Latest news with #Nebraska-Tennessee
Yahoo
28-02-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Matt Rhule cites Big Ten schedule as reason for Nebraska pulling out of Tennessee home-and-home
Nebraska coach Matt Rhule revealed why the Cornhuskers backed out of their future nonconference games with Tennessee football in 2026 and 2027, and he gave a blunt answer. Rhule, appearing on "The Triple Option" podcast with Urban Meyer on Thursday, said Nebraska has no incentive to play tough nonconference games since it plays a nine-game conference schedule in the Big Ten. REQUIRED READING: Nebraska backs out of Tennessee football series in 2026-27, putting Vols in a bind Nebraska bought out the contract that had been set for 19 years, replacing the two games against Tennessee with matchups against Bowling Green and Miami (Ohio). Cornhuskers athletic director Troy Dannen said in the announcement the reasoning for canceling the games was due to wanting more home games after future stadium renovations. "Why would you ever play one of those games?" Rhule said. "And we're being completely honest, Coach Meyer, I'm at a lucky point in life where in my fourth job and after getting fired in the NFL, I kind of say what I feel nowadays, I could care less. Why in the world would a Big Ten team who's already playing nine conference games, why would you ever play one of those games? "... I love the SEC, I'm not anti-SEC, but there's some SEC teams last year that only played three away games in another team's stadium. We're in a league where some years you have five home Big Ten games, and some years you have five road. You go on the road five times in the Big Ten with no like, Florida-Georgia on a neutral site." Rhule didn't hide Nebraska's intentions with dropping the home-and-home series against Tennessee, as the Cornhuskers' move comes down to College Football Playoff seeding. Losses hurt a resume, regardless of if the game was against a highly ranked team or not. Rhule has been quick to go against the status quo this offseason amid college football trying to navigate the modern era with roster building and name, image and likeness (NIL). Rhule and Nebraska canceled their spring game this season, as a hope to stay healthy but also not give teams free chances at looking at players they hope to poach in the transfer portal. With so many strong teams now in the Big Ten, Rhule doesn't see the point of increasing Nebraska's strength of schedule with the chance at numerous quality wins in conference play. 'They proved to us this year when they did the seeding and all this stuff that early season wins didn't mean a thing,' Rhule said. 'That really was, at the end of the day, what you looked like in the last month of the season. That's what it all proved to us. And when I say what it looks like, it's really how good your offense is. If you're scoring points and blowing people out late in the year, you're going to make the playoffs.' This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Matt Rhule explains reasoning for Nebraska-Tennessee game fallout
New York Times
27-02-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Matt Rhule says the quiet part out loud: College football scheduling is headed for crisis
Sometimes, we are the TV executives and they are us. We like to get after them and blame them for things, which they mostly deserve. But all of us — execs, fans, rights holders, stakeholders, headset holders, anyone who cares about college football and isn't a college football coach — should gasp together at what came out of the mouth of Nebraska coach Matt Rhule this week. Not because he's wrong. Because he was honest and he's too right for comfort, which means we've found something about the College Football Playoff that actually merits change. Advertisement More teams? The first 12-team Playoff sure seemed good to me. Auto bids, four apiece for the SEC and Big Ten and a pittance of two apiece for the ACC and Big 12? Super, if you want to declare that college football is a rigged status pageant more than it is actual competition, and if you're fine endangering its long-term health at the expense of your selfish, gluttonous, short-sighted inclinations. A selection system that more explicitly rewards quality nonleague scheduling? That's actually worth discussing. Rhule laid out why very clearly on 'The Triple Option' podcast, in an answer to a 'one last thing' question from Urban Meyer. Meyer told Rhule he's 'really worried' about nonconference scheduling moving forward — and he should be, now that he's a TV guy — because 'it's the right thing for Ohio State to play Texas (to start the 2025 season), but why?' 'At the end of the day, Ryan Day has got to make the Playoff. Matt Rhule has got to make the Playoff,' Meyer said, mentioning series fans would love such as the Nebraska-Oklahoma rivalry that was killed by realignment (read: TV people) and reprised in 2021-22. 'It's great for fans, but is it great for Matt Rhule and the Huskers?' Rhule, an unpopular man in Knoxville, Tenn., these days for killing a Nebraska-Tennessee home and home that was supposed to happen in 2026-27, was already shaking his head as Meyer got to the question. 'Why would you ever … why would you ever play those games?' Rhule said. 'If we're being completely honest. Coach Meyer, I'm at the point in my career where, in my fourth job and getting fired in the NFL, I kind of say what I feel nowadays. I could care less.' (Note: He means he 'couldn't' care less.) Rhule continued: 'Why in the world would a Big Ten team who is already playing nine conference games, why would you ever play one of those games?' Advertisement 'HOW ABOUT FOR THE FANS,' we scream in unison (adding in a whisper, 'and TV people'). The first part sure isn't enough, not for a coach who is judged on results and, in today's world, will have a limited amount of time to at least get his team into the College Football Playoff or expect a pink slip. I wouldn't blame any Nebraska fans for being annoyed with Rhule, by the way. He just killed the spring game. I'm sure Nebraska isn't charging fans less for their tickets in 2026, but Tennessee has been replaced with Bowling Green. And now Rhule is publicly exasperated at the idea of caring about the overall quality of the product his customers pay so much to receive. Nebraska fans are as loyal, rabid and starved as they come, of course. If Rhule wins, none of this matters — keeping players out of the sight of would-be poachers in the spring will be a brilliant move — and the tailgates for Bowling Green and Houston Christian will still be popping. If he loses, he's gone, and I guess you can tack this onto the list of grievances. Now that successful college football seasons are going to consist of as many as 17 games, I'm guessing every Power 4 coach would prefer to keep things as light as possible before conference play. Rhule is just the one who said it out loud. The challenge for college football is to be able to answer Rhule's question as such: 'You play a quality nonleague game against another Power 4 team because a win helps your case to get into the Playoff and a loss doesn't bury you.' That comes down to the selection committee. Yes, there's a strength of schedule metric, but we're coming off a season in which Indiana made the field of 12 after playing a nonleague trio of Florida International, Western Illinois and Charlotte. It's not hard to see how a coach in the same league would be looking to throttle down. Advertisement Indiana deserved to be in, by the way, for the 10,000th time. That's easy to argue. It's impossible to argue that Indiana deserved to be in and that nonconference scheduling matters enough to the committee. Here's where the people who would serve their own interests at the expense of the sport's long-term health might chime in with an endorsement of the plan for auto bids galore. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti won't actually stand up in public and answer for this ridiculous idea. But they might not mind if folks take a moment to ponder and discuss the idea of Big Ten and SEC teams, knowing that the top four in each league get in for sure, being a bit more willing to take on bigger September games. Possibly even an SEC/Big Ten challenge of sorts? Does that sweeten the pot enough? Hmmmm? No. Hell no. On top of the actual devaluing of so much of the late stages of the regular season that the auto bids would bring, on top of the reduction in arguing around the committee's rankings — arguing is a college football pillar, in case you didn't notice — I don't think this would work anyway. More likely, September nonconference games would be like NFL preseason games. Who's trying to get anyone important hurt if the conference race is the only thing? The committee needs to matter and it needs to do better. Rhule went heavy on the hyperbole in defending his case, saying 'early-season wins didn't mean a thing' in 2024 and 'if you're scoring points and blowing people out late in the year, you're going to make the Playoff.' I'd argue Georgia's neutral-site annihilation of Clemson helped Georgia overcome its later failures, Texas' win at Michigan gave it a perception head start that mattered even after Michigan faded, Tennessee's rout of NC State did the same despite a similar fade and that SMU not paying too dearly for a close loss to BYU is a data point in favor of good scheduling. Also, that games like this can help teams, too. Advertisement We need auto bids only for champions, and a committee that rewards wins in significant nonleague games more than it penalizes for losses in those games. That needs to be prioritized, it needs to be made clear to coaches, and maybe it needs to be official and mathematical in some way. And if you think that's a dumb idea, they're talking about a bunch of play-in games to spruce up conference championship weekend, which sounds like Pop-A-Shot as an NBA All-Star Game alternative. Keep those TV people at arm's length.
