Matt Rhule walks right into a buzzsaw at Nebraska

It’ll be fascinating to see if the day ever comes when the hiring of a brand new coach at Nebraska is met with a cavalier angle. “Properly, shit, why not him?” is just uttered when the college names a males’s basketball coach.

That’s why Matt Rhule is beginning in a trailing place after accepting the place in Lincoln. He’s not a local son of Nebraska, neither is he a splashy candidate like Deion Sanders or City Meyer. Rhule is a wonderfully modest rent by a really modest athletic director in Trev Alberts, but the expectations are something however modest. (He additionally had the best, umm, background that interim coach Mickey Joseph didn’t.)

In an interview with College Gameday on Saturday morning, Rhule rattled off all of the explanation why he holds the place in such excessive regard. The custom, the followers, the historical past. Whether or not it’s these causes, or an eight-year contract, that persuaded him, I don’t know. What I do know is the explanations he listed are also why the duty earlier than him is more durable than what he confronted at Temple, or Baylor, and even Carolina.

Rhule should win over an obsessive fanbase at their orneriest and most pessimistic. If the Huskers have a shitty inaugural season beneath his watch, it received’t go missed like the primary years at Baylor or Temple when he received one and two video games, respectively. Whereas a tough 2023 wouldn’t be an entire shock to the nationwide media, given the staff is coming off a four-win season following two three-win campaigns, it will be a narrative.

I don’t assume Rhule realizes that in Nebraska, the Huskers are the one story. Each Sunday World-Herald within the fall has the sport’s final result entrance and heart on the quilt. Sports activities discuss radio doubles as a protected area for followers to bemoan the state of this system and regurgitate straightforward fixes which have been tried and failed kind of for the reason that starting of the century. Small discuss in grocery aisles begins and ends with what’s occurring in Lincoln.

There isn’t any place like Nebraska as a result of most like NU have receded to the periphery of faculty soccer. It’s laborious for packages with unrealistic targets to simply be respectable. Have a look at Miami, Florida State, Texas, or Virginia Tech. They haven’t met followers’ requirements in a very long time, and the strain to provide outcomes results in turnover.

And if Nebraska is No. 1 in any ballot associated to varsity soccer, it’s workers turnover. Rhule would be the sixth coach since Tom Osborne stepped down in 1997. That’s, what, a brand new multimillion greenback head man each 5 years? That’s not a blueprint for constructing a program, or sustaining a tradition.

A brand new coach each handful of years is one thing you’d anticipate out of the Cleveland Browns or Detroit Lions, franchises which are extensively thought of trainwrecks within the NFL. Be that as it could, pace relationship is the formulation for faculty packages attempting to regain previous glory as a result of take a look at what Rhule did at Baylor or Frost at UCF in a small time frame. Followers and ADs view these packages as dogshit, and logic says in case you can win that rapidly with the assets of Devry, you are able to do even higher with extra instruments at your disposal.

That’s till arriving on campus to discover a roster filled with gamers who’re content material shedding video games so long as they will nonetheless swing their dicks round Austin or Coral Gables. And despite the fact that there’s little purpose for it, the preseason hype prepare will get momentum. Quickly sufficient some dumbass convinces different dumbasses {that a} high 25 rating is suitable, after which that rating solely serves as extra proof that the coach was overrated or was by no means good within the first place. He will get fired, and the charade begins anew.

Not each new face goes to show into Josh Heupel, and in case you bear in mind, the Tennessee coach wasn’t precisely the fanbase’s first alternative.

To name it a vicious cycle can be an understatement. Michigan was rattling close to able to run out Jim Harbaugh earlier than his staff lastly began taking part in his model of soccer. There are solely so many coaches able to placing collectively a perennial contender, and even then a whole lot of skippers within the high echelon haven’t planted their flags atop the sport’s peak.

Lincoln Riley, Ryan Day, Brian Kelly, Chip Kelly, and Harbaugh are all title-less. Jimbo Fisher had a championship and continues to be about to get proven the door in School Station. Mario Cristobal is studying first-hand how far the Hurricanes are from getting their mojo again. Wisconsin determined this 12 months that their current run of success dictates Paul Chryst is a failure, and are taking a look at a buffet of mediocrity to exchange him.

So, better of luck to Coach Rhule. Proper now could be doubtless nearly as good because it’s going to get, as a result of nothing aside from a high 15 end goes to fulfill the “greatest” followers in school soccer.