Matt Rhule shares why Nebraska’s revenue sharing model is sustainable

Matt Rhule knows Nebraska’s revenue sharing model is set up for long term sustainability, despite its freshness in the college space.

Rhule mentioned how they are honest and up front with players coming out of high school or via the transfer portal. He doesn’t want to steer them wrong if they’re coming to Nebraska.

A lot of schools are certainly going to have to adjust their practices, according to Rhule.

“The revenue share is coming, we’re different,” Rhule said. “A lot of schools are having to raise their revenue share. I’ve talked to a lot of coaches, though, they’re right now writing $14 million checks, which they got about half right now, and they’re trying to figure out a way to get to the money. 

“The great thing about a young person, if they come to Nebraska, is like, we don’t take money from the students. Like, this is all through our budget. And so it’s sustainable.” 

Rhule mentioned how Nebraska is set up for success in an NIL world with revenue sharing while other schools might be doing it on the fly.

“A lot of other schools, rev share is not going to be sustainable,” Rhule said. “So they can float a big number now and disappoint a kid later. We feel like we can just stand on business like, hey, this is what we said. 

“This is what we’re going to do in terms of 1890 (our NIL collective) … I think it’s really important that people hear some of the stories. I mean, you guys walk through the parking lot you don’t see like, Lamborghinis and Ferraris out there, like, our guys aren’t, you know, our guys are investing in their futures and very often taking care of people back home and so that’s probably the extent of it.”

With revenue sharing, comes the 105-man roster limit coming to football as well. He’s used to that side of football roster construction considering his time with the Carolina Panthers.

“I think the first thing you do is operate off the first 53, which we’ve actually tweaked to 57 because college football’s a little different,” Rhule said during his Saturday press conference. “So we have our first 57 built off of exactly like an NFL roster. When I say 57, we’re always thinking about three quarterbacks instead of two because you’re going to have three on scholarship. So just a couple tweaks here and there. After that, I think you want to start to have the semblance of a second 53, but it’s really the first team of that. As you get to the bottom 10 guys – 95 and 105 … there’s going to be guys that bring a lot to the culture of the team.

“There are guys that are flexible at practice. Like, Roman Mangini. He could be a starter next year. I don’t know. But he’s going to be on the team because there’s no one that makes practice go better than Roman Mangini. He’s out there catching balls on the scout team, spiking them. Just raising the level of everything around us.”