Matt Rhule shares what he looks for in a leader

New Nebraska Cornhuskers head coach Matt Rhule is looking to rebuild the program. That includes installing leaders who match what he wants out of them.

As spring ball is about to get kicked off, Rhule explained what he’s looking for in a leader.

“I’m really careful about the vocal thing,” Matt Rhule explained. “What we don’t need is a bunch of spokespeople. Right? I mean, I watched the highlight tape from last year. We put it together so no knock on anyone else. Our guys put it together. It’s all guys giving speeches in the locker room. Like, if you’ve got to give a speech in the locker room, it usually means you’re getting your tail beat, you know what I mean?”

Instead of looking for overly vocal leaders, Matt Rhule wants to find players who do the right things and lead by example.

“So, to me, leadership is who’s the first guy in the building, the last guy to leave, who does everything right. I said I wasn’t gonna signal people out but I will say, you know who is a great leader, in his own way, is like Brian Buschini. Probably the toughest specialist, and I’ll get some text messages from some guys — Brandon McManus is probably gonna call me here in an hour after saying this — but one of the toughest specialists I’ve ever seen,” Rhule said.

“So, when you have guys like that competing at a really high level it just drives everyone around them. So, I think we have some good guys.”

Matt Rhule on his offseason program

Matt Rhule has a unique approach to his offseason program. He recently explained that approach to the media.

“We divided up into teams and selected some veteran guys to be captains. We went for seven weeks. It’s everything from daily points for community service, for attending other teams’ events, for competitions. It’s lost points for missing study halls and being late to things so it’s really whereas most football teams are based upon your physical ability, you learn very quickly that your accountability, your ability to do what you say you are going to do, is really important,” Rhule explained.

“We want to be a team that when we play, we don’t beat ourselves, we’re measured against reward for what gets done. We’re rewarding guys for doing the right thing and going above and beyond. What it also does is guys break out of their cliques and their friend groups and start to get to know each other and start to value each other for their contributions, not necessarily what’s physical but also personal. So that goes on for several weeks. Ed Foley runs it, he does a great job.”