Matt Rhule calls Tom Osborne a mentor to him at Nebraska

The Nebraska Cornhuskers program produced one of college football’s most legendary figures in Tom Osborne. He’s one who has still been around the program to some extent since his retirement and now can be someone who current head coach Matt Rhule can lean on.

While making an appearance on The Next Round, Rhule praised Osborne, explaining that he sees him as a mentor around the Nebraska program.

“I’ll give you a great story,” Matt Rhule said. “First of all, he comes to practice. He’ll never talk to the team. He’s always like, ‘Hey, this is your team.’ But two things. In the middle of last year, we had some guys get hurt. We were running a little bit of option. He came in at 87 years old, got on the board and I’m talking about not just drawing up plays, I’m talking about drawing up playing with detail that most coaches you interview can’t do. So, he’s been a mentor to me.”

Matt Rhule went on to share a story about how Tom Osborne has even been able to help the team in recruiting by simply offering up some space to go fishing, showing his impact on the program today.

“But we had two players come in this year in recruiting. They wanted to go fish. We didn’t have a place to take them fishing off the top of our head,” Rhule said. “Coach Osborne said, ‘Send them over to my place. I have a lake.’ They’re out there fishing with Coach Osborne. There’s a great picture on social media, he’s helping them bait the hook. Oh, and by the way, both guys ended up coming to Nebraska.”

Tom Osborn retired following the 1997 college football season. That year was also the third out of four national championships. When he left, Nebraska was one of the best programs in the country and he had a career record of 255-49-3 after coaching there from 1973 through the 1997 season.

Unfortunately, for Nebraska, the program has struggled in his absence. There have been six full-time head coaches at Nebraska since 1998 and only three of those coaches had winning records during their time in Lincoln and 2016 was the last time that Nebraska was able to make it to a bowl game.

Matt Rhule was brought in ahead of the 2023 season with the reputation of being an excellent program builder. The hope is that after an up-and-down first season, he’ll be able to take a step forward in 2024. Being able to rely on someone like Tom Osborne would, undoubtedly, go a long way to helping him succeed.