Matt Rhule defines culture, identity he wants to create at Nebraska

New Nebraska Cornhuskers head coach Matt Rhule sat down for an interview with On3’s JD PicKell where they spoke about his new job and what he needs to do to return Nebraska to its glory days.

One thing that PicKell specifically asked Rhule about was what he wants the identity of the program to be.

“I think you said it really well,” Matt Rhule said. “We can’t control the results, we can’t control the officials, we can’t control the weather, we can’t control the other team.”

Rhule insisted that Nebraska needs to be a hard-working team. They also need to do the little things right and play a physical game. Perhaps more importantly, he wants the team to play with love for the game.

“But, we can certainly be a team that’s really well prepared, that has paid dues, that shows up each and every game and wants to play the game the right way. You know, we don’t want to beat ourselves. We want to control the line of scrimmage, we want to play great special teams, we want to run the football, we want to be great situationally,” Rhule said.

“And, you know, I want to be the type of team that you come watch us play, you can’t tell whether we’re winning or losing. We play the game one way because we love to play. We love to play for each other.”

Matt Rhule also emphasized that Nebraska is a long way from being ready, though they are making progress.

“We’re nowhere close to that yet because we haven’t built those connections and relationships yet, but we’re making progress and we’re making pretty good progress, which I’m happy about.”

Matt Rhule on hiring Corey Campbell

Matt Rhule hired Corey Campbell to be Nebraska’s new strength and conditioning coach, a decision he explained to the media.

“Corey’s elite since the day I first met him at Baylor. He’s unbelievably demanding but players sometimes they either feel like you’re for them or against them. He can hold you really, really accountable and they’d still know that he’s for them,” Rhule explained.

“So Corey has that and he built a staff of guys. We have a physical therapist that’s part of our weight room staff. One of the greatest gifts we can give our players is health. We have the right knowledge base, because I don’t know anything about the weight room. So I need people that are experts that I can trust who also have my mindset about culture and development. Corey has all of that.”