Matt Rhule reflects on time in NFL, how it prepared him to coach at Nebraska

Nebraska Cornhuskers head coach Matt Rhule recently had a sit-down interview with Fox’s Joel Klatt on the Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast. Towards the end of the conversation, the second-year head coach reflected on his time in the pros, revealing how it helped prepare him for this college head coaching stint.

“I’d say I learned a lot of things; I would not be able to be the head coach in Nebraska had I not gone through that,” started Rhule. “Every decision you make is magnified in Nebraska 10 times over. And if you’re not really confident in who you are, I could see it really affecting you; I could see you compromising.”

“I have such a different relationship with our players now. This generation is so concerned with how people see them; for me, I’ve been a national coach of the year… I’ve been a meme and laughed at on SportsCenter. And as Roger Kipling says, ‘If you can meet with triumph and disaster, treat those two imposters the same.’ And I’ve been able to teach my own kids that.”

Rhule appears to have found a healthy balance between the Yins and Yangs of college football. Whether it be success or failure, credit or blame, or, to quote Kipling, triumph and disaster, the Cornhuskers headman has developed a mindset that helps him navigate either way.

As Rhule continued to reflect on his time as the Carolina Panthers head coach, he highlighted a few more lessons that he learned. These newfound pieces of knowledge are what is helping him be a better coach in Nebraska than he was in Carolina.

“I go out there now and the crowds cheering— I’ve also had 50,000 thousand people in Panthers Stadium screaming to fire me— and what I learned through all of that is I just want to make it about my players; it’s not about me,” said Rhule. “Like I came back to college football because I knew young people needed coaches that cared about them, coaches that don’t want to throw them away, coaches that don’t want to give up on them, coaches that want to make an environment where they could be safe to have failures to grow. If I learned anything during that time there it was… they’re just people. You see them as superstars, but they’re just people.”

As he neared the end of his reflection on his time as an NFL head coach, Rhule addressed his biggest mistake coaching the Panthers. He also revealed that there is one mindset sweeping college football that he has no intention of buying into.

“One of the worst things I did is early on— you’re going to be a head coach, you don’t know anybody, COVID hits, and then it kind of came back— I didn’t connect enough… But I’ve come back to college now, and it’s all about human connection. Because of the portal and everyone tell you, ‘Don’t, it’s just a business.’ It’s not a business; it’s college football.”

In his first year in Nebraska, Rhule was able to lead the Cornhuskers to a respectable 5-7 season, narrowly missing a bowl berth in his inaugural year at the helm. However, the Cornhuskers headman is not looking for instant success or gratification. Rather, he wants to do things the right way the first time around and ensure long-term success for the players, the program, and ultimately, himself. To do so, he is taking his shortcomings at the professional level and making them into tales of caution and success while heading the Nebraska football program.