*** Matt Rhule Hired as New Husker Head Coach ***

The Dude said:
He said interviewed before "correcting" himself.  I think that means interviewed.  I also think it's a good thing to interview a lot of candidates.  I just doubt he had 13 guys he felt were better than Fickell.
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Ah, I see what you’re saying now. I didn’t see the beginning of the presser with Trev. 13 seems like about 9 or 10 too many to have officially interviewed. Possibly he did misspeak and really meant “talked to”?

We’ll likely never know for sure as ADs never come out and say I got my 2nd or 3rd or 4th guy, for obvious reasons.  I just don’t see Rhule being less than one of his top two, with a very good chance that Fickell was the other one.

 
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MyBloodIsRed16 said:
I can see him showing up and its pitch black and he just starts throwing switches to get those lights to come on for a pic.  "no, not that one, nope, try again, there we go!"
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Would be funny if he accidentally hits the switch for the stadium lights and he lights up campus at 4 AM on a Tuesday morning. 

 
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HANC said:
Kind of a weak answer unless you forgot the sarcasm.  I was a Fickell first guy. He wa my top choice. How do you know it was one sided??? You don’t. Fickell may have interviewed but maybe wasn’t that interested. What did you expect Trev to say??? Matt was our 3rd choice.

Furthermore, Wiscy is in such a BETTER position to succeed next year than we are. This is UNIVERSALLY known and has been discussed. Fickell has a MUCH easier job in the short term. To judge Rhule based on the first two years solely on comparison with Wiscy is absolutely absurd.

If it was sarcasm, I apologize.
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Don't know if it was sarcasm either, but Fickell will always have his eye on the OSU job.

I think Wis is just another job, while he waits. All i read was he was never interested in the Neb job.

GBR!!!

 
huskered17 said:
Don't know if it was sarcasm either, but Fickell will always have his eye on the OSU job.

I think Wis is just another job, while he waits. All i read was he was never interested in the Neb job.

GBR!!!
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Fickell did say in his presser that he and his wife put together a list of places they would consider early on in his HC career, just so they didn't have to scramble to figure out whether they should be interested in different openings. Some of the criteria (good place for their family, etc) seemed like code for "Midwest," but he didn't go into the others so totally possible we weren't on the list for other reasons.

I'm sure Wisconsin is a little worried OSU's leash with Day will be unreasonably short with losses to Michigan and Fickell would absolutely leave for OSU. But you just have to hire the best coach you can, and they hired a better one than I expected. Seems aligned with their AD to try and drag their recruiting, facilities, and NIL into the modern era and that will carry over even if he's a short term guy. I am surprised they got him, it's a good hire. If Day didn't get blown out for the second year in a row against Michigan, Fickell would be a great hire. As crazy as it sounds with a 45-5 record OSU knows they can win a lot of games on talent and won't tolerate getting repeatedly blown out by Michigan.

 
It could also have been that Alberts was just heavily weighing the top candidates' vision for what the offensive scheme would look like. But, not necessarily that it was absolutely a deal-breaker.

Obviously complete speculation and impossible to say.

It's just fascinating how so many people parroted a line of "Fickell would never leave Cincinnati" and then he does, and the announcement comes after our announcement on Rhule.

If Alberts didn't strongly consider Fickell, he's doing it wrong. If he thought Rhule was a significantly better candidate than Fickell, there were obviously some extremely specific reasons (and I'm speculating that one of the biggest ones was the coach's commitment to a simpler power run offense).

 
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GSG said:
Probably should've kept your clothes on!
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Only on my arms.  It was interesting to be next to a guy in the know while it was breaking on Saturday morning.  Everything that happened was planned out.  His daughter and mine are on the same sports team and he was frantically trying to deal with responses while trying to watch the games.  

 
Undone said:
It could also have been that Alberts was just heavily weighing the top candidates' vision for what the offensive scheme would look like. But, not necessarily that it was absolutely a deal-breaker.

Obviously complete speculation and impossible to say.

It's just fascinating how so many people parroted a line of "Fickell would never leave Cincinnati" and then he does, and the announcement comes after our announcement on Rhule.

If Alberts didn't strongly consider Fickell, he's doing it wrong. If he thought Rhule was a significantly better candidate than Fickell, there were obviously some extremely specific reasons.
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I was definitely in the "Fickell won't leave unless it's OSU" camp, took me by surprise. But I think if you consider this a rebuild and look at some metrics there is a case for Rhule. I can't find it over Fickell's entire tenure, but Cincy was 3-8-1 against the spread this year. Rhule's teams consistently beat the spread. Alberts mentioned rebuilding multiple places in different ways as a factor, because this rebuild is different than Cincy, or Baylor, or Temple. I'm sure there's more, "extremely specific" does fit the vibe that Alberts gave when listing some of the metrics they looked at. 

I think Fickell absolutely should have been (and probably was) considered, but whether he said not interested or we didn't offer there are some metrics that could point to Rhule as the right choice. Time will tell. Hope is a funny thing, a month ago I'd have been pissed if you told me the coaches each school would hire - but for now I'm actually excited.

 
You also hear Alberts say that not hiring Mickey was due to "mitigating risk", which could be applied to Fickell as well. He may be the better premier coach, but he doesn't have the track record to get a team off the ground. Alberts needs this to be the most likely hire to not continually go 3-9 to 5-7. Fickell may be able to get a preseason West leader in Wisconsin to 10-2 or 12-0, but he might not get a 4-8 Nebraska out of the losing territory. 

Fair or not, Fickell received a previously 12-1 tOSU as an interim, in a tough spot, and went 6-7. 

 
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