While the Nebraska football team thoroughly dominated Bowling Green on Saturday night, the MAC team's head coach isn't holding a grudge. In fact, Eddie George said after the game that he plans to learn from and grow by using Husker head coach Matt Rhule as a model.
"Matt's somebody that I've known for a couple of years, some of the same people," George told the media during his post-game press conference. "I've watched his teams throughout the years, certainly when I was calling games at Westwood One, when I was doing color commentating."
"At Temple, how he turned that program around through toughness, through building in the trenches... So he comes cut from that cloth of old-school coaching, teaching the fundamentals, teaching toughness and physicality. And that's something that I aspire for my teams to look like one day — to look like that."
George went on to say that he wants to trade notes with Rhule about how he does things at Nebraska.
Eddie George’s praise shows Matt Rhule’s Nebraska football rebuild is earning outside respect
"I'm going to call him tomorrow and say, 'Hey, what did you see? How can we get better? What do you do? How do you do this?'"
It's the kind of compliment the public doesn't hear from opposing coaches very often. It especially isn't something people hear very often from a coach whose team just lost by 49 points.
It is, however, something Bowling Green fans should love to hear from a young head coach in just his second season in the MAC. The former Ohio State running back didn't go the usual route in his coaching career, being immediately named head coach without first working as an assistant.
George spent four years at the FCS level at Tennessee State, and despite a lack of coaching experience, he took a team that posted two straight losing seasons to a 6-5 record in 2023 and then a 9-4 record and a playoff appearance in 2024.
George was hired by Bowling Green in 2025, went 4-8 in his first season, and is now 0-2 in his second. Still, the former Heisman winner clearly knows that he's not going to be able to romp through the MAC right off the bat, but will instead need to build and shape his program.
Matt Rhule's ability to build programs is why Nebraska hired him in the first place, and while his Year 3 in Lincoln didn't go as well as his runs with Baylor or Temple, Eddie George clearly believes he might be able to fashion his own Year 2 and Year 3 after the veteran coach.
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