The following is the transcript from the video and all I can say is-I made a number of mistakes. I did all these preview videos on the same night, I was nervous, and I must’ve been getting Matt Rhule and Ryan Walters mixed up because I have no other explanation for the mistakes I made.
1 – Matt Rhule was not only a line coach for the New York Giants, but also head coach for the Carolina Panthers
2 – He coached against Penn State 3 times while he was head coach at Temple
3 – He was head coach at Temple first, then Baylor.
With that in mind, I stand by my statement that he’s an average coach. While coaching at Temple and Baylor he went 3-16 against ranked teams. He brough Baylor into the rankings all the way up to #7 and then promptly ditched Baylor for the Carolina Panthers head coaching job. The Panthers fired him mid-season, in 2022. He’s got a good chance of parlaying the Baylor success into sustained success at Nebraska. Which is why I said, he’s on the same trajectory as Saban which means he’ll either be MSU’s Saban (average), or Alabama’s Saban (spectacular).
Now, here’s the transcript from the video.
The Nebraska Cornhuskers have a new coach, Matt Rhule. This is his very first head coaching job- I’m sorry this is his second head coaching job. I’m looking at my notes. His first head coaching job was at Baylor. He’s never coached against a Big Ten team, ever. He has inherited a broken program as we saw last year at Nebraska when Chryst got fired not Chryst. Frost. Frost got fired, Leonard [correction: Mickey Joseph replaced Frost] was brought in and then he got fired. He did not- there were some shaky things going on there I believe at the end of the season and he was let go.
Rhule has inherited this broken program in a conference that he has no experience in. He was head coach at Temple- no, I’m sorry, he was head coach at Temple. His first head coaching job was at Baylor. He had a 19-20 record. His second head coaching job was at Temple. He had a 28-23 record. So, he’s an average coach picking up a team that is struggling.
He does have some NFL experience with the New York Giants as an offensive line coach. So, he could be MSU’s Nick Saban or he could be Alabama’s Nick Saban at Nebraska. Who knows? He’s got that same kind of history with the NFL and with other college teams where he didn’t do so well and then all of a sudden something clicks and he is the greatest coach of all time. That’s, of course, Nick Saban not Matt Rhule. Maybe Matt will do that. We’ll see. I don’t know.
The key games for Nebraska this year are going to be right off the bat.
Minnesota. Since Matt Rhule has never coached against a Big Ten team in his very first game, he’s going to get a shot at that. How he reacts to the Big Ten is going to show us a lot right in that first game because it’s not a non-conference game. It’s an actual Big Ten game so that’s going to tell us a lot right off the bat. If he can beat Minnesota and there’s a chance that he could, I don’t know, PJ Fleck is a good coach as we said in the other video. PJ Fleck has possibly peaked at Minnesota and it just depends on if he’s going to ride this one out or if he’s actually going to try again.
The non-conference games.
Colorado, Northern Illinois, Louisiana Tech; I think Matt Rhule, he’s got experience against teams like that so he ought to be able to win those games. Nebraska definitely has the talent to win those games.
Then he’s going to hit Michigan. I think that’s a loss. I think Michigan is going to be right back to where they were last year. Michigan and Ohio State are going to be just devastating to every team in the Big Ten.
Then they hit Illinois. Illinois has a seasoned coach vying for the top spot in the West Division. He’s going to give Matt Rhule a run for his money there.
Now when we talk about Northwestern…What can you say about Northwestern? They’re awful. I don’t know how Pat Fitzgerald still has a job.
So if the key game is Minnesota, if Matt Rhule can come in and beat Minnesota and then let’s say he goes 4-0 for September and then goes two and two for October and let’s see we’re going to hit Michigan State, Maryland, Wisconsin, and Iowa. Let’s say he goes two and two for November.
He could have a 6-6 season at Nebraska which I’m going to say is an achievement for a first-year coach who’s never coached against a Big Ten team and has a team like Nebraska to support him. 6-6 is what I’m calling it for Matt Rhule at Nebraska in his first year.