The 2024 season will be the second for Matt Rhule as the head coach of the Nebraska Cornhuskers. It’s a season that’s coming with increasing expectations for what the Cornhuskers could become.
During a recent appearance on the Joel Klatt Show, Rhule explained why he thinks people are so excited about Nebraska amid the rebuild, starting with the culture around the state and the culture he’s instilling in the program.
“I think that we’re desperate is not a bad word,” Matt Rhule said. “I think it’s exactly the right word because people love their team. It’s like being in Texas and being in a one-school town. I mean, they love that team, and I think the thing is, for me, coming from the northeast, coming from all the places I’ve been, you get there and they’ve sold the crowd out for so long that maybe you take that for granted. Immediately, I didn’t want to take that for granted.”
Nebraska is one of college football’s proudest programs, having won five national championships. On top of that, as the only college in the state playing FBS football, the Cornhuskers are a cultural staple that people get excited about.
Unfortunately, the program has fallen on hard times, finishing seven straight seasons with a losing record. Now, the goal for Rhule is to return the program to that former glory.
“Immediately, I wanted to return a product that people wanted to come see and were proud to see. You start talking to people all across the state and they’re telling me these memories of coming to games with their grandfather and their uncle and these people were working jobs or farming or ranching and the only time they could get off was to make sure they could come watch these games,” Rhule said. “And you’re like, man, there’s an unbelievable importance to not just winning but doing things in a way that represents people in Nebraska.”
Part of why Matt Rhule was hired at Nebraska is his ability to rebuild programs like he did at Temple and Baylor. There’s a lot that goes into that, including building a certain culture in the program.
“So, if there’s some optimism it’s that people can really relate to the way we’ve done things. They relate to the way that we’ve practiced. They’ve related to the way that we’ve — I mean, we played Minnesota last year, we lost again on a last second play, and I remember a couple of our kids started running right off the field to the locker room. I said, ‘No, no. That’s not how we do things.’ We went over and shook their hands. We played Colorado and the Fox people came up to me or the game people came up to me and said, ‘Hey, they’re gonna storm the field.’ I said, ‘We’re gonna go over and shake Coach [Deion] Sanders‘ hand,” Rhule said.
“Like we want to return this program to prominence but we also have to bring a dignity and respect. I think that’s what people are excited about. We’ve recruited pretty well and we’ve got some good players now.”
Nebraska opens its season on August 31st at home against UTEP. That’s when fans will begin to know if they were right to come into the year feeling confident.
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