Nebraska Football: How Matt Rhule might be creating a Georgia Bullldogs pipeline

The Nebraska football team has become “Georgia West,” and the rhyme and reason for this might not be as hard to decode as it looks.

Since Matt Rhule has arrived in Lincoln, he’s managed to lure two former Georgia Bulldogs players into becoming Huskers. He almost got another to commit in Brett Seithart before the tight end apparently decided he wanted to stay in the Peach State. And if this weekend goes well, Rhule and company may indeed get a third former Bulldog to pull the trigger for the Cornhuskers.

So just how and why are three players from the best program in the country, from deep in SEC territory, deciding to join the Nebraska football program? It seems as if two words might sum it up. Fran Brown.

Brown is currently the defensive backs coach for UGA but he’s got closer ties to to Rhule than many Nebraska football fans might understand at first glance. In fact, his ties to Rhule go all the way back to his playing days at Western Carolina.

While Brown patrolled the secondary for the FCS (then Division 1-AA) school from 2003 to 2006, Rhule was the associate head coach who coached special teams and linebackers and coordinated the offensive run game.

After the two parted ways for a few years they reunited at Temple. When Rhule was named the head coach of the Owls in 2013, Brown was his defensive backs coach. When the current Nebraska football head coach was hired to lead Baylor, Brown followed him as his associate head coach and defensive backs coach.

While the two haven’t coached together since 2018, it seems that friendship would stand the test of being apart for a few years.

Nebraska football ties to Georgia

It stands to reason that Brown, who was hired as the Georgia Bulldogs defensive backs coach before the 2022 season, might tell some players who were looking to go elsewhere that the Nebraska football head coach is a man they can trust and would enjoy playing under.

There is of course, no documented connection. No proof that Brown is steering Georgia Bulldog players who want to leave to Nebraska football. But it sure looks like the connection is real. And that can only benefit the Huskers in 2023 and beyond.