Jeremy Pernell: Matt Rhule’s Dozen From the Portal

Despite the first-year number, development trumps quick fixes in Nebraska football coach’s rebuild

Kenny Larabee photo, KLIN

First in a series on Nebraska football’s transfer additions heading into fall camp.

Coach Matt Rhule has stated on several occasions his goal to re-establish Nebraska as the premier developmental program in college football.

He's a known program builder who orchestrated eye-opening turnarounds for downtrodden programs Temple (2013-16) and Baylor (2017-19).

At a historically awful Temple program, Rhule won 10 games in back-to-back seasons and won an AAC title in 2016. Prior to that, Temple had only one season (1979) of double-digit wins in school history, which dates back to 1930. It was also the program's first conference title since 1967.

In Waco, Rhule inherited an embattled Baylor program hobbled by a Title IX scandal. He flipped a one-win record in 2017 into an 11-win roster that played for the Big 12 Championship and faced Georgia in the Sugar Bowl in his third season.

The turnaround and trajectory he puts his programs on is undeniable. With an eight-year contract at Nebraska and a proven blueprint, Rhule will be afforded the runway to rebuild the program brick-by-brick the right way.

The way he plans to do that is through a foundation of high school players. He signed 28 kids in his 2023 transition class, even though it put him at over 100 scholarship players heading into spring practice.

Despite having only eight scholarship seniors on the roster, the Huskers currently have 24 players committed in their 2024 class, and this staff is willing to push that number to 30 if their top remaining targets jump on board this fall.

Rhule will foster a culture of competition. He's going to remake the roster with players who fit his vision and work ethic.

He doesn't plan to rely on the transfer portal to build his program. He brought in 12 players from the portal in his first offseason, but as I will cover in coming days, most of them are players with multiple years of eligibility that he is using to plug holes on the roster and will be with the program for a few seasons.

As he stacks recruiting classes on top of each other over the next few years, he won't need to rely on the portal to fill gaps. Instead, he will pick and choose top guys to supplement his roster.

With fall camp set to open July 31, I'll spend the next week recapping the new additions to the roster and breaking them down by position group. Tomorrow, I'll start with quarterback Jeff Sims. I'll also include long snapper Marco Ortiz since specialists aren't exactly hot topics.