Matt Rhule’s Big 12 Swipe: Living in the Past or Facing the Truth?

One thing I have grown accustomed to after covering the Big 12 for many years is people taking shots at the conference. Typically, these criticisms come from SEC or Big Ten media fanboys, trolls on YouTube, or national talking heads.

However, for a head coach to take a shot at the Big 12? That’s something you don’t see every day. During a recent press conference, Nebraska Head Coach Matt Rhule made a significant critique of the Big 12 while promoting the perceived dominance of the SEC and Big Ten. This occurred after Rhule was asked about in-state recruiting.

“If I’m not quite sure yet, don’t I owe it to you to be sure before I offer you a scholarship? And now, before I offer you a [revenue] share deal?” Rhule said. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong, at the University of Nebraska, that we carry ourselves like the top 20 teams in the country. The top 20 teams in the country, if they say ‘hey, we like you a lot, but we want you to come to camp,’ you’ll come to camp going into your senior year.

“There’s lots of kids I would love to recruit. If they’re committed to a Big 12 school or somewhere else like that—come to camp. If you want to play in the Big 12 over the Big Ten? I got it. But make no mistake: There’s a big difference.

“I have to worry about ‘what’s Ohio State doing?,’ ‘what’s Michigan doing?,’” Rhule said. “I love the state, I love the players—we’ve taken some as walk-ons, we’ve taken some as scholarship players—but I just have to be sure that they’re good enough. And I don’t think asking guys to come to camp is… the whole thing of ‘hey, you should be the first offer at Nebraska’—desperate teams always set the market.”

While he didn’t mention a specific Big 12 school, it was clear he was referencing Iowa State, which currently has six commitments for the 2026 class from the state of Nebraska.

This is particularly ironic, considering that one of these programs is competing for conference championships and playoff spots, while the other is merely attempting to reach six wins and qualify for a bowl game. In case you have been living under a rock, Nebraska is the latter in that scenario.

What exactly is Matt Rhule talking about here, worrying about Ohio State and Michigan? Forget about those two; even Rutgers finished with more conference wins than Nebraska last season. In fact, Nebraska did not even finish in the top ten of the Big Ten in 2024.

Last season marked the first time in eight years that Nebraska finished the regular season with more than five wins. I am sorry to all the nostalgic fans out there, but this is not the 1990s. Nebraska has been a struggling program for years and has not been consistently relevant in the past two decades, aside from brief flashes under Bo Pelini, whom the school fired following a nine-win season.

To Rhule’s credit, he did spend time in the Big 12 and played a crucial role in Baylor’s turnaround following the Art Briles era. That is commendable. But at the same time, what are you doing, Coach? Stop taking shots at programs like Iowa State, which have seen more recent success. If you think Nebraska is on the same level as today’s powerhouse programs, you are living in the past. Perhaps focus instead on not finishing at the bottom of the Big Ten.