Opting out of the bowl game ruined any benefit he had from that.
He got less heat because everyone so badly wanted him to be good we ignored that he was clearly very bad.
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POLL Will Rhule be fired at the end of the 2026 season?
- Thread starter ChocaEgg
- Start date
He got less heat because everyone so badly wanted him to be good we ignored that he was clearly very bad.
If Frost was 6-6 in year 4 he'd probably still be here.
The blowouts during the season, especially at the end, I think burned up his capital with most of the fan base. I tried to give Rhule the benefit of the doubt when he came in as a lame duck NFL coach with his only power 4 success being at Baylor for a couple of years. He said all of the right things. He was the antithesis of Frost. Frost came in an immediately threw Riley and his staff under the bus and even stated we needed better players in his opening press conference. While that may have all been true, looking back it was really telling of how his time went here. Refused to take ownership of what was happening on the field. It was always someone else's fault.
Enter Matt Rhule. At his opening Press conference he says, "These are my guys now." "This is my record." Etc. Appeared to take complete and total ownership of a bad situation he walked into. Finally, a responsible adult running the program. This is what really won a lot of people over, including myself. I remember hearing that stuff and it really built a lot of confidence in Rhule for me personally.
Now we are entering year 4. Bad losses, multiple coordinators replaced, open carousel of assistants, identity crisis on both sides of the ball, weak Offensive and defensive lines, while simultaneously having Rhule sign a massive extension for zero top 25 wins and a .500 record. Now the Ekler news drops. MR goes on Gelb's show and says something to the effect of "Well if I didn't have to spend so much time fixing the last staffs' issues." There it was. Matt Rhule BS'd us in his opener 3 years ago, pretending to take responsibility while the whole time holding the Frost card in his back pocket to use when the heat was unavoidable. After the Minn, PSU, Cockeye, and Utah then add in the Ek situation - the heat has never been more on MR. That little bit told me everything I need to know. I have been out of Rhule since Minnesota but after hearing that I want Dannen gone too, because we should be able to dump this train wreck faster than we are able to, but the buyout makes it nearly impossible outside of daddy Buffet writing a blank check to the AD. Strap in for 2 more years of very mediocre football (at best)
luckily as @Carm has pointed out.. he's got quite the mitigation clause so firing him won't be "that" painful
You didn't address my argument though.
Which is kind of an emotional/hysterical thing to do...
BTW - I don't value the bowl games that much, I'm just using the fans' arguments against themselves.
My take is I think a lot of people feel they got burned by the Frost failure so they are doing the opposite this time. They are jockeying to get first position in the "Rhule sucks" line. So they can win a prize after the fact.
My take on Rhule is I think he's made some bad calls here. Knowing that we're stuck with him for 2 more seasons, I choose to take the positive approach. I think the Raiola circus was difficult to manage so I want to see what the program looks like when it's free of that drama. He's clearly been a better coach than the guy he replaced. But 2025 was disappointing.
I don't have a hot take on if he's going to be a success or failure here. If I call one or the other NOW, what is my prize for being right?
We are going to be terrible in 2026 with a brutal schedule. We can't afford to fire Rhule, so we are saddled to him. He's gonna get fired, but it will be end of 2027 season at the earliest.
What's not logically consistent is the lack of understanding that what concerns most of those "hater fans" is how the next season projects and the reasons why next year looks so fucking bleak. All of the reasons have direct correlation with the choices Matt Rhule has made. Or if not choices an inability to get the job done even when he identifies correctly what needs to be addressed. Yes its good we made bowls in back to back seasons by the skin of our teeth. But what a healthy program would look like going into the fourth season is a lot different than what we have now. Essentially we are crossing our fingers and hoping A LOT. Crossing our fingers that a young up an comer at DC can be good enough to take our defense into not the next level but any level that will keep us in games. We are crossing our fingers and hoping that our special teams won't revert to the absolute bottom of FCS now that the team won't have to worry about the distraction of having a really good dedicated ST coach. We are crossing our fingers that between Nelson and Mozee we can come up with a miracle at RB. We are crossing our fingers that Holgorsen isn't washed up and if not Rhule will let him loose. We are crossing our fingers that another young up and comer as a DL coach can fill the position at a high end Big Ten ready level. That's a whole lot of hoping.
What I consider the biggest failure on Rhule's part is that he literally had no plan B for if Robinson didn't take the DL job. That hurt more than anything else.
Where I think we got better is OL (which I love) and LB. QB remains to be seen. He's such a high variance QB. What I consider unknown but slightly in the negative is DL. We certainly didn't get better there by leaps and bounds assuming we got better at all. And we really needed to get better by leaps and bounds on the DL.
1000% accurate. Well said.
What is really weird imo is Turd made a lot of comments about how unseasoned Frost’s staff was and how that was an issue. Then he turns around and hires Rhule with a staff full of assistants who do not qualify for a P2 assistant role, have no recruiting or development production to point to and the whole premise for Rhule was that he would bring in young recruits and develop them at a high level. What staff members on the first staff could he legit point to when trying to sell that? Tony White is the only one I can think of. Maybe Cooper? Everyone else under a minor amount of scrutiny wouldn’t have made any sense.
I see we were in a bad spot but man our ADs just don’t seem to talk through these sort of things and the coaches always have all the leverage and power. Then it doesn’t work well, which can fairly easily be projected and the fans are all frustrated. Rhule has made changes but man when you’re getting paid that much it is hard to understand.
Idk it’s just very strange how the AD and boosters go about things.
I see we were in a bad spot but man our ADs just don’t seem to talk through these sort of things and the coaches always have all the leverage and power. Then it doesn’t work well, which can fairly easily be projected and the fans are all frustrated. Rhule has made changes but man when you’re getting paid that much it is hard to understand.
Idk it’s just very strange how the AD and boosters go about things.
And I'll take it a step further. Watch this:
2028 new NU FB coach _____ takes over 12/3/2027
**HerbRedman proclaims this HC to be a failure**
2031 new NU FB coach _____ takes over 12/2/2030
**HerbRedman proclaims this HC to be a failure**
2035 new NU FB coach _____ takes over 12/5/2034
**HerbRedman proclaims this HC to be a failure**
I just proclaimed the next THREE NU FB HCs to be failures. And they haven't even been hired yet. No one one any message board can say they called it earlier than me. I win.
Is no one allowed to have an opinion? It's a sports message board. It's about what 80-90% of all the posts here, and all other boards, are. No one is trying to "win a prize" as you say. It's just having an opinion. It's ok to have an opinion here bud, your wife can't beat you in here. We'll protect you brother
I think Rhule has fallen victim to what our last few coaches have...they overrate the talent that is here and the talent they have recruited. I hate to use Indiana as the example, but one of the first things Cignetti did when he was hired was he brought in 30 guys with playing experience, including his 12 best players from JMU. He didnt take flyers on guys that had "potential" or with limited experience. One way to immediately improve the program is create competition at every position with players that are experienced. MR thinks he can "develop" players that he recruited, but how's that working out? The DL last year was the perfect example. I'm hoping bringing in 3 experienced P4 players on the OL will benefit that group greatly....so all of Rhule's recruits with "talent" will have to battle every day to get on the field vs. just waiting until it's their "turn."
Which one of those is Monkey Tits Monken?
My point is, it's easier and "cooler" to be the doomsday guy and predict everyone is going to fail. At least as far as NU FB is concerned.
You're actually counter-culture & punk rock if you think Rhule is going to pull this out and be successful here lol.
Oh course everyone can have their opinion. I'm saying at this point, saying Rhule will fail here is the low hanging fruit. Doesn't take any nuance to have that opinion. It's the majority opinion.
Franklin’s seat was a lot hotter than pedo will admit. They got 3 points away from the natty but had the easiest path to it. They watched Michigan surpass tOSU & win a natty then tOSU wins one the next year so there’s plenty of why not us.
The loss to Oregon at home was just confirmation of the same old same old & maybe behind the scenes angst carried onto the field like our Minnesota game. Pulled the trigger fast enough before Franklin could right the ship that I believe Kraft had plenty of convos to start exploring alternatives just in case.
ISU’s new coach had conversations with Pollard when he was at South Dakota so it wouldn’t surprise me if Kraft & Rhule talked about a what if scenario before the season started.
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