InsideNebraska: Nebraska Cornhuskers Football & Basketball Recruiting - Huskers are all smiles as Matt Rhule hire is paying off (2024)

Nebraska is cool again.

After more than a decade of struggles, disappointments and strife, the Huskers are off to a 2-0 start with convincing wins over UTEP and Colorado and on Saturday night, Lincoln was the center of the college football universe.

A nationally televised game in which the Huskers absolutely worked Colorado, especially early on, to jump out to an early lead. Boxing champ and Omaha native Bud Crawford leading the Huskers out of the tunnel with a Nebraska-emblazoned championship belt over his shoulder.

And, most importantly, recruits from all over the country soaking it all in.

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This is how it used to be.

And for so long, this is what Nebraska fans craved. Now they have it.

“It was the loudest game I have been to,” said four-star linebacker Christian Jones from Omaha (Neb.) Westside, who’s down to a two-team battle between Nebraska and Oklahoma.

Four-star offensive lineman Hudson Parliament said: “I have never seen anything like it in person. The Huskers impressed me with a convincing win. Everything was top-notch. The coaches have made it well-known that I am a top target. They are right up there and (Saturday) was advantageous for the Huskers in my recruitment.”

Matt Rhule has made Nebraska fun again, cool again, a destination again. It’s been a tough slog since the Tom Osborne/Frank Solich days.

Scott Frost returned to Nebraska as the hometown hero only to prove he’s the hometown zero going 16-31 after leading UCF to an undefeated season in 2017. So much was expected from him, so little delivered.

Famously polite and nice Mike Riley won as many games as he lost in Lincoln and was seemingly hired as a Midwest palate-cleanser after the profanity-laced success of Bo Pelini, who turned off so many boosters and fans with his attitude and red-faced outbursts despite winning games.

Enter Rhule, who was fired by Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper, a hedge fund manager who has proven to be an impatient clueless rube running an NFL franchise and most known for throwing a drink on a fan last season and bothering a local eatery’s owner for posting a sign critical of Tepper outside his restaurant.

It has all been to Nebraska’s gain. Rhule took lowly Temple to two 10-win seasons, two of three double-digit win campaigns in program history dating back to 1930.

Amid a sexual assault scandal at Baylor with the prior coaching staff, Rhule (who had no connections to Texas) went into that lion’s den and after the program basically crashed and burned, he turned the Bears from a 1-11 team to 11-3 in his third season.

Nebraska definitely needed a reboot. With a fan base (and donor base, which is so important in this NIL age), that was desperate for national relevancy but mired in middle-of-the-pack Big Ten mediocrity, Rhule landed the No. 1 quarterback in the 2024 Rivals250. There was some luck since Dylan Raiola was a legacy but a tremendous amount of low-key recruiting as well being done there.

The No. 1 offensive tackle in the 2026 class, Jackson Cantwell, whose mother is from Crete, Neb., was in Lincoln on Saturday night.

"The environment was very cool,” Cantwell said. “The Nebraska fan base is very big and prevalent at the games. The message is that they think I could help them out a lot in terms of providing blocking for some of the talented skill players they already have and are continuing to bring in.”

There are no tricks with Rhule. There’s no Cali-braska movement of targeting overhyped California players who all washed out. A house is built from the studs up and the same goes with a recruiting class – the studs need to come or you don’t have anything substantial.

The Huskers had many of the Midwest’s top prospects at the game. And Nebraska put on a show.

“I’ve never experienced a crowd like that before,” 2026 four-star defensive back Jayden McGregory said.

“I got goosebumps,” 2026 three-star athlete Kaedyn Cobbs said.

Maybe four-star defensive end Hunter Higgins put it best.

“Those fans were different,” he said.

Finally, after so long, Nebraska fans have something to cheer for again.

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