Matt Rhule’s journey to Lincoln and its resemblance of home By Brady Oltmans, as published by Hail Varsity , Dec. 15 , 20 22 Nebraska Athletic Director Trev Alberts introduced the new head coach of the state’s athletic crown jewel on November 28. Matt Rhule approached the podium through applause and unfolded his written speech from his coat pocket. He immediately rewound time an d to relieve his childhood. Before the multi - million - dollar contracts, flashbulbs and massive photoshopped backgrounds. He thought of the New York City subway and his dad. He thought of family, Penn State and Nebraska. Denny Rhule and his son, Matthew, le ft their home in Manhattan and caught the train to East Rutherford, New Jersey, for the 1983 Kickoff Classic. They were both diehard Penn State fans. Denny grew up in State College, Pennsylvania, before roaming the country because Denny was an urban missio nary. Pennsylvania still felt like home and, at the time, the Nittany Lions were the best. They’d just won the 1982 National Championship. Cheering for Penn State was easy and didn’t prepare Matt for August 29, 1983. Nebraska overwhelmed Penn State, scorin g the first 44 points of the game. Approximately 71,123 fans watched the Huskers win 44 - 6, handing legendary head coach Joe Paterno his largest loss in 18 years and reducing an 8 - year - old Rhule to scratchy eyes. “I can still remember walking back to the s ubway with tears in my eyes wondering why Nebraska had to do that to us,” Rhule remembered in his introductory speech. Nebraska’s new head coach then admitted it wasn’t the only time Nebraska welled his eyes. He was a walk - on linebacker at Penn State in 1 994, a scrappy role player gladly sacrificing self for team glory. But the undefeated Nittany Lions fell shy of a national championship. Instead, Nebraska earned that glory. Nearly three decades later he’s tasked with leading Nebraska back to the promised land. Take away the stage, the speakers, big screens and crowd at Hawks Championship Center on his introduction day and Matt Rhule was just another football guy talking to football people. He was the preacher’s son shouting the gridiron gospel from his pr actice field pulpit. He hoped his ambitious sermon stirred a fan base to its feet and meet his energy. Take that energy and apply a humble work ethic, he told them. He knows it can work at Nebraska because it’s worked before. It built him from the slums of New York City to NFL head coach. Now, he’s back in college football at a place that feels like home. A son forged in a working - class fire tasked with reawakening a dormant kingdom. “We will do it,” Rhule said when he was introduced. “We are going to have to do it together.” *** Denny and Gloria Rhule left Kansas City for New York City in 1980 with their two young children squeezed together and a U - Haul behind. Denny, a graduate of Nazarene Theological Seminary, just accepted a job as an assistant past or doing urban missionary work at The Lamb’s Church of the Nazarene back when the church was on 44th Street just off Times Square. Their cross - country drive abruptly halted in the Midwest with a rainstorm. The rain subsided and they realized the roof of th e U - Haul leaked. They stopped again in State College, at Denny’s parents’ place, to wait while a mattress dried out. The youngsters enjoyed a family pitstop before arriving in New York City. Matt described it as rough. Manhattan back then wasn’t the Disne y environment it is now. Gloria worked with at - risk women and children. Denny’s seminary work extended to coaching football, baseball, basketball, soccer and softball. At one point, Denny hosted midnight basketball at a youth center that kept him out until 2 a.m. “It was good for our kids because they saw different people,” Denny Rhule previously said. “They saw different races and socioeconomic groups. The church had a big outreach to the homeless and they were part of that. I tried to include them as muc h as we could. I think it benefited them in the long run being there 11 years.” The family lived on Roosevelt Island and commuted to Manhattan by tram for Denny’s work and Matt’s sports. Matt played on grass, concrete and even brick courtyards. Denny onl y coached his son in baseball and basketball, but Matt wanted to be like his dad. Matt was 5 when he told his father he wanted to play football at Penn State and then become a coach. Denny patted his son on the head and they moved on. One year of youth fo otball didn’t bring Matt the same joy. Then he read a copy of ‘They Call Me Assassin’ by Jack Tatum. He once told Mike Jensen of the Philadelphia Inquirer it changed his life. “Reading that book — the fearlessness and aggressiveness with which he played, within the white lines of course — I read that,” Rhule remembered when he coached at Temple. “It’s amazing how one person’s mental approach, you can take that on. So I tried to take that on. From then on, I loved playing football.” He invested work into football and became the starting quarterback at his private school in New York. Then came a call from Stage College. The Rhule family left the missionary work, including feeding 400 experiencing homelessness every Thanksgiving and the eventual health clinics they hosted. They also walked away from the penthouse dinners of Matt’s Manhattan friends. Matt dreamed of playing football at Penn State. He was now moving back to State College. They were going home. But in doing so he realized what separated him from his dream. *** Private school football in New York is different than public school football in Central Pennsylvania. Matt Rhule discovered this when he arrived at State College High School for his junior season. State College already had a starting quarterback. Mike McQueery earned the spot as a sophomore and led a promising Little Lions team towards success. Rhule briefly practiced on defense and watched most of his junior seaso n from the sidelines. But he didn’t stay there. He was, as current State College High teacher and coach Mark Baney described him, a happy - go - lucky go - getter. Not only did he want to play and make the team better, he was also willing to sacrifice for it. H e transformed his body ahead of his senior year so he could move from backup quarterback to starting center. He told coaches he was going to be the best center he could muster through body and spirit. “And he did,” Chris Weaking, then - coach and current at hletics director at State College High, remembered. “And he anchored an incredible offensive line that year.” Weaking was the linebackers coach at the time. His unit squared off against the energetic Rhule in practice. As State College started rolling thr ough the regular season, the senior center’s effort never wavered. “You knew you were going to get the best effort out of Matt every practice,” Weaking said. “And that just made other people around him better too. And on the other side of the ball because they had to bring their best effort too.” Rhule was, even at the time, exceptionally intelligent. Coaches described him as a “cerebral” quarterback. He moved to the offensive line at a time when every starter on the line was in the top 10% of their class . This allowed the Little Lions to run “choicing” plays. They audibled and adjusted not only pre - snap but based on the center - quarterback exchange. Defenses rarely, if ever, stopped the surge. “We wouldn’t be able to do that without someone as intelligent as Matt anchoring that line,” Weaking said. State College High made the state semifinals. This left Rhule staring at his dream of playing at Penn State. Head coach Joe Paterno never offered him a scholarship. Rhule wouldn’t let that derail his dream. * ** State College revolves around Penn State. It’s two - and - a - half hours to Pittsburgh and over three hours to Philadelphia. There are more Steelers fans than Eagles fans, but everyone cheers for Penn State. A large swath of them, at least at one point, we re Nittany Lions. That’s what Matt Rhule always wanted to be. Baney marveled the drive in the young football man, but never pictured the scrappy center at the highest level of college football. Matt sometimes returned to State College High to meet with hi s old coaches. Baney heard daily updates from Denny on how his son handled the rigors of Penn State football. “And I remember it being a grind for him,” Baney said. “I remember it being a tough road for him and he kept with it.” That’s when Brandon Noble met Matt. Noble was a scholarship defensive tackle who overcame a broken leg and a case of mono, which caused him to lose 40 pounds, during the 1993 season. H e recovered ahead of the 1994 season as Penn State readied a charge toward another National Championship. Being a walk - on at that time meant Rhule was “cannon fodder,” Noble once told journalist Matt Lombardo. And yet, there he was, practicing in the swelt ering, brutal weeks for no weekend glory. “The thing I remember about Matt is him showing up to work every day, grinding it out, being a team guy,” Noble said. “That’s how he got to be as good as he is at what he’s doing right now. You have to have that t ype of personality.” Rhule never became the star at “Linebacker U.” He didn’t become the next Jack Ham, Shane Conlan or LaVar Arrington, Paul Posluszny or Micah Parsons (all arrived after Rhule graduated). He did, however, work his way onto special teams. His family, teammates and former coaches all beamed with pride. “That’s a credit to him, to his task, his loyalty to his team and his ability to transform and do what it takes to help the team do whatever he can,” Baney remembered. “I was really thrilled to see him out there at Beaver Stadium on special teams, where he played and got most of his snaps.” Penn State went undefeated in that 1994 season, culminating with a massive win over No. 13 Oregon in the Rose Bowl. But it wasn’t enough. Voters decided Nebraska was the best team in the country. “Nebraska went out and played the University of Miami and beat them and once again there were tears in my eyes as we finished without a National Championship and Nebraska did,” Rhule remembered during his introdu ctory speech. *** State College is a one - school town. Well, two, including the university. State College High is the only school within 40 miles in Pennsylvania’s largest classification. It’s a city of about 240,000 but the population dips when Penn St ate’s classes dismiss. Penn State, and Beaver Stadium, is a football Mecca for those who grew up there. It’s a small town in a lot of ways. Weaking and Baney taught with Denny Rhule three decades ago. Many of them who coached the 1992 team are still there . Their sons played football, their daughters played volleyball and everyone stayed in State College. Not only did Denny grow up there, his father (Matt’s grandfather) was the State College postmaster years ago. The town came to him and, thusly, the State College community woven closer to the Rhules. Baney’s son, another State College grad who played football at Penn State, got married. His best man joined Matt Rhule’s training staff at Baylor. “It’s a close - knit town and a lot of the athletes still live i n town,” Baney said. “It’s like a big family, it really is.” Friendships and relationships. Those are things Denny Rhule treasure. So Matt grew up revering them as well. Denny led chapel discussion when Matt was head coach at Temple. He followed his son t o Waco after retirement and voluntarily led weekly Bible studies for coaches and players. Matt started his coaching career as a volunteer assistant for Paterno in 1998. When Matt became the head coach at Temple, after starting his coaching career as a volu nteer assistant for Paterno in 1998, he invited his old high school coaches out to spring practices. That offer stood when he moved to Waco. Matt invited Noble to coach on his Temple staff, which Noble later resigned from for personal reasons. Nearly every coach on his staff at Nebraska worked with him before. Rhule returned to State College High and delivered a locker room speech weeks after his Temple Owls upset Penn State. Ahead of Rhule’s second year coaching the Carolina Panthers, he returned to speak to the Texas High School Coaches Association. He didn’t need to curry favor or schmooze with coaches. Rhule wasn’t playing soft politics to get top - tier recruits to Baylor. He was there simply because he loved spreading the gospel of football. Ahead of th e 2020 COVID season, Weaking asked Rhule to record inspiring messages for State College students. Despite coaching in the NFL, he happily sent videos to current State College High coach Matt Lintal. “He’s humble enough to help us out when we reached out t o him,” Weaking said. “He never got too big for himself. He always stayed grounded.” Full disclosure, Weaking has been a Husker football fan since November 12, 2011. He still primarily cheers for Penn State but on that day the Huskers embraced the Nittany Lions at a time when the rest of the world ridiculed State College. National media and non - sports attention descended upon the close - knit community in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky scandal. Nearly every high - level official at the time resigned, including the revered coach Paterno. But after Nebraska won, 17 - 14, the teams embraced each other. Weaking said Nebraska went out of its way to extend a hand to Penn State in the first Nittany Lions game since the bombshell. The Huskers, as an opponent, offered hel p to a community that idolized Penn State football. State College and Lincoln are similar in that way. They’re both evolving, growing cities with small - town cores. There are many sports but there is one unified team. They’re blue - collar cities who take pride in their historic defenses and their toughness. Rhule said he and his family of five snuck into Lincoln on a Husker game day last season. The lynchpin question he posed to his wife and children: Could we live here? Weeks later, they were on a plane bound for Lincoln. “I think Nebraska to him, if I could venture a guess, is going to feel like State College,” Baney said, “and it’s probably going to feel like going home for him.”