Matt Rhule modeling Nebraska after Jim Harbaugh and Michigan

It's going to have to be a strange phenomenon for Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule this weekend as his squad takes on the No. 2 Michigan Wolverines.

Nebraska is 2-2 and at the very beginning stages of a rebuild under Rhule. Michigan, on the other hand, is the back-to-back Big Ten champion and one of the favorites to win the College Football Playoff after appearing in the CFP twice in the past two seasons.

One program is at the very bottom of the mountain while the other is right near the top, but for Rhule, he sees Harbaugh as almost a sherpa for his rebuild — setting the path and providing the plan.

“He’s had a real impact on the game. Sometimes, I’ll have recruits say to me like, ‘Well, coach, are we going to be good? Should I go to Michigan?’ Well, he did it, so that’s what we’re doing," Rhule recently said, per On3.

“His blueprint for building that program for the way that they play, a lot of those things are similar. Obviously, we want to have a little bit of an option element at times, too, so there are differences. But the overarching blueprint for being great on the O- and D-lines, having good quarterback play, being physical, [having] a tight end, all of those things, that’s what we’re doing.”

What Rhule is envisioning for his Nebraska squad is old-school Big Ten football with a bit of Big 12 pizzazz strewn in, which is definitely the culture he created at Baylor and Temple before that.

It takes time, though. It also takes quite a few beatdowns in order to gain the grit and humility needed to play that type of football.

Unfortunately for Nebraska, one of those beatdowns could be coming next weekend against the Wolverines. The early line at FanDuel has the Huskers as 17.5-point underdogs.