Rhule says Recruiting Reactions are 'Significantly Different'

What many have neglected to think about this season is that this isn’t just year three of Matt Rhule coaching the team – it’s also year three of Rhule recruiting players to Nebraska. From his national appearances on the major networks like ESPN to his own “House Rhules” podcast, NU’s head coach is out in the media world more than all of his predecessors combined, and it’s showing up on the recruiting trail.

Over his first two seasons, Rhule has worked tirelessly to bring in some of the best high school talent in the nation, with the most obvious win being now-sophomore quarterback Dylan Raiola. He was able to get Raiola to flip from perennial powerhouse Georgia to come to Lincoln and right the ship.

Raiola hasn’t been the only highly-touted signee over the past few years, and now it’s put Nebraska in a unique position. They can actually be picky. When asked during his weekly press conference about his 2026 recruiting class, Rhule admitted he’s only got room for about 1-2 more guys.

Talk about a flip of circumstances from when he first set foot in Lincoln.

“We came in early and felt like we had to flip over everything,” Rhule said of his first year on Nebraska’s campus. “Now we’ve got a lot of freshmen and sophomores, and now we can be very select in ’26, get difference-makers, and I think the guys we have committed and the guys we’re trying to get are difference-makers, and then we’ll see the whole portal world in January. We’ll see how that goes.”

The portal certainly has been a friend of Nebraska, with several key contributors on the 2025 Huskers transferring in this season. It’s safe to expect that trend to continue, considering how often the Huskers have been able to play in primetime this season, and that’s not counting yet another appearance this weekend against Penn State on NBC.

The Huskers have had night games against Cincinnati, Akron, Minnesota, USC and UCLA already this year. Penn State will be the sixth team to take on the Huskers under the lights, and that’s more than okay with Rhule.

“They want us to play on national TV, so I love it,” he said. “Our league is unique in that they have tolerance for certain teams. Certain teams have it in the rules that they don’t have to play late in the year. We don’t have those tolerances, so you go play on NBC, national TV. Do I love getting back at 3 in the morning and playing Friday at 11? Yeah, we’ll go do something tough.”

Rhule said it doesn’t hurt either that the late-game windows also allow his team to shine when everyone’s watching.

“Everyone’s going to get a chance to see our defense fly around,” he said. “We’re in the top in a lot of defensive categories. I think we’re second in completion percentage and get to see the O-Line and Emmett versus a great Penn State defense. So, yeah, will it put us under a little duress? Okay, but we’ll be good.”

Nebraska sits at 7-3 with two games to go in its regular season, but you might not be able to tell it from practices. A trip to the college football playoffs may be off the table, but the team has seemed just as hungry now as it did earlier in the year when they had everything to play for.

What the team is playing for now is not just progress, but growth. With so many freshmen and sophomores on this year’s team, Rhule knows practices are nearly as important as the games for a team that’s certainly on the rise in 2025, and he’s seeing it practice after practice.

“I have not had a day yet this year that I can think of that I walked off disappointed in our practice and our preparation,” Rhule said. “There are some days where execution hasn’t been good and those things have sometimes shown up in the game, but I feel like what they have done is attack our process every week and just try to get a little bit better at the process.”

The next two weeks feature the final two games of Nebraska’s regular season, and for a second-straight season, they’ll be going bowling. Ultimately, the quality of that bowl game will certainly hinge on the type of Nebraska team the nation sees over the next two weeks – both in nationally televised games.

The Huskers kick off with Penn State in Happy Valley Saturday at 6 p.m. CST, and the game will be broadcast nationally on NBC.