Nebraska fans don't want to hear it right now. The loss to Iowa still stings and more than that, the way the season ended stings badly. But sitting one the outside looking in, watching what Ole Miss and LSU are going through, waiting and waiting and waiting to hear Lane Kiffin finally make a decision, this situation may be precisely why Matt Rhule got his extension.
NU athletic director Troy Dannen may or may not have been bamboozled by the Penn State reports. Or maybe he knew better than most that the Penn State reports were true. After all, the Nittany Lions are now the only major program that still has an opening after all the dominoes fell on Sunday morning.
Florida reportedly got Jon Sumrall from Tulane. Auburn reportedly nabbed Alex Golesh from USF. LSU appears ready to hire Lane Kiffin (assuming he ever makes an actual announcement), and Arkansas got Memphis' Ryan Silverfield. Meanwhile, Nebraska is gearing up for the next step in the Matt Rhule's rebuild and staying entirely out of the coaching carousel madness.
Nebraska fans should look at Ole Miss and be grateful for Matt Rhule’s leadership
Yes, not having to worry about hiring a coach when some fans might wish they didn't have the coach Nebraska has is definitely a consolation prize. But all Husker fans have to do is look at what Penn State is now going through to realize that things would only be worse for NU if Matt Rhule had left for Penn State.
And all Nebraska fans need to do is look at Ole Miss fans now, wondering if the team will have a whole staff left behind when Lane Kiffin is done burning bridges. The Rebels are getting ready for the school's first-ever College Football Playoff berth and wondering who will be on the team when that game rolls around.
The way things finished in Lincoln is obviously not great. There are all sorts of questions about what Rhule plans to do to fix what can only be seen as a failure in November. It's nice that he put the blame on himself, but that's not enough.
It's also nice that in the grand scheme of things, Matt Rhule didn't keep Cornhuskers fans hanging out there for weeks, reading into every single Twitter post and reading reports about him trying to burn the program down on his way out the door.
Nebraska fans should be happy that with very few (if any) can't-miss coaching free agent prospects out there, they get to sit out the carousel entirely and instead focus on reloading instead of rebuilding.