No, Nebraska football head coach Matt Rhule is not ‘copying’ Colorado
There are some Colorado Buffaloes fans that are really having to stretch in order to make hte claim that the Nebraska football team is copying them.
It’s true that in sports, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. When a coach or player finds something that works, other people in the sport want to do something similar but put their own spin on it.
But let’s be clear here, when the Colorado Buffaloes say that Nebraska football head coach Matt Rhule is “copying” Deion Sanders when it comes to literally anything, that’s a bit of a stretch. After all, Rhule has been a successful coach in the college ranks to a degree that allowed him to try his hand in the NFL.
Deion has been a head coach for about five minutes in the grand scheme of things. Yes, he’s had some success, at a lower level and for just a few years. But still. Rhule isn’t “copying” him. At issue is this line from a recent Buffs Beat article titled “Matt Rhule trying to copy Deion Sanders’ at Nebraska.”
"“Coach Sanders is making Colorado highly relevant and we’re trying to do the same thing.”"
Did Deion Sanders corner the market on trying to make a team more relevant?
To be clear, that appeared to be the only comment that could be construed as “copying” Coach Prime’s “blueprint.” It’s also worth pointing out that the author of that article doesn’t really understand what a blueprint is.
Nebraska football not copying
Framing the whole thing as Matt Rhule “copying” Deion appears to show that Colorado is still suffering from little brother syndrome when it comes to Nebraska football. That makes some sense, even if the Cornhuskers have been mostly bad of late.
Despite beating the Nebraska football team that last two times the teams played, the Buffs still aren’t seen as being on the same level. They even need Nebraska football fans to help them sell out their stadium.
It makes sense why Colorado would want to frame this situation as Rhule copying Sanders. But when it comes to the “blueprint” the two schools are using, there’s not a ton that’s similar.