Enhance

Kind of found it.

Did anybody catch the quote about offense? IIRC he said something about wanting to run a more 'traditional' offense but then talked about how he's not beholden to any one style. Said at Temple they ran a lot of I formation, but then spread it out more at Baylor because of the WR talent they had.

Looks like So. Car.'s offense this past season was 77th in total offense and 64th in 3rd down conversion pct, but they really gelled in recent weeks putting 60+ up on Tennessee and 31 on Clemson.

I saw this today, too. The reaction in Wisconsin has been... not great. Pretty mixed. I've seen a lot of current/former players disgusted at how the AD handled this situation. Which, ultimately, IDK how much it's going to matter. What's done is done. Transfers and decommits are inevitable just about any time there's a coaching change. But things are not rosy is Wisky land today.

I understand your point. I just wouldn't worry too much about it. You referenced earlier the A&M DL coach, who is Elijah Robinson... a guy Rhule hired to work for him at Temple and then one year at Baylor. So, he may not be a 'Carolina' guy, but he'd definitely fall into the 'buddy' system. All any of us can do is trust that Rhule puts the guys in place that he thinks gives them the best opportunity to win. I said the same thing with Frost in 2017. Obviously, that strategy didn't work out, but we also don't know if it would've gone any differently had he tried to comprise a staff of fewer UCF assistants.

Yes his success churning players into the NFL is commendable, particularly in his short time at Baylor. He also had quite a few of his recruits drafted in 2020 (the year after he left). Rhule is definitely getting a lot of pub as a 'developer,' but I think there are a lot of reasons to like his recruiting potential. His composite average ranking at Baylor was 32 over three seasons, and he also had a number of other accomplishments while at Baylor including flipping a couple of four stars from Arkansas and Florida to Baylor. And remember, this was all while having to sit in parents' living rooms and convince people to come to Baylor in the midst of all their turmoil. I have also seen multiple reports in recent days that his connections to Texas recruiting remain strong and he is highly respected/thought of in that state. So, time will tell, but I think he's certainly capable of averaging recruiting rankings in the Top 25 range. That, in tandem with a good development program, should win you the west. And then the sky is the limit from there. I don't think anybody should discount recruiting potential at a place like Nebraska, particularly with the NIL opportunities.

All coaches hire their 'buddies' aka coaches they have a relationship with and have worked with before, so I generally advise people against worrying about this too much. I would particularly advise against extrapolating what Frost did with his UCF staff towards other coaches hiring people they've worked with before. It's not necessarily predictive of success or failure. Besides, if he hires people who helped him win 10+ games at Temple and 10+ games at Baylor, I would look at that as an objectively good decision.

Damn how embarrassing. Imagine hiring Matt Rhule after lengthy discussions and analysis with a professional search firm, collegiate/NFL coaches, and incredibly knowledgeable people in the industry, when you instead could've just listened to Scott Shanle and HuskerPumper01 on Huskerboard! OPE

Pretty bold move for Wisconsin, if it pans out. Fickell is against the grain of what Wisconsin has done for the last few decades, and he would probably demand a pretty hefty salary outside of what Wisconsin would traditionally be comfortable paying. Anybody who thinks Nebraska got played by hiring Rhule over Fickell is being incredibly superficial in their analysis. There are a lot of reasons to like Fickell and Rhule as college football coaches, and no coach is ever going to have full, unanimous support. As I said in the Rhule thread, that's why we play the games. Let's see what happens on Saturdays. Nebraska fans love to win the offseason championship and that hasn't done much for them in the last two decades.

For veracity, UCF was left out of the 2017 playoff. I don't think they ever made it into the Top 10 of the CFP rankings that year.

That's why we play the games . Plenty of coaches who did well in the G5 pooped their big boy pants when they made it to the Power 5. Everybody thought Scott Frost was going to dominate the Big 10 West. We should all know better by now - offseason championships don't mean jack in the Big 10.

Just out of curiosity, what do you mean by 'shut out?' The fact that Rhule wasn't on any local broadcasts or radio programs doing interviews? The reason I ask is because what happened in the local media circuit was pretty routine yesterday. University sent out a press release and provided some statements, and then set up a presser for the following days. So far as I can remember, they've never paraded a new coaching hire around the local media circuit the day of a hiring. That usually comes in the following days/weeks/months. But yes yesterday was 100% intentional. Trev worked in the media so he's pretty savvy, and there was much to be gained from the national exposure yesterday vs. the local exposure, particularly with the transfer portal and signing period coming up.

My favorite is being down two scores and giving the crowd the ol'

Well, I think this thread has run its course.

I've been semi-exhausted by many of our former players for the better part of the last 15 years. I respect what they did for the program. I respect their knowledge. I respect their place in the history. But, most of them are just like most of the fans, and they have very little idea of what they're talking about or what the program needs to be better. At least, not any more than most of the fans. A lot of the 90's guys have gotten more quiet since the experiment with their boy Frost failed so miraculously. I don't mean to sound petty, but some of them treated the last 4-5 years like a high school reunion... like they were top dogs on campus again reliving their glory days. We also still have former Bo players who not-so-cryptically like to dunk on the fans and administration about 'see, see how hard it was to win 9 games?' They all just see what they want to see. I don't mind someone not liking the Rhule hire. That's fair. But, I don't get or support the pettiness some are showing.

IMO this stat is being a bit over-used. Yes, he did not beat a ranked team. That is a disappointment. But, Texas finished the 2019 season ranked #25 (whom Baylor beat on Nov. 23 that year) and Baylor was a field goal away in OT with Oklahoma. And that's all after the fact he took over not only a program in disarray, but started coaching at a university in disarray. Imagine what it was like having to recruit to a place with all the crap they had going on. Winning matters, so I won't disregard the statistic completely. He'll need to prove himself here. But, the fact he didn't get that particular achievement unlocked at Baylor doesn't hold much weight with me in terms of the immediate goals and needs of the program.

I think this is an objectively good hire. I like his program building reputation, emphasis on line of scrimmage play, and recruiting capabilities/relationships in Texas. I'm also enjoying what little I've seen of his personality. It's hard to get over that inherent, itching question of doubt in the back of all of our minds... wondering if this is finally the guy to get it figured out. But that's a bit cart before the horse. I think he's going to be given all the support and resources he needs to do the best job he can. I'm also hopeful Mickey will stay on, but not necessarily expecting it.

To this day, I'm still not sure what triggered it, but I have a suspicion it might've been dehydration. I wasn't expecting it though. I drank a full camelbak's worth of water on the drive from Omaha, had a Scooter's coffee, and then probably 2-3 bottles of water before the symptoms had started. If I had had just the coffee or something I would've thought "yeah that checks out" but, to this day, I'm still surprised it happened... especially since I'd never had one before.

If it was Meyer (I'm 99.9% certain it's not, but if it was) he's been doing college football broadcasting this entire season. It's perfectly logical he would not want to announce it and then make it a talking point all season long on broadcast, even in this last week. In regards to Rhule, his contract with Carolina has made things complicated. Sounds like that may have been a major sticking point in negotiations. But that's all subsidiary to the likelihood that Trev and the administration didn't want to take away from the players' season by formally focusing all of the attention on the next head coach. These kids have already been through an unfortunate ringer no player should have to go through, and Trev made it a point when he fired Frost to say he thought changing the coach would give them a better chance to make something of their season... hearing a new voice and message. It would be hypocritical to then announce a new head coach and take that all away from them.

I mean yes much of this is true, but Carolina actually could have quite a bit of influence, if his contract was written in the way these often are (which none of us really know). Carolina is the one with the offsetting language to recoup most if not all of that $40 million should he be hired. Same goes for @M.A. 's response. It's obviously in Carolina's interest if Rhule gets hired, but Carolina and Rhule are the ones with the current contractual agreement, not Nebraska and Rhule. And typically speaking, there is language in those contracts to protect the employer (in this case, Carolina) from getting shivved by the employee a la the employee going off to sign a $1 million/year deal while Carolina continues to pay $9 million/year. Carolina's owner is laughably wealthy - they don't need to hire off Rhule. Sure they'd like to, but they don't need to. They're going to try and get theirs. Again, it's all just speculation since we don't know the actual contract, but the early rumors tend to align with this perspective. If Rhule is hired and is going to make $6, $7, or $8 million dollars/year, then that's precisely what happened i.e. Nebraska taking on most of the debt, which is what Carolina wants... maybe even contractually entitled to depending on the clause.

But why would Carolina agree to that deal? Rhule/Carolina hold most of the bargaining power.

Funny you should ask - I had a post about about this a bit earlier in the thread, in response to someone else. Personally, I doubt we'll see a macro-level shift to incentive-based contracts. It's not really how the free market works. Universities want to lock candidates down and coaches want guarantees. Much of the FBS (particularly the P5) has the resources to do so, and the economic impact of finding a successful coach is often considerable, particularly in a state like Nebraska. In my opinion, a shift to incentive-based contracts would require near universal adoption for it work, but the power players have no real reason to do that and play nice with one another. Somebody will just offer a coach the guaranteed money and snipe them away from the university trying to offer incentives. It'd what I'd do in order to get the coach I want.

Fun fact - I went to Frost's first game against Colorado. For the record, I didn't have a single alcoholic drink that day. Near the end of the 3rd quarter and into the 4th, I started having vision issues like I've never had before. I started seeing a small black mass everywhere I looked. And if I looked directly at a player on the field, it was almost like they'd disappear and I'd just see the grass in front of/behind them. By the time the game ended, I had the worst headache of my life, the continued vision issues, and nausea. I had to lay on a campus bench for almost 30 minutes to collect myself after I got out of the stadium. When we got to the parking garage, I threw up in a trash can. TLDR I got my first migraine ever that day. It was awful. I spent my entire evening on my couch with the lights off, in misery. If that's not foreshadowing...

To the bolded, it should be blatantly obvious, but there seemed to be some confusion in previous posts about what Nebraska would pay in conjunction to Carolina. Somebody was throwing around some figure of $70 million and it was confusing as hell. I personally doubt Carolina would agree to a deal so heavily based in incentives, and Nebraska (probably) wouldn't offer a contract like that. That would be unheard of. College football coach contracts are not incenctive-laden. In 2021, a TOTAL of $13.8 million in incentives were paid out to coaches. $850,000 of that alone went to Kirby Smart for his CFP victories. And think about this from Rhule's perspective - he'd have to be out of his damn mind to shut down a guaranteed $40 million in exchange for at best half of that.

So, for everyone's edification, IF Nebraska is indeed attempting to hire Rhule... Carolina has offsetting language in their contract with Rhule that if he were to take another job... they'd be able to recoup 'most if not all' of the $40 million they owe him. Ergo, it is likely that Nebraska and Carolina have been trying to work out some kind of compensation deal between themselves. It's basically a discussion of how much debt Nebraska is going to take on. Rhule is NOT worth $10 million/year, so Nebraska is unlikely to pay that, however Carolina would certainly like to offload as much debt as they're able. I can tell you what's NOT going to happen is Nebraska signing Rhule to some $20-$30 million dollar deal while Carolina continues to pay $40 million. That's not happening and it would violate the contract language allegedly in place with Carolina.