Matt Rhule on roster construction and getting to the 105 limit

In the NFL there’s a 53-man roster. With college programs needing to trim their rosters to 105 sometime before the start of the season, Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule is using the NFL as a model for his own program.

There’s still a bit of wait-and-see with the timeline for when the 105-man roster needs to go into effect, Rhule said during a press conference inside Hawks Championship Center on Saturday.

“​​I’ve been told that we think it’ll be the day of the first game,” Rhule said. “So you might go into (fall) camp with more. And if a guy’s out for the year (with injury), he won’t count in the 105 so you can replace them with someone else, but it has to be before that first game.”

In thinking about roster construction for the 105, Rhule said he’s tweaked that 53 number to 57 because college football is different — Rhule will always want three “scholarship” quarterbacks, not two like NFL teams usually carry, for example.

Once you find your first 57, then the next step is to determine a second group of players, around 38, to fill out a second team of backups. And that will be valuable for obvious reasons, depth being among the top in a long and physical season where injuries always play a factor.

But for Rhule, having around 10 players who may not see the field during games but show their worth as culture builders and good practice players are crucial. Rhule used walk-on receiver Roman Mangini as an example.

“As you get to the bottom 10 guys, if that makes any sense, between like 95 and 105, to me there’s gonna be guys that bring a lot to the culture of the team. There’s gonna be guys that are flexible at practice, like Roman Mangini,” Rhule said. “He could be a starter next year, I don’t know, but he’s gonna be on the team because there’s no one that makes practice go better than Roman Mangini.”

Nebraska’s roster currently stands at 126, per Rhule’s Chief of Staff, Susan Elza.

“I’m gonna give everyone the chance in spring to try to make the team and see how the numbers play out,” Rhule said.