Greg McElroy believes Matt Rhule, Nebraska will make a jump in 2024

Many are justifiably high on what Nebraska is going to be in 2024 under Matt Rhule. That includes Greg McElroy, with his selection of Rhule as the year-two head coach that is set up the best for this fall.

McElroy chose Rhule as the coach in their second season to have the best win improvement this season during a recent episode of ‘Always College Football’. He’s comfortable with that because the odds are on his side too as far as that take goes.

“The coach in their second year that I feel best about is Matt Rhule,” said McElroy. “Part of that – and Vegas doesn’t totally disagree with me. Vegas has Nebraska at 7.5 wins right now. I don’t hate the setup at all for the Nebraska Cornhuskers.”

McElroy didn’t pick those wins and losses in his breakdown of the Huskers. However, he did assess them on each side and as a whole in discussing what he likes about their development.

“We’ve already spent a lot of time on Nebraska this year. So we’re not going to go through line by line, game by game, which one’s winnable, which one’s not. I just want to talk holistically about what Nebraska is going into this year.

“If you really look at it, they have a top 10 defense in the country more than likely based on what comes back, the production, and the productivity that they had last year at certain spots. They already have, I think pretty good personnel at wide receiver with some of the additions via the portal. I think they already have a better understanding of who they want to be offensively here in year number two under Marcus Satterfield. And you greatly, potentially greatly, improve at the quarterback position,” McElroy noted. “I think there’s a lot of things working in favor of Matt Rhule just as far as the Nebraska angle is concerned.”

McElroy also shared the usual point when it comes to Rhule and the progress that his programs have made. He took Temple from 2-10 to a pair of 10-win seasons in four years. After that, he got Baylor from 1-11 to 11-3 in just three years. Now, at 5-7 after his debut in Lincoln, he’s already ahead of schedule in that sense.

“When you go one step further and you start to think about Nebraska? You start to think about what Matt Rhule does in year number two as a program-builder. The amount of improvement that his team has shown from year one to year two at both Temple and at Baylor is pretty significant,” McElroy said. “Remember, his first year at Temple, 2-10. His first year at Baylor – 1-11. He was far better than that at Nebraska last year. They just couldn’t get out of their own way. So I think they will be significantly improved this year.”

Nebraska is projected to have success and could have its best record in eight years. While there is plenty of growing yet to do, meeting these expectations would be just another step on the climb to the top of college football again. With what it has on the team, McElroy expects Nebraska to take that step too, come kickoff.

“Is it going to result in a Big Ten title game appearance? No. Is it going to result in a playoff appearance? Highly unlikely. But this is a program that has had seven consecutive losing seasons. They’ve had eight out of the last nine years where they’ve been in the loser’s column more so than the win column,” McElroy explained. “They’re really far way away from the peak of their program’s competency in the 1990s but I still believe they will take a pretty big leap this year.

“I’d be surprised if they’re not flirting with the seven, eight-win plateau. I’d be surprised,” McElroy continued. “I think eight is even more likely than seven, especially when you take into account some of the improvements that they’re likely to make on both sides of the ball.”