Nebraska football can now have unlimited on-field coaches

An NCAA rule change will do away with the need for Nebraska football to have 'analysts' and will instead make them all coaches, should Matt Rhule choose.
Dylan Widger-USA TODAY Sports
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The Nebraska football staff and really the staff of any football program that can afford it, is about to undergo a rather seismic shift. That’s because a rule that was expected to become reality last summer has arrived alongside the old adage, “better late than never.”

The Huskers are about to be able to have as many on-field coaches as Matt Rhule decides he needs. That’s because the NCAA has lifted the limit on the number of coaches at a series of meetings on Tuesday.

The rule will technically go into effect when the meetings wrap on Wednesday morning, but then the rule becomes more than something that’s on the way, it will become the law of the land immediately. That means when the Nebraska football enters the month of July, the month when they will also kick off fall camp, they could have quite a few new guys around to help prepare for the upcoming season.

Nebraska football can have as many assistant coaches as it wants

Names like Adam DiMichele leap to mind when thinking about staff analysts who will likely get the promotion to full time, on field coaches. There’s also last year’s tight ends coach Josh Martin.

Martin took over as a position coach last fall after former tight ends coach Bob Wager was dismissed following a DUI arrest. Martin, who began his tenure in Lincoln as an offensive analyst before the situation with Wager went down, was moved back to analyst this offseason.

That move was so that Rhule could bring in Glenn Thomas as the co-offensive coordinator and QBs coach and move Marcus Satterfield to tight ends coach as well as offensive coordinator. It would seem that as soon as tomorrow, Martin will be an on-field coach again.

There is one caveat to the new rule. The NCAA has said that FBS schools can still only have 11 coaches who go out and recruit. One of them has to be the Nebraska football head coach. After that, Rhule now has a few more choices as far as who he wants to be his recruiting aces.