Rhule to Penn State?

Speaking of Zac Taylor

Coaching​

WIKI
College experience:
Returning from Canada, Taylor became a graduate assistant and then tight ends coach at Texas A&M, serving four years under head coach Mike Sherman, his mentor and father-in-law

University of Cincinnati​

In January 2016, Taylor was hired by University of Cincinnati Bearcats head coach Tommy Tuberville to be the Bearcats' offensive coordinator. According to Taylor, Jim Turner, who had been an offensive line coach for the Dolphins, was the one who connected him with Tuberville.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zac_Taylor#cite_note-The_Lincoln_Journal_Star-16"><span>[</span>16<span>]</span></a> Taylor was seen as a "rising star in the coaching ranks" by the Bearcats, thanks to his experience in the NFL and his job developing Miami Dolphins quarterback Ryan Tannehill. Under Taylor's mentoring Tannehill became only the second Miami quarterback with multiple 3,000-yard seasons, as well as totaling the third-most passing yards for a quarterback in his first four seasons in NFL history, with 15,460.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zac_Taylor#cite_note-18"><span>[</span>18<span>]</span></a>

Los Angeles Rams​

In 2017, Taylor was hired by Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay as assistant wide receivers coach. In 2018, Taylor was promoted to quarterbacks coach.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zac_Taylor#cite_note-Sports_Illustrated-11"><span>[</span>11<span>]</span></a> That season, Taylor coached quarterback Jared Goff to the NFC Championship and an appearance in Super Bowl LIII on February 3, 2019.
 
I've been visualizing this situation like a plot graph, where the X axis is time. The far right is 12/15/2025.

The Y axis is "percent odds that Matt Rhule is hired by Penn State."

Before the season started, the odds were less than 1%.

After the UCLA loss, it ticked up to like 2%.

And then after Franklin's firing, it shot up to like 35%.

I think the odds are going to just keep going up. Personally, I think Penn State is going to hire him. That'll make me real mad - but that's my prediction.
 
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Guy Chamberlin said:
If a play or two goes different against Cincinnati or Maryland, is the 4-2 and unranked Matt Rhule getting the same hype?

And not to go all Game Day Thread, but if program building is Rhule's main strength, Franklin did it faster and better. If losing to ranked teams is what got Franklin fired, that's not the box Rhule is gonna check for you.
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100% my same exact thoughts.
 
Guy Chamberlin said:
If a play or two goes different against Cincinnati or Maryland, is the 4-2 and unranked Matt Rhule getting the same hype?
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And if a play or two goes differently against Michigan, the Rhule hype train might be off the charts.

Crazy how much perception can change. If Suh takes one more second to get to McCoy, Pelini has a conference championship and (likely) a BCS bowl win. How much does that change the perception? Does that make him any better (or worse) as a coach?
 
Mavric said:
And if a play or two goes differently against Michigan, the Rhule hype train might be off the charts.

Crazy how much perception can change. If Suh takes one more second to get to McCoy, Pelini has a conference championship and (likely) a BCS bowl win. How much does that change the perception? Does that make him any better (or worse) as a coach?
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Changes everything!

All of a sudden, Bo being a normal human and not wanting to give HJ's to every Husker fan would be okay...Had he just beat UT. Had he beaten UT and OU, my god, he could have had a video tape get released of him posting under a fake name on husker sites and saying crazy crap (shout out to a lot of posters here) and fans would have been totally fine with it.

Rhule is in a weird spot. He is 3-4 plays away from having 2-3 wins...but he is also a play or two away from being 6-0 and ranked around 20th.
 
I think "big picture" is much more relevant than those kinds of hypotheticals and playing them both ways, personally.

Big picture: I personally think Rhule deserves all of the credit for Raiola signing with us. Yeah his dad was a star player here, and yeah, the fact that Carson Beck decided to come back for a fourth year at Georgia was pure luck that surely factored into it in huge ways...but he doesn't sign with us if Frost had still been here or some other schmuck with no credentials.

Signing Raiola is really where all of our current momentum has come from.

Rhule has also turned around the psychology and the culture of the team, IMO. I think he's a great coach regardless of the fact that if our defense plays better against Michigan we're 6-0 or if we miss field goals or bobble a pass we're 3-3, etc., etc. And he also brought Holgorsen in.
 
Mavric said:
And if a play or two goes differently against Michigan, the Rhule hype train might be off the charts.

Crazy how much perception can change. If Suh takes one more second to get to McCoy, Pelini has a conference championship and (likely) a BCS bowl win. How much does that change the perception? Does that make him any better (or worse) as a coach?
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I also think if the Akron game wasn't canceled, Scott Frost goes to a bowl game his first season. Not sure how much the ultimate trajectory changes, but it's a different narrative.

I actually think Bo got a lot of credit for taking that 2009 team as far as he did with an anemic offense, and I think the football world thought he'd outcoached a better Texas team that day.
 
If Nebraska had recovered that onside kick against Michigan, I had an unexpected amount of faith that Raiola and Holgorsen could pull off the miracle win. That's a big change from past seasons.

But if I'm being honest, Michigan looked like the better team the entire game and the Huskers were probably lucky just to keep it close. We aren't upper tier yet, and I wouldn't dream of looking past Minnesota.
 
Guy Chamberlin said:
I also think if the Akron game wasn't canceled, Scott Frost goes to a bowl game his first season.
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Nothing in Frost's tenure would lead me to believe that we make a bowl game if we played Akron. Hell, there is a decent chance we would have lost to them.

Better hypothetical is that if we axed Frost like we should have after 2021 Kalen Deboer brings Michael Penix to Lincoln with him.
 
Red Five said:
Nothing in Frost's tenure would lead me to believe that we make a bowl game if we played Akron. Hell, there is a decent chance we would have lost to them.

Better hypothetical is that if we axed Frost like we should have after 2021 Kalen Deboer brings Michael Penix to Lincoln with him.
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It's not a big leap. If we play Akron, we beat Akron. With the first game jitters out of the way, we beat a Colorado team we almost beat anyway. Maybe that carries over to Troy. It's the same team that would finish 4-2 with a close loss to #8 Ohio State, so 6-6 wouldn't have been unlikely and Frost would have met the minimum expectation of returning the Huskers to bowl worthiness. As it was, everyone was optimistic enough about that 4-2 finish to rank Frost's Huskers as a sleeper Top 25 team the next year. Now that you mention it, the trajectory probably wouldn't have changed at all.

Never heard that Kalen DeBoer would have seriously been considered in 2021, as Husker fans would have thought a coach with only two years at Fresno State was unworthy of our legacy and aspirations.
 
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