Nebraska
10 Reasons to Doubt Matt Rhule is the Guy Nebraska Football Needs
Read 10 Reasons to Believe Matt Rhule is the Guy Nebraska Needs
With two seasons in the books, Nebraskans have gotten a read on their Big Apple-born coach. We’ve examined why there are reasons to believe. Now let’s examine the other side of the coin and allow a little doubt to creep in.
1. He sometimes says one thing and does another
Rhule has paid lip service to being different and veering away from the style of offense most teams roll out. “We’re going to be more old school, get in the huddle, control the clock, pound the football… win special teams and let the elements help us.” But anyone who watched the Huskers this year saw the offense quickly pivot to being conventional 2024 fare, giving up on the run game quickly and allowing defenses to tee off against a true freshman quarterback. The less said about Special Teams, the better.
Rhule has also called having a mobile quarterback “vital.” That was reflected in his transfer addition of Jeff Sims in 2023. But his quarterback recruiting since then has said otherwise. Daniel Kaelin, Dylan Raiola, and newly signed TJ Lateef are all considered pocket passers, as was Ohio State transfer Kyle McCord, who was all set to come to Nebraska until the Raiola news broke.
A consistent philosophy is necessary to steer a blue-blooded program like Nebraska. Just ask Mike Riley.
2. He’s made questionable assistant hires
When the team you’re poaching a coach from isn’t sad to see them go, you may have made a bad hire. Rhule also took flak for hiring fresh-faced Garret McGuire, son of his former colleague, Joey McGuire. Rhule defended his choice on Will Compton’s Bussin’ with the Boys, essentially saying “look at my track record and trust me.” But McGuire’s unit underachieved in 2024 and he’s now in Lubbock as a result. That’s to say nothing of his choice in Bob Wager, the Texas high school coach no doubt brought on to get a foot in the Lone Star state’s deep pipeline of talent. But Wager resigned after a DUI arrest before ever coaching a game. And Husker fans are still curious if Ed Foley will have a job by the time the New Year’s ball drops.
3. He still can’t solve the Huskers’ one-score woes
As much as Rhule downplays the Huskers being snake-bitten or cursed, at this point, you have to wonder at least a little bit, right? Like his predecessor, Rhule has a horrid record in one score games. The Huskers can hold onto a tight lead, as they did against Northwestern in 2023 and Rutgers in ’24, but to have the ball in their hands with the game on the line? Forget about it. Nebraska won one – one! – of their last 33 contests when tied or losing by a score on their final possession. The lone win? 2019 against Northwestern. It defies all realms of possibility.
4. He can’t seem to fix the turnover issues either
They had the second worst turnover margin in FBS last season. After a promising start to 2024, they finished the regular season –0.1. It’s an improvement, yes, but if two years in you’re still finishing in the negatives, it makes you wonder if they’re actually capable of getting it in order. Chief among John Butler’s to-do list is finding players who can take the ball away.
5. His offenses have historically been dreadful
An injury-riddled offense ranked near last in FBS last season. The hope was that a 5-star quarterback, exciting new receivers, and an offensive line among the most seasoned in all of football would be able to put together a much-improved product in 2024. But the Huskers finished ranked 97th in scoring, 94th in yards per game and 106th in yards per play. They don’t do anything particularly well and they routinely flounder in the red zone. As Sam McKewon pointed out, 10 teams have had scoring defenses ranked in the top 20 each of the last two seasons. Nebraska is the only one among them with a losing record. That speaks to an offense that isn’t holding up its end of the bargain.
Until Wisconsin, Nebraska had not won a game under Rhule in which they gave up more than 14 points. Ask Carolina fans if that sounds familiar.
This year there was no denying that Raiola and his receivers regressed as the season went on. Bret Bielema and his Fighting Illini showed teams the way to befuddle Satterfield. But if Illinois could figure out the blueprint in September, why couldn’t the Huskers pivot in October? Dana Holgorsen’s turn as offensive coordinator has been encouraging thus far and it’ll need to ramp up even more in 2025 if that Huskers want to better their record.
6. Special Teams have not been any better
Special teams under Scott Frost were so awful that fans publicly lobbied to give analyst Bill Busch the coordinator job, which Frost acquiesced to in 2022. But there’s been little to no improvement since his departure. Under Rhule, the Huskers have repeatedly struggled with missed kicks, botched snaps, and gotten absolutely nothing out of the return game. Simply put: the third phase of the game has cost them wins.
7. His awful stint with the Panthers
Speaking of Carolina, Panthers fans still have Rhule stuck in their craw. Why? Ask them and they’ll tell you he coached QBs poorly, fielded ugly, ineffective offenses, and never turned around a losing culture. While many say Carolina is a difficult job, largely because of their controversial owner, some Husker alumni haven’t given him a pass for his time in Charlotte.
8. Anointing Jeff Sims the starter
Whether this was Satt or Rhule, Sims played arguably the worst we’ve seen any QB at NU play since true freshman Beau Davis was thrust into the role halfway through Texas Tech in 2004. Ask Florida State how fast things can go south when you pick the wrong guy to pilot your offense. Rhule could have stressed open competition and potentially kept Casey Thompson in the fold, the only quarterback to defeat Iowa since Tommy Armstrong, but he instead handed the reins to Sims, who unearthed new ways of turning the football over.
Nebraska was one average offense away from a winning season in 2023 and a lot of momentum in Rhule’s first season. Anointing Sims was costly.
9. Does he truly understand the Big Ten?
The Big Ten is a beast. It humbled Bo and Frost alike. It’s humbling Rhule right now. This ain’t the Big 12. You have to play defense and you have to run and, above all, you have to have players that consistently execute. He pays lip service to all, but the results say otherwise. Nebraska has often been thwarted by teams with worse recruiting rankings but better fundamentals. Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois all tackle better, block better, and play their assignments better. Until Rhule changes that, he’ll continue to lose to them.
10. He is what his record says he is
Rhule said it himself when he pointed out that they’re a 5-7 team until the record shows otherwise. Now he and his program are 11-13. No matter the outcome in New York, he’ll still have a losing record going into the all-important Year Three. The only other coach to have a losing record after two seasons in the last 60 years was Scott Frost.
Rhule has a track record for turning programs around. That takes time. But at the end of the day, between stints in college and Carolina, he’s won 69 of 152 games as a head coach. As the Huskers struggle to close out games, that gives you pause.
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Nebraska
Starting fires helped contain a Nebraska wildfire — and ignited another – Flatwater Free Press
This story is made possible through a partnership between Flatwater Free Press and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization.
As the fast-moving blaze rolled toward Fire Chief Jason Schneider’s district in Cozad, he and his crew faced a literal uphill battle.
The Cottonwood Fire was tearing through the Loess Canyons, an area defined by steep slopes, narrow valleys, few roads and pockets of invasive eastern red cedar trees, which can throw embers and ash — and even explode — when they burn.
“You think you would have it put out, and you keep on moving north, and you’d look back south and it’s just going again behind you,” Schneider said.
But the situation started to improve when they connected with a prescribed burn group. They had equipment and showed Schneider and his volunteer crew how to use fire to contain the wildfire.
“It would have burned a lot more if they hadn’t showed up and helped us get it stopped where we did,” Schneider said.
Already, 2026 has marked Nebraska’s worst year on record for wildfires. As of May 6, wildfires have burned about 981,502 acres and dealt a blow to ranchers. They also have brought to the forefront the best arguments for and against a controversial and centuries-old land-management practice: Using fire to fight fire.
In March, the Cottonwood Fire, contained by prescribed burn techniques and past prescribed fires, made the case for the practice. In the Nebraska National Forest that same month, heavy winds turned the smoldering remnants of a prescribed burn into the Road 203 wildfire, bringing to life some landowners’ and managers’ worst fears.
The debate over prescribed burns had been simmering long before those wildfires and has grown louder in recent years as more Nebraskans turn to the practice. The Nebraska Prescribed Fire Council estimates that during modern times, 2025 saw the most acres burned in a single year by prescribed fire.
But in areas of the state like the western Sandhills, the practice has sparked backlash.
“There was a (prescribed burn) group that tried to establish a couple of years ago up around the Tryon, Mullen area up in there. And they almost lynched that group,” Keystone-Lemoyne Fire and Rescue Chief Ralph Moul said. “They said, ‘No, we do not want fire in the Sandhills,’ because there’s nothing to stop it up here.”
Despite the fear, there is overwhelming evidence that prescribed burns, when done correctly, can help prevent massive wildfires by burning up volatile fuels like cedar trees. They can make the land ecologically healthier and save ranchers money.
“The wildfires you’ve seen here in Nebraska the last few years are also a consequence of removing fire from the landscape,” said Kent Pfeiffer, program manager for the Northern Prairies Land Trust. “You don’t get rid of fire, you just change the nature of it … instead of having frequent, low-intensity fires, you end up with infrequent, high-intensity fires.”
The issue may be growing more urgent as the state faces dual threats. Large swaths of Nebraska’s native grasslands are in danger of becoming cedar woodlands — an already costly headache for ranchers. Meanwhile, climate change is bringing more extreme conditions, including intense stretches of drier and hotter weather that can lead to more destructive wildfires.
Drought conditions and major wildfires
“It’s time to innovate a bit more on the wildfire and prescribed fire side,” said Dirac Twidwell, a rangeland and fire ecologist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. “What we know is that overall, our fire management is not working.”
‘I burned them’
Tucker Thompson was in his 30s when he first helped out on a prescribed burn on another person’s property near Gothenburg back in the early 2000s. The rancher, who summers cattle in the Loess Canyons, knew some neighbors would be upset, but cedar trees were starting to sprout across his land. He wanted to get ahead of the problem, and he was curious.
By today’s standards, the group’s equipment was basic and their knowledge limited. Even though everything went fine, Thompson left thinking the entire practice was insane. He went home and took a chainsaw to the cedar trees across about 400 acres of his property.
“And then five years later, they all start coming back. Ten years later, it’s like, I have no choice. There’s no way of killing these dang things, so I burned them,” Thompson said.
Now, Thompson continues the practice and is a member of two burn groups. He helped firefighters contain the Cottonwood Fire, even as it ravaged his grazing lands.
Prescribed burns “decrease the fuel load in these canyons, so we can control these fires to some degree,” Thompson said.
The Loess Canyons area has one of the most advanced prescribed fire cultures in the entire country, Twidwell said. It has reduced the risk of catastrophic fire and made the land more suitable for grazing, which has boosted landowners’ profits, he said.
Up until the last 150 years, fire was common in Nebraska. Wildfires would naturally control species like eastern red cedar. Indigenous peoples have also used fire for a variety of reasons in this region.
Prescribed burns are common in other Great Plains states like Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas. In Nebraska, it’s more prevalent in the eastern and central parts of the state. The benefits extend beyond fire protection — it also increases biodiversity and wildlife. Even the grass that comes back after a burn is preferred by the cattle.
More than 92,700 acres burned in prescribed fires between Jan. 1 and June 30 last year, according to a survey of 26 organizations by the Nebraska Prescribed Fire Council.
But conducting these burns requires a lot of planning, post-burn monitoring, money, machinery and manpower. And even when it comes together, a change in weather can cancel the whole operation at a moment’s notice.
In order to conduct a land management burn, a landowner or tenant has to apply for a permit and submit a plan to their local fire chief, who decides whether to waive Nebraska’s open burn ban. By law, the plan requires serious documentation, including a list of on-hand equipment and a description of weather conditions needed to burn safely.
Fairbury Fire Chief Judd Stewart’s jurisdiction is filled with landowners and managers who use prescribed burns. Stewart says he had to cancel almost 50 burn permits in March when Gov. Jim Pillen ordered fire chiefs statewide to temporarily stop issuing them during the wildfires. Stewart wishes the governor would have given more consideration to areas like southeast Nebraska, where fire danger was lower. Those areas still have heavy fuel loads, and the window to burn is closing.
“As we approach mid- to late summer, when we start getting high temperatures … that vegetation will carry fire again, and now we’ve got those heavy fuel loads that are going to be hard to contain,” Stewart said.
Austin Klemm, a board member of the burn group that helped Schneider and others contain the Cottonwood Fire, said he is working with about six landowners who have invested roughly $250,000 to $275,000 to plan a burn that might not happen this year due to the ban.
“Some of these guys have invested tens of thousands of dollars in prep work to be able to burn,” Klemm said. “These guys have deferred grazing, did not graze at all last year, had to go find a place to stick cows or feed cows all last year.”
‘It’s dangerous’
Becky Potmesil doesn’t have to look far to see the devastation wildfire can cause. Potmesil raises cattle in the Alliance area of the Panhandle, on the western edge of the Sandhills. To the south, the Morrill Fire burned an estimated 642,000 acres, making it the largest on record in the state’s history. To the southeast, the Ashby Fire burned another 36,000 acres.
The winds have blown away the black, burnt grass, leaving behind only sand dunes. It looks like a moonscape, she said.
Drought conditions in 2026
“Anybody who’d do a prescribed burn out here in the (western) Sandhills in western Nebraska is crazy, and it’s dangerous,” she said. While she sees how there could be benefits in some Sandhills meadows, she doesn’t think it’s worth the risk in her area.
Moul, the Keystone-Lemoyne fire chief, is cautious about issuing burn permits in his Sandhills district. He likes for there to either be snow or green grass on the ground. The Sandhills have fewer fire breaks, less infrastructure and more extreme weather conditions like high-speed winds than other parts of the state, Moul and Potmesil noted.
Moul, an incident commander on the Morrill Fire, understands that prescribed fire has its place. But after seeing the damage caused by prescribed burn escapes over his career, he said fire chiefs shouldn’t allow them on or right before red flag days in their districts. Most of the burn groups know what they’re doing, Moul said, but a few have convinced local fire chiefs to issue permits on red flag days so they can “get the best kill of the trees.”
“But it was my experience when I worked with the state that we went to a lot of escaped fires because of prescribed burns that got away,” Moul said.
The Road 203 wildfire started as a prescribed burn in the Bessey Ranger District of the Nebraska National Forest. More than a day after the fire ignitions ended, heavy winds created a spot fire outside the original boundary as firefighters mopped up and patrolled the area, according to the Forest Service. The agency said 99.84% of its prescribed burns go according to plan. This one didn’t.
According to the Nebraska Prescribed Fire Council’s survey last year, 1.6% of burns escaped and required outside assistance, primarily from volunteer fire departments. Changing weather patterns and the spread of cedar trees are the primary reasons for escapes, the Fire Council said in an email.
“When the gap between prescribed fire acres and fuel load increases, it also increases fire behavior in both prescribed fire and wildfires causing us to adapt to riskier burns with increased planning and equipment.”
When Twidwell came to Nebraska in 2013, he was told prescribed fire would never be used in the Sandhills. Since then, he has seen multiple burns happen there as the culture continues to shift. Some of this is due to the spread of eastern red cedars in the area.
He knows some landowners will never be convinced, and he understands their concern. But beyond protecting the grasslands, Twidwell believes Nebraska needs to have more conversations on how to mitigate large wildfires by using fire.
“Everybody understands … the wildfire risk playing out,” he said. “Fewer understand the benefits and why certain groups are using prescribed fire.”
NCAA Tournament softball returns to Bowlin Stadium this weekend as top-seeded Nebraska prepares to host its first regional since 2013.
The Huskers enter the postseason ranked No. 1 in both the NFCA and USA Softball polls for the first time in program history. Nebraska (46-6) earned the No. 4 overall seed after a historic season that included both the Big Ten regular-season and tournament championships.
Nebraska opens regional play Friday at 5:30 p.m. CT against Summit League champion South Dakota.
“It’s time to funnel it back down,” head coach Rhonda Revelle said. “We had a good day and a half after winning the Big Ten Tournament where the players could enjoy it, but now it’s time to focus.”
The Huskers bring the nation’s longest active winning streak into the tournament at 21 games and have established themselves as one of the country’s most complete teams. Nebraska owns 10 wins over current top-25 opponents this season, including victories over then-No. 1 Texas and Texas Tech.
A major reason for Nebraska’s success has been its pitching staff, led by back-to-back Big Ten Pitcher of the Year Jordy Frahm and freshman standout Alexis Jensen, the conference’s Freshman of the Year.
Frahm, a former national champion at Oklahoma, enters the postseason as one of the nation’s top two-way players, while Jensen leads all freshman pitchers nationally in wins and strikeouts.
“Coach has really emphasized taking it one pitch at a time,” Third Baseman Samantha Bland said. “We’re trying to slow ourselves down and stay in the moment.”
South Dakota enters with a 20-34-1 record but arrives in Lincoln with momentum after capturing the Summit League Tournament title — the first conference championship in program history.
“Forty-eight years and we’d never won a championship of any kind,” South Dakota head coach Robert Wagner said. “To be the first is really special.”
The Coyotes are led offensively by Brooke Carey, sister of Nebraska baseball player Dylan Carey, while Madison Evans has handled the bulk of the pitching duties this season.
On paper, Nebraska holds the advantage in nearly every category, including offense, pitching depth and postseason experience. Still, the Huskers know the NCAA Tournament leaves little room for error.
“Anything can happen,” Revelle said. “The key is mastering the little things and sticking to what got us here.”
Louisville and Grand Canyon will meet in the regional’s opening game Friday at 3 p.m. CT before Nebraska takes the field Friday night in Lincoln.
Nebraska’s new quarterback has high expectations for the upcoming season. Transfer Anthony Colandrea spoke with Pete Nakos of On3 (subscription required) about his decision to transfer and his goals for the Huskers this year.
Colandrea comes to Nebraska following a breakout junior year with the Rebels. The St. Petersburg, Florida, native finished the 2025 season throwing for 3,459 yards, 23 touchdowns, and nine interceptions with a 65.9 completion percentage.
The former Rebels’ play earned him the Mountain West Offensive Player of the Year award. Before UNLV, Colandrea played two seasons at Virginia. In 19 games, he totaled 4,083 passing yards, 26 passing touchdowns and 20 interceptions.
The new Husker told Nakos that he has high expectations and is looking to play in big games at the end of the season.
“Expectations at Nebraska are to win. Like, you’re not here to just not win a national championship. I’m not coming here to just win eight or nine games. I want to win a national championship; I want to go to the playoffs. I have high expectations, and we have high expectations as a team.”
Colandrea joined a Nebraska team that was looking for a new opening day starter after Dylan Raiola transferred to the Oregon Ducks. The Husker quarterback room also includes sophomore and bowl game starter T.J. Lateef and former Virginia quarterback Daniel Kaelin. He also expressed excitement about playing in front of Nebraska fans.
“It’s the craziest fan base I’ve ever been around. My first impression was I went to a wrestling match. I would never think a wrestling match would be sold out. I walk in, and it’s like 35,000 to 40,000 people. I’m like, this is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. They bring the juice. I’m excited to play for them.”
Nebraska opens the 2026 season on Saturday, Sept. 5, when the Ohio Bobcats visit Memorial Stadium. Kickoff time and broadcast network are still to be determined.
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