
November 25th, 2022 at 3:45 PM ^
Who will they get to replace him in 3 years?
November 25th, 2022 at 3:58 PM ^
Of the coaches readily available, Rhule is arguably one of the better ones, so if this is indeed the case, then he is certainly someone who can potentially put them in a much better spot than they are now, I would say.
I would use "home run" a bit more sparingly myself. I don't think it is quite that.
November 25th, 2022 at 4:22 PM ^
Stand up triple then?
November 25th, 2022 at 4:33 PM ^
Ground rule double.
November 25th, 2022 at 5:55 PM ^
Ground "rhule" double....
November 26th, 2022 at 8:22 AM ^
This has to be done. Good work, Rockford
November 25th, 2022 at 3:59 PM ^
Good hire. He'll pull talent from Texas and the mid-Atlantic.
November 25th, 2022 at 4:06 PM ^
Rhule bombed out in the NFL but turned both Temple and Baylor. I'd expect him to atleast field a solid squad in 2-3 years.
November 25th, 2022 at 4:13 PM ^
I like it because 1) I feel a little bad for Husker fans and 2) I was afraid PSU might hire him at some point.
November 25th, 2022 at 4:14 PM ^
He did well at Temple and Baylor during reclamation projects. Coaching experience in college and NFL, but clearly prefers college.
I think it's a good change for the Huskers, regardless, especially if he can bring good assistants with him to Lincoln like he had at Temple, Baylor.
Offensive philosophy is multiple formations, balanced pass-run offense. Not as much tempo.
Was hoping Nebraska would do something fun, bring in Dave Clawson or Paul Johnson and run triple option wishbone just to annoy the hell out of the rest of the conference and the country. Oh well. Nebraska must be Baylored.
Rhule seems like a head coaching upgrade over Frost, Riley, Pelini and Callahan IMO:
November 25th, 2022 at 4:28 PM ^
Would love for this to work out for Nebraska to make them a relevant top 20 program again. If Neb can join PSU/Wisc/Iowa/UCLA as a solid supporting cast to OSU/Mich/USC, it would be great for the conference!
November 25th, 2022 at 5:08 PM ^
Are we just matter-of-factly mentioning USC and UCLA alongside ourselves now?
November 25th, 2022 at 5:15 PM ^
Playoffs expanding, I doubt this happens
November 25th, 2022 at 6:09 PM ^
It was excellent PSU shade