Greg McElroy believes Matt Rhule is facing early pressure based on Nebraska’s unrest

Matt Rhule is the next potential savior when it comes to football in Lincoln. Even so, Greg McElroy isn’t so sure that the people at Nebraska are going to give him as much time as he may need to bring them back to a successful level.

McElroy believes Rhule’s pressure meter is very high compared to other new coaches from what he said on ‘Always College Football’. That’s only the case, though, because of the state of the Cornhusker’s program over the past few seasons.

“I’m putting Matt Rhule’s pressure meter, on a scale of one to ten, at nine,” McElroy said.

“You think about what he’s inheriting? He’s inheriting a program that went 16-31 under Scott Frost, it failed to reach a bowl game in each of his five years, and they never came close to becoming the program that Scott Frost promised Nebraska fans when he ultimately took the job. There were, leading up to Scott Frost’s tenure, only four losing seasons for Nebraska in the past 56 years,” said McElroy. “They just never really got over the hump.”

The good news for Rhule is that McElroy does see a very clear method to his rebuilds that he expects to be applied at Nebraska right away.

“Here’s the positives for Matt Rhule. If you look back at his time at both Temple and at Baylor? There’s a very clear pattern. The first year is a struggle bus. In his first season at both Temple and Baylor? A combined 3-23. Not ideal,” said McElroy. “The second season? You start to see some significant improvement. 13-12 in his second years at both. And then, finally, in year number three? That’s when they start to break through. A combined 21-7.”

However, that’s three years that he might not necessarily have with the Cornhuskers. Their impatience with the program has pushed them to the point of wanting instant success. In the end, that could lead to yet another quick-trigger decision that they could come to potentially regret like one they made a decade ago.

“I do believe the expectation level at Nebraska will always be teetering on the edge of unreasonable. Is it likely that they get back to being as dominant as they were in the 90s? I don’t know,” McElroy said. “I’d love to see it, I’d love to see Nebraska back in the New Year’s Six. In the 12-team playoff.”

“I’d love to see Nebraska playing for championships yet again. But we’re talking about a place that fired Bo Pelini after he couldn’t win more than nine games,” McElroy pointed out. “We all realize, looking back at it, that was the high point for Nebraska football in the last two decades.”

Rhule is two for two when it comes to rebuilds over his seven seasons in college football. The question for McElroy is now whether or not Nebraska fans will give him the appropriate time to potentially make three for three.

“Can Matt Rhule get them back? I am extremely optimistic that he will,” said McElroy. “I just think that the expectation level at Nebraska is to live back up to the way things were in the 90s and that might take some time and some momentum before they can get up to that point.”

“The pressure meter on Matt Rhule, even though everybody loves him, is still going to be insanely high because the expectations at the place are insanely high. And they should be,” McElroy said.