Matt Rhule 1-on-1: Why recruits like 5-star QB Dylan Raiola 'sees what's happening under the hood', Nebraska is primed to 'make a big jump'
On an icy, snowy Tuesday earlier this month, Nebraska’s unranked men’s basketball team upset No. 1 Purdue, and the Cornhuskers’ football coach Matt Rhule had a tweet that went viral showing him storming the court with his 10-year-old daughter alongside a sea of Nebraska fans.
“It was fun for about a minute and then I had to get out of there. Once I got out there, I could feel us getting smothered so I grabbed her and said, “We gotta go,’” Rhule told me, chuckling.
“But what was really cool was to watch that game, and to be by the bench, and to see the guys that were banged up going back to the training room and sprinting on the sidelines to loosen up, but then they went out there to compete and play. That was a joyful moment.
“On a snow day, when there’s no students in town, to have enough people there to storm the court, that’s all you need to know about the University of Nebraska.”
Matt Rhule might’ve second-guessed his decision to join a mosh of Cornhuskers’ faithful at mid-court, but make no mistake, Nebraska’s second-year coach remains steadfast that he’s the guy to lead Big Red back to relevancy on the gridiron. Even after a shaky Year 1, Rhule, a Yankee who’s found his way to immerse himself in Philly, Texas and now Lincoln, is every bit as excited today as he was last December when he was introduced as Nebraska’s new head coach.
“I don’t worry too much about what’s happened in the past, you know, even this year to be 5-7,” Rhule explained to On3.
“Obviously it’s not where we want to be, but we lost five games by a field goal, or in overtime. For Year 1, I thought we solved a lot of problems, got a lot better. The best thing for us to do right now is just to produce. I thought we produced in recruiting. We gotta produce in the offseason. Then get to the season and, and win.
“A lot of marquee programs, a lot of blue-blood programs have gone through these times, in the desert, in the wilderness but people forget that coach (Bo) Polini 10 years ago was winning 9-10 games every year.
“We will get back to that here shortly.”
Matt Rhule’s blueprint for progress
After another 5-7 campaign in Lincoln, Nebraska has seven straight losing seasons and hasn’t made a bowl game since 2016 — the longest drought among all Power 5 schools. The Cornhuskers had four chances to end seven years of misery last fall, but instead, pain was just another Saturday away.
In four consecutive games to end Rhule’s first season — against Michigan State, Maryland, Wisconsin and Iowa — Nebraska found ways to cough up each game late. After going 5-22 in one-score games under Scott Frost, the script looked all too familiar, the same ole Nebraska. Only the program’s latest heartbreak was heightened because of the hope Rhule had injected into the university when he was hired.
Matt Rhule is college football’s ultimate fixer, and his rebuilds at Temple and Baylor are the stuff of lore amid coaching circles.
After taking over a pair of programs at ground zero, he built both Temple and Baylor into conference champions. Year 1 at each stop was a complete teardown, and it wasn’t until Year 3 when the wins started piling up.
Rhule never thought it would take that long at Nebraska. And even after a challenging yet informative Year 1, he’s confident Year 2 will deliver much better results.
“I expect us to make a big jump,” Rhule said.
“If you don’t have a -17 turnover ratio last year, we probably go from 5-7 to an eight, nine-win, maybe 10-win team, who knows?”
“But we did,” Rhule added with a bit of morbid laughter, “so we have to improve the turnover battle. And we have to understand that next year people will be more prepared for the 3-3-5. We have to understand that special teams has to take a jump. So I’m excited about it. I expect us to make an improvement this year.”
Rhule humbly acknowledged he inherited a much better situation in Lincoln than his previous rebuilds. He was quick to praise the university’s support, infrastructure and facilities. He likened the possibilities at Nebraska to awakening a giant beast.
“There are inherent advantages you have at Nebraska,” he said. “The resources we have are unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”
The Cornhuskers’ latest savior and turnaround artist was handed what he needed to make Nebraska a winner again, but even the best tools can’t immediately erase a decade of poor program DNA.
Last offseason, Rhule overhauled the roster with 14 transfers and a host of other newcomers. He super-charged Nebraska’s strength and conditioning program, overhauled the analytics department, changed how they practiced and brought Tony White’s 3-3-5 defense to the Big Ten.
And many of his initial moves worked. The man with a plan kinda proved he knew what he was doing.
Compared to the teams under Scott Frost, Nebraska was tougher and deeper. The Cornhuskers played competitive, sound defense (Top 5 in the Big Ten in yards per play, best since 2013) and they mostly erased their glaring special teams problems.
But the program’s recent propensity for abhorrent quarterback play and offensive self-immolation — as if they were reenacting a scene from the Jackass movie franchise each Saturday afternoon — might’ve reached its nadir in 2023.
After years of watching Frost’s offenses commit bone-headed penalties, game management miscues and ill-timed turnovers, Nebraska’s offense managed to look even worse in Rhule’s first season.
Georgia Tech transfer quarterback Jeff Sims proved to be a disaster, as the Cornhuskers led the nation with 31 turnovers. They fumbled the football 15 times — the most nationally — and averaged just 18 points per game.
“There’s no doubt to say that the offense has to improve,” Rhule acknowledged. “The turnovers, I’ve never been a part of anything like that before.”
Even the most nihilistic Nebraska fans couldn’t imagine some of the team’s offensive shortcomings, including in its Black Friday finale against the rival Hawkeyes.
In a tie game with 31 seconds remaining, the Cornhuskers intercepted Deacon Hill to set up a potential game-winning field goal — which would’ve sent the program bowling.
At worst, Nebraska looked primed for overtime. Instead, quarterback Chubb Purdy threw a backbreaking interception on the next play that allowed Iowa to drill a walk-off field goal to end the game.
“To lose in that fashion, I wouldn’t wish that on anybody,” Rhule said after the game.
The Cornhuskers were admittedly snakebite by injuries all fall — they lost their top two receivers before halftime of Week 1 and suffered key losses along the offensive line and at tailback. Offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield inspired little confidence, too, with the program’s transition from a spread offense to a more old-school bully-ball clunky at best. But Rhule wasn’t interested in making excuses for last season’s speed bumps, and he believes there were at least some signs of promise that could spell better overall results in 2024.
Despite the team’s OL injuries and subpar QB play (equating to more stacked boxes), the Cornhuskers actually finished second in the Big Ten in rushing and averaged nearly a yard per carry more (4.5 vs. 3.52) per rush.
Rhule hopes to build on that ground game success next season with the return of two injured tailbacks plus the addition of former Oregon 4-star transfer Dante Dowdell. The Cornhuskers shored up a thin WR room with the return of Isaiah Garcia-Castaneda, who missed all of one game last year, as well as snagging a pair of impact playmakers from the portal. They plucked Wake Forest’s leading receiver Jahmal Banks (653 yards and four touchdowns), and also swiped Texas transfer Isaiah Neyor, who averaged nearly 20 yards per catch with 13 total touchdowns for Wyoming in 2022.
Both wideouts should be instant impact players for Nebraska next fall.
Rhule shook up his offensive coaching staff this month as well, reuniting with former Pittsburgh Steelers assistant Glenn Thomas. The two spent five seasons together at Temple and Baylor, with Thomas developing quarterbacks PJ Walker and Charlie Brewer. Satterfield and Thomas will now share Co-OC duties, with Thomas working directly with the QBs — including he who has not yet been named.
I’m over 1,000 words into this piece and Dylan Raiola’s name has yet to garner a mention.
While Year 1 provided its challenges, the bubbling optimism coming out of Lincoln largely centers around Rhule track record of success and the fact he flipped the 5-star freshman quarterback from top-ranked Georgia at the 11th hour before the Early Signing Period in late December.
Raiola, a legacy signee whose dad Dominic was an All-American center for the Cornhuskers, opted to turn down the reigning two-time national champions because he wanted to chart his own path at a place he truly considered home. As the one-time No. 1 overall player in the 2024 class, Raiola will be burdened with unreasonable expectations at the outset of his career. He’s the first 5-star signee at Nebraska in 19 years, and many believe he could start as a true freshman this fall.
The Cornhuskers will have a wide-open QB competition during the spring, but from a macro viewpoint, Raiola’s sheer decision to attend a program that hasn’t made the postseason since he was exiting elementary school helps “validate” Rhule’s long-term vision and plan.
How Matt Rhule changed Nebraska’s recruiting strategy
Some 14 months ago, one of the first steps Rhule took to fixing Nebraska’s program was changing the program’s recruiting strategy. He used his ties from Baylor to zero in on Texas as a pipeline state. He notably repaired relationships with high school coaches and prospects across Nebraska. Frost famously froze out folks in Nebraska’s own backyard, but Rhule prioritized in-state recruiting and those efforts paid off in his first full recruiting class.
A year after loading up on transfers before his inaugural season, Rhule, known as a unique developer of raw prep talent focusing on specific height, weight and speed metrics, went back to his roots by going heavy on high school prospects. The Cornhuskers signed the nation’s No. 24 class, and used the portal (just six transfers) to address the margins around a young roster.
“We don’t want to be a huge portal team,” Rhule said.
“When I look at the really good teams, the really good teams are recruiting out of high school. They’re adding with the portal, they’re fixing problems with the portal. So we said, you know what? Let’s, let’s take that approach. Let’s recruit the best high school players we can. And when there’s a good opportunity in the portal, let’s take advantage of it.”
And thus far, they have.
In the 2024 class, Rhule landed 4-star wideout Dae’vonn Hall, beat out Georgia and Notre Dame for 4-star tight end Carter Nelson and convinced promising quarterback Daniel Kaelin to remain in the class even after Raiola stunned the college football world with his flip. He dipped into Texas for a pair of blue-chip defensive backs and beat out several Big 12 powers for 4-star guard Grant Brix. In a single cycle, he’s stockpiling the program with the type of talent it takes to be competitive in the Big Ten.
Dylan Raiola figures to be the Pied Piper for future top recruits, and his commitment should provide ripple effects for years to come, but the decisions by the collective group of signees is what has Rhule so juiced about his program’s future.
“They see what’s happening under the hood,” Rhule explained excitedly.
“They see what’s happening here, what we’re doing, the progress that we’re making. When a high-profile player decides to come, it validates, obviously to the outside world, but really to, mainly to recruits and says, ‘Hey, this brand is gonna come back to life, and it’s cool to come here. You don’t have to be the first one.’”
“So whether it’s Dylan, Carter, whomever, they really, really helped us by saying, “It’s okay to come there. It’s a destination-type place. Carter and Dylan, they know what Nebraska has been, and because they’ve seen what’s under the hood, they know what it’s about to be. And I think that’s really important.”