Nebraska
Where Does Matt Rhule Turn for His Next Defensive Coordinator at Nebraska?
The majority of Nebraska football fans probably spent most of this season hoping for a staff shakeup this offseason — at least on the offensive side of the ball. I doubt too many were hoping the Blackshirts would be under new leadership in 2025.
Late Saturday afternoon, news broke that Nebraska defensive coordinator Tony White was a leading candidate to join Florida State head coach Mike Norvell’s revamped Seminole staff.
In the ensuing couple days, I suspect athletic director Troy Dannen tried to negotiate financial terms that would have kept White at Nebraska. Simultaneously, head coach Matt Rhule was likely getting his ducks in a row in case that didn’t happen.
With White being a hot commodity last offseason — he was a candidate for head coaching jobs at UCLA, Syracuse and San Diego State — I doubt Rhule was caught flat-footed and I’m sure he’s had a contingency plan in place.
By Monday morning, several news outlets had begun reporting that White had accepted Florida State’s offer and that he was prepared to take D-line coach Terrance Knighton with him.
Where does Matt Rhule pivot?
One obvious option for Rhule is to hand the keys of the defense over to secondary coach John Butler, who was hired in July to replace Evan Cooper. Butler parted ways with the Buffalo Bills last February when head coach Sean McDermott bypassed him in favor of LB coach Bobby Babich when filling his defensive coordinator position.
Butler has a strong résumé as a position coach in the NFL and was Bill O’Brien’s defensive coordinator at Penn State in 2013 before following him to the NFL’s Houston Texans. He put together top-level secondaries at Houston and Buffalo in the 10 years since.
Despite returning several key players from last season, the secondary took a step back this year, which isn’t a good look for a position coach hoping to take over the entire operation. But after arriving a few weeks before fall camp started, is it fair to place the brunt of the blame on Butler?
Butler hasn’t had the chance to put his thumbprint on the room. He hasn’t had any time to recruit his players and it’s unclear how much say he had in the overall scheme or the coverages. He’s not without fault, of course, but it will be up to Matt Rhule to determine how much promise he showed as a cog in the machine.
When he was initially hired to join the staff, the assumption was Rhule wanted the experience of working with Butler in anticipation of needing to replace White. We could soon find out how impressed Rhule was with Butler if he decides he’s the best candidate to take over for White.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Matt Rhule gauged the interest of Phil Snow, his longtime associate who was his defensive coordinator at Temple, Baylor and with the Carolina Panthers.
Snow was brought in after the UCLA loss — along with Dana Holgorsen — to give Matt Rhule a fresh set of eyes on the state of the program. Snow, who turns 69 in a few weeks, turned down the opportunity to join Rhule’s Husker staff when he took the job in November 2022.
After spending the 2023 season as a senior defensive analyst for the Chicago Bears, has Snow’s battery been recharged? Has he changed his mind about taking on the rigors of a full-time position coach?
Like the vast majority of coaches, when Matt Rhule took the Husker job he assembled a staff primarily consisting of coaches he had worked with in the past.
When Phil Snow chose not to accompany him to Lincoln, Rhule had to make a hire outside his network. It resulted in the hire of Tony White, the best coach on his staff. That approach has also resulted in the addition of Dana Holgorsen — easily the most accomplished coordinator hire in the history of the program.
During his Nov. 11 press conference ahead of the USC game, when discussing Holgorsen, Matt Rhule used the comparison to Nick Saban in regard to his reputation for brining in former head coaches that were once prominent coordinators to rejuvenate their careers in Tuscaloosa. It’s a strategy I absolutely love, especially for CEO-style coaches like Rhule.
Find an expert on both sides of the ball and make them the de facto head coach for that side of the ball. Rhule is unbelievable at establishing a culture and setting the standard. He’s a forward-thinking coach who understands the process of building a program from the studs. He’s a big-picture coach; no detail is too small and no step is overlooked. He isn’t the sort of coach who will allow his program to grow stagnant.
I think it will serve him well to take this approach with his coordinator hires from now on and I would encourage him to not settle on promoting John Butler or trying to lure Phil Snow back out of semi-retirement. Even if one of those scenarios ends up being the best course of action, I’d like to see Nebraska cast a wide net in the search and for Rhule to swing for the fences.
He needs to consider a large pool of candidates and take into account a coach’s résumé as much as his prior connection.
I think Rhule should take a hard look at recently fired Purdue head coach Ryan Walters. Prior to taking the Boilermaker job, Walters was arguably the best defensive coordinator in the Big Ten during his two season with Illinois. Prior to that, he earned a reputation as a rising star in the profession as the defensive coordinator at Missouri for five seasons.
Walters was in over his head at Purdue, but he’s a proven commodity as a coordinator. I like the idea of hiring someone with a track record in the Big Ten and Walters fits that bill. He was one of the best recruiters in the country as an assistant and would bring strong ties to key areas like Missouri, Illinois and Texas.
Another coach I would contact is Jim Leonhard. The former longtime Wisconsin defensive coordinator coached in Madison for seven seasons, including finishing the final seven games of the 2022 season as the interim head coach.
After going 4-3, Leonhard was bypassed for the permanent position when Wisconsin hired Luke Fickell, although he stayed on to coach the defense for their bowl game when Fickell came onboard to coach the team in the Guaranteed Rate Bowl.
Leonhard spent the 2023 season as a senior football analyst for Bret Bielema at Illinois. He’s currently the defensive pass game coordinator and defensive backs coach for Sean Payton and the Denver Broncos.
This would be an absolute homerun hire. Under Leonhard’s direction, Wisconsin finished among the nation’s top five in total defense and top 10 in scoring defense four times. He had the chance to become Green Bay’s defensive coordinator in 2021 but stayed in Madison. He’s quickly become a hot name in NFL coaching circles and would probably need to be given a $2 million salary to return to college. He’s worth every penny.
I would at least take another swing at Georgia’s Glenn Schumann. I was told Matt Rhule contacted him when he initially took the Nebraska job and that Schumann considered the offer. Is Schumann interested in getting out of Kirby Smart’s shadow and putting together a defense with only his fingerprints on it? He’s making $2.003 million with the Bulldogs, so it would take a hefty salary for him to consider it. Yeah, it’s a long shot, but I’d put together a three-year, $7+ million contract and make him tell me no again.
Or Matt Rhule could go after another current Georgia Bulldog staffer, Will Muschamp. Long considered one of the brightest defensive minds in the country, Muschamp has been the defensive coordinator under Nick Saban and Kirby Smart. He was a failed head coach at both Florida and South Carolina, but has coordinated elite defenses at places like LSU, Auburn and Texas. He was reassigned to an analyst position at Georgia to make room for former Alabama secondary coach Travaris Robinson this past offseason.
Matt Rhule could also try and use a stable program environment to lure away a proven coach from another prominent program. I would take a stab at Auburn’s DJ Durkin. Another failed head coach, Durkin has put together exceptional defenses everywhere he’s been: Florida, Michigan, Ole Miss, Texas A&M and now Auburn. He’s also an elite recruiter.
Al Golden is a respected defensive mind. The current defensive coordinator at Notre Dame was the head coach at Temple when Matt Rhule was on his staff in various roles. Fighting Irish head coach Marcus Freeman is expected to be a candidate for NFL jobs this offseason. Would Golden consider picking his landing spot in preparation for a possible staff shakeup if Freeman decides to leave South Bend?
Will Matt Rhule try and reunite with his former D-line coach Elijah Robinson, who is currently the defensive coordinator at Syracuse? Robinson is considered a rising star in the profession, but is he ready for a job like Nebraska?
Could we see a combination of Phil Snow and Elijah Robinson as co-coordinators in Lincoln? With the rule changes regarding recruiting, I could see Snow taking on the architect role and Robinson taking over the D-line and being the face of the defense on the recruiting trail — Robinson was regarded as one of the best recruiters in the country while at Texas A&M.
Perhaps Matt Rhule will look to the NFL to fill the vacancy. Los Angeles Rams senior defensive assistant/associate head coach Sean Desai was on Al Golden’s Temple staff with Rhule. Desai has an impressive résumé. He was the defensive coordinator for the Chicago Bears (2021) and Philadelphia Eagles (2023), and has been on coaching staffs under well-respected defensive minds Pete Carroll and Vic Fangio.
Maybe Rhule will look to the Group of Five ranks to try and steal a promising young coach on the rise. Bill Brechin of Miami (Ohio) could be a sneaky good hire. So could Scott Symons (SMU), Nick Benedetto (Northern Illinois) and Greg Gasparato (Tulane).
Matt Rhule could decide to target a highly regarded co-coordinator, giving them the opportunity to have full-say of the defense. Oklahoma assistant head coach/co-defensive coordinator Jay Valai is extremely well-respected in coaching circles and could be an under-the-radar move who could turn out to be a great hire.
USC co-defensive coordinator and D-line coach Eric Henderson had a great reputation for development in the NFL and could be getting his own gig soon as well.
It wouldn’t be a popular move for the fanbase, but Rhule could decide to give a prominent position coach a shot at running the defense. Notre Dame D-line coach and run game coordinator Al Washington should be getting calls to be a coordinator soon.
Personally, I think Matt Rhule would do better by targeting a proven commodity. Some college coordinators who should be vetted and forced to tell Rhule no are Pete Golding (Ole Miss), Kane Wommack (Alabama), Tosh Lupoi (Oregon), Chris Marve (Virginia Tech), D’Anton Lynn (USC), Tony Gibson (NC State — if he doesn’t get the head coaching job at Charlotte), Brad White (Kentucky), Wes Goodwin (Clemson), Ron English (Louisville), Joe Rossi (Michigan State), Jon Heacock (Iowa State), Shiel Wood (Houston), Joe Klanderman (Kansas State) and Robert Livingston (Colorado).
I also wouldn’t turn my nose at grabbing an up-and-coming NFL position coach. Names that come to mind are Karl Scott (Seattle Seahawks passing game coordinator/DB coach), Ephraim Banda (Cleveland Browns safeties coach), Anthony Campanile (Green Bay Packers LB coach/run game coordinator), Brian Duker (Miami Dolphins passing game coordinator/secondary coach), Donald D’Alesio (Kansas City Chiefs safeties coach), Larry Foote (Tampa Bay Buccaneers ILB coach/passing game coordinator) and Ken Norton Jr. (Washington Commanders LB coach).
This is a pivotal hire for Matt Rhule. The only thing that had gone right in his first two years in Lincoln was the defense. He’s a self-admitted defensive-minded head coach who knows how important an elite defense is in the Big Ten and how vital it is to have one in his attempt to return Nebraska to national relevancy.
He checked a big box by securing Dana Holgorsen for the foreseeable future to right the ship on offense. He needs to get the right guy in place on defense too.
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SEWARD, Neb. — Early childhood educators from Nebraska and surrounding states will gather at Concordia University, Nebraska, for the school’s annual Early Childhood Conference on June 7-8, 2026, with an optional pre-conference also planned on campus.
“The theme for this year’s event is Unshakable!” said Concordia Nebraska Assistant Professor of Education Dr. Drew Gerdes. “We know that teachers are hard workers; teaching is challenging in many ways but also rewarding. At Concordia, we have a strong history in developing and supporting teachers, and this conference is one way that we can connect with those in the field, support and encourage them, and offer opportunities to ‘fill their toolbox’ with new ideas and strategies.”
Conference keynote speaker Raelene Ostberg, founder of Thriving Together, will address attendees about finding and keeping joy in their work with students, families and colleagues. Thriving Together is an organization dedicated to supporting early childhood educators.
The Sunday evening dinner keynote speaker will be Rev. Dustin Lappe ’97, who serves at Messiah Lutheran Church and School in Lincoln, Nebraska. Organizers said Lappe has years of experience as both an early childhood teacher and a pastor.
“This conference will feature many break-out sessions on a variety of topics,” Gerdes said. “From the value of music in learning to differentiated learning to early literacy skills, participants will be able to hear from veterans in the field and leaders in education who have a great passion for sharing and helping others grow.”
Concordia Nebraska first hosted an early childhood conference decades ago under the leadership of then-program director Dr. Leah Serck ’58.
“Educators from Nebraska and many surrounding states look forward to this event each year, which has a rich history of bringing in high-quality keynote speakers and valuable topics,” Gerdes said.
More information, including pre-conference and conference details and pricing, is available at cune.edu/ecc. Early bird discounted registration is available until May 22.
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.
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