Hiring of Coach Ruhle not surprising
Not a lot going on this week in the sports arena. The Husker volleyball team lost to Wisconsin; Husker men’s basketball lost a couple of games; and the Husker football team actually won a game defeating Iowa, but tried pretty hard to give it away. Oh, yes, Nebraska hired a new football coach! Didn’t see that coming….said no one ever. I am sure a lot of people would have been happy if Coach Joseph would have been able to stay on as the head coach but that didn’t happen.
Matt Rhule was hired officially and announced on Saturday morning as the new head football coach for the Huskers. Rhule’s name had been mentioned earlier as the search was conducted, but there was some doubt if he wanted to do that or not.
Rhule, who was fired as the Carolina Panthers Head Coach a few months ago, was rumored as not sure he wanted to go back into coaching just yet. He also was not hurting for income as the Panthers owed him somewhere in the neighborhood of $40 million, and that is a pretty good neighborhood to live in!
Nebraska AD signed Coach Rhule to an eight-year contract. I hope it doesn’t take that long to turn the program around to at least a team that can win more than it loses each year.
Doesn’t it seem really strange that it wasn’t all that long ago that Nebraska fired a couple of coaches that won nine games a year? Those were the good old days.
Rhule has had success in the college game and has turned a couple of programs that had struggled into winners. He was the coach at Temple and turned them into winning records, and then went to Baylor and did the same thing, but the Big 10 is a tougher conference in my opinion than either of the ones that Temple or Baylor had to play.
I saw this quote from Coach Rhule... “It is a tremendous honor to be chosen to lead the Nebraska Football program. When you think of great, tradition-rich programs in college football, Nebraska is at the top of the list.
The fan base is second to none, and I consider it a privilege to have the opportunity to coach in Memorial Stadium on Tom Osborne Field. My family and I are so grateful to become a part of the Husker Family, and we can’t wait to get started.”
What about Mickey Joseph? A source told Sports Illustrated’s Ross Dellenger that Joseph accepted the restructured contract on staff with assurances that he would be retained if there was a head coaching change. Joseph has served as the Cornhuskers associate head coach and wide receivers coach this season.
It will be interesting to see if Coach Joseph stays on at Nebraska.