Rhule to Penn State?

[Husker_In_WI]

I'm not sure this is really the case. Are we in the Top 5? Doubtful. Not sure if Penn State is either. Are we in the top 20-25? And have the ability to move up if we can get the product on the field to match? I think that's entirely possible.

As Sean Callahan likes to point out, how many other teams who have been to one bowl game in the last eight years are even in the conversation for some of the top talent that we're getting and getting to visit? Basically none. That doesn't happen without being pretty completive in the NIL space.

Yeah, I don't have numbers to back it up. But I do think Penn State had to pony up some serious $ to keep Allar, Allen, Singleton, Dennis-Sutton plus some of the transfers. The established transfers and guys with NFL projections cost more than high school talent. We haven't landed many of the former over the known big spenders, and we haven't had any players good enough as underclassmen that we've needed to pay to keep. I don't know what PSU's roster cost and you can make a good argument they seriously overpaid, but I believe it's significantly more than ours.

 

[Corn Train]

Dan Campbell from the lions? That guy would KILL it in college in my very humble opinion.

Mullen won at Miss St, that place is a Texasing dump and I think he had them ranked #1 or #2 one year, I could be wrong.

I can see the argument that Mullen didn't do so great at UF, but Mullen seems like a solid hire, I just don't know if he is a PSU hire. Mullen seems more like the "underdog" kind of coach, like, put him at a school that doesn't have as much.

Mullen rode the wave of Dak Prescott, until then he’s not getting serious consideration from a place like FL or anywhere equivalent

 

[AZRaiderH8r]

On one hand, I'm glad that we're finally having some success so another program might be interested in our staff. It's a better place than we've been in for a long, long time. And I wouldn't blame Rhule for leaving to go back to his alma mater; hard to fault somebody for doing that. I would be bummed because it finally feels like Nebraska is on an upward swing, and we have a coaching staff that we can actually have faith in, who is also a very good face of the program. If we do lose Rhule, I would be very concerned about who the replacement might be, and that we go back to the mess that we've been the last decade-ish.

I think he finishes the season here and takes the Penn State job (if offered) after the season, but I suppose a lot depends on how we finish.

 

[Mavric]

As has been mentioned, if anything holds the weight, it's this:

 

[Cornfed]

I think this is a good take:

.. and I would sure think that Rhule wouldn’t want to risk everything.. his legacy, his relationship with Kraft and PSU, his family dynamic, his 5 star qb etc. It’s playing with fire any way you slice it.

 

[The Murphinator]

 

[Decoy73]

Anyone else get the feeling that Nebraskans/NU fans with our relatively low population and our fiscally conservative nature (both sides of the isle) are not compatible with longterm recruiting success in the NIL era? Rhule publicly said when talking about 1890, that without the Peeds, "we'd be dead."

 

[Cornfed]

 

[Wistrom Disciple]

I mean ... I don't what to derail all this fun hypothetical conversation. But I think a better case that if Carson Beck hadn't decided to return to Georgia, a lot of people would be clamoring about how poor our recruiting has been. Last I looked we were dead fricking last in the conference in recruiting for 2026.

I'm not so sure Dylan goes to Georgia even if Beck would have left back then. A lot of what ifs in that scenario, but Rhule cleared benefitted by having a legacy 5-star player wanting to come to his dad's alma mater. Maybe he would find someone similar at Penn State, or maybe he finds the next Jeff Sims, Chubba Purdy, or Sam Keller. Lots of unknowns.

To the bolded, you know as well as anyone that it is largely tied to the fact that we only have 11 recruits for this year. FWIW, we have four for the Class of 2027 and are sitting atop the Big Ten for that year and sixth overall at this point. In addition, we've made strong inroads for a number of other top recruits in that class already. Recruiting is trending undeniably upwards as a whole.

 

[Red Five]

Anyone else get the feeling that Nebraskans/NU fans with our relatively low population and our fiscally conservative nature (both sides of the isle) are not compatible with longterm recruiting success in the NIL era? Rhule publicly said when talking about 1890, that without the Peeds, "we'd be dead."

Listen to his presser today. He talked about how Nebraska was the leader and spent money on things in college football before many others did. Weight room, training table, HuskerVision screens, hell even building the stadium. He said that next frontier is NIL.

 

[Mavric]

I'm not so sure Dylan goes to Georgia even if Beck would have left back then. A lot of what ifs in that scenario, but Rhule cleared benefitted by having a legacy 5-star player wanting to come to his dad's alma mater. Maybe he would find someone similar at Penn State, or maybe he finds the next Jeff Sims, Chubba Purdy, or Sam Keller. Lots of unknowns.

I mean ... he was committed to Georgia until a couple weeks before signing day. The rumors of him flipping started basically the same day Beck announced he was coming back. You can not be sure if you want but there's a five-alarm fire worth of smoke.

To the bolded, you know as well as anyone that it is largely tied to the fact that we only have 11 recruits for this year. FWIW, we have four for the Class of 2027 and are sitting atop the Big Ten for that year and sixth overall at this point. In addition, we've made strong inroads for a number of other top recruits in that class already. Recruiting is trending undeniably upwards as a whole.

No, I don't think it's "largely" tied to only having 11 recruits. That's part of it. But we're also not getting many highly-rated recruits.

As I noted elsewhere:

That's part of it.

But if we're taking fewer, we should have a higher percentage of four-stars. According to Rivals, we currently have two: Danny Odem and Claude Mpouma. UCLA has three (at the moment). Maryland only has one more recruit than us. Wisconsin also has two four-stars. Rutgers has three. Minnesota has four. Indiana has five. Iowa has four. Illinois has three. Washington has eight. And so on.

So we're taking fewer. But they are also fairly low-rated.

 

[307husker]

30-40 million to pay college football players.

This is dumb.

 

[Wistrom Disciple]

I mean ... he was committed to Georgia until a couple weeks before signing day. The rumors of him flipping started basically the same day Beck announced he was coming back. You can not be sure if you want but there's a five-alarm fire worth of smoke.

There were rumors and uncertainty well before then, not to mention Georgia already had a four-star QB committed for well over a year already. Maybe Beck was the tipping point, but Dylan kept an eye on Nebraska.

No, I don't think it's "largely" tied to only having 11 recruits. That's part of it. But we're also not getting many highly-rated recruits.

Team rankings are largely tied to the number of recruits in a class. Look no further than the Class of 2027. Sacramento State is 3rd in the 247 team rankings with eight recruits, seven of which are three stars. Regarding your fairly low-rated recruits point, I agree. However, the average player ranking would put us directly in the middle of the pack of the Big Ten. Add in our prowess on the transfer market recently, I hope we can both agree that our recruiting is trending positively, not negatively as your answers have suggested.

 

[Cornfed]

30-40 million to pay college football players.

This is dumb.

Doesn’t matter if you think it’s dumb. It’s reality if you want to win. There may be outliers here and there but 9 out of 10 titles will be in this range.

 

[Hagg]

ESPN has Matt Rhule addressing the Penn State job opportunity in a kind of wishy-washy manner. He does talk about his goals here, but it's all tempered at one point with him saying, "..my wife decides where we live." I don't think he was just referring to what neighborhood or house to choose.