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LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - DECEMBER 31: Head coach Matt Rhule of the Nebraska Cornhuskers looks on during the first half of the SRS Distribution Las Vegas Bowl against the Utah Utes at Allegiant Stadium on December 31, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by David Becker/Getty Images) | Getty Images
It’s been a good year for Nebraska Athletics. Both men’s and women’s basketball teams made the NCAA tournament, with the men making it to the Sweet Sixteen. Softball make the Women’s College World Series while baseball hosted a NCAA regional. Volleyball nearly made a Final Four, losing to eventual National Champion Texas A&M.
But then there’s Husker Football.
Nebraska’s most visible sport continues to languish in what is best described as mediocrity. Up a bit from awful. For the last 25 years or so, it’s been bounced around between “OK”, “Meh” or (way too often) “Bleecch”. I’ll term it as Purgatory.
I think the vast majority of fans aren’t expecting a return to the 1990’s. Three national championships in five years would be the pinnacle of accomplish, not the baseline for expectations. But I think everyone, even the most die-hard Husker hater, would have to agree that with all of Nebraska’s resources and tradition, Husker football should be better than it is.
A LOT better.
It’s not like Nebraska hasn’t TRIED to change things up, but at best, it’s only made Husker football somewhere between “kind of OK at times” (Bo Pelini) to embarrassingly awful (Mike Riley) to almost comically blundering (Scott Frost).
A few weeks ago, I took a lot of heat on what remains of the Twitter for suggesting Scott Frost wasn’t as bad as Mike Riley as head coach. Silly me for suggesting that the guy who drove Nebraska football from the nine-win program he inherited to losing 12 of his last 18 games was worse than the guy who kept things at the bottom with a 34% winning percentage. Both lost too many games, but Frost didn’t get blown out nearly as much as Riley, and at least started to develop some players. I get that he didn’t win any more than Riley’s second half; both will go down as failures at Nebraska. Frost simply stabilized the program at the bottom; didn’t fix much, but didn’t make things worse. Is anybody really going to try to argue that Nebraska football under Mike Riley wasn’t in a freefall downward? Really?
Earlier this spring, I came across this article from Chris Fort on SI.com discussing “The Nine Biggest Reasons Nebraska Football Has Been Mired in Mediocrity the Last 10 Years”. I’m going to argue that this actually dates back nearly 25 years, even though I don’t agree that the Pelini era was “mediocre”. Bo’s teams were good at times, but never won more than ten games, leaving fans wanting more. I understand that. But can we all admit that, aside from a few games at the start of the 2016 season, Nebraska football has been sub-mediocre ever since Bo Pelini was fired. And as far as I’m concerned, the descent from mediocre to sub-mediocre crap began with Mike Riley.
I hear the Riley defenders going “butbutbutbutbut, Mike Riley won nine games in 2016!!1!!!!1!” Fort highlighted one of the biggest issues of the Riley era: strength and conditioning. Does anybody remember when Mark Banker referred to Iowa’s preparation as a “bloodbath”? It got worse in 2017…a lot worse. A fourth quarter meltdown against Wisconsin. 42 point beatdowns by Ohio State and Iowa. And then the poster child: losing by 33 points to a Minnesota team that couldn’t score a single point the rest of the season. Yep. Beat Nebraska 54-21, then lost by a combined 70-0 against Northwestern and Wisconsin in the last two games.
Development doesn’t happen overnight. It takes years to do that. Scott Frost was better than Mike Riley in that regard. He recruited better, he developed better. But that “better” is a relative term. Just look at Nebraska’s NFL draftees. The Huskers had five players drafted in 2016 and 2017, but only fullback Andy Janovich can be credited to Mike Riley’s efforts. Vincent Valentine, Maliek Collins, Alex Lewis and Nathan Gerry became NFL prospects while playing for Pelini earlier in their years.) In 2018 and 2019, there was only one: Tanner Lee. That’s all on Mike Riley. Frost’s record in recruiting and developing NFL prospects was clearly better than Riley, as Nebraska had nine players drafted by the NFL in the 2020 through 2023 drafts.
Better, yes. But not good enough. Not even close to good.
For comparison sake, Iowa had 15 NFL draft picks during those years. Wisconsin had 16. It’s not like Iowa and Wisconsin were beating Nebraska on high school signing day. Nebraska won those days, in the eyes of the recruiting experts. But in the end, it’s never sufficient to win in recruiting. You’ve got four to five years to develop from there.
Let’s just lay the baseline down. The two best coaches Nebraska had in the Post-Osborne era weren’t good enough for some around the Husker Nation. Frank Solich ended up in the College Football Hall of Fame, for crying out loud. Bo Pelini was a consistent nine and ten game winning coach, but some prefer to remember him for the four losses each year. Most programs would revere coaches like that, but not at Nebraska.
So we turned to guys like Bill Callahan, a legendary offensive line coach who couldn’t coordinate a cohesive offense to save his life. Mike Riley, whose greatest achievement is being nice to reporters. And of course, Scott Frost, a polarizing figure that some never forgave for the sin of wanting to play for Bill Walsh.
And now Matt Rhule, who finally got Nebraska to back to back winning seasons for the first time in over a decade, but some are already ready to move on from.
Nevermind Iowa or Colorado, let alone Oklahoma, Ohio State or Michigan: Nebraska’s biggest enemy is Nebraska.
This goes all the way back to Harvey Perlman pushing to fire Frank Solich. Hiring Steve Pederson and Shawn Eichorst as athletic directors. And when he wasn’t busy trying to put his own touch onto Nebraska football, Perlman was trying to defend college football from the evils of a playoff system. But Harvey’s been out of the Chancellor’s Office for ten years, so why is this still an issue?
All it takes is to glance at Bill Moos’ latest book to see that dysfunction still reigned at Dear ‘Ol Nebraska U. Whether Moos was the right man to fix Nebraska football could be another topic, but it’s clear that Moos didn’t have much of a chance with the leadership above him. Let’s forgive him the original Scott Frost hire; he was the slam dunk candidate in 2017, pursued by Florida along with Nebraska at that time. Taking Central Florida to an undefeated season was credentials enough; failing to bring Frost home would have been a dagger to this fan base’s psyche. Especially if he would have gone to Gainesville.
But having University leadership extending Frost’s contract in 2019 without Moos’ input or involvement? That’s neutering your athletic director’s authority. Shortly before that, Moos had to replace Tim Miles as men’s basketball coach. Although it took a while to get rolling, Fred Hoiberg has turned out to be a great choice. Good on Moos’. But Moos revealed earlier this year that he wanted to shoot higher, thinking he could convince Dana Altman to return to his home state. Altman would have been an amazing get by Moos’; four Sweet Sixteens (with one Final Four) in nine seasons would have been a game changer.
But Jim Pillen, then vice-chair of the University Board of Regents, told Moos that “Nebraskan’s won’t accept him.”
What. The. Actual. BLEEP.
When the story came out earlier this year, Jim Pillen not only confirmed it, he tried to take a victory lap.
Uh, one game when Nebraska was at it’s highest high ever and Oregon was having their worst season in 16 years somehow justifies that boneheaded intrusion into the athletic department? (Memo to file: Altman has won twice as many NCAA tournament games than Hoiberg has since 2019. And yes, Nebraska would have gleefully accepted Dana Altman in 2019. Might have even cured a handful of wayward Jayskers as well.)
But Fred Hoiberg’s record at Nebraska is an important example of why the critics of Matt Rhule need to slow their roll. Remember Hoiberg’s first three seasons at Nebraska? Worst three-year stretch in mens’ Nebrasketball history. But here we are four years later, fresh off Nebraska’s first ever Sweet Sixteen appearance. “The Mayor” of Ames could arguably be “The Governor” of Nebraska, if it weren’t for Jordan Larson. Patience, folks. Patience.
And just what the heck are Matt Rhule’s critics basing their complaints on? Nebraska has had their back-to-back winning football seasons since 2013 and 2014. We have TANGIBLE evidence that Nebraska football is improving for the first time in over a decade, and some already want to hit the eject button after finishing 2025 with a thud.
For cryin’ out loud.
I’m not saying Nebraska football is perfect; Matt Rhule has absolutely made some mistakes. But the progress is undeniable. It’s slower than we liked, and certainly slower than what Matt Rhule’s track record suggested. But it’s progress. Let’s roll with it.
The problem with all of this negativity is that it permeates into the program and adds extra pressure to a program trying to break out of a funk. When Nebraska basketball loses by 20 to UCLA, we shrug it off. When Nebraska football loses by 20, some want heads to roll.
And the players not only sense it, they hear it on talk radio and podcasts. They read it on their phones, whether it’s news sites, social media or even in their DMs. There’s no escaping the negativity around this state when things aren’t going right.
Bo Pelini called it “seeing ghosts” (or maybe it was Melvin Gordon on yet another jet sweep). But aside from Taylor Martinez and Ameer Abdullah over a decade ago, we’ve seen too much sphincter-clenching and not enough clutch play when the pressure hits in tight situations. The pressure generated around this football program is very much real. Some old-timers might remember my friend “AJ the Huskerh8r,” who spent most of his time pointing out that Nebraska fans are a big part of the problem. I used to scoff at that.
Not sure I can do that anymore. Not when I see how we “eat our young” when things aren’t going well. And I’m watching a portion of the Nebraska fan base firing up their smoker, already throwing in the towel on the Rhule era.
Stop. Just stop it right now.
I’m not saying that people shouldn’t have doubts or concerns, but I am saying to cool with the fatalistic talk for the time being. Rhule isn’t going anywhere for the foreseeable future, like it or not. Rhule has shown a remarkable commitment to try to upgrade his staff, and he’s been relentless on that front. Fans have been questioning the offensive line for nearly a decade, and we’ve seen a major change this off-season. Starters from LSU, Southern Cal and Iowa State transferred in, and new o-line coach Geep Wade comes with a stellar resume.
New defensive coordinator Rob Aurich is an up-and-comer who was a nominee for the Frank Broyles national assistant coach of the year award. Bottom line to me is that Rhule has upgraded not only his coaching staff, but also the talent as Nebraska was very active in the portal.
This team should be different in 2026. Rhule critics aren’t wrong with wanting something different from how 2025 wound up; well, things SHOULD be different with all of the changes in Lincoln. So what’s wrong with seeing how things work out this season?
We can’t help what elected officials or administrators might still be doing to torpedo the program. (Well, there are elections, but that’s another subject entirely.) But fans CAN control their criticisms and reactions. Rhule’s not going anywhere, so fans can either try to enjoy the ride and see where this goes, or make everyone miserable with repeated complaining.
Rhule’s team will do what they will do. Right or wrong, he’s not going anywhere, so let’s try to enjoy the ride and not try to sabotage ourselves.
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