Once feared, Matt Rhule aims to 'take back the respect it is to play Nebraska'

First-year coach Matt Rhule has a pretty simple goal for Nebraska in his first season in charge: re-establish some standards.

Like the standard of Nebraska being a well-respected opponent. Too often of late the Huskers have been a bit of an afterthought for their opponents, not truly respected because they weren’t very good.

“I’ve really thought about this, right. We want to compete in every game we play, and we play to win the game, as coach (Jim) Mora said,” Matt Rhule noted. “So we’re going to go out and try to win every game. I think there’s something bigger, though, for us at Nebraska.”

Rhule outlined his bigger picture vision for the program, which includes making multiple steps, one at a time.

The first is to earn respect.

“There was a time when Nebraska football was feared, and we certainly want to get back to that,” Matt Rhule said. “We want to be a team that you say, you know what, that team’s feared. But we’re not at that point yet. We’re at a point right now where I believe we have to take back the respect of what it means to play in Nebraska and to be Nebraska.”

Nebraska is just 23-45 since the team last put together a winning season in 2016. So there’s quite a long way to go before Nebraska gets to the point of being feared again.

Of course, Matt Rhule won’t want his players focused on anything quite that big picture anyway. He wants them locked into the task at hand each and every day.

That’s the way they’ll ultimately start working toward respect and then feared.

“I want people to respect when they see that white helmet with that red ‘N’ on it,” Matt Rhule said. “So I want our fans to respect us when they pay their money to come watch us play. I want our opponents to respect us. I want all of college football to respect the way that Nebraska plays the game. Most importantly I want our players to respect what it means to be a Cornhusker and what it means to be at Nebraska.”

Rhule won’t have the easiest go of it early on. There was a lot of roster rebuilding needed when Scott Frost exited stage left, and the new head coach has had to pick up the pieces as best he can.

Still, Nebraska has the history and name recognition to get there yet again.

“This season for me is all about us not just earning but taking back respect and bringing back respect to Nebraska football,” Matt Rhule said. “Once you earn respect then you can talk about being feared. That’s the process we’re going to go through.”