Matt Rhule explains the importance of Nebraska heading into offseason after a bowl win

The Nebraska Cornhuskers have one of the proudest histories of any program in college football. Despite that, when Matt Rhule took over as head coach in 2023, he took over a team that had been without a trip to a bowl game since 2016.

Now, with his second season at Nebraska in the books, Rhule was able to lead the Cornhuskers to a bowl game and win it, beating Boston College in the Pinstripe Bowl. It was a win that Rhule now wants to find a way to build on going into the offseason.

“Yeah, I think for us it’s a little bit more in that we haven’t ended many seasons on a win in a while,” Matt Rhule said. “To go to a bowl game, you have to get used to going to the pro season. We wanted to go to the College Football Playoff. We want to national championships. But playing that last game, going back out on a Tuesday, we came to New York City, we had no distractions, no one was late to anything, no one missed anything. All those things are how you win moving forward in my mind.”

Matt Rhule was hired, in large part, because of his ability to rebuild college programs in the past, including at Temple and Baylor. Certainly, when he got to Lincoln, Nebraska needed a rebuild. 2017, the last year for the program under Mike Riley, saw Nebraska go 4-8 and miss a bowl. Since then, their best finish had been 5-7. That included going 5-7 in Rhule’s first season.

Ultimately, winning the Pinstripe Bowl isn’t the end goal that Matt Rhule has for Nebraska. However, the program’s first bowl win since 2015 and the experience that young players hadn’t yet had is invaluable when looking to continue to build the program.

“It was an experience we needed. And we played a lot of young players. Vincent Shavers was all over the field. Donovan Jones, he redshirted this year and he played corner for half the game. Got some young players some experience,” Rhule said.

“I think just the mindset of hey, we got it done in the postseason prepares us for the future. We’ve played a lot of young players, so now they have perspective, and this was a really good three or four weeks for us.”

Now, Matt Rhule will turn his attention to the offseason, building the Nebraska roster, and preparing for 2025 as his rebuild continues in Lincoln.