GRADE MATT RHULE YEAR 2 REGULAR SEASON

[...TrueColors...]

He's a D for me. Making a bowl + hiring DH kept this from an F.

I always ask myself the question, "how much better are we than the Scott Frost era?" Apparently it's basically one win better. They are still the same mistake-ridden team that isn't mentally tough enough to win these types of games.

I like Rhule but what worries with me is the fact that when DH came in, he had to crack skulls across position groups for basic shit that wasn't being done and making players accountable. That is coaching and leadership 101 and it took DH to come in and deliver that.

Turn on a game from 2019. Hell, watch the best game from that year you can find; then watch one from this year.

You’ll be shocked at how shitty we were in 2019 compared to this year.

 

[Mavsker]

Lol I think you're making it more complicated. It's Chocas grade. He had the expectation of 4-7. Why would his expectations not factor in to his grade?

Absolutely zero people are predicting Georgia to go 1-11. That would require some insane event. It's a silly hypothetical.

How would you feel right now if you hadn't eaten dinner today?

 

[djw004]

I will not respect the vote of any light in the loafers husker fan that thinks a six win season is worth anything more than a D+ grade.

 

[iruletheskool]

If we get 1 win better per year, I'll be happy in a few

 

[djw004]

New grade:

 

[djw004]

Easy schedule for who, our opponents? Nebraska was one of the easiest games on every conference teams schedule. We haven't been to 6 wins since 2016, Rhule literally got us to this mark for only the second time in a decade and we have people saying it's not good enough. Can't just snap your fingers and say "we are Nebraska don't you remember" in 2024.

Should this be the standard? No. Is this our second best season in the last decade? Tough pill to swallow here, but yes. Take a deep breath, stay the course.

The day people settle for 6 wins being good enough because we’ve been piss poor for a while is the day, well I don’t know what I’ll do, but it ain’t pretty.

Get the hell out of here with “well, we haven’t done it in a while”

 

[...TrueColors...]

How would you feel right now if you hadn't eaten dinner today?

Idk man. Theres merit to the point that if you predict that the team isn’t better than 4 wins but they surprise you and get 6 it’s tough to justify a low grade post-season.

 

[Mavsker]

Lol I think you're making it more complicated. It's Chocas grade. He had the expectation of 4-7. Why would his expectations not factor in to his grade?

Absolutely zero people are predicting Georgia to go 1-11. That would require some insane event. Its a silly hypothetical.

For my own sanity just entertain this rationally for one moment.

Let's say Nebraska O/U is 7.5 again next year. But I think NU is going to win just 3 or 4 games because I think Rhule is a shitty coach. They end up winning 4.
I can give him a D grade for this performance because it's shitty. I don't need to give him a C or better because they won more than the average 3.5 games I predicted.

 

[HughJanus]

Hey at least we didn't hire Luke #2ndChoice

 

[Turn Down for What]

Turn on a game from 2019. Hell, watch the best game from that year you can find; then watch one from this year.

You’ll be shocked at how shitty we were in 2019 compared to this year.

A turd is still a turd. One just smells slightly worse.

 

[ShortSideOption]

New grade:

View attachment 45625

I appreciate this gif usage

 

[ShortSideOption]

The day people settle for 6 wins being good enough because we’ve been piss poor for a while is the day, well I don’t know what I’ll do, but it ain’t pretty.

Get the hell out of here with “well, we haven’t done it in a while”

I actually understand the disconnect in this thread now. This is like when we were getting classes ranked 20-30 every year in recruiting, and people would say "we are never going to be able to compete with Alabama, Georgia, and Ohio State unless we start getting top 10 classes" as they were frustrated with the recruits. When the reality of the situation is we weren't even competing with Cockeye, Wisconsin, and Minnesota with the current state of Nebraska football. Why try to figure out how to beat teams on the national stage when you weren't even beating teams within your division?

Trying to keep perspective, my B- is based on where Nebraska currently is as a program. If we are grading Matt Rhule's season based on historical 70s, 80s, and 90s Nebraska dominance, he gets a D-.

 

[doublewing]

Turn on a game from 2019. Hell, watch the best game from that year you can find; then watch one from this year.

You’ll be shocked at how shitty we were in 2019 compared to this year.

Yet the bottom line really hasn't changed. One game better and lost multiple games by making the same stupid mistakes. This year's team had much better ingredients plus a schedule that was favorable. 6 wins against this schedule and getting manhandled by a few first year coaches is not meeting expectations IMO.

 

[gtlacey]

Yet the bottom line really hasn't changed. One game better and lost multiple games by making the same stupid mistakes. This year's team had much better ingredients plus a schedule that was favorable. 6 wins against this schedule and getting manhandled by a few first year coaches is not meeting expectations IMO.

Can you explain to me why you think this schedule was favorable? This was our second hardest schedule in the bowl drought era, according to ESPN, coming in at 19.

Illinois honestly should be a top 15 team and I think people would reconsider how “favorable” our schedule was this year, with three top 15 teams.

Next year is actually a favorable schedule.

 

[Baron Winnebago]

Can you explain to me why you think this schedule was favorable? This was our second hardest schedule in the bowl drought era, according to ESPN, coming in at 19.

Illinois honestly should be a top 15 team and I think people would reconsider how “favorable” our schedule was this year, with three top 15 teams.

Next year is actually a favorable schedule.

View attachment 45631

View attachment 45632

As a team easy schedule guy, I think you're probably more right than wrong. It's my fault for expecting Nebraska to be able to beat the mid-lower tier of the Big Ten consistently when we're a decade removed from that being anywhere close to reality.

My heart says that we should be able to beat bad UCLA, Wisconsin, and Cockeye teams and probably a meh USC team, but the reality is that Nebraska due to some combination of talent and coaching is still punching up at those programs

 

[gtlacey]

As a team easy schedule guy, I think you're probably more right than wrong. It's my fault for expecting Nebraska to be able to beat the mid-lower tier of the Big Ten consistently when we're a decade removed from that being anywhere close to reality.

My heart says that we should be able to beat bad UCLAbia, WiscyDicks, and Cockeye teams and probably a meh USC team, but the reality is that Nebraska due to some combination of talent and coaching is still punching up at those programs

Well your heart was correct about beating a bad Wisconsin team. I think we should’ve beaten UCLA and Cockeye. And Illinois. We’re probably 3 plays away from being 9-3. That’s frustrating and I understand why people are frustrated.

But I just wish the permabears on the board would stop saying it was an easy schedule. Or a favorable schedule. It wasn’t by almost any metric or website you can go find.

 

[djw004]

I actually understand the disconnect in this thread now. This is like when we were getting classes ranked 20-30 every year in recruiting, and people would say "we are never going to be able to compete with Alabama, Georgia, and Ohio State unless we start getting top 10 classes" as they were frustrated with the recruits. When the reality of the situation is we weren't even competing with Cockeye, WiscyDicks, and Minnesota with the current state of Nebraska football. Why try to figure out how to beat teams on the national stage when you weren't even beating teams within your division?

Trying to keep perspective, my B- is based on where Nebraska currently is as a program. If we are grading Matt Rhule's season based on historical 70s, 80s, and 90s Nebraska dominance, he gets a D-.

I think the bigger frustration is not that there is some expectation of true greatness every year - but the commonality with which we give games away. Nothing done to take them from us most of the time.

Neyor catches that ball, essentially game over.
Don’t jump on 4th and one inch and we extend a drive
Keep running the ball down their throat when they couldn’t stop shit with 5 minutes left in the game
Communicate on a punt return so we don’t go after an untouched ball
Finish a tackle when a guy is wrapped up by 3 people and everyone assumes the other guy will finish the tackle

None of these had a damn thing to do with Cockeye beating us, but us beating ourselves - again. Wash rinse repeat

THAT is why we view this as unacceptable. It’s things that don’t really take talent that we blow at

 

[HerbRedman]

Turn on a game from 2019. Hell, watch the best game from that year you can find; then watch one from this year.

You’ll be shocked at how shitty we were in 2019 compared to this year.

Also one constant refrain from the Frost years was "I have no idea what Frost is trying to do here. There's no plan. No vision. No consistency. No identity." JFC if I had $1 for every time someone said 'this team doesn't have an identity!!' during the Frost tenure I'd have more money than Elon Musk.

After thinking about it, I'm giving Rhule a C for this season.

POSITIVE: He is establishing a team identity that is centered around winning in the trenches. We ended the yr by pushing around WISC/IA in the trenches & they are our toughest rivals over the past 10 yrs. So that is progress. That's what we all begged to see during the Frost years. And the Riley years. Well, it's finally happening.

NEGATIVE: Rhule's problem is that he has 1 catastrophic error that takes a lead pipe to each season. 2023 was Jeff Sims. 2024 was Satterfield. He at least tries to course correct each catastrophe but in 2023 he had no way to fix it and 2024 the Holg thing was late.

My W/L line for 2024 was 7.5. So 6-6 was under performing that. So he gets a C.

2024
10-2: A+
9-3: A
8-4: A-/B+
7-5: B
6-6: C
5-7: D
4-8 or worse: F

 

[Cash68847]

Also one constant refrain from the Frost years was "I have no idea what Frost is trying to do here. There's no plan. No vision. No consistency. No identity." JFC if I had $1 for every time someone said 'this team doesn't have an identity!!' during the Frost tenure I'd have more money than Elon Musk.

After thinking about it, I'm giving Rhule a C for this season.

POSITIVE: He is establishing a team identity that is centered around winning in the trenches. We ended the yr by pushing around WISC/IA in the trenches & they are our toughest rivals over the past 10 yrs. So that is progress. That's what we all begged to see during the Frost years. And the Riley years. Well, it's finally happening.

NEGATIVE: Rhule's problem is that he has 1 catastrophic error that takes a lead pipe to each season. 2023 was Jeff Sims. 2024 was Satterfield. He at least tries to course correct each catastrophe but in 2023 he had no way to fix it and 2024 the Holg thing was late.

My W/L line for 2024 was 7.5. So 6-6 was under performing that. So he gets a C.

2024
10-2: A+
9-3: A
8-4: A-/B+
7-5: B
6-6: C
5-7: D
4-8 or worse: F

I think 2024 had another major mistake. Special teams were a complete joke last year and he never fixed the issue.

 

[HerbRedman]

I think 2024 had another major mistake. Special teams were a complete joke last year and he never fixed the issue.

Oh right.

It was really three things:
1. Satterfield
2. STs
3. Tony White horror show vs RPO (UI, IU, UCLA)


Rhule fixed #1. I'm confident he'll address #2. I'm not sure what you do for #3 if you bring White back. He's got to fix it on his own. Maybe the offense doing better will help though.