Matt Rhule looks ready to fill a power vacuum at Nebraska

Matt Rhule the politician made his move Monday. If Matt Rhule the football coach can generate an equally stirring performance this fall, the union between Rhule and Nebraska could be long and fruitful.

Five days before Rhule stepped to the mic on Monday, Nebraska athletic director Trev Alberts shocked everyone in the state by taking the Texas A&M job. We’ll detail some of his reasons below, and when you read them, you’ll probably understand why Alberts might leave — if you aren’t a Nebraska fan. If you are, watching a former Cornhuskers great leave his alma mater had to feel like a punch to the stomach. 

Rhule understood that. He understood the message the faithful needed to hear from someone wearing an N. In a situation created in part by a leadership void, Rhule sensed that someone needed to sound like a leader. Someone needed to say two things:

• Everything is going to be OK.

• But we need to fix this, and I’m going to help do that.

Rhule provided nothing short of a mission statement for an entire athletic department. He doesn’t want to be the AD. His job, attempting to resurrect a beloved institution that hasn’t made a bowl game since 2017, is big enough already. But he showed Monday that he absolutely wants — and probably would do well with — a say in what happens next.

“You can’t take a step backward. We have to take a step forward,” Rhule said. “And the thing that I’ll say is, we have to be unabashed in our desire to be the best. We cannot worry about optics. We cannot worry about what people say. The way you win in college athletics today is you invest.”

Like any good politician, Rhule turned a crisis into a fundraising opportunity. But he also turned it into a chance to increase his already considerable influence.

Rhule and Alberts, the AD who hired him, were aligned to the point that neither need worry about the other’s motives. But Rhule has worked in college sports long enough to know that when leadership shifts, priorities can shift. So Rhule seized the moment to make sure he will have a say in what happens going forward. He may not get to hand-pick Alberts’ successor, but he’ll certainly have input.

Why did Alberts leave? The simplest answer is that he had two great bosses in University of Nebraska system president Ted Carter and Lincoln campus chancellor Ronnie Green and both of them left. Carter became Ohio State’s president and Green retired. The more complicated answer is that Carter’s exit — shortly after Nebraska had reworked its reporting structure so Alberts reported directly to Carter — exposed some political difficulties that Alberts didn’t want to manage. For seven months, Nebraska’s popularly elected Board of Regents has not been able to choose a new president. Alberts may not have wanted to work for a boss selected by a seemingly dysfunctional process.

But Rhule insists he’ll work for anybody the leadership of the university puts in the president or AD position. Rhule spent much of a 10-minute opening filibuster on Monday pledging his fealty to Nebraska. Rhule’s son is enrolling there this year. Rhule’s wife Julie is planning to start a business in Lincoln. “I’m here. I’m all in. And Julie’s all in,” Rhule said. “I loved Ted Carter. I loved Trev. And I came because of them. But I came to be at the University of Nebraska, and I’ve loved the people that I’ve met. We’re not going anywhere, unless you guys kick us out.”

Then Rhule pivoted the conversation to the reason he’ll ultimately succeed or fail in Lincoln. “I just want to make sure that I spend my time talking about everything that is right. And the last part of that is our team,” Rhule said as spring practice draws near. “This team has come so far in these eight weeks. I mean, the problems that existed last year aren’t the problems now.”

The biggest problem last year was an ineffective and turnover-prone offense that got in the way of an excellent defense. The Cornhuskers started 5-3 and lost their final four games by a combined 16 points. They weren’t that far away. 

Now the Big Ten has gifted Nebraska with an extraordinarily manageable 2024 schedule and Rhule did the hard part this offseason by keeping defensive coordinator Tony White. Dylan Raiola, the son of Cornhuskers great Dominic Raiola, is one of two Elite 11 quarterbacks Nebraska signed this offseason. Heinrich Haarberg, the Nebraska native who started eight games last season, is back to compete with Raiola and Nebraskan Daniel Kaelin for the starting job. The assumption is Raiola, the most hyped recruit to sign with Nebraska in decades, will win the job. But whoever wins it probably won’t need to be a Heisman Trophy candidate. To win the majority of the games on Nebraska’s schedule, he’ll need to protect the ball and let that defense cook.

If Rhule’s team can make acceptable progress this season, then Rhule might be the most powerful person on campus — and maybe No. 2 in the state to Warren Buffett — by this time next year. Because Rhule the politician hit all the perfect notes Monday. He seems ready to fill the power vacuum that grew larger last week. Now he needs to win enough games to ensure he keeps that power. 

“We’re going to have to think of things differently,” Rhule said. “As [Alberts] now leaves and as he transtitions, that’s what has to happen here. We have to have amazing leadership that is saying to themselves ‘What’s the next 20 years going to be like?’ And how do we make sure Nebraska athletics is relevant in all of that?”