This was a smart hire on the part of Nebraska football.
On Tuesday, Nebraska football hired Jonathan Rutledge with the title of senior special teams analyst. This is certainly something that interests me.
This is a position that is new for Nebraska, but not to Rutledge. He served the role at Auburn during his last coaching stop. Rutledge officially made the announcement on Tuesday via Twitter.
He is very good at his job. He served on the Auburn coaching staff for the past two seasons, and Auburn’s special teams were among the nation’s top 15 during that time.
What type of role will he serve at Nebraska? There is no certain answer according to everything I’ve read. As some of you may recall, Jovan Dewitt held the title of special teams coordinator as a full-time coach. Even still, there were several different coaches taking on special teams roles and working with the special teams unit.
https://twitter.com/CoachJRut/status/1229843093643517952
It’s definitely awesome that there seems to be an emphasis on improving the special teams. That was a sore spot for Nebraska football last year, and it definitely needed to be addressed. Hopefully, the hire of Rutledge will help correct some mistakes from last year. The fact that Nebraska is going to have a dedicated coach to special teams is encouraging. It’s not like they hired some gentlemen off the street either. This is a guy that has proven results in the SEC. That certainly counts for something, especially when you consider how difficult the SEC is.
I’ll be interested to see how Rutledge’s style translates to the Nebraska football program. Something tells me that he won’t necessarily be on the sidelines, but in the booth observing from up above. Especially when observing special teams, a bird’s eye view is much better than seeing things on the sidelines.
I commend the football program for at least trying to address the issues from last year. Rutledge should be able to be a great fit. At the very least, it will give a fresh perspective on something Nebraska needs to improve on.