I feel better about Rhule than anyone over the past three hires.
Bo had no experience as a head coach and obviously had a fiery personality. Riley seemed like a nice guy but had a history of average to mediocre results; and getting more resources and a school with a stronger history didn't change things. Frost's tenure was flat out weird from the start, and got worse as time progressed.
Interesting, it almost, just almost make one pine for... Callahan, NOT! Callahan was even weird in that he seemed to have forgotten everything he ever learned and knew about College ball. And no, it didn't change that much in his ten years in the pro's. Cally just got too used to and comfortable with the NFL to be effective in College, and also, he wasn't Head Coach material. So I have to rank Rhule as higher than Cally (there were inklings of Cally issues before the first game and season).
So I remain very optimistic we'll see improvement in the on-field product. I don't know that we can improve our win total, but I will be very happy just being bowl eligible. If we do worse record wise; I will base my judgement on the on-field product.
If we’re going off how we felt in the moment, the day that person was hired, I’d rank’em like this.
4) Bill Callahan – I never liked him as an NFL head coach and I hated the move to a pro-style offense given our personnel. Not to mention the coaching search was a poop show. It felt like all a sudden we weren’t Nebraska anymore.
3) EDIT: I forgot Riley! - That says it all. I completely forgot about him. I wasn't thrilled with it. Hoped he might work out.
2b) Matt Rhule – I can’t quite put him ahead of Pelini which I’ll get to. I’m excited for Rhule. I didn’t have a preference for who Nebraska hired but I think he’s as good as we could have hoped for.
2a) Bo Pelini - Just edges out Rhule because at the time, Osborne was the AD, Pelini was a hardnosed defensive-minded coach and it felt like we might be back on track. And in some ways, we were.
1) Scott Frost – Come on. Anyone who doesn’t have Frost #1 on their list is either lying or knew him personally. Those are the only two acceptable answers. Great pedigree, an undefeated season, former Husker qb. The list goes on and on, we all know the resume.