Huskers Matt Rhule: The Baylor Bounce

This is the second of a two part series about Matt Rhule’s stints at Temple and Baylor universities.

You Have Just Entered The Big Time
Banner in the Professional Drum Shop in Los Angeles

It was December of 2016.  Matt Rhule had a decision to make.  Should he stay at Temple University (his dream job) where he had turned around an Owl football program that had just produced back-to-back 10 win seasons or take the job at Baylor University?

Over the four seasons before Matt Rhule became Temple’s head coach in 2013, the Owls had a modest winning rate of just over 61%.  That included records of 9-4 in 2009, 8-4 in 2010 and 9-4 in 2011 and 4-7 in 2012.

Was Matt Rhule up for another challenge after Temple?  Was he willing to uproot his family and head to Waco, Texas over 1,500 miles away?  He’d lived and coached football most of his life in the northeast part of the county.  Moving from Pennsylvania to Texas was sure to be a culture shock.

To be sure, the Baylor football program had problems that were unlike those he had faced at Temple.  Ironically, winning football games wasn’t the problem at Baylor.  In fact, the four years before Matt Rhule took over at Baylor in 2017, the Bears had a 39-13 record for an 82% win rate.

Okay Danny Boy.  I thought you told us Rhule rebuilt the Temple and Baylor football programs.  But with 61% and 82% win rates those programs had before Rhule arrived, it doesn’t sound like much of a rebuild to me.

I’ll get to that later.

On December 2nd, Matt Rhule accepted the head job at Baylor.  Now Rhule was entering the big time.  He was leaving the American Athletic Conference to coach in the Big 12 which was a Power Five school.  With the move came more money, larger home crowds (from 24,000 per game to about 45,000 per game), more scrutiny and bigger challenges.

It’s true the Bears were winning football games before Rhule got there, but the wheels had been falling off the Baylor football program for several years..

In the summer of 2016 and after several years of sexual assault charges leveled against the Baylor football players, Baylor head coach Art Briles was fired.  Going with him was Baylor University President, Ken Starr and Athletic Director, Ian McCaw.

Jim Grobe, whose previous head coaching job was at Wake Forest, accepted Baylor’s offer to take over for Briles on one condition:  he would serve only on an interim basis. 

So how did Grobe do in his one year (2016) at Baylor?  Grobe’s Baylor team got off to a 6-0 start, beating teams like Oklahoma State, Iowa State and Kansas before going 0-6, losing to teams like Texas, Oklahoma, K-State and West Virginia.  The Bears accepted an invitation to play heavily-favored Boise State in the Cactus Bowl that year.  The Bears upset the Broncos, 31-12.  In his one year as interim head coach, Grobe managed to eke out a 7-6 record.

Next up:  Matt Rhule

What was Rhule getting himself into when he took the Baylor job?   To arm himself, he brought with him five assistants from Temple:  Phil Snow (DC), Francis Brown (AHC/DB), George DeLeone (OL), Mike Siravo (LB/Recruiting) and Glenn Thomas (QB).  He also hired Joey McGuire (TE) and Matt Lubick (Co-OC/WR).  If the last two names seem familiar to Husker fans it’s because Joey McGuire is the father of current Husker WR coach, Garret.  Matt Lubick served from 2020-2021 at Nebraska as Scott Frost’s OC/WR coach.

With the resignations of Baylor head coach, president and athletic director and with Jim Grobe’s decision to want a replacement,  it was Matt Rhule’s turn at the wheel.

It would be reasonable to expect there would be an upheaval of players leaving and wanting out of their National Signing Day commitments.  And there was. 

This was in the days before the transfer portal.  Rhule needed players.  Good players and lots of them.  But no portal to pick from.

To be sure, Rhule was left with a cupboard not entirely bare, but one that was in pretty bad shape.  At one point Rhule was down to 70 scholarship players.  Remember, Rhule came to Baylor very late in the ’17 recruiting season.  As a result, Baylor’s class was ranked 40th nationally (by 247 Sports) with 28 commits that year  The next year-Rhule’s first “real” recruiting year-his class was 29th in the nation with 23 commits.  His last class at Baylor, 2019, was 35th with 24 signees.

Rhule’s three-year record at Baylor with seasons of 1-11 in 2017, 7-6 in 2018 and 11-3 in 2019. Not a great overall record, but still a remarkable feat.

So what did Rhule do next?  He resigned from Baylor after the ’19 season.  On January 7, 2020, he signed a seven year, $62 million contract to coach the Carolina Panthers of the NFL.

Rhule’s college coaching career record is not spectacular.  He went 28-23 in his four years at Temple and 19-20 in his three years at Baylor.

So, do I think he turned around both programs?

Consider this.  Matt Rhule became only the second head coach in Temple football history to win 10 games in a season.  The last time that happened was Wayne Hardin’s 1979 team that went 10-2.  Rhule is the only coach in Temple history to have two 10 win seasons and he did that in two consecutive years.

I’d say the Temple turnaround was the real deal.

The Baylor Bounce was another great performance.  During his three-year stint at Baylor, the Bears became the first Power Five school to go from an 11 loss season to an 11 win season in two years or less.  In 2019, Rhule was also named Big 12 Coach of the Year.

I’d say that was another job well done.

How Bout Them Huskers

On this week’s podcast, Will and I cover such topics as a possible conference expansion for the Big Ten, the death of longtime Husker player/assistant, NFL defensive coordinator, Monte Kiffin.  We also talk about the upcoming Husker NIL Bowl, the hiring of Jamar Mozee and Husker football and volleyball Fan Appreciation Day.   Special teams is our last position review of the ’24 Husker football season.