LINCOLN, Neb. — Coach Matt Rhule spent the first 10 minutes of his pre-spring football practice press conference Monday offering encouragement to a Nebraska fan base reeling from the sudden resignation of athletic director Trev Alberts last week. did.
Rhule has been at the school for just 16 months and has watched President Ted Carter take the same position at Ohio State University and Alberts take the AD job at Texas A&M.
Rhule went 5-7 in his first year and is in the second year of an eight-year, $74 million contract. He said he was surprised and saddened that the two men who brought him to Nebraska were gone so soon.
But Rhule brought out Hall of Fame football coaches Bob Devaney and Tom Osborne to deliver an upbeat monologue peppered with the names of the top players on the men's and women's basketball teams heading into the NCAA Tournament.
“I'm here, and I'm giving my best, and Julie is giving her best,” Rhule said of his wife. “I love Ted Carter, I love Trev, and I came here because of them. But I came to the University of Nebraska and I loved the people I've met along the way. And you We're not going anywhere unless you kick us.'' We left. ”
Nebraska will hire its fourth athletic director since 2013, with the selection led by Interim Chancellor Chris Kabrec and Executive Associate AD for Academic Affairs Dennis LeBlanc, who will lead the department in an interim role. I'm there.
Alberts, who played football for the Cornhuskers in the early 1990s and served as athletic director for just under three years, did not give a specific reason for his retirement. The disgrace clause in his contract was triggered when he resigned. In a statement last week, Gov. Jim Pillen criticized university trustees for their slow search for a new president. Mr. Alberts had previously expressed frustration that the process did not move more quickly.
Rhule said Alberts was “candid” in a phone conversation last week and said “that's his story” about Alberts' reasoning.
“At least as far as I'm concerned, I have no complaints about his response,” Ruhl said.
The Cornhuskers haven't been on the national radar in football since their heyday in the 1990s, and that's taken a toll on the psyche of a state where the program is in the spotlight year-round. Rhule said fans should remember that Nebraska has a strong reputation in college athletics.
He noted that the athletic department is financially independent and a pioneer in the areas of academic support, strength training, nutrition and, more recently, name, image and likeness.
“We have to be unashamed in our desire to be the best,” Ruhl said. “We can't worry about the optics. We can't worry about what people say. The way to win in college athletics today is to invest, and no one in this amazing state does that better.” I can't think of a state that I know of that, for all its amazingness or not, the financial institutions, the people of Omaha, Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway, all the agriculture in the state– If you don't sow seeds and water them, you won't get a harvest.
“Whether it's salaries, facilities, upgrades, whatever it is…We go back to the days when everyone from all over the country would come to the University of Nebraska to see how things were done. is needed.”
