Bussin' With The Boys - Las Vegas Recap, NFL Divisional Recap & Matt Rhule Is Bringing Respect Back To Nebraska Football

Episode Date: January 24, 2023

Recorded: January 16, 2022 | On this weeks episode the Boys recap their trip to Sin City, Las Vegas where they share some crazy stories from the weekend. The Boys react to the NFL Divisional Playoff results and preview the Conference Championship games as well as pick who they think will be going to the Super Bowl. After that we dive into the mind of the new Head Coach of the Nebraska Football team, Coach Matt Rhule. He goes onto explain why he chose Nebraska, his firing from the Carolina Panthers, gives his perspective on NIL deals with college players and signs perhaps the most important document in college football history. By the end of this, you may think Nebraska is winning the National Championship. Big hugs and tiny kisses. 1:20 Chevy AD 2:30 Vegas trip 15:40 Card game 24:45 NFL Divisional Playoffs recap 41:30 Conspiracy of Damar not actually at the game 43:50 First impression of Nebraska 45:30 getting fired from the Panthers 52:05 how it feels cutting a player 58:40 the only time he regrets doing something as a coach 1:00:20 Why didn’t it workout in Carolina 1:02:15 how much influence do you have in trades and free agency 1:10:20 how do you see the first year going at Nebraska and why Nebraska 1:18:15 some issues he had to address coming into Nebraska 1:22:30 thoughts on possibly leaving if someone wants him bad enough 1:24:45 transfer portal talk 1:26:30 how do you sell Nebraska to recruits 1:29:50 Talk about the Emoji game 1:35:00 how has the college changed since you’ve been there, NIL deals, transfer portal etc. 1:40:45 are you surprised how quickly it gets to money when recruiting 1:42:00 have recruits asked about money 1:43:15 how the college football landscape will look down the road 1:46:20 Nebraska vs Colorado rivalry is back 1:54:30 Rhule immersed himself in Nebraska culture to make sure he wants to do it 1:56:45 Bussin Bowl 2:04:45 Nebraska selling points 2:06:30 Tier Talk ---- SHOP: https://store.barstoolsports.com/collections/bussin-with-the-boys FOLLOW THE BOYS Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bussinwtb Twitter: https://twitter.com/BussinWTB Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BussinWTB Website: https://www.bussinwtb.com ---- SUPPPORT OUR SPONSORS Chevy Silverado: The Strongest, Most Advanced Silverado Ever. Sport Clips: Sport Clips. The Pros in Men’s Hair.For more, visit barstool.link/bussinwtbSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey guys, it's us The Jonas Brothers. I'm Joe. I'm Kevin. And I'm Nick. And guess what? We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas. We invented a podcast?

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slash awards. Our show is progressing like your ad reading. Buddy, I appreciate you saying that. The biggest thing that changed for me on the ad reading is when I said, I'm getting better at reading and you, your brother. Like you're just doing it now. Yeah.

You said, oh, I'm bad at reading. Yeah, yeah, and that's the motivation I needed. The motivation I needed. And there's motivation this weekend, boys. The boys took ourselves on a four-hour, 20-minute flight at, what, 6 a. m., a 6-10 departure flight to Las Vegas, Nevada, dude, where dreams are either made or broken. Now, it almost got bad, quick in a hurry. The day before we do a podcast, we're not going to say who, because that's going to come out in about two weeks.

It's going to be amazing. You guys are all going to enjoy. I'm sure that it'll do big numbies. Yeah. Because you guys are putting up big nombies for us. But I asked Will, as he's leaving the bus, I say, hey, would fly to you on? Because Will was thinking about taking the one o'clock flight or that 6 a.m. flight with me and the boys as we ventured off into Vegas with hopes and dreams. He goes, oh, man, I'm probably going to take that afternoon flight.

So I pull out my figurative journal and my figurative pen. I take a note. I'm going to remember that, boss. I'm going to remember that. Nothing else was said. I'm packing that night. I'm having a great time. I look.

I'm putting all my stuff together, getting a couple of fire fits together. And I can't even sleep because it's the old line trip. And I can't wait. Not only is an old line trip, but we went to Vegas to also shoot a couple of pods that are going to be equally as fire. Is that 200 pieces? Those are going to be amazing. It is 532.

I'm sitting. I'm at my gate that we board in 18 minutes. I get a phone call from Will Compton. I think this man doing up this early. Huh? Is he fighting Jocko again? Like, what's going on with my boy? Because when Territz, I got his little imagination notebook and pen and stuff, I was like,

I got him right where I wanted it. Right where you wanted me. And I didn't know. I answered the phone and buddy sounds out of breath like he's been running. He's just in the truck driving. How fast are you going? Speed limit. The speed limit plus five, right?

Yeah, you're the speed limit. So why don't you go ahead and break down what happened that morning? Yeah, so basically I sent my alarm for four, for whatever reason the boy doesn't hear it. And I guess, and you know when you're, what's surprising to me is the iPhone, it's going off, right? But I'm never like, you got to touch the stop down at the bottom of the screen. All you got to do is grab and like touch one of the side buttons and it it snoozes the alarm. I don't know how I turned it off, but I turned it off. And the next day I know, GP's calling me a 5.30 in the morning because we're supposed to meet at the bus at 5.

Now, that is, it's all, it's obviously all on me. but I was curious, like, why wasn't I getting... On you and a little bit on Apple. Correct. Yeah. And a little bit on JP and Mitch. I feel like because... If we're supposed to meet at 5 and it's 505, like I'm thinking, okay, you've got to call at some point.

You would think so. But you wait 30 minutes to give the boy a phone call. Now, into the absolute panic. J.P... What's up? Maybe, Mitch. You can maybe defend yourself. You guys thought hypotheticals on he could be doing this.

He could be doing that. Either way, 30 minutes went by. Um, the panic, for whatever reason, J.P.'s calling me and I hear the vibration of the phone call. Wake up to that. Trying to cue it. Like, um, hey, what's up, JP? And he was like, hey, do you want to just meet at the airport? Pull it back, see, 530 on my phone.

Absolute panic. Flight takes off at 620. I'm like, you know, Charles starts hearing me panic. I'm like, yeah, we get out of the phone. Charles starts your breath. She's like, what's going on? I'm like, flight leaves in 50 minutes. I'm not.

making it's over. Like I'm not making it. And kind of just stood there and like kind of put my head down like, I am making this. And she's like, you can make it. You can make it what time is? And she's like, what do you need me to help you to do? And I'm like, you know, I'm scatterbrain. I'm fucking shit hit the fan and I'm not responding the right way. Right. Right. Fortunately, everything was basically packed. I just had to throw a couple things on. And hit the road. I hit the road. And, you know, as you guys know, I'm going the speed limit. But I call Taylor. And Taylor has me out, what are you doing up this early? That's like the first thing he says, kind of with the smile. Kind of like, okay, what's happening? Yeah. You can feel the raise in my shoes on the phone. Oh, what's going on? I said I got good news and bad news. And he's like, tell me the bad news. I was like, bad news is I just woke up.

The good news is I'm supposed to be on that flight at 620. Which fires me up, dude. Yeah. I'm like, oh, fuck. But then it sets in, like, I look at my phone. I do the pullback and I look at it. I'm like, damn. Yeah.

He ain't going to make this. Yeah. Because I'm going to walk up. I'm going to roll up and be the hero. You know what I mean? I want to see Taylor's reaction. 100%. Bump with the boys yelling, excitement from Vegas.

Big tap up city. Yeah, but I'm thinking there's no fucking way, dude. End up pulling the shit off. Pulls the shit off. While the A list is going, still make it. It's like the back half of the A list. And then see the boys, we get on the flight, but I'm going to full sweat.

My back to an ass are already sweating. They sweat the entire flight for our flight. We got a mammoth two CETO rifle much, just snoring their ass off. Oh, yeah, in your aisle. Yeah, yeah. Ripping up, dude. Sond logs like crazy.

But even before. that dude. Yeah, there's a bit of a deal on the plane. This flight was, it started off with a lot of adversity. Thankfully, I answered the call. Well, I don't know. We'll see. We'll determine, you guys can determine whether I answered this call or not, because I can see where I might have went wrong a little bit. Right. But at first, it started because I get on the plane and the, what are they called? The airline assistant. Flight attendants? Um, you can tell she's in a mood like, oh, we got a group of fucking dudes going to Vegas. She's got a resting bitch face on it. Yeah, yeah. She's good for her, dude, it's Nashville at 6 a.m.

Yeah. We're going to Vegas. Yeah, we're bringing different vise. I'm like, should I sit here? Should I sit there? I, like, go over to sit next to Ben Jones and realize, like, he's too big. I don't want to sit next to him. So I'm going to go sit another seat.

Mitch gets in the middle next to me. And I, like, lean back, and I'm, like, talk with the boys. I think I'd just say shit. You see shit. Come to find out. It's like, that's fucking bullshit is what I ended up saying. I thought I basically just said, oh, like, something, something's shit. And she literally goes, watch your mouth.

And I'm thinking, gee. Jesus Christ, like, what's up her ass? Yeah. Come to find out later, Corey was like, bro, you said like, dude, it was fucking bullshit. Yeah, he was loud about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Now, that might, I wish we do the progressive, like, pull the red challenge flag on that because I don't know if you said fucking bullshit. Who knows? I would love to see the tape. Yeah. But if that's true, like, okay, I get it. You know, there's probably kids around.

I'm like, oh, that's fucking, I'm just hype for the boys. Yeah, and everyone plays the same game when they get on a Southwest flight, if you're lucky enough to have, like, that A1 through 30. If you're able to sit in that beginning little section, Hey, let's sit here.

We'll try to make ourselves as big as possible. Put some shit in the middle of the seat. You put the head down. Give yourself like your fucking, like you might be mad at the world. Like you might be a bit of a loose cannon. I don't want us next to that guy. Right, right, right, right. So I'm sitting next to...

But you know there are a couple stragglers and they might not make it. So you're trying to like that. Early flight, too, so you think all people are going to miss this flight. Yeah, like me. I was sitting next to Corey. Yeah, Corey was in the window seat. I was in the aisle seat. We don't do too much.

We don't get too elaborate. I take my tickets. I had a paper ticket for whatever reason. and when I put my bag down, they said, do you want to take? I said, no, I'm good. Like, hey, you get a free drink coupon. You might want to take the ticket. So I take the ticket.

We both have our tickets. We put our tickets in the middle. That's really it. Then we're talking, we're doing the clothes, talking with the aisles here, but we're in the lean-up. Yeah, you're leaning up. Mitch comes. I'm trying to tell the Mitch to go back there.

I was like, no, no, sit in the middle. Sit in the middle next the wheel. Yeah, yeah. And so this lady is sitting, I'm in the exit row. She's sitting in the exit row right next to me, kind of watching all the shit go down. and obviously I wasn't realizing at the time but was not enjoying my process of trying to save my seat.

So while people are starting to come in, the flight is getting fuller, but we're not at a point of panic yet. We're not really in the crunch time of the game where you're going to find out, like, are you catching this W? You're catching this L? We're going to find out.

We have the two tickets up there and we're playing chess with everybody else on board. You guys have gotten that part of the story. What I don't realize is this flight attendant seeing me and thinking to herself that she needs to be the vigilante to stop this entire process from happening.

So what happens is... She's trying to get one up on all the boys. She's trying to get one up on us. She realizes that, okay, she's identified us as the group going to Vegas, the ones that are a little too excited that early in the morning. And she wants to put out that fire quick. Big obnoxious, loud. They're cussing. Right.

And there's a whole bunch of us. We're talking. I'm leaning forward. I'm looking to the right. I'm leaning to my back. Like, there's a whole bunch of talking a lot of head movement going on. She leans over to me and says, sir, can you move those tickets out of the way so somebody can sit there? I'm thinking, bro, these are some fucking tickets.

Like, well, and I go, yeah, no problem. So I take the tickets and I put him in there. What else you say to her? You said some more. I look at her and I go, I can understand why that's a huge problem. I'll make sure to move those out of the way. And they're a little fucking four little tickets. And so I have, that's probably the first point in which I could have handled myself a little bit different.

For sure. Ate that, yes ma'am, no problem. Hit it with a yes ma'am and move on. If you're her, you're like, all right, bet. Yeah. Yeah. She dialed that in. Now, what happens after this, she did do a little bit more.

Let's let's let's say something else too. Well, we'll find out at the end of the story, Willie. We will find out at the end of the story. As people are coming down, this heavy said black gentleman is walking down the aisle. She points. She goes, sir, they're starting to fill up in the back. Why don't you just go ahead and sit right here? Why don't you just go and sit in this seat right here?

Looking in between me and Corey, looking through me into the seat. Go, sir, why don't you just go ahead? This seats open right here. Go ahead. I take a quick peek back, right? I catch my six. And I look back. Ben Jones is doing the big elbows.

And he's got, he's in that two seat piece. in the exit row. There's the two seat because third seat's missing so that last row behind it that person has a lot of leg room. Nick Petit Ferrer took that. He's a rookie.

Is that okay for him to do? I wouldn't say that, but I'm not a guy to say, hey, rookie, get up. Let me sit there. Instead, I let him have it. He wanted it. He got it.

That is the way the game is played. He won that battle. I'm looking around like, bro, there's like three more aisles behind me with not only middle seats, but aisle seats as well. Fucking aisle seats are in this thing.

People start to fill in. everybody sits down. She goes to leave. She is now walking out of the row right next to me. She's walking out. And I could have done nothing. But I look up at her,

I go, hey, I really appreciate you facilitating that. Thank God we got that done. She fucking looks at me, bro. You do got three big dudes. Three big dudes in that row. In that row, bro. And I'll get in more of the flight because there was some shenanigans

that went down later. Well, it is 12 minutes in. Like, you know. Yeah, yeah. She fucking points at me. She goes, sir, come here. Gives me the finger, puts it in my face like this, and goes, come here, come with me to the back of the plane.

My first thought was, bet we're going to the back of the plane, not the front of the flight. I'm not trying to get kicked out this flight. She takes me the back of the plane and basically is like, why are you being an asshole? And I was like, oh, I was just kind of given what I was getting. And then I fucking did what every person should in this situation. Did she say, are we going to have a problem? She said, oh, we're going to have a problem? You said, are we going to have a problem?

No. And I tell her I was just giving what I was getting, blah, blah. You're just standing by the bathrooms in the back? I'm saying behind the bathrooms and the little. She took you on the walk. Yeah. She took him on a walk. We're only giggling like he just got called

to the principal's office. Yeah. Exactly how I'm imagining. Yeah. I fucking, I did what any individual should do in that situation. I took that fucking tail so far between my legs. Like it was touching my fucking belly button.

I apologized to her. I said, I'm really sorry. And then she realizes that I am retracting everything. I am moving back. I have literally waved that white flag and the game is over for me. She is now turning her personality into, hey, listen, I'm from Chicago.

I have a dry sense of humor too. I take to myself. That ain't dry. You just mad. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you were just, you were mad at me for whatever reason. Like our group from the get-go. From the get-go.

She made a decision about us. Now, the rest of the flight, sweetheart during it. She says, I haven't got my coffee yet. I see her about an hour later during the flight. I go, you get your coffee. She smiles at me and says, yes, every time she walks by, she's giving me a little extra attention.

Hey, can I get you another coffee? Are you all right? laughs at my bad jokes and she moves on. So we got through the flight well. the guy sitting next to me he was chicken pecking his way through South America dude he was just bobbing and weaving the whole fucking time. The aquariums up putting his arm around

on the end of like take a photo in. We have a little photo I will send you guys a photo so we can put it up on the YouTube but I go to the bathroom at one point that motherfucker had all of my aisle like I was in that corner like this dude sitting for like an hour and a half like it was tough but we get to Vegas and I feel like Willie should take a little bit more of that because I have been talking for a

long time well I'm just saying we should probably pace because we still got to cover the NFL. We got to Vegas here. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, oh, we're going details.

We're going to details. Vegas was an incredible time. We had an amazing. Some guys won. Some guys lost. And some guys in between. There were a couple of big losers. Three grand.

Three grand. Yeah. Yeah, Willie. Good fucking shit. Run the ball. Run the ball. I'm not going to say what I lost. It's not important.

What I did do is I won in friendship. I had a great weekend with my buddies. But yes. The first day, bro. We get to the, we get to the hotel probably. what, 9 o'clock? Yeah, 915.

We're gambling early. Gambling, fast, often, early. Drinking, all of it. We get in a little high-limits room just because the big dogs aren't there for the weekend yet. They move the minimum down to like $100 a hand. By the weekend, they're saying

there's $5 million buy-ins and the minimum's on the table were like five grand. Right. But we find ourselves a nice little corner and we get a little, we're flowing when the energy's high. High.

We realize we want to take a break, go upstairs. We'll see a cigar down at 3 p.m. Yeah. Yeah. Cigar down early. Going that thing around too. Point at the fucking guy.

We're chanting. Going rally hats. Yeah. All the language and terminology. The high point of the weekend for sure. But we want to go upstairs for, I guess, just to take a break and wait for somebody else to get there. Maybe I don't know. Hit a power hour.

Yeah. Yeah. And like, hey, let's play this game. Lucy. AC doocy. AC. Ducy. A.C.

Ducey, bro. Explain the, and quickly explain the. the details of the game. It's a very simple game. All right. So AC, AC Doocy, say Jack, we are playing and we put in a $100 minimum. That's what the minimum was, $100. So we're throwing in $100. You put in, you face up one card, face up another card. Say it's a four and a jack. You either want to hit and play the game, meaning you're thinking the next card out of my hand is going to be in between a four and a jack. If you're like, you would say pot, meaning you're betting what's in the pot. You would say pot, I'd flip up the card. If you're within the jack and the four,

you win the pot. If you're outside of the jack and four, just outside of it, not jack or four, outside of those two cards. You lose, you would just, you would have to pay whatever you bet. Yeah, if you bet the pot, you have to pay what's in the pot. So if it's $500 in the pot, you got to pay $500 in the pot. If you post, meaning you hit the jack or the four, you have to double the pot. I learned very quickly that this is not going to be the game that I want to partake in. I think after three hands, I was like, first two hands, it doesn't even get around to me. I don't even get to guess, right? Like somebody either wins or somebody won right away, and I'm like, oh, I just lost,

I just lose my money, gone. And the next time I got to go was like, I got like a nine and a seven. So I didn't get to actually, I was like skip. Because if you don't want to bet, you just say skip. Money stays in. It just goes to the next person. So, bro, these hands. or massive.

I'm talking stereotypical. You want an idea of NFL players gambling up in a hotel room. Yeah. This is it. Bro, you could literally, there was so much money on the table at one point. You could buy, pay, and full a 2023 Honda Civic. Yeah, there was a Honda Civic on the table of money. Now, when it stopped, when there's stuff in between that we can hit on too,

because Taylor, there was a big one where I'm like, I'm telling Taylor and I'm like, no. Right, because it was, I think the number was at 11. $7,000. 10 and a half was in cash in the fucking middle of the table. Standing there. And I'm getting nervous. And you can see it's one of those things where if you lose your money, you're not losing it to, you're not losing it to the casino where it's like, fuck, I bet 10 grand and I lost

it. Like that's all on you for betting that kind of money. You see your money go to your boy's hand and you're just trying to like, the guys are trying to barter with each other, like trying to like, hey, help me out, blah, blah, blah. You can see it's like getting, I'm sweating. And there's 10 and a half in the middle. And Taylor goes around, I'm telling Taylor, I go, hey, brother, I go, even if it's an ACE 2, you shouldn't do it.

And as he's saying that to me, it's my turn on what pops up, boys? Ace 2. But he's kind of making sense, I know, but if it happens, he's like, we won't know until it actually gets there. But I'm like, just the chances of an ACE 2 hitting. Because A's high, too low. Like, you're not guaranteed. The odds are very much in your favor.

So Taylor comes around. what shows an ace and a two. And I'm like... Or $10,500 on the table. And I'm like... Four cards left in the deck. Now, I did not know that at first. Because right away I go pot.

And we go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Just wait. Did you say pot? Yes, I go, fuck it, pot. Yeah. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no. Just wait. I was like, I cannot.

Like, I was like, Taylor, what if an ace or two happens? You have to pay not only the pot because you can't just miss. You either post. You're paying $21,000. to the middle. 21. 21 grand. I would have to put 21 extra grand in there.

Right. 10 and a half times two, 21 grand. He would have to put 21 grand if he happened to post. I'm like, I get that the odds are really in your favor. But if for whatever fucking reason

it's an ace or two, you gotta spend 21 grand. It's the afternoon on day one. Day one. Like it's 1 p.m. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. It's fucking 1 p.m. outside.

I told telling him, like, if you want to do it, like, everybody's kind of like, you know, you don't have to say, pot. You can say, I'll bet a thousand towards a pot. So if you win, you only win a thousand. If you lose, you pay a thousand. Or two thousand if you post. I, Will and I are legit. Now, Will is taking me like a parent, parental figure and brought me over to the corner of the room to give me a stern conversation about what could and could not happen. Yeah, yeah, we, the second

walk I got that. I got taken for a walk by Will. Will goes, bro, says the whole conversation, he just said to me, I look over, I go, hey, how many cards are left? They said four. Now, while everyone's arguing, because everyone is, once this money is getting this high, everyone's arguing about what I should do in the situation. While people are arguing, I do the number one thing you shouldn't do when you're playing cards. Taylor tried looking free. I started moving the cards out of the way to see how many aces, how many twos I can see. I saw one ace and one two.

So four cards. But right when he touches, everybody's kind of like, oh, I mean, I'm like, hey, you can't do that. Like, I'm on Taylor's side, but I'm like, you can't do that. I know. And that is fair. That is a fair thing you did. But I really in that position, it was like, I don't give the fuck how people view me. I need to make sure I'm straight. Bro, like, but that's how high the emotion.

That's how high this game was getting. So, and, like, what do you have there? And like, let's just say Taylor had like five grand. He's like, you can do half of that, just bet it. So then if you lose, you just pay what you have available. Because some people are having to start. You get to where it's like, it's not even there. The cash isn't even there anymore.

You got a Venmo at this point. Right. Or it's digital. It's in the air. It's in the cloud. So Taylor ends up betting it. What flips over a two? A two.

A two. A fucking two. And I'm like, bro. Fortunately, he had whatever he had bet at that moment. So all my money was now. All this money was gone. All my cash was gone. His cash to play with the weekend was gone.

I had other ways of getting money with the casino. So I was like, all right, we'll be all right. And then I think it was a big one on like a King 3. Wait, hey, let's not say too many names now. Pot gets up to $17,000. And someone pots it because it was age three, age four. It was King 3. King 3.

King 3. Something big like. Someone pots it. It hits a, you know, it posts. A three or a king. 32 or 34 grand to the middle. That's when everybody was kind of like, all right, this has gotten out of hand. We should figure out a way to stop this.

Right. So people ended up kind of getting some of their money. People got most of their money back and whoever played the best game got a little bit more on top. But I'm telling you. It's not worth going into right now. Yeah. You got your, you got your kid. You got cash back.

I basically got my money back, which I'm very grateful for. So, but that was fucking nuts, bro. I'm talking, and I'm sitting there looking at, like, JP and Mitch, like, I don't even know what these guys are thinking. They're thinking, they're thinking all their things that they could probably do and buy and live for, like, years off of. Yeah, at one point Mitch goes, hey, that's a year's worth of rent just sitting there right now. Yeah.

Yes. Crazy. Were you about to say that? Yeah, I was like, that's five months rent. Yeah. on the table and you guys are just throwing it around like it's nothing. Yeah, it's scary. I was sweating for you guys and I was had nothing to do with what was going on.

It was wild, bro. It was the most money I've ever seen in my entire life. Yeah. We were down on the tables once and we asked us the dealer like, what's the most money you've seen lost in one of these in blackjack? Casually. She says $87 million on one hand of blackjack. One hand. And she says also the highest.

I've ever seen one was the same guy in the same sitting, $127 million. It's like, bro, how do you, how do you fucking, and I hope she was lying for theatrical purposes. Like, loki, shoot, maybe the story will get out. Think about billionaires that are out there. I know.

That's nothing to them. That would be nothing. That's what's crazy about the whole thing. Crazy, dude. That night, things went really well. This gentleman named Marty in the high roller table, he was leaving. We've had plenty of drinks by this point.

We're hugging Marty and his juju and that hugged. gave us, we got a dub night one at the aria. We got a big dub. All of us. Everybody won big, except for one individual who we will not name at this point. They lost pretty bad. Yeah.

But it was an incredible time. The next few days we did pods, it was amazing. The odds were 10 out of 10. I cannot wait for people. Maybe the best pods will and I have facilitated. Yeah. I think we both did a very good job.

Yeah, I think, yeah, it was fucking, they were awesome. I came up for you guys to hear them. They're going to be awesome. Now, obviously the Saturday games already played Jacksonville lost we I mean we all kind of thought that could happen they put up a good fight they had a phenomenal season I'm sure Jacksonville is on the

up and up a lot of people are using the phrase changing the guard and the AFC south of the Jacksonville Jaguars I hope that's not true because obviously your boys are Titan for life but at the same time like if that is like if I'm a if I'm a Duval fan I am extremely happy about all the turmoil that they have gone through and now are in a Lawrence is starting to play. He's starting to play ball. He's starting to play ball.

He started to come to life. They lose. What's the night game? Was it Eagles, Giants? I mean, I thought Jalen Hertz would be a little rusty coming off being injured and stuff like that. But they fucking. I forgot how good the Eagles were. Without asking.

Yeah, I forgot how good the Eagles were. It's like they are dominant. They are like that in the trenches. You legit really did forget who they were. Right. As far as how good they are across the board. They didn't have it. I don't think they really had the prime time games like that.

Or if they did, it was like Jalen wasn't in. It was Gardner Menchu. and then they had the biweek, so you kind of, again, kind of forget for a second. And then you're like, are they going to seem like the Baltimore Ravens in 2019 coming off the biweek? But, bro, they are fucking juggernauts, dude.

The Niners are going to have their hands full, big time, especially after the way they played the Cowboys, because Cowboys didn't play that well. No, they didn't. But I would say, like, we said this before in the last pod, the Eagles and the Niners are the two best put-together teams in the NFL. But I think the big difference is going to be the quarterback.

That's going to be a big difference. And I hate, I don't know if you want to put out who's going to win that now, but I'm ready to say mine. Yeah, I think it's going to be tough, man. I think it's going to be hard. I'm going back and forth just because we got bet the bus this week. I'm really like, I've said Niners are winning the Super Bowl for the last couple weeks now. And after watching this past weekend, it's like, fuck, the Eagles are tough.

They're tough, bro. That release is going to be dicey, too, with only two games on the board. Right. Two games on the board and probably double the money then. Dude, bro. Because we went two and two, I think, on the, if you're just going by games. Like, I was, the parlay.

Parlay's fucking just killed me, dude. I chase them all. I chase all the parlay. Let me just add one more leg here. Oh, that looks good. And you're saying all conservative bets you made this weekend. Do what? A couple of your parlayas were very conservative.

Like, oh, these, you even put the meter down to the point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, like, moved the line on, I just did like the Niners Money line. I did the over-under. I moved it down like 40. And the Niners to score 24 points and they fucking, they don't do it. Right.

They don't do it. And again, I feel like they just missed off. Like, dude, the situational awareness by the Dallas Cowboys. Both teams, honestly, we're playing really bad ball at the end of the game. Yeah, because who was it, Mitchell? Mitchell, we get to first down and runs out of bounds. Like, bro, you have to make a hard left turn in that situation and just go down. Yeah.

You don't need yards at that point. You need to suck up time. I was wanting a touchdown because they were at 19 points. I wanted somebody to break one and get up. Yeah, yeah, a classic Derek Henry runaway four minute. Exactly. And that like, really, if I'm Ezekiel Elliott, I am blaming Mitchell for that. Because if they would have done that, the game would have been over and they would never

been in that position to that dumbass play they did before. Bro, how about that last play the game? Like, what were you thinking? I was thinking everybody has this play. Everybody has, like, we used to call it, um, Cheetah when Kevin Wisenhunt was in, where you would literally be like all the office linemen off the field. except for the center, because the center would snap the ball. And then it is basically just playing backyard football, lateral passes only, hoping to God.

Like, it's your Hail Mary attempt when you're out of a Hail Mary range. Now, what did you guys? When I saw Zeke do that, I legit just felt bad for him. Hands were outside. He had not a lot of knee bend. Like, that's bad. You know Zeke's out there thinking, this is going to be fucking horrendous. No.

I think the opposite. I think when they put that play in probably week two of the season, maybe even during camp when you're going over situational stuff on Saturdays, Zique gets like, hey, Zick,

you're going to snap. And he's probably bragging the boys like, man, I watch this shit. And he's snapping and it's hitting Dak right in the chest

and he goes, man, anybody can do this. Like he's literally probably bragging the guys. Now, situation comes up and my man gets his hands

put on him. I saw that happen. I go, this place fucking dead. The minute I saw Zique started stumbling to the ground, I go, this is, it's over.

And then Dak throws the ball. Like a little like, playing around, basically. Yeah, buddy and he gets his ass fucking smacked. I'm like, what a stupid

fucking play. He's integrated. Yes, the only worst play I've ever seen than that is Indianapolis Colts on that, on that fake punt. But yeah, against the Patriots. Now Pat McAfee has come out and said they weren't supposed to snap the ball in that situation. If we're going to believe Pat in that type of situation, then that is the

worst football play I've ever seen. That shit was so embarrassingly terrible. And I can't imagine the hate right now. I know Stephen A. Smith, him and his hairline, we're fucking. and laughing their ass off at Dak Prescott because they hate the Cowboys, him and his hair.

It's basically like people are saying like a legacy game. Yeah. You know, how's that gonna? And they kept saying it on the broadcast. They're like,

hey, things are shaping up exactly like last year's game. Things are shaping up for Dak Prescott to have his statement game that he's going to do X, Y, and Z.

And he just couldn't put together. I can't play quarterback. So I have no room to throw shade, but the shit looked bad. Yeah. And also another person to blame is that fucking tight end. Shultz.

Casually catching the ball and just stepping out. buddy, this ain't college, you had to put both of the little boys in the ground before you hit the white paint. You try to make sure you get four steps in. Like, you don't just think, oh, I got this and then casually catch it. Oh, yeah, just go to the ground. Put them bitches in and fucking fall off the side. And then the clock kept running because he, look, he was casually going out of bounds, got in and then just kind of walked versus like fighting forward to get out of balance.

And then Brock Purdy had another bad play too at the end of half. Was it the end of half or the, uh, was it? I can't really remember, but I remember it was like it was the end of half. and there was like eight seconds left and he looks and goes to his like third or fourth read that's like bro you gotta get that fucker out of there so you have enough time they almost they almost lost that I mean

big work day for for Madden ratings people yeah you gotta bring the awareness big fucking day out of him bring those awareness ratings down on some of those guys that shit is bad bro Schultz that was that's just really bad ball Mitchell it was a mistake that a lot of people have made in the past but you would think Kyle Shadahan goes over that shit every single week. And you got to know, four minutes.

Like, no penalties. If you, there's no holding in four minutes. Like, if you hold, you get beat for a TFL, that's better than a hold. There's no penalties, stay in bounds. And if you're injured, unless it's like broken, you have to get off the field. Yeah, like, unless you're dying, you have to get off the field. And that happened in two minutes for

the Cowboys as well. They're going into half and they were throwing the ball and Pollard gets a high ankle sprain. High ankle sprain's hurt. I've had them. That shit sucks. But you got to hobble your way off that field. They keep that the clock running. Or,

I'm sorry, you have to hobble off the field so they can either clock it or go because they had to burn a time out in that situation. Yeah. That's just tough. That is a tough,

tough deal. Then you go to the, what's up? No, go ahead. I was going to say, then you go to the AFC, the Bills Bengals.

Yeah. Joe Burroughs fucking, I don't know why. I always feel like I end up just not thinking about the Bengals, but the last couple years now, like Joe Burrow is the fucking man, bro.

And it's, it's, it's sad if you're a Josh Allen fan because before this season in the middle of the season it was Patch from Holmes Josh Allen 1A 1B like those are the two dudes in the AFC and everyone's kind of like hey Joe Burrow is a fucking stud

like don't get a tuition my man can sing that thing he can rip that thing he can rip that thing all over the yard the only situation is is like these are these are the two studs that is what it is Josh ends up declining late in the season a lot of turnovers he wasn't thrown as well

he's got an elite skill set that a lot of guys don't have using his legs in certain situations. But now, after the game yesterday, you kind of sit there. And if you were to go one, two, three right now, it's Mahomes, Burrow, Allen, if you're going to rank those quarterbacks just based off of this last game. My question is, do you think Joe Burrow becomes number one if he gets a Super Bowl this year? It's hard to say. I mean, yes, right?

Mahomes is only not one? I would think so. He went to the Super Bowl last two years. And if he wins it this year? Yeah, but the argument is, is, um, Mahomes has been the Super Bowl, it seems like every year. And I know that's a skewed number, right? They've lost the AFC championship.

They've lost in the Super Bowl. But I feel like... But if Joe wins this weekend, he will have beat the Chiefs the last four games in a row. Four games in a row. And I honestly believe with a Patrick Mahomes ankle, you've got to lean towards the Bengals. I think the Bengals are winning it.

I think the Bengals are winning this weekend because I really think, like, I know Pat's going to be a badass and be out there and play or do everything possible to play. But I just think coming off of a high angle sprint, I mean, you know how high ankle spurs. Some guys might miss up to six weeks with a high ankle sprain. High angle sprained suck.

And you can only, like, you legit make it worse if you play on it. Yeah. Like, he played on it because you got the adrenaline going. You know, he took a tort all shot in the locker room. Like, you're doing all these things. Yeah, the next two days, bro, you probably feel like your leg is broken with the high ankle sprained. He's probably in a boot right now. Yeah.

He's probably in a boot right now. And he still grimaces when he walks in a boot. Thinking to myself, how in the fuck am I about to make this happen this week? Now, you know, he's going to do anything possible to get there. You're going to shoot that shit out. that thing's going to be taped to the nines. He is going to do whatever it takes. Now, on the flip side of saying Joe Burrow, if he wins, he's like the number one quarterback, if Pat Mahomes takes his team of the Super Bowl and wins the Super Bowl with that ankle,

Goat. Goat. This generation's goat. Just throw that around so. Yeah, you just fucking threw that to win real fast, buddy. But this generation's quarterbacks, which are an incredible group of quarterbacks, right? The three we've already mentioned, Lamar Jackson's in there. Trevor Lawrence is now coming along. Like, there is a crazy amount of talent at the quarterback position in the NFL right now at a very young age. He goes and takes them boys to the Super Bowl

and wins the Super Bowl. On that ankle, yeah. He is. Go to that generation. Of that generation. Of that generation, dude. Yeah. I agree with that.

It is fucking cool. Now, I do think the, I think the Bengals are going to, I think the Bengals are winning. Fairly easy. Oh. It seems like the Bengals do a great job on defense.

That's what I'm saying. I feel like they'll get after. Yeah. They'll get after Pat a little bit. Kansas City is like the Big 12, dude. They fucking air raid that thing out, but for whatever reason, they'll go shot for shot in games with other teams because their defense, like, can't get it done.

And I know that might probably hurt to hear from. Yeah, and I don't feel like they got an old line like that that's going to protect him. Because also the high ankle sprained, isn't it his right ankle? Mobility. That's his back foot. Yeah. I think it's his right ankle. It is.

I think the Bengals see blood in the water and it's going to be a long day for the Kansas State Chiefs. That's what I think. Wow. That's what I think. What's so funny? So you're undecided on San Francisco and Eagles, which is fair. I am that one decided.

But right now you're willing to stamp it. Well, you and the Chiefs I've got a weird fucking deal going, bro. And I know that's what people might think. But also, if you look at what's what just unfolded over the weekend, I think that's a fair thing to say. Right.

But you can't count out Pat Mahomes, that dude was literally jumping in the air just to throw a little toss over to Travis Kelsey. He was doing some things even then. Now, I'm counting him out. Chad, is it Chad Henney? Michigan legend takes him on a 98 yard fucking drive.

It does an incredible job. Dices the boys up like it's no big deal at all. Was literally out there being a field general crushing it for the boys. You put him in the game. He's a stud too now. They have an elite offense. I don't know what their defense is statistically, but it really seems to me like they're obviously the lacking piece

that needs to figure it out, which is crazy. Yeah, because they have Frank Kark. They have Chris Jones. They have an elite front that is scary to play against. but Joe Burrough's about to get nasty on them boys He's about to get nasty Joe is Joe cool dude The fucking we were talking about this when we were working out this morning That slow-mo video in the snow where Joe fucking rips that thing

And it hits a spinny hits a 360 piece And then the receiver's not even in the fucking screen at that point So he's like yo where's he shipping off this rocket to He shifts that rocket off to the left side He just does a cool little spin Arms flopping in the air like Gumby And all of a sudden that little thing just places it perfectly that wire receiver, it's incredible.

Look at this. Fri-pup. He's just so fucking cool about it, too. Like, that is swag. That is cool. Before Joe Burrow got to the Bengals, I don't care who you are. I don't even care if you're a Bengals fan.

You look at those helmets of that uniform and that team, he'd be like, man, they fucking suck. Joe Burrell makes that shit cool as hell. I don't know. I don't know, Chad O'Sonko back when he was playing. They had a couple 12 and four seasons. It was nice.

Eddie Dalton, dude, the Red Rocket? What was it? Carson Palmer? Yeah, Carson Palmer. I mean, but still, like, they were never like a team, you'd be like, oh, we got to watch out for them. Joe Burroughs legit making them Super Bowl contenders. Like, I guess it's year and a year out now, right?

He said as long as he's there, they will always have a shot at winning the Super Bowl. They were talking about the AFC championship game being in Atlanta. They said, go ahead and get those refunds, boss. Yeah. I think they win by double digits. Oh, it's getting stronger. I don't know about double digies, oh, me. I don't know about double digits, but I do, I think right now, if you're just looking at the game,

this is a Monday. This is a Monday. This comes out on Tuesday. You got to look at it and say, You have no idea how Pat's feeling. He can shoot up all the things in the world, all the tort all in the world. He can literally numb the ankle. It's still going to fucking hurt, dude.

Who are you picking? I'm picking the Bengals. Not by double digits, but I'm picking the Bengals in that game. What do you think, Jack? You're back there laughing. No, I was laughing just because you have a vendetta against... He really does, bro. Which is tough, too, because, you know, obviously Nebraska fans are tuned in.

They'll listen to the Matt Roo-Pod, and Nebraska loves their chiefs, too. Because that's, like, the closest pro team. No, I think the Bengals are going to win. I think they're going back to Super Bowl. The Eagles 49ers game is the toss-up to me. But I want to see the 49ers in it, especially for our benefit, once we're out in A-Z for the Super Bowl, because we have a lot more connections with the 49ers.

But I don't see the Eagles letting up after this past game. It's tough to say that the 49ers can be able to handle them. But that's the game I'm looking forward to, I think, most. Yeah, that one's fucking awesome. That game is going to be elite, dude. It really is. Both games. I'm legitimately excited to watch football this weekend.

It's going to be incredible. One thing to mention on the Buffalo Bill's side, man, is what a fucking story that would have been if they were able to pull it out against the Bengals and go win the Super Bowl? The DeMarre Hamlin. Demar was there. He was there. There was a hilarious picture, by the way, that... You guys seen, though, the conspiracy theories going around that that wasn't even DeMar

Hamlin at the game because they don't show his face one time on the broadcast. He's running a hood, too? So there's something there. I'm not saying that's my conspiracy. You are the one saying it right now. The internet is go look it up. There's a lot of people out there bugging about that. DeMar Hamlin was not actually at that game.

And they had someone just dressed up as him as a way to get the fans ready. Because they had him on the broadcast the whole time. And he's completely put it up, covered face to toe. Like you don't see hands. You don't see anything. Just something to think about. I think I want to buy that stock too. Do you really?

I think so. What do you think tomorrow is then? I don't know. That's where it gets. The rabbit hole goes deep. And we all know. Before the game, they were talking about announcing him walking out of the tunnel. And the person we were seeing, Damar or not, he seemed like he had some, you know.

He was like there, like moving well. Like when he got off the golf cart, it was almost like he had a little jog into the locker room. Some person stitched it on TikTok and they were talking about their mom as a cardiovascular surgeon. And they're saying with what he went through that you shouldn't be able to put your hands above your head this far out of what was happening to him. And they show a close of him in the box. And he's doing this. And he's like cheering.

Wow. I don't know. I have no stance on this. I just like to present it. Yes. Yes. And that's a great job going through those rocky waters, right? Because we don't be disrespectful to DeMarr in his situation.

He might be an absolute alien and having amazing, like doing what he's doing is, according to the cardiovascular mother. Who knows? It's a big deal. I was told by people that are in the world of knowing cardiovascular stuff that when this first went down, this is literally the next day. I'm having a conversation with people that, like, they were saying he's got a little to any chance of even not being in a wheelchair for the rest of his life or not being, you know, supported in some type of way. Now, I'm incredibly happy that he is now being all right. Like, what a scary scene.

We could have all, because of it, like we are trying to be a sensitive of possible situation. We're just talking about what we were told and what's out there having the conversation. It's all speculation. One thing to not speculate, though, is the Nebraska cornhusers got themselves a fucking head coach boys. They got themselves a fucking stud. This man, Matt Ruhl, came and sat on this little bitty couch and was out there putting out fucking, he was like a modern day philosopher the way he was talking to us. He was talking about how his foundation goes to the team, what he does, the precedent he's going to set,

what he does and does not want in the building. the types of guys that are going to take Nebraska back to that 90s prevalence, I believe the word is. He was, I got fired up, even as a Michigan fan, you're like, damn, this is going to be great for the Bay 10. A guy like him, his attitude, his mindset, I can only imagine how you feel, Willie. Everybody knows where I'm at. I think Nebraska will be back sooner than we all like to speculate on. How soon? And I say we all, I mean the haters.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I think we're, you know, I think we're going to, we're going to, we're going to bowling this year. Well, you're going bowling no matter what. We're going bowling no matter what, but I think we're going to have a winning record. I think we hit at least seven wins this year. Beat Michigan?

I'm sure. I'm sure. I'll find a way to figure that out by the time that game comes. At win or lose, though, we can all agree. Matt Rule is a guy that you want leading your team. Right. He is all time. Yeah, he's a real deal.

And I love his transparency. I love the way he was talking about the adversities he's went through. even in the instance where we were like, okay, you get fired, but obviously people, you know, being a fired head coach these days, you get the, what is it called? The money that they get, what's that called? The buyout, the buyout money that they get. It's like, okay, what kind of adversity were you really in? And then he goes in and talk about it. I think people will enjoy hearing that. They're enjoyed a lot. And there is a very important document that is discussed on this, on this bus that you will have to turn in, tune into. And I hope you guys really enjoy it. Should we get to the episode? Yeah. Before we do, Bustin one and a half week, so I guess it'll be like a week left of the Budweiser merch. Yes, the Budweiser bowtie merch. If you zoom in on Jack's Beanie, all of our merch with that logo will not be sold anymore on our site by the end of this month. So the pockettees are bestseller. Our hoodies. I'm not wearing one. Any of that stuff. The beanie's all that. It's going to be gone. the end of the month.

Get that stuff. Thank you guys for making that number one throughout basically our entire existence. Entire existence. Unfortunately, we got a little C and D and we will no longer be able to sell it. Yeah. With that being said, let's get to the episode right after.

Wait, do we do shout, no free shoutout on this pod? My shout out goes to the vibe the day one take off going to Vegas with the boys. The hype, the energy, the vibes. They cannot be killed. That's my shout out, no free shout out. My shout-out, no-free shout-out is going to when you're in college and you have a hard-fought grind Monday through Friday and you get done and take that deep exhale and you know, hey, we worked hard. Now it's time to play hard with the boys.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I got the world. A little deal. All right, let's get to this episode, but before that, let's talk about sport clip. Consider this. Not every hairstyle is created equal. Many stylists don't have much experience cutting men's hair, but you do not know until it's too late. at sport clips all stylists undergo specialized training specifically in how to cut and style men's hair making them not just stylus but scissor cutting scholars and fade fanatics after all it's not just an

average it's not just any average haircut this is a this is the big leagues we're talking about and these are hair cutting professionals so don't hand your bushy old noggin over to just anyone with a pair of clippers sport clips takes cutting men's hair to another level which you is why they truly are the pros in men's hair. And with that, we will now get to the Matt Rule episode. Special guest with us today, Coach Matt Rule. Let's give this man a round of applause for being out here today. 23, Big Ten Championship Coach Matt Rule. From you coming on this bus, traveling all the way to Nashville to come see us, I wanted

to give you a gift. Will and I talked about it, and we thought you should have this. This is a University of Michigan-compton, Jersey. And I thought you might want to hang that up in your wall or something like that. Thank you very much. Yeah, when we went to Michigan, Will really wanted that. He thought I want to be a part of something special. So we got that for him. We were up there in Ann Arbor.

Michigan, they saw how well it went at Nebraska. And they're like, oh, we got to do some jerseys for the boys too. Because Nebraska, you know how they take care of you at Nebraska. No doubt. They really do. I was wildly surprised when we went there last spring, how they were literally for the boys the whole way. So much so that the next week when we were going to Michigan. and I was like sending text to people like,

hey, I need you guys to be straight. I need you guys to handle my boy. And they hook the boys up and everything, both outstanding schools. So let's get right into it. Dude, how do you defeat Michigan? They are, they're rolling. They're rolling right now.

They roll until they get to the playoffs. Well, I mean, it's a great game. You know, that game, I was actually in Mexico and my wife, she set up whale watching. And like... During the game? During the game. Oh, that's a great. picture my son on the phone like there's a little

a whale jumping out of the water my son's over there watching the game oh no way it looked like it was going to be a blowout but credit to coach harball the boys fought back I mean you know I know big 10 you know I was looking for the big 10 there you go that's what we need to do because as the big 10 we had guys in the back who are SEC fans Garrett and Jack

are SEC fans and they're like no it's every man for himself out there that's the Wild West in the Bay 10 we have to come together there's no doubt yeah because I think I personally think like the future of the big 10 we get SC we get UCLA in I think it's going to be like the premier conference. And so, but when the playoff expands, I'm excited to see what happens.

I think our league will, you know, especially when they start playing some home games, you know, if that doesn't being the deal, it's, imagine that game being played in Ann Arbor, what the difference would have been. Oh, yeah, dude, that hit no good point. Wouldn't stand a chance. So as I walk across Nebraska's campus sometimes and feel that wind whipped through you, I want to play games at home in December and January. When you get to the side of the hawks, you're going to get some food, you know what I'm

about that wind just eats you up bro it's in yeah yeah let's play football in that let's play football in those conditions right if you want to win the championship you you have to go on the road and play against somebody so as they put together the college football playoff i really hope the home component is a big part of it how what's been your first impression in nebraska i've been blown away i've been blown you know in this in this world like i took the job at bailer like i show up there's a camera in my face and it's like this is baler oh okay pretty cool like um get to carolina oh this is carolina like i actually look i actually got to go out and check out lincoln and And I really thought, like, I thought it was going to be like the small little town,

like Stillwater, Oklahoma or something. I got there in the downtown, the Haymarket, the campus community. Like, I've been blown away. I had no idea, though. I mean, I'm in Mexico. I'm at wherever I am. Someone comes up, go Big Red. Like, just the reach.

You are really like that. The reach is. I really like that. No doubt. I went to, uh, we were in Arizona. And I literally had to go to like a bank to sign like a document for a loan. And I just brought wheel with me because we're going somewhere right after. and the guy was like at first excited to meet me

and then saw Will and moved him out of the way just to say go big red and it was the Will Compton show for the next 25 minutes I love it got me a couple of percentages down on that interest I appreciate you for that That's my fucking boy right there Everywhere bro the Nebraska fan base is like second to none It sounds like a gang

Obviously I'm biased But I do think Nebraska's fan base is second to none out there No I that much I've seen But I just like the place You know I mean you know you take over a new team You never know what they're going to be like This is a really a lot this is a really good group of guys, too.

Like, they want to win. And I look back at this season, you know, it could have gone any which way. You guys have been on teams where, you know, things don't go the way you want them. They battled, you know, and to beat Iowa at the end of the year, they showed some grit and some toughness.

And there's a lot of guys there that really, really love Nebraska. So I'm anxious to get started for them, do the best I can for them. What do you feel like did it for you? Like, if you take out the fluff of saying, like, all the right things, like you got leaving Carolina.

Getting fired in Carolina. getting fired at Carolina you're keeping real you know what I'm like I'm like should I say got fired from Carolina Hey that's you've opened up a whole lot of doors for us in this interview No I mean I got fired like it is what it is

Like especially in that league I've been so I'll say this It's been so good for me when I'm talking to recruits And I'm even talking to guys in this team They're like coach I've been through this Or you know I just transferred because of this I'm like I was just I'm like same thing Same thing just happened to me that's happening to you

Like you know so often as a coach Like the coach and then the player Like, to me, I feel like I'm on the same level with them because I just went through, I went through elite adversity. Not many head coaches go through adversity because once you get fired, you're usually out of it. I was just able to get fired and then two months later find a job that fit me. So like I feel like I'm on a whole. I'm so much better for having been through it. Not having the chance of coaching that I felt that was really cool.

But to get fired and to be made fun of and to be a meme and all that stuff, like that either breaks you or turns you into something like supernatural. Like, not saying I'm supernatural, but I'm working hard to get there. I mean, it's just, it's been really good for me. It's been really good for me to go through that. When you say elite adversity and people would sit back and in the comments or anything else talk about relate to, okay, I'm sure it's real tough going through that adversity with a buyout that you have. A lot of coaches when they get fired, they get bought out, Scott Fraud.

Literally everybody. When Beau got fired, big buyout. There's big buyouts for coaches when they get fired. Explain the adversity you're talking about a little bit more because a lot of, a lot of people do. It's like, you do get fired. but there is a nice bag still sitting there for you when that does happen. No, no, I just mean more like, yeah, you know, it's the money's the money, right?

And the money's ridiculous. It shouldn't be this much money to coach. But the market's the market and I'm not going to say no, right? Right. I just think it's, you know, it's your kids. It's your family. Like, you know, people have a tendency. I think we all kind of look at athletes as like, even me as a coach, like, you look at athletes as, you know, just this entity.

You guys are people. You know what I'm saying? your people. You look at coaches and you see them as like this person. We're just going to criticize, but we're people, right? And so like for me, like walking out of a stadium

and put my arm around my son and, you know, he just had 50,000 people chanting for his dad to get fired. Like, that ain't fun. They had every right to do it. I got no issue with it. You try to teach lessons, but like you go through all that.

Your daughter's come home and she's like, we have to move again. Like, that's real. And I'll never forget, Brad Childress. He has no coached Children's was at Vikings. He called me, he texted me. I don't even know him. Yeah.

He said, Matt, you'll be so much better of a coach for having gone through this because, you know, part of my job, I have to fire coaches. I've had to fire players. Yeah. I've had to cut players. And when you go through it and you see what it feels like, the empathy, the, how public it is, I just think that's that part of it, probably the public part of it. We're like you, like you're dead man walking. And it's like, they didn't kill me. You know, I'm still here.

I'm still alive. So that part maybe just as a dad is hard. But not to your point. You make great money. It's all part of it. Like, this is the life I've chosen. It's like the mafia. Like, I chose to be a coach.

the highs and lows of it. But you go through some, the diversity is pretty tough for your kids when, you know, you're sitting there like, oh, I hope they're not reading this. I hope they're not reading that.

Usually they are. So old are your kids? I have an 18 year old son. Yeah. He's, he's definitely, yeah. He's like,

dad, dad, Steve and A. Smith is going in on you. And I'm like, oh, no. It is what it is, buddy.

But, but a nine and seven year old daughters. And they're the ones like, you know, my son kind of knows it. My daughter's, I kind of, when my son was,

I don't know, maybe nine or ten. I was coaching at Temple. I was an assistant coach at the time, and Andy Reed was kind of coming to the end in Philly. We went to a game, and the Patriots got up on the Eagles, and the whole crowd started chanting, fire, Andy. And so my son sitting there, he's eight or nine.

He's going, fire. I'm like, no, no, no, no. So when they started chanting to fire me, I'm like, pretty good company, buddy. Andy Reid's, he's the goat, so. Yeah. But I got a cool family, 18, 9, and 7. Yeah, that's awesome, dude. As a very new parent.

Taylor, obviously, he's a dad of two. Five and two. Five and two, yeah. Hearing you talk about your son being 18 and seeing absolutely everything, I'm more so asking, like, what is that mindset for you when you know he's reading and seeing all this stuff? And he's either approaching you, like, oh, I wonder how my dad's going to respond. How important for you is it to, like, respond in the correct way to show a lesson in those moments? Because I feel like, even though he's seen it, he's probably feeling like, fuck, man, I wish it was. blah, blah, blah, blah. But then he goes in and sees the way you respond, and it kind of

rubs off on him, like, man, he's kind of, he's responding to the way. I probably wouldn't respond that way. Yeah. Well, I mean, at some point in his life, and I think as parents, the mistake we sometimes make is we try to protect our kids from everything. No, we can't protect them because it's coming no matter what. Like, if you protect them until they're 18, the adversity or the crack that they have in their lives comes when they're 30, when they're 40, so it's about just teaching them how to respond to it. And I think for me, like, if I've done one thing well, I hope that after every game I've ever coach, win or lose, when I've been, I've been coached the year and I've been fired. Like, be the same guy. You know, like, come home after the game and

don't take it out on your kids. Don't take it out on your life. Don't don't know and talk to me. Like, like, if I say that my true, like, I love football. It's my passion. My purpose in life, I think, is to be a great man, a great husband, great father. So if I say that, I got to live up to that. And I have to live up to it in the hardest of moments. Like, the day after I got fired, like, did I, you know, did I take my kids to school or did I sit home and feel sorry for myself? Like, let them see what it means to truly be a man, to truly be the person you say you are. in the hardest of times. And so that's what I try to do.

And I tried to lean into it. And I tried to have the conversations with my son because, you know, when I was at Temple, I remember we beat Penn State. We ranked walking down the street. He was younger. And someone was like, Coach, rule, I love you. And I'd always say to him, is that real? And say, wow, did you love that?

I said, no, it's not real. Is that real? It's not real. What's real to me is that my players say, you know, coach did the best he could for me. My coaches say that. And my family says that. And if I teach that to my kids, you know, I don't want my kids growing. growing up thinking the world, you know, how the world sees them is who they really are.

Who they really are is what they do when no one's watching. You know, like I got my Twitter game. I'm trying to perfect my Twitter game. It's not very good, but I'm trying right now. But that's not who I am. That's just something fun that I do. Like, who am I in my darkest of moments, my toughest of moments? And then who are the people in your lives who show up in those moments?

There was, you know, think about this in the NFL. There were players on the Panthers who drove to my house just to check in on me and my family. That's awesome. Like, that's like, it's like, it didn't work out. for me, but I know I had some sort of an impact, at least on somebody. It wasn't perfect. But if they see that, if my kids see that, then hopefully they live a life and your kids live a life where it's like, you know what, we're going to have adversity.

How do we handle it? Yeah. When you're a head coach of a team now on the other side, you have to actually go on fire these guys. And your son, being 18 years old, has your son ever stepped in and been like, hey, I love this person or I love, or why would you do that? Like a player. Like a player.

Like, yeah, if you had to cut a player and like your son was like a big fan of him, was I'm sure he would come to the practices, meet these guys. and as all kids are, they kind of get drawn to one or two players. And sometimes you have to take goodbye to those one or two players. Like, how do you handle that with your son? Really hard. And honestly,

if there was a drawback for me as a pro coaches that I really struggled with that. Like after being a college coach for a long time, like I was used to like, you know, when you're a coach, you can, you're kind of, you're kind of taking this path, but you see where the end could be.

You see the potential in somebody like, hey, in three or four years. So I'm going to pour into that person knowing I get in the NFL, man. I was like, it's Saturday after a walkthrough. And they went, the GM walks down like, hey, we got to make a roster move. Who do you want to get rid of? And it's like, oh, my gosh.

They phrase it to you like that. They usually don't, is it, sorry, I hate to catch you off. But if a GM walks down, he's like, we had to cut a guy. Who do you want to, who do you want to cut? Yeah, sometimes it's like, hey, we need to make a move here. Is it this guy or this guy? How do you see it? Or we got to, you know, sometimes are like, hey, let's get, you know, every place

is probably different. But, you know, I work for some great GMs. And they always wanted to like, hey, Matt, how do I work? You know, let's work together. but I just had a hard time with that relationship part of it because it's like there's always this wall up between you and the player because when you walk down the hallway, they're like, hey, that's the guy that's eventually going to cut me. And it's going to come to an end at some point. You know, I had the unique perspectives of a couple guys I had coached in college were playing for me in the NFL. So I had this one relationship with them as their college coach as being like when they look back.

Ionitis. Ionitis taught me more. I'm, I'm preparing to be a really good college coach because Matt taught me a lot after having played for me in college and then gone through. being in the NFL for seven years and he trusted me like him and I would sit there and just kind of talk and he would talk to me

about what it felt like he's awesome and he said things to me that changed my coaching style like I didn't I didn't take into account because I can just not look at my Twitter I don't take into account what it's like for a 24 year old guy

like one of the things I think's wrong with the NFL's every play is graded like every play is graded by someone else and so like you know Oh my goodness and so I'm not talking about anyone I don't get myself crushed on this whatever but like guys are coming off game and it's like, you know, the world is telling them whether they played

what good or they played bad and no one really knows. Like, you and I could grade the film, we're two coaches, we might disagree. So the amount of pressure, the amount of stress and anxiety on these guys is overwhelming. And, you know, the locker room and the coaching staff, it has to be a safe play. You have to come in and, you know, we can coach you. But, you know, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt did a great job of teaching me like, hey, Matt, these guys are, these guys are a lot of pressure. They're under a lot of pressure, social media-wise, a lot of pressure, like with their

families like let's let's let's let's let's build a space where we can coach them hard but we can also we can also coach them the right way you know and so I think as I come back to college I'm seeing the same thing man like everything these guys do it's it's especially you know in major college football it's seen and so wanting to make sure it's a place where we push them but also kind of a safe space as well where you can make a mistake and know that you're still cared about yeah yeah besides the cutting part it seems like college is much more ruthless the fan bases go way harder. Like, I don't know how it is at Nebraska, but Michigan will skin you alive if you, they think you had a bad game or something like that. And that is, that is tough when you're a

college player. And I feel like the coaching staffs too. Well, like in the wintertime, like, you start doing those 6 a.m. morning workouts, guys are killing you. And I feel like just the process of college is much harder than the process of the NFL. The games are obviously more difficult in the NFL, but it is a long time to be around those kids because you're around them all the time. I don't know how it changes now because the NIA deals. I had guys. I had guys. from Michigan say, hey, I'm off the whole month of March. I'm thinking to myself, we never had a month off. Did you ever month off?

I think it was like May. Not like a month. We'd have three weeks off. Oh, shit. I never had that. What they call like fifth semester? In between like the end of the spring and stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, I never had anything like that. I need a spring ball until you start summer workouts. There's always like a three week thing because some guys can go back to class and they got to take like three or four hours of one class per day just to get that credit. Some guys wouldn't have to do it. Oh, damn. home with a workout program for like three weeks. You missed out on your home.

I missed out big time. I was in school always. It duped you, bro. They duped me bad. You were in school always, you know. Yeah, them grades weren't the best. I was the king of 2.0. I made a very, a plan A choice, and that is it when I got to college.

But it is, I feel like you're dealing with different maturity levels as well. Maybe these kids are 18 years old. You're basically, like, you have to do a good job of implementing the offense, defense, and special teams, but you're also, your job is on the line. with 18 and 22 year olds like does that add a level of stress to you or is it more of like hey we get the mold in a certain way as well yeah i think um i think for me like being in the NFL and seeing guys every week that i had coached playing on other teams i think um having a chance to coach some of them and then after you get fired like those guys reaching out to you like you know i've always said

you know my sort of my core philosophy is i want every player that plays for us to look back and say like you know what playing for them made my life a little bit better whether it's you know what i've got to play in the NFL i got a great degree They taught me something. And so sometimes when you go through that, like sometimes you don't know how people feel about you until you're dead. When you get fired publicly like I did, a lot of guys reached out to me. And it meant a lot to me. And I was like, you know, I crave that.

I want to get back to that. I think the good thing for me coming to Nebraska is it's my fourth head coaching job in 11 years. Like the mistakes I made early on, I'm almost embarrassed about things I did at Temple. Like, but I've learned. I've mastered kind of that craft of working with those guys over time, I hope. And so like I want to go there. I want to push him. I want to coach him.

I'm old school. Like, we're going to practice hard and I'm going to coach them hard, but that doesn't ever have to, that doesn't, I can demand them. I don't have to demean anyone. I don't have to, if I look back even in my time in Carolina, I feel like there's only one time that I truly regret, but really I don't think I've ever, ever threw anybody under the bus. Like, I don't think I ever said, like, well, we just don't have this or we don't have that

or it's this guy's fault. I tried to always, made for some awkward moments because sometimes I was probably trying to overprotect the guys, but I always feel like that's my job is that, like, you want to be a leader? Get out front, man. Like, take the bullets for your guys and we'll hope that your guys respond for you. And so I think if I do that, I'll have a chance to affect some of those guys' lives. And as I built my staff, I built a staff that I trust.

Like I have 14 former players working for me in some way. I got three guys from the play for me at the Panthers even, like working in different areas. I got guys from Carolina. I got guys from Temple from Baylor. I'm not hiring them because they're my friends. I'm hiring them because I trust them. Like they're going to work hard for the players. And I think that's what the guys need.

They need people they can look up to and they can help them through the trials and tribulations of me in 18, 19, 20, 21. That one time you regretting, Carolina, are you free to talk about that? Yeah, no, absolutely. You know, Cam Newton's one of my favorite, favorite players I've ever been around. Like, the brutal honesty

that he would share with me, the conversations every Tuesday, him and I would meet for an hour. We played Buffalo, and we called a play, and it was the fourth and one, we went for it, and Cam through the bubble out there was incomplete. And after the game, they asked me, like, what happened? And I wasn't even thinking about it with Cam. You know what I'm saying?

And I was thinking about it more like frustrated with us as coaches that we had that, you know. And so we're thinking that's going to be a quarterback run, get a yard. You know, they rotated the safeties, which changed the mic point. So Cam knew he was in trouble. So Cam's such a high-level thinker. He knew it. So he threw the bubble out. So when they asked me afterwards, I said, we didn't call that to throw the bubble.

Like, I didn't want to throw a bubble there. Right. The next day, I'm like, oh, my gosh. You know, sometimes they beat up coaches. You know, they beat up Zach Wilson after the Jets game. They beat up coaches. I wish people knew what it felt like to go have your adrenaline at like 200, have your heart to like 190 and you know you go walking in and in some media person's like here's this they're

going to ask you this they're going to ask you this they're going to ask you this and you have about eight seconds to get ready for the post game press conference and then that's one time for me it just got away from me and I didn't mean I apologized to cam he was great I mean he's ultimate professionals coach I got it but I just hated it you know because it came across like I was saying that about him and there's no guy like that guy was there at 11 o'clock at night and that guy was there at 5 o'clock in the morning like cam newton was a grinder and so that's the last thing I wanted to do was put him on the spot and it just came out that way and, you know, it's hard to put the toothpaste back in.

Yeah. Like in the bottle after that. But, you know, it's just sometimes like I let my frustration get me one time because it was mad because I thought we had a chance. And, you know, we just made a bad play call probably. Damn, dude. Why don't you think it worked out in Carolina? For me?

Yeah. You know, I think I took over kind of a tough situation. Like, you know, there's a lot of Hall of Famers on that team that were, that were leaving. And, you know, right off the bat, you know, they end up letting Cam go. and then Luke retired. And so I think if I look back, I would have just tried to do it faster. You know, I would have tried to, I would try to be a little more aggressive in free agency. I tried a big trade.

But that wasn't really the plan. I'm kind of a loyal guy. Like, if you tell me, like, this is how I want to do it, then I'm going to do it that way and I'm going to take responsibility for it. Even if maybe it's not always what I agree with. Like, if we say, hey, we're doing it this way, we'll do it. So I just, you know, I never got the offense going. Like, we went from like the worst defense in the league the first year. We were second to the second year.

I thought the defense was coming on. And even this year, like, I was proud the way they played down the stretch. Like, they played well enough and Steve did a great job. But I knew that team. Like, if you go back to my press conference as early, I said, guys, we just signed Baker. Like, just give them a chance. That's we have to play. Like, you know, a lot of teams start off one in three, one and four.

And they kind of make a run. You saw that this year with some teams. So I just thought once they won a couple games, the pressure would come off. Once I thought we got past the 49ers because that's a pretty good team. But, you know, it wasn't for me. And it was one of those things where I had picked up so much steam. Like the fan base was pretty agitated about me at the end of last year. They were agitated about me. And once that happens, it's really hard to stop it.

So, yeah, there's all kinds of things. Like, what if we would have done this? What if we would have done that? But I kind of tried to do in the NFL what I did in college, which was like a slow build to have a really good team. Whoever gets that job, I think they have a pretty good roster. I mean, you got Brian Burns, DJ Moore, Derek Brown, the offensive lines for you. He was drafted Ikey last year. You know, of course, like Corbett Torres ACL, but Taylor Moten's under a long-term contract. I think 20 to 22 starters are under contract next year. So I think it's a job that people should take because they'll have they have a pretty good roster there and a good culture in that locker room.

When you first get in there, you said be more aggressive in free agency and bigger trade, like how much of influence did you have in those things with the GM? Like I don't know how things work outside the Titans. I was only with the Titans. But it seemed like John Robinson, like he was running the show. And that's what it was. And I don't know how it usually works with a head coach at a GM. I think, you know, so I was the head coach basically.

I was their head coach for two years and five games. I had two GMs in two years. So, you know, obviously you have one and then you're trying to work with another one. I had Marty Herney, who's awesome and Scott Fitterer's as class as a dude as there is. There's not one, like, major trade we could have had that we didn't do.

Like, oh, we should have pulled the trigger on it. More like, looking back, it's like, hey, if you only have two years, man, let's go, let's go shoot our shot. Yeah, you could have been under the influence that you had time. Yeah, like, well, yeah, so, like, for me, if you say, like, hey, I just want this kind of built over three or four years. I'm a build over three or four years. If it's two years, and so I would have

probably just maybe made a trade, maybe trade it up for a quarterback or something like that. You go back over, we tried a lot of things as a quarterback. You know, we traded for Sam. I was happy to see the way Sam played down the stretch. You know, we traded for Baker. We brought Cam back. You know, so we tried a bunch of different things. So, you know, it just wasn't meant to be.

It wasn't the right time, maybe the right place. But I like the players there. I mean, I really do. Like, I turn on the 49ers. I love watching Christian Run Wild. Like, I love watching the Panthers play. Like I could watch Frankie Louvo play all day long, man. He's one of the best playing football players I've ever been around.

So I had good memories from it, but just didn't quite work out the way I thought it would. What was it like seeing Christian McAfra go to the Niners? So, you know, it's funny. He got traded. I texted him right away, like, I got fired. And then a little bit later, he gets traded. And he was like, hey, he said, he said, hey, coach. Christian McCaffrey out of me.

He called me. He's like, I'll call you right back. I said, don't call me. You got enough going on. So just if you ever need me, call me. And he's like, you know, he's such a great dude, man. So the next day, my wife and son are at the airport. They're getting ready to fly up to Penn State.

That's my alma mater. And there's a white out. And the AD there is a good friend of mine. So we just wanted my son. You know, he wanted to go to college visit, just get him away. So they're at the airport. I'm going to babysit the nine and seven-year-old. I'm a daddy for the weekend.

And they're like the FBI. And Christian comes walking in. And my son sees him. Christian just got traded. He's getting ready to go to fly to San Francisco. Turns makes the left. walks over, hugs my wife. And I'll just say, my wife is one of those wives, like, even in the NFL, just like, even in

the NFL, she would have a different position group over every Thursday during the season. I never man it's, it's not like, hey, we need your, like, DJ Moore and Robbie Anderson. It was like 12, 15 at night. She's like, guys, you have to leave. It's time to go. Like, those guys would come over. We would kick it, hang out. So she felt part of the team.

And so I get fired. She doesn't get to see anyone. Like, there's no closure for her. She's some friends. Yeah. So Christian walks up, hugs her. Hugs Bryant. and said some things.

I'll keep, you know, just set some really positive things to them. They kind of needed that. And that's, that's who he is, man. So, like, when I see what he's doing right now, I'm fired up. I'm fired up for him because he deserves this opportunity. You know, he got run a lot. Last year at Stanford, his first couple of years in the NFL, like his percentage of carries, I mean, was elite.

So unfortunately, during my time, you know, he had some injuries. I feel like though his body rested. And, you know, he didn't make all, he didn't make the Pro Bowl this year. I told him, I said, well, just settle for being the Super Bowl MVP. How about that? Yeah. I think he could. Yeah.

And my first overall draft pick in the fantasy. Nice. Yeah, I was, those was a smart move by me. When we played the Panthers, it was always like, that's, you stop him, you win the game. Like, he was like a ridiculous percentage of touches, like running and catching the ball. No doubt.

Guy's elite. Yeah. Truly elite. Yeah, he is. What, um, being the head coach there and then seeing him get traded, is it kind of like, what are, what, why would the Panthers trade him away? He's the best player.

Yeah. I'm afraid to touch that one. Okay. But I just think, I just think, but I do think, I do think they got a solid question Willie, nice job Yeah, because he is Yeah, because once they

They fired you and they got rid of him Everyone's like, yo, what are the Panthers doing? Right, right, right. And I think that's a lot of credit to the guys in the locker because they made a run.

Like I told them when I got fired, I went in, you know, I went in talk to the team after I got fired. And, which does not happen. Yeah, but I, you know, and Mr. Tepper gave me that opportunity,

which I appreciate. And I told that, and I went in and I talked about the game first. Like, I went in like, like, they didn't know I was fired yet. And I went and I said, here's what I see from the game. Here's what I think it affects us.

And then I said, hey, I'm not going to be your coach anymore. I said, but, you know, all I ask every guy every year is like, hey, in the offseason, handle your free agency, handle your business, handle your money, do what's right for you. But once we sign up for the year, just ride it out to the end of the year full bore. So I was here for you guys the whole year. I'm being asked to leave. But that doesn't mean I'm not in it with you. Like, I hope you guys win.

And I expected you guys to win. Because when I started the year off, I looked at Tampa Bay and I looked at Atlanta. the first couple games, and I looked at New Orleans, and I said, guys, we're going to have a chance to beat all these teams. Now, I don't know about the rest of, you know, FC West and all that, how they're good. But I thought we had a chance. And so they came down the stretch.

Credit to Steve Wilkes. He's a really good coach. Kept them together and the guys did a good job. And they had a chance at the end to go win it. So that's good experience for them because they might have a chance to make a run next year if they can keep that, you know, team together. Steve took over his interim head coach at some. Yeah.

And so they're still trying to find a head coach now? They are, yeah. Is he a candidate or no? I don't, they don't, they don't, I don't know if they were, and I'm sure he used. Usually they say like, hey, this internet, he's not going to be blah, blah, blah, we're going to start interviewing these guys and stuff like that. Do you speak on Coach Wilkes for a second? Just because I know back when I was in Washington, I feel like he's been a name that's been in the circuit for years now on being a head coaching candidate. Well, he went out to Arizona.

It was the head coach in Arizona and just kind of in that transition. Right. I'm like the same thing I talk about. Sometimes you just kind of get caught up, you're a great head coach. It's just the right, the wrong place at the wrong time. I think Steve, right around him after about a month. I remember saying to him like, hey, I don't know what will happen here, but if I can ever help you in this, because I just could tell his leadership and his command.

And so, like, you know, they're going to go through the head coach and search us right now. And they just went through it in college. You can go through it in the NFL. And they're going to talk about all these really cool coordinators. And to me that, you know, being a head coach and being the coordinator is about, like, you know, you're both doctors. But, you know, one's a, you know, cardiologist and one's an oncologist. Like, like, it's completely different. Like, the things you deal with as a head coach, especially in the NFL, you're dealing with the GM, you're dealing with the owner.

You're dealing with, you know, player issues. You're dealing with all these things. You're dealing with game management. You're dealing with situational football. Steve, I think, is great at all those things. I think he's an elite head coach. He has experience. You know, a lot of times you get fired as head coach and they don't bring you back.

Well, you've got all, you have experience. You know, you've seen what worked. You've seen what doesn't work. And the coaches I look up to the most, the Andy Reid, the Bill Belichicks, those guys. By the way, those are the first guys that reach out to a guy like me when I get fired. Those are the first guys. That's awesome. I mean, like, they're classiest.

But, like, they went somewhere. they were head coaches. They went through what I went through and their best days were ahead of them. That's why when I came to Nebraska, I was like, can we do it here? I walked around. I looked around.

Saw the fan base, saw all the support, saw everything. I said, I'm going to come here. I'm going to make sure my best days are ahead of me, not behind me. Yeah, buddy.

Can I do it here? Yeah, I believe he can. But if you look at your history as a head coach, it's a slow burn. And then all of a sudden, at Temple, were you guys, three and nine your first year?

No, my first year were two and ten. Two and ten. Yeah. But then after, After a while, like you said, you guys beat Penn State, you guys were ranked. Right. And stuff like that. So how do you see it going in Nebraska the first year?

Because two years ago, best three and nine team in the NCAA. Absolutely. I don't think it's even arguable anymore. People still like to argue it. Yeah, because people like to punch up. Yeah, yeah, it's factual. And so then last year, it just didn't go as well as possible. There was a lot of turmoil.

Obviously, Scott Frost getting fired earlier in the year. You guys lose off American soil. It does not count. but that's made put you into a bit of a spin right yeah so now like you're looking at your roster one of your bedtime leaders was it garret nelson yeah that's his name goes to the NFL who like when we spoke to him in spring he was like lived breathed corn like he was the example of like yes black shirt yeah black shirts and so who do you i mean we're not going about your roster because i don't even know the guys on there i would never ask you to speak about your guys right but how do you see it

go our your guys is guys how do you see it going in this first year yeah because you got some winnable games the first three games that fourth one's going to be tough but that you can you have an opportunity to possibly be three and oh going into the bus and bowl you know what i'll say this um i always look like i always said to myself when you go to a place the first thing you have to do is establish like the foundations of how do we work so i went to temple i had been i had been an assistant coach the year before i left and went one year of the giants and came right back to be the head coach. But we were moving up in conference. They were going from the Mac to the kind of the big slash American as it was for me. So there was a there was like a, if you go up in conference,

something's, you know, it's going to be hard. So we went to high school, four eight and a going up to five. So like we were playing better competitions. The roster had to catch up. So you're two and ten. I played, I just played all the freshmen. I said, I'm going to play these guys. And then four years were going to win the championship and we did. Right. We went to 10. and the seniors must have hated you. And I played the seniors that wanted to do it my way. and some of them were awesome. Yeah. I just inserted a lot of the young guys as well.

When I went to Baylor, there was, I think, 45 scholarship players. We had three offensive linemen. I moved the two tight ends. I moved one to center, and I moved one to left tackle. And so I was taking over after a scandal, like we were 1 in 11. I mean, but it was hard. But that was more about what the out of the external. And Baylor was more of like a welcome at in the Big 12.

Yeah. At that time. And so it's just, I was taking over a hard place or a hard time. I would just, so I don't want this to be a slow. over and I want to start off because I feel like that year for them was last year. And the thing that I respect about the team, because this opportunity was around for a while and I was just watching games. And what I respected about Nebraska was the players, they had just lost their coach.

They had some tough losses along the way, but they just kept battling. And like, to me, that's half the battle. Like, if you can get a group of people to commit to playing hard and fighting, even when you're kind of out of bowl contention, like, if you go to Iowa, the last game of the year, and Iowa has to win that to go to the Big Ten West and you beat them. There's something in that locker room. So that fired me up. That was solid.

It was a solid. It was both that. Yeah. So I don't know. I don't know how good we are yet. I don't think. But like, I just know this.

I know that we're starting from a place of, like, got a big physical looking group. And I think we've done a good job recruiting so far. And, you know, they changed football on me during my time away. Now, like, we're already up to like 32 players that we can sign.

Like, when I got to bailout, I can only sign 25, 20, you know, I can find a way to sneak somebody in there kind of some unique rules. But, I have more options available to me right now. So I'm excited. You know, I just want us to be the kind of a team. And sometimes it's hard when you have a fan base that's really passionate.

I just want to be the kind of team that's really humble. Like, hey, we feel like we can win every game. We also know we have a chance to lose every game. So let's just work about worry about today. Like I got guys talking to me about the bowl games next year. I'm like, whoa, let's just go to the weight room, guys. Yeah. Go to go eat.

Let me go to class. Handle that because I'll be handling that. No matter what you guys are going to a bowl next year. No matter what you guys will be in. a bowl. You're the buss and bowl. We created a bowl so we could be bowl. So no matter what you guys will be in a bowl. So you talk about bailer you're walking into a situation, a bit of a scandal going on.

It was an empty roster to say the least. Did your mindset change when you walked into Nebraska and you like, could we do this here? Because when you walk into Baylor, I'm sure there's a piece of you that's like, this is a lot to work with. This is a lot. Like, how am I going to make this work? Because I'm curious too, why Nebraska. Like, again, you come off

a head coaching job in the NFL. I'm sure you got once you got fired, it was like your name was everywhere for a lot of big college job. And I'm just curious like, yeah, why Nebraska what was so enticing about it to go there? I think for me, it's one thing to go somewhere and try to take a program to someplace they've never been. You know, this is getting a program back to where it has been. And that's completely different because you know they have the resources. You know they've been there before.

They've seen that rare error. And so for me, it's like, okay, they've done it. So we know that. So what are my questions? Well, do they have the facilities? Absolutely. really a big lesson that I've learned is to make sure that I am my plan is similar to the plan of the people that I'm around you know what happened in the NFL like you know sometimes you have differing views and so when I talked to the athletic director Trev Alberts who had played there he believed in the same things I believed in so it's not like I'm trying to convince him though this is the way to do it trust me like he's like no mad I see exactly what you how you feel um Ted Carter who's who's the president of the university like when I talked to him he was the admiral that Navy when they were rolling in the triple option and we went down there and beat them.

So he knew what my teams look like to Temple. He was like, Matt, just build that team here, like that physical. Like, I want to run the ball. Yeah, I want to play defense. And that's not, some fan bases don't really like that. Like some fan bases, like, if you're not going no huddle spread, they don't want to come to the games. Nebraska people want us to run the football and play defense. They want us to dominate the line of scrimmage.

They want us to be physical. And that's kind of who I've always been. So those things all came together. But the biggest question I had was, can we recruit here? Yeah. Like, can I get players here? And I actually looked at Michigan. I looked at Ohio State.

I looked at Penn State. And whereas maybe maybe 15 years ago, Penn State or Ohio State, you know, most of their kids came from that state. Everyone's kind of recruiting nationally now, right? So I went back and said, let's watch the kids. There's some really good football players in Nebraska. I thought, hey, you know, we can get players. Because if we get good players there, we'll coach them, I think, and we'll play hard and we'll find a way to win. And I took a shot.

And my wife knew it the whole time. She's like, this is the place for you. Really? I've been married for 24 years, going on 20. Like, I've learned to listen to her. She said, this is the place for you. This is where you fit. Because she knows the way I want to play football.

I want to go out there and just make it a battle of physical wills. And I think that resonates with people in Nebraska. Yeah. We got some heat going here, boys. Nebraska. He's doing well. So if you're trying to set down a foundation, this is the way you want to play football. You go up in the locker room, right?

In the O-line locker room of the Tennessee Titans, it's speed off the ball, physical toughness. Like those are our foundational pieces. What are you, what is day one implementation of making sure your foundation is set at Nebraska? So I, I have about four things I believe and then I'll talk about. I have my first team meeting last night.

And I'm always because I don't let cameras in. And they can be a camera following me around. I want it always to be the players. But there's, there's a book called The Greatest Salesman in the World by Augmante. You know, in it they have 10 scrolls. There's one called the scroll mark three. It's,

I will persist until I succeed. And at one point it says, It's this long, you know, if I read it to the team, I started off by reading it to the team. Yeah. And it basically says, you know, I am not a sheep. I refuse to walk, talk. I think like a sheep. The slaughterhouse of failure is not my destiny.

And so it's like, I am a lion. Like, so like, keep going. So to me, keep going. So to me, I'm reading that out loud to me. I want to keep hearing this. I can't, I can't do it. I have it in my phone. But that's like my life first.

Like, and that goes back to what I said, what happened to me, when I said, I got fired, it was like all these things I've been saying to players for, Hey, control what you can control. I have this little saying like, what's next. Like, hey, whatever happened, good bad, what's next? I literally had to wake up every morning and go, what's next. So I, I am so clear-minded now. Like, hey, guys, like, all we're going to ask you guys to do, not be perfect.

I'm not going to be perfect. Just be a lion every day. Attack everything in your life. And that's really how I see it. So, you know, our core values are we want to be tough. We want to be hard working. We want to be competitive. I mean, I want them to compete at everything they do.

I want them to work hard. And I want them to be tough. I want them to overcome, overcome the, overcome the, excuses of life and just attack everything in their lives. And so if they are those three things, tough, hardworking competitive, then we'll build a big physical team that's sound and smart and accountable. I'm juiced up. Hey, hey, that was some fire shit.

Like, that was. I stole it from a book, though. No, no, no. You said it with energy. Like, some people can just read a book and be like, oh, that's cool. But the way you said it, hey, the boys are going to play next year. What were when you did coming to Nebraska? were some things that you're like, right, I'm going to have to, you know, address these things.

Like, what were some issues coming into Nebraska that you identified that you want to hit head on? Yeah. And I think the biggest thing for me is making sure that all the most up-to-date training and recovery modalities are part of our process. You know, like everything from massage work, body work, to cuffing to scraping, to sensory deprivation tanks. I really believe in all this stuff. I believe that one of the most important jobs for me is to make sure my players are as healthy as possible. And the culture of recovery and regeneration and all that, like either A, schools have a bunch

of stuff, but guys don't use it or B, they don't have it. And so I think, you know, one of the things I can do for these guys is really help them with that process. Like, the reason I had a chance to be a head coach in the NFL was because, I had so many guys in mine that were kind of later around drafted guys that went to the NFL that were ready to be pros. And, you know, anybody can get you to the NFL, but who can teach you how to be a pro? Like, who can get it to where you get a second contract? One of my goals for my guys is to always make $5 million after the rookie contract.

Like, that to me is a goal. Like, get through your rookie contract, let's make $5 million more with your second contract. And then after that, it's all gravy. So I look at it like, how do I invest that into them? Well, I put all those, we have all these resources. Let's not spend them on waterfalls for recruiting. Let's spend them on things that can help our guys train, recover, be as healthy as possible.

And so that to me is something that if we do that at a high level will really help our players because healthy team wins a lot more games. And so that was one of the biggest things. And I just think, you know what? Just being there for the guys, you know what I'm saying? Like at the end of the day, like at the end of the day, I didn't, I don't have to coach. Like I had four years left in my contract. I could have gone and done like a TV show maybe or played golf or something.

I'm only coaching. Took a one-way ticket to Thailand. Take whatever you want. Yeah. Live your life. That's exactly right. So like I'm doing this because I truly feel like passionate about, hey, I want to work with young people. And I want to do it at a place that, that, that jives with me.

And that's why I found it in Nebraska. So I think the best thing I can do, man, is just really walk in with these guys. Because the hardest thing, I said it to my first time when I got hired, I said, Hey, guys, listen, I know you guys, I know you guys didn't choose me. So I get that. But just remember us, I chose you. I want to be here with you guys. So I hope you stay.

Very few guys going to the portal. I'm not one of those. I didn't walk in and say, hey, y'all need to get in the portal or change and all this. I'm bringing that Louis. Yeah, I'm not bringing that baggage. But those guys.

McAfree, welcome. Those guys care about Nebraska, right? And they're good kids. Like, my son's 18. All I want for my son at 18 is for him to go off and be around good people who care about them. Yeah. So shouldn't I do the same thing for the guys I'm coaching and recruiting?

I should be a good guy for them. if you do that you win games. Like everyone thinks, well, if I get this many stories, if you treat young people right and give them what they need to be successful, you'll be successful as a team. I believe that. I don't mean to put you on the spot with this, but ultimately that's what this question is.

But a lot of recruits, and you know it, like you sit in houses, you sit in these, you know, you sit in living rooms, talk to parents and talk about, I chose you. What does that mean when you could easily have, you know, maybe you get another. opportunity to go back in the NFL after a couple years. Or to Penn State, your alma mater.

Yeah, or to Penn State, your alma, yeah, sure, yeah. Penn State your alma mater after like a couple of years of dominating and winning two Big Ten championships and Natty's at Nebraska. What if those shiny new toys come in to your life to want to pluck you out and go back to the NFL? Yeah. You know what I mean? I feel like a lot of guys, like, that's the whole big thing around the portal, right?

It's a reason why players argue about all the NIL stuff and everything else. Coaches get these opportunities that come in. They establish themselves in the seat as a head coach. I know for me, you know, I, like, chose Nebraska because of the staff. And, like, hindsight, like, I've listened to Vrable talk about and everything else. You want to choose a school based on the school because you never know with some of the coaches. Yeah, speak on that because I know for me, like, you could easily get me to go somewhere because I'm like, oh, man, I want to play for Bo Plenty. But, you know, there are probably times where he might have left had he had the right opportunity.

I think it's really hard because, you know, I don't want to be a hypocrite because I've left twice. Yeah. Okay, so I'll just say this, like, even after I left Temple, I went back like the next day and watched practice or get ready for the bowl game. And I had guys, most of the guys were good with it. They understood, like, I came there. We built up from 2 and 10. We went to the championship game. We lost.

I had a chance to take a bunch of jobs. I did. And I came back. We finished the deal. We won the championship the next year. And I felt like I did. I left the place better than I found it. And I moved on to a new challenge, you know, to go to Baylor.

and I think most of the guys were good with it, but it's still hard, right? So I get that. I went to Baylor and it was like, okay, we took over a scandal-bidden program. We went one and 11. And then we went seven and six, then we went 11 and three, went to the Sugar Bowl. I went to the Commercy Machine with the Sugar Bowl. So I think most times I've left, I've always gone for something like a step up in competition. So I think the guys got it, but I don't need to move anymore.

You know, like I also have, I've seen what it does to my kids. And I've seen what it does to my family to have to, you know, like, you know, to have to move this many times. And so that was part of this deal was like, hey, where can we go and be for a while? That being said, I have to answer that question for recruits because I've done it, I've done it a couple times. Absolutely, yeah. And, you know, I don't know that I don't know that I'm, you know, I don't know that I'll

ever go back to the NFL. I don't know that that's in my heart. Like, I don't know if I'll ever reconcile the business part of it for me. Like, it's just, it just was really hard for me to cut players and to be involved in that. Like, it just, it just didn't connect with me like I thought of it. I loved, when I was assistant. line coach of the Giants and I was just in the room with the fellas and Chrisney and David Deal and all those guys. I loved that brotherhood, that community in there. I did not,

the role that I was in was really hard for me. At Nebraska, I am, I am, I get to make the decisions, you know, that I can make along with. You need to develop those guys. And I get to develop those guys and watch them grow. I think it's more who I was. I believe in transfer poor rule. I believe guys should have a chance to go where they want to go. I believe in NIA, I believe, I just think what happens is sometimes adults, we take advantage of a rule meant to help a young person. we turn into something it doesn't have to be like let's let's let's give guys an opportunity to make money off their name let's get good guys give guys an opportunity to go to school where they want to go to school it's just not abuse it you know we're supposed to be the adults we're

supposed to set a good example like I shouldn't be calling a guy in your roster saying hey come play for me like if he's happy there let him be happy there the guy's unhappy and he wants to go the portal fine um all's fair and love and war though yeah well sometimes you got to do business business is being done yeah I'm with you but like at the end of day like someone's to come recruit your guys' kids someday, let's say. The first thing I'll say is, hey, I want to help you be the best man you can be to, but then they start that off by, the first thing they do is cheat. You know what I'm saying?

I'm always like, like, the money, the wins that will come and go when we're all old, we'll look back and say like, you know, who was I? Not what did I do, but who, I really believe that. Who was I? And maybe it's good for me because as I said, I've been, I've won some coaching, Coach of the Year awards. I've been fired. I've seen both sides of it.

It's like, there has to be something more other than just this. Now, I'm going to compete at the highest level. I'm going to do everything I can. And I just think, you know, sometimes when we do this stuff, we tamper with a kid to come here. Sometimes we mess their lives up. Sometimes we get them out of a good situation and do a worse situation. And we're responsible for that as adults. So hopefully I'm doing it the right way.

It's really hard because the lines are very blurred right now. And, you know, what's legal, what's not? I just think I'll do whatever I can to win in Nebraska as long as it's both legal and ethical. If I can live with it, if I can say that's the right thing to do, we have some rules. Like if I saw a junior in high school, I can't talk to him. I think that's, that doesn't make any sense to me. I can't do that, but his agent can call me and say he needs $500,000 to come here. Like, there's some rules that are antiquated.

I'm not worried about those. I'm talking about, you know, making sure that we put in young people's their best interest at heart. Are we really doing that or not? Like, especially at a place like Nebraska, if you do that, the players, I believe they will, they will lay everything down for the Cornhuskers to win if we do that. Amen. So how do you navigate such as such a great area right now with NIL deals? Guys are getting money now. And I don't believe coaches can promise money, right?

We can't know. You can't promise money. But to get in Nebraska, we've talked about this in the podcast, to get Nebraska to where it used to be, there's got to be more of a selling point than Lincoln because it's the internet lives. You can see Miami and these really nice climate areas and guys look at Nebraska in the wintertime. I've been there. Seven degrees. It's freezing. So how do you sell these kids in a legal way to come to Nebraska to be great?

You guys, you just think I'm giving you coaching answers, but I really, no, first off, I think you're doing a phenomenal. Like, this podcast has truly fired me up. So, so I don't, I don't try to convince anybody anymore to come because no one's going to convince me to come, right? I just try to tell people like what our plan is for them and what we have. Like, here's what we have. Here's our plan for you. Like, I think we do. I'll just say this.

Like, when I talk to recruits, especially guys are thinking about transferred. I'm like, if you want to be a lawyer, do you go to medical school? No. If you want to be a doctor, a doctor, do you go to law school? know. So if you want to play in the NFL, why wouldn't you go somewhere that's going to prepare you for the NFL? So like, if you want to go play the D-Line in the National Football League, well, come play for Terrence Knight and who played for eight years. Barrow, baby. Let's go. Paul. Rose has still, he still shows his Bridgestone commercial every chance he gets. And coached in the NFL. Like, go play for us with him. Our strength coach came from the NFL.

Like, like, go somewhere that's going to prepare you for that. So I think us doing a really good job of showing people, here's our plan for you. You, Act. Everyone can talk. Everyone can talk slick. Like, here's our plan for you, academic. here's our plan for you socially here's our plan for you and then the great recruiting has not changed in that when the current players in the team tell you hey they mean what they say

you're gonna win yeah you see a lot of schools having mass exodus because they got promised maybe a lot and the coach players are like hey don't come here they're not doing what they said I don't mind if a player doesn't like what I say but I can't live in a world

where they say well coach lied to me you can be disappointed with what I said I might be wrong but I'm not gonna lie to you and I think that's again when you get to year 11 and you have sort of the stability that I have. Like, why do I ask for an eight-year contract? Because I don't want to have to bow to the whims of like, well, if I don't win this game, we're out after a year two.

I want to have the time, not because I think we're not going to win right away, but I want the stability that people can say I'm going to come there and play for him and I can do things the right way. But I just think if I do a good job with the current players, then more players will come. And, you know, but it's also about finding the right guys. If I'm finding guys that, no, hey, this is what Lincoln. I'm not lying to you.

I'm bringing guys in. I got guys on visits right now. It's actually 50 today, by the way, but it was cold the last couple of days. And like, hey, this is what it is, man? Like, can you do it or not? Like, what happens when you get drafted by Cleveland? What are you going to do then? Like, if you can't handle this, then you're probably not right for us.

Because going back to what I said before, I want guys who are lions. Like, if you're worried about this, that, and the third, then you probably not right for me. Because I'm worried about I want to win and I want to see you get a degree and I want to see us win a championship. Like you'll see sometimes my emoji game is a degree, a ring. And, you know, I tried to find a shield one time saying, like, those are three things I want for you. Like, have a great time. Get an education, win a ring, and go off and get drafted in the NFL and make a ton of money. Five million after your first contract.

Let's talk about your emoji game. What got you in the emoji game, the secret emojis? Because Dave Portnoy would hit me up and be like, hey, I think it could be a tough look for Coach Rule, not knowing what your age is, but he's out there tweeting emojis. I don't know if he'll be able to compete with Michigan. Michigan ain't out there tweeting emojis. So this is your opportunity to talk about your emoji game because you got a little subtle. Yeah, I'll just say, I got it. recruits asking me to at them like like I I will I can say people's names now right so

malachi Coleman goes on his visit to another school he comes back the last night you can come see as he comes in the Colorado okay I've tried not to say too much I got my back on there I don't want anybody I don't want any smoke but but no he comes in any and play ping pong right I'm a big believer in ping pong I think like you have to put your phone down when you play it right you can't have your earphones in when you play it like like I just seen it transform lock room. So, you know, so I put ping pong tables in the lounge, everything. Like, to me, everything goes from like, no, I don't really talk to him. All of a sudden, like, you're good and you're good. Always play each other. Right. So, like, I love the game. So I play him. I beat

him. And he's like, coach, hey, tweet that out, but tweet it and emoji. So, you know what, I got a lot of people. A lot of people have been kind of fired up about it. I'm kind of started. Yeah. Well, and if you go back to Baylor, I would do it every once in a while, like, when I had a subtle hint for maybe another coach, something like, you know, I'm never going to talk trash, but sometimes I have to like, I'm not a sheep either, right? So I can't, if I feel like you're coming at me in the wrong way in recruiting, I would maybe do something that they could kind of get.

But so I've been trying to do, I've been trying to just do it a little bit here and there, but haters are going to hate. People are going to say whatever, you know, it is what it is. That's what happens when you're fucking popping. The emojis are the modern day Morris code. Yeah. You have to put it out descriptions. They're trying to decipher. Hey, you hear him talking about the ping pong tables?

Yeah. There's always headlines each year where there's a new coaching staff or something where there could be ping pong tables in a locker room. get taken out, yada, yada, yada, and so on. You're kind of the first coach. I mean, we had them in Washington, but you're kind of the first coach I've heard be like, oh, I'm pro. I get a ping pong table.

What are we talking about? Like, you know what? You lose because someone jumps off sides or someone drops the ball. The coach tries to be clever and comes up with 10 new plays. Like, don't we want guys, like, don't we want guys to be around each other? Like, and that's hard now in the era of phone sometimes. So, like, you have everyone looking at their phone. So anything I can do, whether it's food, whether it's golf, whether it's,

my first two years in the NFL was COVID. Like this past year, I was able to, like, go out and play golf with Shaq Thompson and Christian and Corbett, Johnny Hecker, who might be the one of coolest dudes ever to hang out with. Like, you know, how much fun that was just to get to know them as people after the craziness of COVID. So why I missed that so much, you know, go to the NFL and COVID. It was so hard. Like, I want to come to, I want to spend time with the guys. I don't want to sit in my office all day, like looking at a computer. I want to, I want to hang out with the fellas, right?

I'm always going to be the coach. And I'm all, I'm 47, almost 48. Like, I'm never going to be. but I'm not going to try to relate on things I can't relate on, but let's go compete. I'll fight you to the death on the ping pong table. If you won't play racquetball, fight you to the death.

I want you to compete. I'm going to compete with you. And that, to me, builds some relationships. I'll tell you what, you want to see some chaos in a locker room, get a kids basketball hoop

and some many basketballs. Kids will go off. No doubt. We put a, we also took a tape down. We made like four square. Oh, we started using the basketballs.

Lines out the door during camp. Yep. Out the door. Yeah, dude, dudes love the ping pong. They love the ping pong. Pesway is the best ping pong player I've ever seen play. Really? Ever, ever seen.

Really? Yeah. Tresway, the punner. You sound like you're kind of good, though. Yeah. Are you like that? I'm pretty good. When we're in Carolina, like, Christian was better than me.

Andre Roberts, oh, Andre Roberts is a scratch golfer and then elite ping pong player. Then like the specialist, but I don't, you know, JJ Jansen, but I don't even if they count because they're not going to meetings really, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're playing all day. I mean, J.J.'s an elite golfer. You hate those guys the most during camp. Well, I mean, they just, yeah, I mean, you know.

No doubt. We like guys at Mission like go to the movies. I'm like dying at a 2.30 meeting like fuck dude. This is awful. Johnny Heckers over there putting,

you know. I mean, he's an elite golfer. So, but I'm pretty good. Not great. I'm pretty good. In that case,

there's a table over here and I'm going to try to suck. No, no, no. I'm pretty good. You hold my ass. I'm not like that on the ping pong.

I was, no. I can't play pool. I can't, I can't. Billios or anything. Yeah. I just can't make it go out with you.

They got a nice little players lounge in Nebraska. They do. That is a nice little pop-a-shot thing too. Yeah. Yeah. They got all the bells and whistles. We'd circle around the big, what's it called? Big TV, what's it called? It pulls down. Projector. Nice. We'd circle around the projector on those couches and we'd be playing back when it was like Percy Harvin

on the Gators. Percy Harvard on the Gators, you'd play that part return mode on NCAA. I think it was 14, right? I don't. I mean, Percy might have been sooner than that, but players lounge, man, some good old times there. You get some old Xboxes and that'd be fun. You should NCAA 14 for all the guys. They would love that. That's so much fun.

You're going to come back at some point here soon or no? I think it's 2024, right? I just want to be sick. Bill Walsh's college football, me at Penn State in 1997. I played with 83 Auburn, Bo Jackson Unstoppable. It was about his games. A long time. How has you were in college before you went to the NFL, obviously.

Now you're back in college. The world's completely changed with the NIL. How eye-opening? How have you been navigating? mitigating those waters being like, holy fuck, this is, it seems to me like it's a free agency 24-7 at the college level. Like, it's not even, it's not even NFL world where you have through your contracts that you can't break, whether you overperform or not.

Yeah. The Wild West of college football right now, yeah. I think, you know, it's hard for me to say because I'm just getting started with it. I think as I go through a couple of years, it'll be, I'll probably have a better feel for, you know, exactly what I think about everything. At its core, I believe in it, right? Like, it's funny. I was talking to RG3, like, a couple weeks ago, I was like,

can you imagine if they would have had this when you played how much money he would make so much money he would have i mean it would have been it would have been insane so at its core i believe in it um you know one thing i've said is i want guys to get taken care of as long as they're coming for the right reasons because you know i know this i know how hard i'm going to work i'm expect my staff to work for each guy like as a person like to give them what they need and so i want them to want that they they got to want the football they got to want the academic if they want all that then if they get taken care of you know over here then great um I'm all for it.

You know, I'm also a guy that kind of wants everyone to get taken care of. Like, I watched for, you know, I walked on at Penn State. It was never a great player. So probably I have a soft part in my heart for guys who walk on. But I always see those dudes out there doing everything everyone else is doing. And they're paying to go to school. And I'm like, man, I wish, you know, I see some schools are, you know, using some of that NIA money to help those guys,

which I think is beautiful for a locker room. Because you guys know this, but I say this to recruits all the time. The NFL is so crazy. It's the only job in the world where, like, the left guard and the right guard, or the left corner and the right corner, they both have the same work schedule. They both have the same assignments. They both have the same practice.

They both have the same risk to bodily injury. But yet this guy, this left guard plays for $18 million and this guy plays for $660,000. Like if I stop at Chick-fil-A on the way out of here, like this one woman doesn't work for $120 an hour and this guy works for $12. Like it doesn't work that way anywhere else in the world, but it works that way in football.

And so like they need to learn early about value. Like, hey, you're going to get paid. And your value in the NFL is going to come off of what you did in college. Like Ryan Burns was all pro for us as a third year player. They didn't give him a raise. He was playing off his rookie deal. So you got to play well in college to make money in the NFL. You got to play well your first four years to make money on your second contract.

So I think learning about value is pretty good. But I just like it when everyone, you know, if everyone could kind of get taken care of and guys learn how to manage their money, right, you know, if you invest money at 22, 23, 24, 25, your life could be pretty good at 60 and 60. 65. So when done right with responsible, you know, adults helping hopefully, hopefully it can be really good. Can you guys put things in place to help with financial stuff or does that have to be from a third party? We can do all that. We can do education. We can do a ton of it. And our people have done it, you know, our people at Nebraska are working really hard to have a really good,

you know, for me, like I didn't know much about finances, you know in college. I kind of just got a credit card and all of a sudden was like, oh, wow, this debt piles up quickly, you know, so I wish I would done a better job. I was a general studies major. I had no, I still don't know what's going on. I'm doing the best I can. But yeah, and I'm with you. You know what I think we can do all that stuff. You can provide all that education.

And then, you know, I like it when guys learn how to go out and be entrepreneurs and market themselves. A true meaning of NIA. Like, hey, go, go start something, you know, go build your brand so that you have something after football. Did you always have this mindset or is this like a because you're changing with the times? Because it's a very new age coach mindset. You said you're an old school guy. You want to run the ball, play good defense. But for a coach, a head coach, you sit here and be like, I want guys to market themselves.

I want, when we were in college, it was, what are you guys doing on Twitter? You don't need to be on that. Yeah, Bowman took it for almost like a couple times. Yeah, and so now it's become like, you guys need to be on this and do it, just do it smart. And like, has that been a thing for you that you're like, guys should market themselves or has that changed over time?

It's probably changed a little bit. I think there's something to it. Like, I'll still see, I'll see like a player who keeps retweeting every fan who says something good about them like, you know, here's where I'm ranked. I'm like, what are you doing? Like, just worry about playing football. Like, I don't necessarily mean that, like, where you're,

just because kind of what I talked about before, like, if you only see your value based upon what other people say about you, I just mean, like, build a business, build, build, connections. You know, you want to get into music. You want to get into fashion. You want to get into, whatever you want to get into, like, build that brand. But just, just make sure you're also handling football first and make sure you're having your education first.

Like those things, because your ultimate brand will come off of what you do, right? Like what you do on the football field, what you do in the classroom. So let's build that. But on the side, I think it's awesome when guys learn these things. And, you know, part of it is like the many, you know, as you guys know, the minute you start getting paid in the NFL, then when the time comes, they're going to try to take the money away from you, you know what I'm saying? Like, you're good at. I've seen guys making $8 million. All of a sudden, they're cutting. They're signing a minimum deal. You have to learn how you have to learn all that now.

And I probably didn't understand this probably as much before I went to the NFL. And I'm so glad we can't get involved in NIL because I think, you know, a guy has a contract he doesn't like walking in the locker room. A guy, you pay someone else instead of him. I was really glad that I wasn't handling all that. So when guys walk in the locker room, I'm like, what me, bro? It's these guys over here. And I also, going back to me on my ability to move,

I make a lot of money. Our coaches make a lot of money. So it's hard for me to say, I'm going to make a lot of money, but hey, I don't want the players getting anything. That just doesn't seem right to me. I mean, football's opened up doors. I never thought I would have.

I want the doors open for my guys as well. You've said some before, but it's like, you know, guys retweetin what people say about them, your perception and everything else. You live for the cheers. by the booze. It's like the moment you do have a bad game and you are feeding into that stuff, it's going to affect your psyche, which is something that you're alluding to earlier when

sitting and having conversations with Matt on guys, like feeling like they're under a lot of pressure and everything else. But are you surprised by some of the, I guess, how naive guys can be, like high school recruits on thinking like you're going to go in thinking you're going to go in and meet somebody sit down and talk a little bit of shop, but how quickly it gets to money? You know, I think a lot of the high school kids have been really good. You know what I mean? I mean, some, you know, I guess it's some guys, some people get involved with some of those people. I just think, you know, if I tell you, I'm not going to talk money with you.

I'm not going to talk. I'm not going to talk money with you. You know what I mean? Yeah. I just think I have to have that discipline. But I think it's, I think probably where you see more of the NIL stuff happening is within people's own rosters. And, you know, as people come in and say, hey, leave that roster. And then, but also with the transfers, you know.

And I'll be honest with you, like, you know, you guys talked about Garrett Nelson earlier, right? Like Garrett's a guy that, you know, could have maybe come back or could go off to the NFL. Like, you know, maybe NIL can help a guy like that. Hey, if I do come back, I get taken care of pretty good because I could be making money in the NFL. I was fired up for Garrett about his decision. You know, I was happy for him. He was first class and did everything the right way. But, you know, there's times where if you have a draftable grade and you're thinking about coming back if the NIL people or some people want to take care of you, I think that makes total sense to me.

But you know how recruiting is, like, one guy's completely different from the next. And just trying to find people who really want to come for, you know, what it used to be. You know what I mean? Maybe I phrased that wrong, but have you came across those situations? You're like, okay, it seems like his head's kind of in a different space. I'm sorry. Where you're going to hit somebody up like, hey, you hit up, you know, T-night, you were seeing a D-Lyman. You're like, hey, he's not a type of guy.

Yeah, we say, oh, you'll see us say, oh, it's like one of us. Like, you know, I tell the guys all the time, I don't care. Thank you, brother. I don't care how you carry your hair. I don't care, you know, what music. you listen to. I don't care how you dress. I care about how you do your football,

how you treat people. So if I come across somebody that's not about that, they're just not going to be a good fit. Like, I've learned my lesson. I made way too many mistakes early on trying to chase people, getting seduced by talent. So if someone's not, you know, again, and I draw the distinction between the transfer guys

who've proven what they can do, an incoming freshman, like, an incoming freshman is talking to me about all this other stuff. Like, we should be talking about our study hall structure. Like, you know, you got to prove some things before, you know, I want to, and again, we stay out of that. But I do think that, yes, there's a lot of people that they want to know what's in it for them and they want to know what it is. And that's only natural.

I just think as a coach, you have to say, this is how we're going to do it. I don't talk about this. You know, I talk about the school. And then if you're interested, then, you know, talk to these people over here. Yeah. There's opportunities for you. Then great, you know. I think it's going to be fucking crazy in a couple years.

Yeah. I think the way it's going to be wild. Yeah. But the next couple years are going to be crazy because it seems like the Big Ten, the SEC especially are like kind of just taking as many colleges as possible. or the thought of the UCLA and USC being in the Bay 10, five, ten years ago would be just blasphemous. It would be ridiculous. How do you think the college landscape's going to change?

If you really are going to be at Nebraska for eight years, you're probably going to see it. Do you think there's an opportunity that the Big Ten and the SEC and maybe one other big conference splits away from the NCAA with all this new NIL stuff going on and making their own league almost? You know, that's a great question. I've heard people say that. I don't know that.

I do think, I do think to your point, I think the Big Ten has kind of become like this coast to coast, almost like colleges NFL, you know, I mean, from 20204, it will be coast to Coast to Coast. Yeah. It's a gotta way to, to UCLA. Like, we got everything in between. So it becomes a really national brand. And I think that's actually kind of good for us. Like when I look at like, when I look at like Texas, I went Nebraska to be Texas's big 10 team, when I look at like west of here, all the way to there's all those prospects from Arizona to Utah in between. that doesn't have a, that doesn't have a,

that doesn't have a place to go if they want to play in the Big Ten. So as the Big Ten, as we go to 16 teams and the Big Ten is getting three to four teams in every year to the college football playoff, hey, come to Nebraska. I think that's one of the things I saw in the SEC, certainly the SEC. Yeah, we have to defeat them. Yeah. We got to beat them. I think something like that helps Nebraska because I, in my opinion, I loved, like,

I got to play two years in the Big Ten. I loved when we got to go to the Big Ten. But now hindsight, I almost feel like it hurts. us to go to the Big Ten because we became, we recruited so much, California, especially Texas. And I know coaches now thinking about from the coach's perspective, you're sitting in these living rooms in Texas and being able to at least tell families, you'll be able to see these guys play a couple times a year at Baylor, at Texas Tech, A&M at the time. You'll be able to see them and then, you know, you can still come to Nebraska. Now Nebraska, before UCLA and USC's joining,

it's kind of like you're going to fly over Michigan, Ohio, you know, all these states just to play in Nebraska. and you can't necessarily recruit Texas as well because like, oh, we don't play there at all anymore. Right. So I feel like getting to the West Coast like USC and UCLA, that helps Nebraska a little bit more because now if you're recruiting, you know,

California and the West Coast a little bit more, you'll at least be able to say, hey, we're closer than all these other fucking big-time schools, you know, on the east. And plus, like when I was at Baylor, I could tell people like, hey, nine out of our 11, nine of our 12 games or 10 of our 12 games this year on the state of Texas,

well, that's going to change. You know, the Big 12 is changing. Now they're bringing in Cincinnati. and some other teams. So now you are leaving the state every year. Now, even, you know, Texas and Texas A&M now, as they go to the SEC, they're playing in Alabama, they're playing in Georgia. So all of college football is pretty becoming pretty regional.

Like I'm old school, man. I miss like Pitt Penn State and then I miss, you know, Nebraska playing Colorado, Nebraska OU, like I miss all the old school games, you know, but it's what's happened. It is what it is, right? So I think this move with USC and UCLA coming in, the Big Ten moving up, the conference, the, the playoff expanding to 12 teams, it's the perfect time for Nebraska, a perfect time for us. It's one of the major reasons.

I was like, I see an opportunity here. Yeah. Let's start with some, you know, early little bit of fun. You brought up Nebraska, Colorado. That rivalry gets to kind of reignite itself. This year, Dion is now Colorado. There's a lot of fluff there. Wasn't it not, wasn't an amusing scene the AD bag for Colorado fans?

So like, please, let's not relet the red. Don't let the red just think of. Hey, the red travels now. Yeah. When I didn't I sit back and kind of seeing them like... I'll tell you what, I... Let's start a little early trash time. I, I, there's a picture, there's a thing in our media guide of all the different pictures.

Mm-hmm. Of us taking over stadiums. Yeah. In the sea of red and traveling. And I just, you know, I, you know, I've worked at some great places, but I've never had that. Like, I've never had that home field advantage, that road advantage. So I can't wait for it. You know, I can't wait to have that chance.

And I think, you know, it's funny. I have so much respect for Deon, but like our last official visit weekend, they have the, mad and Xbox, whatever. grow on. They have two. And it's like, it's, it says prime on there. And I'm like, guys, take off the, we're trying to beat Colorado one recruits. They're like, coach, it's mad. And what are we going to do? He's, he's on the cover of Madden as it scrolls through the thing. I'm like, it's kind of hard to beat with one of the greatest football players of all time. But, but you know what? I'm sure. Players, though, might not be best coach of all time. Well, and, you know, I'm sure he's done a great job. I just, now, I will say it.

I say you like it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, uh, but I believe in our staff. I believe what we're doing and we're going to, you know, we're going to put it together and go out there and play them. It'll be a great game. I think it'll be a great thing for, I think it's a great thing for college football, though, like the Braska, Colorado.

Like, when I was going through this process, showing my wife and my son, like, you know, the 80s and 90s and those rivalries and coach McCartney and coach Osborne and just, those are some great games, man. And so, like, to have this game. And I think the last two times we played them, like, we're going to two against them, you know, in the last two games against Colorado. So, you know, to start off at Minnesota and then come back and go to Colorado,

that's going to be fun. That's going to be a great challenge. That's a little warm up with Minnesota, the gophers, dude. Yeah. Hey, it was funny, though, about that AD begging, right? It was funny. Trying to get me in trouble, bro. I'm trying to be Switzerland over here.

You don't have to, uh, yeah, I'll ask you your question. Do you fully expect Nebraska to go into Colorado and totally have a sea of red in Boulder? I expect our fans to show up. Oh, you'll be there. I'll be there. I expect our fans to show up. As I've gotten out to the western part of the state

and seeing all the like the die hard, die hard, like I'm in Scotts Bluff and we're at a little brew pub downtown and there's people figured out that we were there, me and the OC, and all of a sudden there were just people there like shaking our hand. Like those people, those people out there, they're excited about Nebraska football. So I think it's, I'm hoping that people come from everywhere.

And then I'll be honest with you. I can't wait for our first home game, you know, Northern Illinois. Like, I just can't wait to walk. I walk by that field in the mornings. You know, I get into work whatever time and walk out there, man. It's like, I'm going to coach here. Like, it's kind of like humbling.

Like, and also like, hey, you better get your ass to work. I mean, like, make sure we're ready to go. Because I want those people to see a team that they really like. Mm-hmm. You, um, you talked about good football players in Arizona. There's some studs out there right now. There's some really good players. You know.

Would you say Arizona's probably a top five state in recruiting? I say it's pretty important. Pretty important. There's a lot of... We had an argument about where the best players come from. Yeah, it's pretty important for us right now. Yeah, Arizona's pretty important for Nebraska. Arizona is a really good place for us.

You know, a lot of people from Nebraska have second homes there or vacation there. I found out when Will came into town. There was damn parades going down south of the road. So it's an easy trip. And so it's a... They got some good quarterbacks in Arizona. Yeah, you know, a big Tyler Murray fan. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, at all levels, you know, college. High school, absolutely. Yeah, VR. All levels. Yeah. at all levels. Hypothetically, I think we got to go all in on whoever the number one recruit is.

Like, best. Yeah, I think, I think Nebraska should, I think Nebraska should recruit the best of the best. And also let guys know that what an unbelievable opportunity to come be, you know, like I want to be one of the people that, you know, brings us to glory. And so the players that choose to come here in this class and maybe like next year's class, they're the ones who, who I think people will remember for a long time. Like, hey, the state wants us, you want us. Everyone that loves Nebraska wants us to be great again.

And so let's get the right players and coaches here and people will remember those guys. Yeah. No, Nebraska's good answer. Hey, you are playing an excellent game of chess right now. I will say this. I think he just said the NFL record because Jalen Petrie just, I think he just set the NFL record for Jayland for Texas.

He played for me at bailout and played for Coach Randa. He was the only player that stayed committed in the recruiting class after the scandal had happened at Baylor. I got that. I didn't even know him. And I introduced myself to him. I remember the two tour guys were walking with him. and the one tour guy started crying.

And she was like, I just want you to know, like, I know you're the only person that, when everyone else left the program, you're the only kid who stayed. And so he will, some of they probably have a statue built for him at Baylor because he's the guy who bridged the gap. He's the one. Like, I got some credit. I don't know. He's the one. And now he set an NFL record this year as a rookie. He's a special, special person.

So that sense of legacy, it's, we go to a place like Nebraska and you walk by the All-Americans, you walk by the Highsman. I mean, it's pretty hard. I used to walk through the halls of Penn State, like, I'll never be the first to do anything here. We've done it all. But when your program hits a little bit of adversity, the people who show up now, kind of like Jayland did at Baylor, they'll remember you for a long, long time. Right. Like a quarterback who could be sitting out there somewhere in any state on the West. Yeah.

Arizona is the top five recruiting school or recruiting state. You could be part of some legacy type shit. Legacy stuff. Do you understand? I think you're, like, you're obviously going to say yes, but do you truly understand how rabid these fans are in Nebraska? If I go back and watch some old pressers from Bo Polini, just some old school shit, like you got to you got to buckle in around Lincoln, Nebraska.

Keep your hands in the car at all times during the ride type of stuff. I think, I think, I do believe this. I believe, like I said, after everything I've gone through, the good and the bad, I think that's got me at this point where I'm, like, as stoic and as zen as possible. Like, I was on the plane the other day, flying. You know, I flew back from Charlotte from the coaches convention. and commercial

food commercial yeah and I was fortunate I was able to sit up group four and I started chanting go big red as we were landing in Omaha and I was like oh this is real okay so but you know what

I would much rather have passion than apathy and knowing that on both sides of it there can always be you know sometimes it can be but I've met a lot of really great people and I think I think people in Nebraska right now are so starved to like just like let's just go see what a go back to a bowl game.

Like, let's just do that. Like, so I can feel people are getting excited about, hey, we're going to do this with this. I'm trying to stay in the moment. Like, did everyone go to community service today? You know, did everyone go to, everyone showed up lifting this morning? That's great.

Let's stay in that, that kind of that space. But I'm excited about what maybe we can do. Yeah, it's like, it's almost like that's what Nebraska just wants to do again. You thought, everybody thought we had it with Scott with like him playing in the 90s, him being a successful coordinator, head coach, coming to Nebraska, we got our fucking guy. And for it to not happen, it's kind of like, fuck, man. Like, what is even the expectation anymore?

You know what I mean? No, I thought you were going to cry for a second. You almost do. It's like you come into this job and it's like somebody takes on this responsibility because a lot of people argue that it's a fucking hard job to want to go into because the expectation is so high. And you already alluded to it, the little apathy quote, you had passion over apathy. It's like the expectation is so high and recruits.

Recruiting can be a little dicey because you're trying to get these kids to Middle America again when you can play anywhere. It's like, I'm excited. I'm excited. And you texted your boy like on day one. Coach Ruhl texted him. I know. Will texted me the minute he texted. You texted him.

Oh, I was a hit brother. Yeah, brother. It's like the president. He becomes the president. The first 100 days, it's like on your list. Get in with the boy. That's it. You know what I mean?

That's it. Was that on the list? It was 100% on the list. Yeah. Probably number one on the list. calling my wife and making sure. Yeah. She was in on it.

But it was in the top five. Yeah. Oh, shit. But no, in all seriousness, like, as we went through this process, we had so much time. Like, I watched all these things. I watched all the tunnel walks. I watched Coach Polini. I watched Coach Osborne.

I watched, I watched all these different things. But I watched you guys. I watched, like, I went back and watched when you guys had Coach Polini on here. Like, I watched, I had a chance to really immerse myself and say, okay, Matt, is, you know, because when I go in, I go in, I go all in. Like I'm all in. I was like, are you ready to go all in on this? And, um, but you guys were part of that process for me.

That's why being here, honestly, it's unbelievably cool because, um, I get to talk about Nebraska. I got to do it in a way that's fun. And I get to talk about football. And I get to kind of laugh at myself a little bit, you know what I'm saying? And I got to see that from you guys and that's important to me. You know what I'm saying? You can, you can lose yourself when you, when you have, when you're a coach, you can

lose yourself and think you're too important. You know what? Like, let's, let's just, let's just be ourselves. Yeah. I feel like from a first impression standpoint, like, I have never. met you. Today is the first day you and I have talked. I like you. And I feel like if I'm a recruit, I'm watching this and I'm fucking like that guy too. Like you got high energy, you're passionate, you're ready to get after it, you know what the kind of football you want to play.

You talk about your lows. Yeah. Yeah. And that's a huge thing too. It's because people like to run away from their mishaps or things that happened that didn't go their way. You're facing it head on. Yeah. You're the spear, bud. You're the spear for the Nebraska cornucas. My favorite thing you said about watching busing is like, you're like, you know, did I get caught up or wrapped up and seeing people laugh at themselves. I think it's super important, man, because you can get lost. No doubt. In the identity of like, I'm here, man, everybody's fucking coming after me, to take me down.

Like, you know, you said, what do I do to, you know, take my kids to school or go home and pal. I'm sure you did both. You probably took them to school and fucking. That's right. Oh, my God. Yeah, about it. It's just someone busting with the boys, baby.

No doubt. Yeah, dude. Because it is, we talk about all the time that there's people that either are on pedestals or put themselves on pedestals and just refuse to get a giggle at themselves. when they fucked up. And it's like, dude, if you just do that life, the anxiety of life,

the windles. I doubt. And you feel so much better. Now, I do have a very important, this might be the most important question. This might be not the rowback, but this is definitely a massively important question.

And the way you answer is going to change the directory of our friendship. I don't know how you and Will are going to be. The fourth game this season, you will be playing the Michigan Wolverines in Lincoln, Nebraska. Now, there are talks that last year, Michigan won the first inaugural

Buston Bowl. Official or unofficial, that's the argument that people are putting at it, putting up with it. Are you willing to sign papers saying that

Nebraska will be playing for the first official bussen bowl against Michigan next year? Yeah, I'll sign that. Here's what I do you know, are you aware of the history of the Buston Bowl? I'm not, I'm not.

So we did the spring tour last year where we went to We went to Nebraska, we went to Michigan, we went to Tennessee. We did interviews. Then I was Scott, Coach Chins. Trev Alberts, he's been on the bus. We went to that Michigan game the last year. And we were sitting down on the spring tour, and Taylor was like, hey, I got an idea and talked

about like, hey, I'm going to ask if we can do the Boston Bowl. Like, I'm going to ask Scott Frostonville say, yes, he got fired up, said yes. We went to Michigan. Scott was like, look, if RAD is on board and Michigan's on board, I'm all for it. Like, let's sign it. We go to Michigan. Hold on.

Do we have the clip? He's grabbing it. Do you have the clip of Harbaal? He's grabbing the contract. Yeah, he's grabbing the contract right now. So go ahead, Will. This is your story. We go to Michigan and we ask Harbaugh.

And Harbaugh's all about it. We have our legal team draw up a document to make this thing official. Jim Harbaugh is the only guy who has signed it. He was all in. He was hitting his chest like he was getting into. You felt it. He's all about competing just like yourself. We'd love to see a people.

ping pong game there. But he signed it. Along the way, it got lost a little bit in translation. I like to feel like I'm connected at Nebraska, and I was told that we would get this thing signed. Training camp kind of got away from all of us for a little bit. You got Year 10 up in the air, where we go in here, where we going there. I was in training camp.

And unfortunately, Nebraska had the year that they had. I tried making it happen, knowing that it's like, this probably isn't going to get signed because there's so many more important things going on than signing a dot. document to make the Buston Bowl official when Nebraska's like losing game in, game out. And so our side didn't necessarily sign it. So Taylor and I- Now, Harbaal signed it before we even finish the question.

Yeah, that's right. Signed it before we even finish the question. And so Taylor and I still took it upon ourselves, like we're going to still make this thing unofficially official, but we're going to go to Michigan, bring the trophy. It's 40 pounds. It's sitting in, it's sitting in the Michigan locker room in their trophy. Right next to Paul Bunyan. And I'm going to, I'll pull it up right now.

Oh, we can cut. But you can, you can, is there anything else you want to say? No, I want him to see that it's, this is a, this is a living breathing thing. That's what happened in November? Yeah. Duke Cannon sponsored the trophy. We have a full-on trophy made with little, you know, them little things where you can write the name in, etch the name in, everything else.

It's a legit trophy. I'm in. And so we're excited about next year, as you can tell. I need the, what you usually need, you need the head coach on board. You need their signature. you need the AD signature. I know Trev would be on board with this. He's got to play his game.

And he said the right thing. He's like, Will, I know you respect. We've got a lot of things going on right now. And I was like, hand up, fully understand. Had to ask because the game's coming up. Yep. So that's why we asked the question. Are you willing to make this thing official?

Wow. The 40-pound brass trophy. Love it. That's sitting in, like recruits see it. And when they went to the game, because I know all of Nebraska is going to watch, this. When we went to the game, even in their recruiting area, they had with the lights, you know the lights that you guys put in the hawks to decorate all the recruiting stuff. Big bulb.

Big bulb lights saying bus and bowl. The day it came. Playing the game. I know Nebraska could do well. Nebraska, I'm just letting you know that's what's happening behind enemy lines. This is factual. What do you know? Our legal team made up a contract right here. Perfect. So all you're going to do as I, write your name, and then you can read through it if you like. There's a lot of language here. But I would, if you want to, sir. This is history.

This is history. This is fucking history, brother. Oh, wow. Well, is that a real signature? Yeah. That's a lot of loops. I was just making sure it does a lot of loops. All right. Now. Yeah, so when we were at the game, oh, yeah, there it is right there. A little bit of the league. We're going to need another signature. Oh, shit, you're right.

See, I think he's going to dip on the boys. I don't think it's a, important to him like it is coach rule but i think no he's not dipping on the boys he he said a statement he's he fully plans to be a part of the michigan wolverines 2023 what a state what a doctor statement right there by his agent they wrote it didn't they now 20 million dollars a year he allegedly got offered by the Denver broncos there's a lot of mutual interest money does talk and i wouldn't be mad at him but i'd be real i would i would cry because it's over i wouldn't smile because it happened which i know you're not supposed to do now this um That was huge what you did there.

I think we're taking back. We're taking back. I might need a moment of silence real quick. Hey, can we get a moment of silence for the busable coach rule signing it? Thank you. That was big. They went hand to the heart. I didn't know what to do.

We just put in the pledge. Yeah. I was like, oh, ma'am. Hey, ain't that iconic? What an episode. That was iconic, man. This has been one of my favorite episodes. Thank you.

Having you on. All the time, dude. We have a great time on this bus, but sometimes guys come on. You're like kind of fishing, trying to find things to talk about. But really, you've been great. You've spoken well. I think you've done yourself a service, these recruits that are probably watching this episode. Get to know Matt Rule.

Here you go. You have an hour and 21 minutes plus happening. This baby's not over yet. All of Nebraska will be tuned in. I'm sure you're probably aware. Yeah. Yeah. They do go hard, man.

They do go hard. The coolest thing about Nebraska is I went there. I played there in 2013 because you were last year as 2012. I went there and, no, that's the year we got our ass beat. It was 2012. Yeah. We, me. Yeah.

Yeah. We got our ass beat. The stadium was rocking, extremely loud. Lights. The boys were playing well. De Nari got hurt. That's why we lost. We probably could have won that game, but we ended up not winning that game.

End up just getting absolutely pile dry for 60 minutes. After the game, there's fans that are kind of lined up as you're walking out. And they are the nicest. Hey, great job. Hey, you'll get them next time. You guys keep it up. Have a great rest of the season. A feeling you don't really get when you play.

football against opposing fan bases. It is a very cool place. The greatest feeling in the world as a coach. You know the greatest thing you can ever say to someone as a coach? You walk up after you've won, you walk up and say, hey, your boys played hard today. Oh, that's the greatest. Oh, yeah. Joey McGuire, the head coach Texas Tech taught me that.

And I just, whenever I can, you know, just that's the... I like the little great... Your boys played hard today. Your boys played hard today. Do we want to do a tier talk? Because I have one in my head that we could do. I know we talked about maybe possibly doing emojis. but just to keep the Nebraska theme,

we could do our top tier, top three selling points of the University of Nebraska. See, sometimes I don't like when it's just centric on one thing because, so you do emoji,

it's a little bit more universal. We could have him list his top three things, selling points at Nebraska. And we can all rate it by one word. It's almost like, it's almost like, yeah, that's true. And it would probably be basic. This is going to be education.

But he's already said it's going to be... Is Nebraska a good educational university? We have the most academic All-Americans of any athletic department in the country, over 100 more than Stanford. Well, that might just be Nebraska just giving out good grades. That's... I'm just saying it could be. I'm over here.

I'm now on outside. I've walked outside the box. If Michigan wanted to, now they won because they're a top 15 public school in the entire world. We could just start dishing out A's to the boys. now the whole team's academic all-American. It's all sports. Just across the athletic department, 100 more than Stanford,

you're doing something. You're doing something. You're doing something. It's okay. You're doing something right. Tell them what it stands for. Nebraska. I can't do it. Knowledge.

I can't do it. I knew the joke, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. I'm proud that I got the joke. I feel like any other day. He said, oh, that's nice. He said I can't do it. Dude.

All right, we'll do emojis. So, Will, do you want to explain our, Tier Talk? So tier talk is essentially, are you familiar with Tier Talks? You've caught up on some episodes. So Tier Talk is essentially Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3. You can throw in an honorable mention if you'd like to. But essentially your top three emojis.

Our Tier Talk today for this episode is going to be emojis. Because you are basically the emoji king. I'm trying. Do we need to take a second? I kind of need to see exactly. I'm trying to figure out which avenue I want to go down. Yeah. I mean, there's some fun stuff out there.

There's some fun stuff out there. Am I trying to be unprofessional in front of Coach Rule? Stay horny, my boy. Exactly. All right. I think mine's going to be, my honorable mention, tip of the cap to the moon, the moon emoji. The dark moon emoji.

I fact, when you throw that, if you add that to your bag and you throw that in there, it throws people off. Like, what does he even mean by that? But it's funny looking. You just randomly throw that in a conversation. I'm telling you it's good. Add it to your bag boys.

My tier three is going to be the water. Spots? Yeah, we got to stay hydrated out there. You got to stay hydrated out there. Keep that H2O up. My tier two, big, big vegetable guy, the eggplant. I like the eggplant. I'm going to go with the eggplant for my two.

My tier one, this emoji's been with me all time since since birth the eyes you shoot the eyes the eyes are killer yeah it's all right you can just keep it on okay this isn't a draft okay okay okay okay but eyes tier one

eggplant big vegetable guy tier two could be corn you know could be corn could be corn big cob energy that's a big thing we're all about on Saturday's Memorial Stadium but my tier and my tier three water and tip of the cap salute to the moon I love I love the little

moon emoji. That's my, that's my tear. That's my tier talk. Now what we do is everybody goes around and gives a one word response to your tier talk. So we'll go around. You can go last. Respectable. True. Hard. Horny. And I can't tell my mom to watch this now. No. Devious. Oh. You know, I'm sorry. You know you're my boy. I have to be honest. Yeah. Well, too, I can I say two words? Yeah, you just say hyphenated if you say too. Hyphenated. Too clever.

Well, too clever. He's a clever boy. Yeah. He's a clever boy. That egg plan got real clever back in the day. Respectable. Yeah, I really enjoyed that. I wish he does three to my wife right now.

My honorable mention, it's not used a lot, but when it is, it just means so much. That is the goat emoji. When you put out the goad emoji We all know what that means And that's just like Will said A tip of the cap to whatever individual you might be referring to at that time My tier three Gotta eat your vegetables

It's very important This thing Since the dawning of its time Has really Help me send That Morse code out Let everybody know where I'm at I need them vegetables

And that goes to the eggplant my tier two is a new one that's been introduced to me I would say in the last six months but I love it with a passion that is the salute I think the salute is such an elite move especially because it's half-based

I fucking think it's funny and it packs a punch dude I probably overuse it and then my tier one has to go to them eyes you're trying to get so hey especially even in a group chat I do it will and I do it a lot

one of us will send a text Maybe we don't get a response for that person and for a little bit. Other individual puts out the eyes. Like, hey, we're kind of waiting on you, Bub. We're kind of just waiting on you right now. You're going to respond to this or no? It's light. It's lighthearted.

It's lighthearted. And that are, that is my fear talk. Strong. Relatable. Jesus, Blas. Approved. Cosine. I was hoping you'd say horny again.

Solid. Thank you. Diabolical. Oh, all right, Coach, Rule. Man, all right, so. He's the first coach who's... Is it Partook? Partaken.

Partaken. I like Partook better than partakein. He's the first coach that partook in our tier talk. I didn't like it to win in a sentence, Doug. I don't like the word by itself more than the sentence. My honorable mention is the cloud of smoke. Oh, the poof. Yeah, the poof.

It's like you can use it in recruiting, like, hey, this dude's fast. You can, like, if you've been texting a recruit. And he don't text you back. You're like, you vanished on me. Like, there's a lot of things. Yeah. There's a lot of things. Usually late at night.

That's for us, though. That's my honorable mention. Gosh, I'm so scared what to say right now. Hey, if you don't, hey, if you don't like it, we can always maneuver to something else. Oh, I love it. I love it. I love it. But I'm afraid there's going to be like someone on Twitter is going to translate what I really mean when I say why I use each one.

All they're out there. Number three for me is the eyes. The eyes is elite. It's you guys, you guys covered it. so well, so thank you for that. Number two is the half salute. Because I didn't even know what it meant when I first, when Jay C. Horn sent it to me one time and I was like, what's that mean? I'd go look it up like urban dictionary. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why is it just

half his face? Yeah. And that's the most, that's the biggest part about it's like, why is he hiding also? And so I've gone last is hard because you guys have taken all the good ones. My last one and I use it a lot is just the brain explosion. You know, it's just half the face and the brain coming out like, man, you blew my mind. Dude, that is a dad emoji right there. I love that. I love that you said that. You pull that one up, I don't think I've seen it.

And he's the way he's exaggerating. Oh, that one. Oh, your mind's blown. My mind's blown. Oh, yeah. That has so many different meanings. That's my deal. That's your deal.

Oh, oh, you? Mind blown. Mind blown. Yeah. There you go. One word. I'm not ready. Me either.

Boss. Strong. Boomer. Solid. It's good. He's getting initiated. Yeah. Legend.

This is hyphenated king shit. Okay, Mitch. All right, Mitch. Husked. Dad. Hey, that was, you did a really good job. You did. That was outstanding.

It was hard to go last. It was hard to go last. Yeah, and I feel like we probably should let people go second after they see how it's done, like one of us goes first. Yeah. But I thought that was a good job. I love watching the conviction of him to do. talking to us about the mind-blown emoji.

Yeah. The cloud of smoke, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was looking at me telling him, I go, Hey, is your son going to watch this? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. That's the right answer. Got to respect that, dude. I told him I was going to be on here today, so he was pretty fired up. That's awesome. Yeah, it'll come out next week. It's a good move. I think it's a good move.

What, coming on here? Yeah. Why not? Of course it is. Because we're not going to let other coaches. do. We're going to, you know, Michigan. I mean, we could let other coaches come on it.

Yeah, we'll probably, I mean, probably any coach that wants to come on. We'll probably. Yeah. We have anything else? Any questions from the boys in the back? I've got one question. Let's love it. Jack.

You can always count on Jackie Boy. In 2026, Nebraska has scheduled a non-conference game that will be taking place in Lincoln. And it's against the Tennessee volunteers. I would just like to know what your game plan is so we can be ready. in three years. Repeat the Orange Bowl. But realistically, I'm, because Will, obviously, big Husker, I went to Tennessee, I'm a big Vols fan,

and I'm really excited for that game, even though it's three years away, because we don't get to have the same competitive nature that Will and Taylor do with Nebraska, Michigan, or how me and Garrett do with Alabama and Tennessee. So I'm excited to see some big 10 SEC matchups. I guess, like a realistic question is, with you being new there and Josh Heipel just coming in

within the last two years, do you think you're going to be on the same page as how Josh is taking Tennessee, not in the same necessarily ballpark in terms of success, but where am I going with this? We're going 11 and 1 to the Orange Bowl brothers, what you're saying. Yeah, yeah. How do you plan on getting your guys to buy in the way Hyple's gotten his guys to buy in in the last couple years?

That's a good way to round it out, Jack. First of all, I'll say this. I think Josh has done a great job. He really has. You know what? I don't try to get guys to buy in. I just try to do what we do. I'm sorry, I try to do what we do and hope that they believe in it.

But I do think the guys at Nebraska are hungry to win. They want to win. It's not one of those deals where it's like, who's this guy. Hopefully, you know, they believe what we're going to do. And I didn't come to lose. I'll say that much. I didn't not come to lose. 2026 before you go about 2026?

We came to chew bubblegum and beat ass and we're all out of bubblegum, brother. That's what's happening in September 12th. The tweet you sent yesterday about hypo. Was that from Echler? I don't know. Oh. I might have seemed to receive a similar text. Yeah, I don't know.

That's out there in the stars. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's in the cloud. I don't know if I was a vessel where I came up with that on my own. all right bro you know what i mean yeah sorry you had to be a part of that that was that was a i probably could have waited until after the podcast i'm michi what's your question bob so you're from state college pa what was it like playing under joe pa it was awesome um you know one thing about coach paterno was he uh he uh

he like like he was you know he was a little bit older when i got there he had so much energy at practice, like you could not, you could not not go hard. And he held the best players the most accountable. Like a lot of coaches, like, they'll crush the walk-ons. They let the best players do what they want, not Joe. Like, he was going to hold our best players the most accountable. So a guy like me that was just like, I was like, if he's going to do that to Kyle Brady or Katrina or I better stay. And I think that that meant a lot to me. I learned a lot from him. He was a man. He was a maniac in a good way at practice. Man, he would run around and I I was on the scout team.

I was on the scout team and I forget it was courtesy and whoever was injured. So he had a green jersey, which means don't touch him. He can practice, but don't touch him. So I run up. They throw him the ball. I run up. I break up. I jump out of the way.

And he comes running over and he's like, what do you practice? You got to hit him. And I didn't know what to do because I can talk back to my coach. I said, coach he has a green jersey on. And coach lost it. He's like, what do you mean the green jersey? He's like, I don't care if you heard you got to practice. And he all of a sudden he walks away like eight feet.

he turns around he goes he goes oh he had the green jersey on good job rule good job no shit it didn't matter that was me he's oh he i got you so he was awesome i love the man and like he he um like you know he we won but we won all over guys got degrees and got educations and went on ahead good lives so it was pretty cool gee i don't really have a question but from our previous experiences in lincoln it's always been a good time and i think like i can agree with what Taylor's saying, like, you got a good energy. Like, I'm fired up to come to Lincoln this. Yeah, that's going to be a fun spring football tour this year.

Like, it's going to be rocking. It already is rocking, but, like, yeah, I'm a role fan for sure. Oh, we'll be there. We will absolutely be there. You'll be on again, except we'll be in your house. Let's do it. Yeah. It'll be awesome.

I've already told Aonitis, he's a Husker now. He's an honorable husker. I love it. I love it. Oh, and you got to coach Amir too. Oh, yeah. Amir. How much of a stud is he?

Amir. Amir, so we did those Thursday night dinners. So Amir came over with the running backs And the next week I had the receivers over And he came over again He's like, no Just go pet the dog and hang out Like I love, when he left

He gave me a book And just his kind of guy he is Right thoughtful He just gave me a book that he thought I would like I just I mean he's a true pro And when I got this job I called him I was like hey right before I took the job

I was like hey You have some questions here in a day or two And then I took the job And he's been unbelievable He's the best man He's a stud He really has a pro too Yeah

I don't think I have anything else to you. No, I am. I'm trying to think. I greatly appreciate you coming on this podcast. I know you're super busy, so it was awesome to have you on. This was like legit awesome. Thank you. You, yeah.

Yeah, when you shot the tax, I was fired up. Hit the boys right away. But yeah, this has been incredible. This has been incredible. I'm trying to like, because, you know, your boys in some, your boys in some player group chats of the Huskers. I'm trying to think if there's anything that the boys would want me to ask. I don't think.

So I'm fired up that T-night's there. He's probably heard me going some spiels in the locker room back in Washington about black shirts and what happened this week and that week? He better not, hey, Potros, you better not be talking to kids about losing weight now because I remember your couple of your last years in Washington talking about he wouldn't get on the scale,

talking about, oh, his budget's changed. That's team night. Yeah, Paul Ross. Bro, Paul Rose was the best. I was his position coach. When I first went to Temple, his sophomore year, I was the D-Line coach. And that whole first week,

had him, he had, like, done something wrong in school, and I showed up whole first week, every morning at 6 a.m., him and me, like, just, that's how our relationship started. So now we're sitting there, like, in an academic talk, talking to somebody. I'm like, who are you talking to, bro? Yeah. But, no, he's, he's a wonderful person, like, and, you know, he played at 295 that year. I mean, I had to keep him under 300, and he's not, he didn't play at 295 in the league. He did not keep him, yeah, under 300 pounds at Washington.

What was your way in Washington? Oh, I don't know, but we had to get him. I think we called it gap gas, but we had to gap. but we had to gap him to the side of the tilt. Like, you know, the Y-U pair. Yeah. We'd have to gap him to get going because, you know, you're anticipating stretch just to get him going

so he wouldn't get cut off. Those are the best players to play against. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But he was a stud. I mean, he made a lot of money, especially in Denver. He won a Super Bowl. Like, he was a stud.

He was an all-state receiver. No shit. He was a receiver. He was a high school grew into a tight end. Legit, but I was going to bring that up. I was just trying to bring that up for you. Oh, it's so. funny.

But no shit, for real. He was a receiver turned tight end. And when I got there, he was a D-Lignment, and it became pot roast. Yeah, man, he did become pot roast. He was in, I think it was like Bridgestone Tire commercial. Is that the, he'll break it. No, he hasn't on his phone. I think he's on, oh, you're talking about this?

I haven't had it right here. Boom, here's my commercial. There's my commercial. Go ahead. I was going to ask, where were you at in 2008? 2008. I would have been at Western Carolina. You were soon.

No, no, no, no. I was at Temple University as an assistant coach. Did you get offered by Temple? No, neither did I. They recruit us. You guys. You recruit you all? You know, I,

remember the Panthers offered to fly me in last year, year nine. Do you remember that? Yes, but if only I would have been there a little longer this year, we could have made something happen. Yeah, yeah.

What, did you think to bring Will Compton in again? You know what, I was running for my life at that point. There was, I was two years. I was on borrowed time. I want you guys ended up bringing in Ravens linebacker. He played at Ravens for a while. Josh Bines.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You guys ended up bringing him in. Because Perryman got traded. Yep, that's all right. Yeah. But yeah, man. I do have a question. Group chat was blowing up a little bit when they saw the wide receiver coach hire.

How do you get a wide receiver coach being PC to sell the next guy who wants to be the next Julio Jones in a living room? Him be the wide receiver coach in that room. Corrella room. mainly of athletes being PC, staying PC, you're a wide receiver coach higher. I'm assuming this coach is pale? Yeah, he's a little pale. He's on the pale side. The smaller pale side.

Some people have, like he's 23, 24. Some people have said like, why would you know? Young, yes, young too. Yeah, like I think he's probably one of the best football minds have ever been around. I think I'll struggle to keep him for three or four years. Like, he could have stayed in the NFL. It's just his loyalty to me that he would even leave the NFL. He could have stayed for multiple pieces.

I think he's, I think he's going to be, I think he's going to be brilliant. And, you know, for me, the, the, the program will, you know, I'll, I'll run the overall program. Like, you know, like, there's, we, the players are going to be loved, but they're, they're also going to, you know, we have standards. They're all, everybody's going to do it. They're 18, 19, 20, 21. There's going to be ups and downs. And I'm low key about that. But we really want guys who want to be pros.

We really want guys who want to be good players. And so to me, what I've learned over time is like, you know, sometimes people think, oh, I should go play for him because he played in the league this long. I should go play for this. At the end of the day, the coach can help you be better or he can. You know what I'm saying? Like if, like when I went to be the assistant online coach, the Giants, I never, I'm not an old lineman. How could I help? Well, I could break down every move that Gino Atkins had done.

And I could go to these guys for all pros and be like, hey, look, I broke down 200 snaps. Here's what I got. I found the way to create value for myself. So to me, the best coaches are the ones who can help you be a good. player. And so when you've, when you've coached in the NFL and now you come back to college, I just think he's, I think he and some of the other guys that hired are young guys. I think they're brilliant. I just, I got tired of hiring coaches with big names who didn't really want to put the work in. You know what I'm saying? Like, I got tired of hiring coaches who have like their own

personal brand. Like I want guys who are in it for the players. As a player, I believe you can feel whether the coach is in it for you or not. And so if a player doesn't want that, then he's probably not right for us. But, yeah, I've had a lot of people say that to me. And I honestly, I tell you how I really feel. I'm kind of like, you guys brought me here because you're not winning, so why are you worried about what I'm doing? Just let me do it. Like, wait three years and then, but sometimes, you know, there's so much interest you're going to kind of be into it a lot. Like, like, I believe we're going to win and I believe we're going to win doing it this way.

You know, as I go, I'll adapt and learn, and I don't know Nebraska yet. But the smartest thing, hopefully, that I can do is put the right people in the building. And Garrett, I think, is telling you, I think he's going to be a head coach someday. And so, like, Evan Cooper, my DB coach, I've had him with me forever. Some of the top coaches in football, like Fran Brown's a DB coach at Georgia. Like, I gave him his first job. Elijah Robinson's a D-line coach at A&M. He's making $1.2 million to be the D-Line coach.

Everyone tries to hire him as their D.C. Like, I hired him as from a player development guy. So I've always hired young people that I think that guy is going to be special. Then I watch them take off. And I think that's what Garrett will do. Coach, I appreciate you coming on. Yeah, he's been fucking awesome. For real.

Outstanding. Thank you a lot. I don't think we have anything else. Boy, say subscribe. We hoped you love this. Nebraska, drop the GBR, also the Big Cob Energy in the chat, all that stuff. Coach Rule, you've been phenomenal. Phenomenal.

Thank you. Big hugs, tiny kisses. Hey, guys, it's us. The Jonas Brothers. I'm Joe. I'm Kevin. And I'm Nick. And guess what?

We created our own podcast called, Hey, Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. We get to ask other people. questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions. Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it, but, you know, tired and sick. Tired and sick. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Your husband is not who you think he is. Your body is not what you thought it was. Your identity is formed by a secret history.

I'm Danny Shapiro. And these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring on the 14th season of Family Secrets. He kind of shoved me out of the way and said, move. And he went out the front door and he jumped in a car and drove off. And that was the last time I saw him. Listen to season 14 of Family Secrets on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your 20s can be so exciting, but they can also be really overwhelming, confusing, and honestly, just kind of lonely. May is Mental Health Awareness Month and the psychology of your 20s is breaking down the science behind the biggest roadblocks we face. I was six years into my career, the 80-hour weeks, and just the first one in, the last one out, and I ended up burning out.

There was a large chunk of my 20s that I, like, was just so wanting to, like, be out of that phase out of my skin. And I just, like, really regret not living in the present more. You don't need to have everything figured out right now. You just need to understand yourself a little bit better. Listen to the psychology of your 20s on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.