Matt Rhule’s eye for talent extends to young coaching hires

Evan Cooper figured he had an awful first year as a staffer in college football. His boss confirmed it.

These days Cooper is Nebraska’s incoming defensive backs coach, a 35-year-old with NFL coaching experience and an established way of doing things. But back in the moments after the 2013 season, the former Temple defensive back had just completed a rough first tour at his alma mater as a graduate assistant following two years coaching high schoolers.

Cooper didn’t know what he didn’t know about working behind the scenes. It felt painfully obvious to him. And the man in charge — first-year head coach Matt Rhule — wanted to talk.

“(He said) ‘I would never hire you,” Cooper recalled during an April appearance on the “Bleav in Temple Football” podcast. “‘You should probably look for a job … I’m not even sure if you like football.’”

But either Rhule relented or Cooper embellished because Cooper stayed on as director of external operations the next season. Then director of player personnel in 2015. He reversed on a short few-month stint at Miami after that campaign to come back in 2016. By 2018 he was coaching cornerbacks at Baylor. By 2020 he was doing it under Rhule with the NFL’s Carolina Panthers.

Rhule had a question for Cooper on the way to the pros. Should he hire him as an NFL assistant? Cooper said no — he wasn’t sure he was ready. Rhule told him to shut up and meet him in Charlotte.

As the 47-year-old Rhule continues to assemble his Nebraska staff — the team has named seven of 10 on-field assistants plus a strength coach and some support personnel — he is continuing a track record of targeting relatively youthful help with limited college experience. Only one on-field hire, special teams coordinator Ed Foley (55), is older than 46. Three are under age 40, as are multiple other candidates who have been in the mix for NU jobs.

“I want young, energetic, dynamic coaches,” Rhule said at his introductory news conference last month. “There’s some leagues where you have to go hire some names and there’s some guys that, ‘Hey, he’s a recruiter and he’s been in that area a long time.’ I think my ties recruiting and our ties recruiting in Texas are something that we’re going to lean on.”

Rhule has keyed on development during dramatic rebuilds at Temple and Baylor in the last decade. Identify talented players. Come alongside them. Challenge them in everything. Watch them thrive. The process has helped produce dozens of NFL careers.

A seven-year track record as a college head coach reveals Rhule takes a similar successful approach with his staff hires. And while a few risks don’t pan out, many more have quickly risen in the industry. Some examples:

Rhule gave him his first on-field coaching job at Temple in 2013 when Brown was a 29-year-old coming off single seasons as a high-school assistant, Temple director of ops and a GA. The pair stayed together until 2019, when Brown returned to be co-defensive coordinator at Temple and later DBs coach at Rutgers. Now he’s finishing his first season in the SEC.

Smith was a 12-year prep coach in Pennsylvania when Rhule tapped him as Temple receivers coach in 2013 at age 43. Smith joined James Franklin’s first staff at PSU a year later and has been there ever since.

Rhule hired a 28-year-old Robinson in 2014 to coach Temple’s D-line at his alma mater despite only a four-year career at Penn State as a grad assistant and director of community relations. Robinson left for Jimbo Fisher’s first staff at A&M in 2018 and has become one of the highest-paid FBS coaches at his position. He was named national recruiter of the year in the last cycle by multiple services.

McGuire had been a career high school coach in Texas when Rhule hired him to work with Baylor tight ends in 2017. McGuire stayed on after Rhule went to the NFL before taking the head job at Texas Tech — the 51-year-old went 7-5 in his first regular season.

Rhule brought in a 32-year-old Okam as Baylor D-line coach in 2018. His experience was playing six NFL seasons, two years as a GA at Rice and two more as an Owls’ assistant. Okam followed Rhule to Carolina and last offseason was hired away by Josh McDaniels in Las Vegas.

Others have similar stories. A 35-year-old Frisman Jackson was a 2016 Temple hire to coach wideouts — the journeyman assistant has since been part of three different NFL teams. Glenn Thomas was a 37-year-old add at Temple in 2015 known for working with Atlanta Falcons QB Matt Ryan. He went on to help develop P.J. Walker and Charlie Brewer into dynamic playmakers under Rhule.

“The great thing I had working with Coach Rhule and (defensive coordinator Phil) Snow and those guys on defense is that because they had so much time in the game and so much experience and so much versatility, they forced me out of my comfort zone and forced me to do some things I hadn’t historically done in the past,” Okam told The Athletic in September. “It allowed me to grow to become a better coach.”

Said McGuire last week: “(Rhule) is my mentor. So many things I do is because of working for that man. I’m really excited for him. I’m excited for Nebraska.”

Many of the Huskers’ new position coaches own similarly nondescript resumés as they arrive in Lincoln. E.J. Barthel (35, running backs) got his start under Rhule as Temple’s director of player personnel in 2015, then spent three years at the FCS level before a stint at Carolina and last season at Connecticut. Terrance Knighton (36, defensive line) went from FCS assistant to Carolina and left his NFL post to come to Lincoln.

NU’s lone holdover from the previous staff was its least experienced in Donovan Raiola (39, offensive line) — he had worked three seasons as an assistant O-line coach with the Chicago Bears and one as position coach at Division III Aurora (Illinois) University. New head strength coach Corey Campbell (31) was an intern as recently as 2016, eventually becoming Baylor’s director of athletic performance in 2020 before joining Rhule in Carolina as a strength assistant.

Barthel said in May on the “Coach Forward Podcast” that many of his coaching rhythms came from Rhule. Barthel’s motto, “Pound the Rock,” is a nod to not just running the ball but doing everything at an elite level on and off the field. He shows daily video clips to his backs of them making “lion” and “sheep” plays — that is, winning ones and losing ones — that creates subtle peer accountability. He not only allows smartphones in meetings but encourages them for notetaking.

“A lot of younger coaches are becoming head coaches,” Barthel said. “You’ve got to be up to the speeds of how fast the game is moving and changing. … Being able to adapt to devices and apps, going into their world and their norms and teaching them (that way) is the wave of football right now.”

Rhule’s resources to build a staff at Nebraska are far greater than his previous college stops — a $7 million salary pool for assistants is more than competitive nationally. The Huskers have three open jobs, presumably to coach receivers, linebackers and quarterbacks. Offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield could also coach QBs as he did at South Carolina, meaning NU could bring in someone to work with tight ends.

But the money won’t change the big-picture philosophy. Rhule said if he made mistakes in the NFL, one was hiring men for their experience but who “didn’t maybe always connect with me.”

The people he seeks now will serve players and be passionate about doing it. With an eye toward a Nebraska rebuild, that is more valuable to him than a resumé.

“To be a player-development program you have to have coaches that love — love — helping players get better,” Rhule said. “… If you just pour into young people and you help them, they’ll have better lives and some will work out for you. My take has been, ‘Hey, if you come here we’re going to build something special.’ There’s no doubt we’ll win, but we’ll affect a lot of lives along the way. And the biggest thing is we get to do it our way here.”​