Report: Matt Rhule adds former San Diego State safety Tariq Thompson to Nebraska staff as defensive GA

Matt Rhule reportedly added former San Diego State safety Tariq Thompson to his Nebraska staff as a graduate assistant, per 247Sports’ Matt Zenitz.

Thompson was named All-Conference in the Mountain West all four years at San Diego State, including First-Team in 2020. He has 12 career interceptions.

Thompson signed a rookie contract with the Buffalo Bills in 2021 but was waived in August. He’ll now begin his coaching career in Lincoln.

This isn’t the first move pulled off by Rhule this week. Thompson joins the staff after Rhule hired Rashaan Mevlin as an assistant defensive backs coach.

Matt Rhule continues staff overhaul with Tariq Thompson

Nebraska recently retooled its football coaching staff, hiring John Butler as the new defensive backs coach. But it’s not a move that Rhule would’ve wanted to make during the middle of the summer.

But when then-defensive backs coach Evan Cooper resigned, Rhule didn’t have much of a choice. And he was actually able to lock down Butler as a new assistant after previously trying to hire him in the spring.

Now, Thompson is in the fold for the 2024 season.

“So I reached out to John like, ‘Hey, you’re out, would you want to do this?’ And it was just not the right time. He’s got a 13-year-old son,” Rhule said at Big Ten Media Days. “Well, Evan resigns, the job’s open, we interview a bunch of people. John’s two towns down from me at the beach. I said ‘Hey, come down and talk to me.’ And I think at that point, because football season was right around the corner, I think he was ready and we’ve known each other a long time.

“I think it just made more sense. So his football acumen, the fact that he’s been a coordinator, his intelligence. You talk to him for five minutes and you’re like, ‘OK, I get it.’ He’s going to be — I think he’s going to make our players better.”