Editorial - Looking Ahead: What Does Rhule Really Have to Build On Going Into Year 4? | Page 6 | The Platinum Board

Editorial Looking Ahead: What Does Rhule Really Have to Build On Going Into Year 4?

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Editorial Looking Ahead: What Does Rhule Really Have to Build On Going Into Year 4?

Not sure this thread needs to be pinned anymore...it went from some good posts about looking at what NU needs next year to a another pissing match about how shitty Rhule is or not. 🤦‍♂️
 
Donovan has just got to go. There is too much talent available in the OL room for us to be this pedestrian with our offensive line play. Donovan can recruit OL, in fact he is good at it, and could be retained as a recruiter only, but HE CANNOT COACH OL to save his soul. Hire the OL coach from Air Force the guy is really good.
 
Entering this season, objectively Nebraska should have lost no more than 2 games. The level of crapping the bed that occurred far too often is just beyond depressing. There is so much talent at so many levels on this team, that it is frustrating to be where we are. Part of it was the play calling early in the conference season, and that may have been influenced largely by two factors; WR's not getting off the LOS effectively against B1G DBs, OL sucking in pass pro, and run blocking. EJ had a great season, but the OL blocking WAS NOT the reason why. Play calls during the majority of times were simply head slapping dumb. Love Dylan but he's got to get the ball out quicker and read the defense better pre-snap. TJ has a better upside because of his ability to take advantage of blitzes by opponents, but he has a long way to go in learning how to be an effective passing QB in the B1G. Sorry for the rant, but I needed to get that off my chest.
 
I can blame Butler for not adjusting our DL scheme more effectively, but honestly we had ZERO players who could play the 0 tech at the beginning of the season, and just snow balled from there. The #1 thing we have to have in the portal is at least one 0 Tech, and I would prefer two. I know we have a good freshman who was a med redshirt this year in Tyson Terry who will play a 0, but it will be two years before he makes a major contribution. I really like our youngsters at the DE/Edge/Joker. Malcolm Simpson coming back as a med shirt will be exciting.
 
WAY too much negativity in here. Need a dose of the Happy Ending Society.

What went well in 2025
- We were sitting at 6 wins when Dylan went down, with a very real chance to win @USC prior to the injury. If Dylan doesn’t get hurt and we win @USC, does the effect the attitude/momentum going into Happy Valley, which ripples into the Cockeye game? Who knows…but it wouldn’t have negatively affected the season.
- The run game was HUGE. EJ is obviously a stud, but the OL definitely stepped up and was moving bodies. Way more impressive than I was expecting. To go along with that, the WRs made huge strides in their blocking on the perimeter as well. We know that was a priority for Dana, but I also think that we can credit Daikiel Shorts too.
- The youth on the defense got a ton of snaps. Three of our five leading tacklers were underclassmen (Guthrie, Shavers and Donovan Jones). And I won’t argue that the DL left a lot to be desired. But the players that flashed most were all underclassmen too - Nwaneri, Davis, Van Poppel and Pietrzak are all kids that showed that they belong at this level, just need a year or two more of experience and development. I can’t imagine there are very many younger DLs in the country than ours. Lastly, Shavers And Dawson Merritt look like an extremely promising core of LBs to build around.
- Special teams…I don’t even need to explain. We all know that Ek was responsible for taking huge strides in this department.

Further reason for excitement:
- Rhule has shown that he isn’t afraid to make moves and bring in qualified coordinators. Say what you want about Dana so far, but he was a top tier hire. And same with Ek. Butler didn’t work out. My guess is that Rhule’s first few targets might have turned him down, so he decided to listen to his players and settled with Butler. But Rhule showed that he is willing to play big boy ball and he moved on from him immediately after knowing it wasn’t going to work. No reason to believe that Rhule won’t crush this hire.


Yes, there are plenty of areas that we need to continue to improve in. But so does every team. I guarantee that every fanbase in the country has things that drive them nuts about their team. Rhule is the man for the job. It might be slower than we all hoped, but we are heading in the right direction, no doubt.
 
WAY too much negativity in here. Need a dose of the Happy Ending Society.

What went well in 2025
- We were sitting at 6 wins when Dylan went down, with a very real chance to win @USC prior to the injury. If Dylan doesn’t get hurt and we win @USC, does the effect the attitude/momentum going into Happy Valley, which ripples into the Cockeye game? Who knows…but it wouldn’t have negatively affected the season.
- The run game was HUGE. EJ is obviously a stud, but the OL definitely stepped up and was moving bodies. Way more impressive than I was expecting. To go along with that, the WRs made huge strides in their blocking on the perimeter as well. We know that was a priority for Dana, but I also think that we can credit Daikiel Shorts too.
- The youth on the defense got a ton of snaps. Three of our five leading tacklers were underclassmen (Guthrie, Shavers and Donovan Jones). And I won’t argue that the DL left a lot to be desired. But the players that flashed most were all underclassmen too - Nwaneri, Davis, Van Poppel and Pietrzak are all kids that showed that they belong at this level, just need a year or two more of experience and development. I can’t imagine there are very many younger DLs in the country than ours. Lastly, Shavers And Dawson Merritt look like an extremely promising core of LBs to build around.
- Special teams…I don’t even need to explain. We all know that Ek was responsible for taking huge strides in this department.

Further reason for excitement:
- Rhule has shown that he isn’t afraid to make moves and bring in qualified coordinators. Say what you want about Dana so far, but he was a top tier hire. And same with Ek. Butler didn’t work out. My guess is that Rhule’s first few targets might have turned him down, so he decided to listen to his players and settled with Butler. But Rhule showed that he is willing to play big boy ball and he moved on from him immediately after knowing it wasn’t going to work. No reason to believe that Rhule won’t crush this hire.


Yes, there are plenty of areas that we need to continue to improve in. But so does every team. I guarantee that every fanbase in the country has things that drive them nuts about their team. Rhule is the man for the job. It might be slower than we all hoped, but we are heading in the right direction, no doubt.
Welcome back friend
 
WAY too much negativity in here. Need a dose of the Happy Ending Society.

What went well in 2025
- We were sitting at 6 wins when Dylan went down, with a very real chance to win @USC prior to the injury. If Dylan doesn’t get hurt and we win @USC, does the effect the attitude/momentum going into Happy Valley, which ripples into the Cockeye game? Who knows…but it wouldn’t have negatively affected the season.
- The run game was HUGE. EJ is obviously a stud, but the OL definitely stepped up and was moving bodies. Way more impressive than I was expecting. To go along with that, the WRs made huge strides in their blocking on the perimeter as well. We know that was a priority for Dana, but I also think that we can credit Daikiel Shorts too.
- The youth on the defense got a ton of snaps. Three of our five leading tacklers were underclassmen (Guthrie, Shavers and Donovan Jones). And I won’t argue that the DL left a lot to be desired. But the players that flashed most were all underclassmen too - Nwaneri, Davis, Van Poppel and Pietrzak are all kids that showed that they belong at this level, just need a year or two more of experience and development. I can’t imagine there are very many younger DLs in the country than ours. Lastly, Shavers And Dawson Merritt look like an extremely promising core of LBs to build around.
- Special teams…I don’t even need to explain. We all know that Ek was responsible for taking huge strides in this department.

Further reason for excitement:
- Rhule has shown that he isn’t afraid to make moves and bring in qualified coordinators. Say what you want about Dana so far, but he was a top tier hire. And same with Ek. Butler didn’t work out. My guess is that Rhule’s first few targets might have turned him down, so he decided to listen to his players and settled with Butler. But Rhule showed that he is willing to play big boy ball and he moved on from him immediately after knowing it wasn’t going to work. No reason to believe that Rhule won’t crush this hire.


Yes, there are plenty of areas that we need to continue to improve in. But so does every team. I guarantee that every fanbase in the country has things that drive them nuts about their team. Rhule is the man for the job. It might be slower than we all hoped, but we are heading in the right direction, no doubt.

Came into this thread late and was about to give up, but glad to see this post. Good thoughts, many I agree with.

It’s not all Beer & Skittles, but it’s not a dumpster fire as many in this thread claim.

His off season is really just setting up ’26 for success. He doesn’t have to tell me how much he likes this team, just get them ready to play football.

Keep as much of the talent on roster that will play in the next two years as possible. Honestly, in this era of college football, I don’t know if you can afford to develop any room beyond OL and DL.

Bring in key additions in the portal. (NG, DE, OT, RB and maybe QB depending on what shakes out with Raiola and TJ)

Make the right DC hire. This should have been above the portal note, since whatever scheme we go with will likely require slightly different additions.

Take the rails off with Dana and let him do what he wants.

Tougher schedule next year, though I still think another 7 win season is there WITHOUT a jump. Improve and the record will improve.
 
I'm coming to believe that NU football is some proof of the concept of an entropic loop in physics.
"It is a little hard to define entropy," says Popovic. "Perhaps it is best defined as a non-negative thermodynamic property, which represents a part of energy of a system that cannot be converted into useful work. Thus, any addition of energy to a system implies that a part of the energy will be transformed into entropy, increasing the disorder in the system. Thus, entropy is a measure of disorder of a system."
 
Entering this season, objectively Nebraska should have lost no more than 2 games. The level of crapping the bed that occurred far too often is just beyond depressing. There is so much talent at so many levels on this team, that it is frustrating to be where we are. Part of it was the play calling early in the conference season, and that may have been influenced largely by two factors; WR's not getting off the LOS effectively against B1G DBs, OL sucking in pass pro, and run blocking. EJ had a great season, but the OL blocking WAS NOT the reason why. Play calls during the majority of times were simply head slapping dumb. Love Dylan but he's got to get the ball out quicker and read the defense better pre-snap. TJ has a better upside because of his ability to take advantage of blitzes by opponents, but he has a long way to go in learning how to be an effective passing QB in the B1G. Sorry for the rant, but I needed to get that off my chest.

Two games?

I was being overly optimistic and had them at 9-3, with losses to Michigan, USC and Penn State.

We always suck ass against Cockeye, because, well, Cockeye, so I’m not sure why I didn’t stick with 8-4 until the team proved history doesn’t matter anymore.

The only complete turd of a game was Minnesota. Nothing at all special about that team, but they beat us like a rented mule.

This team is still right on the razor’s edge between losing and winning. That’s just reality. Expecting 10-2 results from a team that was shocked it made a bowl last year doesn’t make sense.

I get the venting. I was pissed at how we folded the last two weeks, but it was an odd combination of injured starting and then backup quarterback, lack of playmakers on the defensive front, bad luck and stupid. Not a great combo.
 
I expect us to not be completely inept at stopping the run in the Big 10 in year 3 of a guy who is from the Big 10. I expect us to have an offensive identity in year 3 that is proven to produce winning results in the Big 10. I expect us to have displayed a buildable foundation that is consistently "leveling up" until we get to where we expect to be.

No one is saying that needed to be perfection. But against the easiest schedule we will see in a long time, I did expect more than a 1 win increase Y.O.Y. I think that's pretty realistic.
Preach GIF
 
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