Grading Nebraska Football Coach Matt Rhule's First Two Seasons

Josh: He landed Dylan Raiola. And the other thing I would say is this: We can do revisionist history on why the hell did he hire Satterfield in the first place? And that's totally fine. But he is the first Husker coach that I can remember who recognized a problem early in his tenure and fixed it. And he fixed it in season. And it's not just that he fired him because it's easy to fire a guy; Who are you gonna get then?

He got Dana Holgorsen. And I think I said this to you, I know I've said it somewhere. Jack, if they would have hired Dana Holgorsen after the season, we wouldn't be talking basketball. We would only be talking about Dana Holgorsen. But because he hired him in November and then we got to see four games of him as offensive coordinator, it did lessen the discussion point of that in the off season. Maybe that's gonna ramp up with spring ball. He got Dana Holgorsen, man. Like that is a reason alone to bump the grade up to a six if you want to.

Jack: Let's kind of tackle this another way. I'd say five, but it doesn't have to be five. His biggest successes and his biggest failures are in the years that he's been here. Biggest failures are gonna be easier because they're the ones that we just mentioned. To me, it's in-game management number one, to be honest.

Josh: Well, and special teams!

Jack: That's the second one. In-game management number one. Because of in-game management, they would have at least three morel they probably have three more wins. Which would change everything.

Josh: Yeah, they're 12-13 and only a few games in there are you like, yep, they did not belong on the field. Like the Michigan game, right?

Jack: Not changing players, not changing anything else, they have three games if you [were] making the exact right decisions at all the time with that; that's number one.

Number two is special teams. Never getting better. That's number two for me. Number three for me is Jeff Sims. Okay. Horrible. That's number three. And then I think number four for me is some of the initial, believe it or not, some of the initial assistant coaching hires.

Josh: My wife says it's game management, the original coaching staff. Yeah You put them behind the eight ball.

Jack: That's number four for me. And then number five for me is just not having depth at a couple of key positions, right? At quarterback in year one and at running back throughout the course of the whole thing.

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