Amie Just: Getting Nebraska back to being respected, feared, ultimate goal for Matt Rhule

INDIANAPOLIS — The image is as iconic as any in college football.
Nebraska’s simple yet refined white helmet paired with the scarlet stripe, scarlet face mask and the famous scarlet N.
It’s not gaudy nor flashy; it’s understated. And yet, for decades, the sight of that helmet and the men wearing it were both feared and respected. It meant something.
It’s been a long time since the Nebraska brand carried that much weight in the college football landscape. That loss of gravitas didn’t happen overnight — it eroded, gradually giving way to the reputation Nebraska has today: a once-great national power.
If new Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule has his way, the N will elicit those feelings of fear and respect once again one day.
“There’s something bigger for us at Nebraska,” Rhule said Wednesday at the main podium. “… We want to be a team that you say, ‘You know what, that team’s feared.' But we’re not at that point yet. We're at a point where I believe we have to take back the respect of what it means to play Nebraska and to be at Nebraska.”
How do you get there?
You can’t wave a wand and magically undo the mistakes of previous administrations and coaches. You can’t erase the pain and frustrations of the tenures of Mike Riley and Scott Frost. Nor can you forget (try as you might) how Nebraska hasn’t had a winning season since 2016.
But you can use those experiences to inform the future.
Offensive lineman Ethan Piper is wholly aware of what Nebraska used to be. Born in March 2001 in Norfolk, he wasn’t around for the glory days of the 1990s, but his parents and grandparents were.
“Talking about Ohio State, anybody that talks about, like, ‘We’re gonna play Ohio State.' Everyone’s kind of just like, ‘Oh, the Ohio State.’ That was Nebraska back in the day,” Piper said. “There’s a little bit of weight to that name, and that’s just because of the way they performed and the way they trained and the way they attacked every game.”
How’d Ohio State get there? Pairing a proud tradition of success with elite coaching, top-tier recruiting pitches and hyper-focused attention to detail (with some mild cheating and other scandals along the way).
When it comes down to it, that’s what Nebraska’s trying to do: revive its brand, recruit like heck and focus on the minutia.
“(We need to) do every single little thing right, like detailed to the max and worried about every little thing,” linebacker Luke Reimer said. “That’s when you get over that hump. You’re doing the right thing, you’re doing all these little details. That’s when the ball will start bouncing your way.
“That’s not just one position group or two position groups. It’s everybody. They’re hustling, they’re getting to class, doing the right thing when no one’s looking.”
The little things, those spill over onto the field, too.
The single-digit losses — all 14 of them from 2021 and 2022 — remained an unprompted talking point. It wasn’t from a perspective of finding excuses, but rather finding solutions.
It’s not as if a single-digit loss won’t ever happen again. That’s football. The hope, though, is that one doesn’t snowball into an entire season’s worth of losses.
“That’s what Nebraska has struggled with so much recently,” Reimer said. “… Let’s win the close games.”
Where does that start?
Everything matters for Rhule. There’s intention and urgency with every action. There are no shortcuts, no skipping steps of the process. The hope is that there are no steps backward. Players aren’t expected to just be on time, but be early. There’s an emphasis on placing the same level of importance on every game.
“It’s fourth-and-goal every single day in our building,” Rhule said. “That’s the mindset. I go away to see my family at the beach and everyone’s like, ‘I know you’re on vacation.’ I’m not on vacation. I’m working from the beach. This is 24/7, 365.
“We’re chasing greatness. Everyone here is sprinting to stay ahead of us. We’ve got to catch them and then get to where we want to be.”
There’s a balancing act between urgency and patience that comes with it, though.
Expecting an overnight turnaround is unrealistic. But at the same time, there is no waiting around for “the right time” to do something. For Nebraska, the right time is now. The right time is, honestly, yesterday.
“We want to be a team where you turn on the film and you’re like, ‘Holy smokes, these dudes are different,’” Reimer said. “… That’s the biggest compliment you can give somebody in football is like, ‘These dudes are playin’.’”
Rhule added: “I owe it to the University of Nebraska to go all-in. I can’t go half-in and gauge the temperature of it. I gotta go all-in.”
Part of that is compartmentalizing. The team can’t get ahead of itself.
Thankfully for Rhule, there’s an ever-present reminder of that etched into the fabric of Husker football.
“It's literally written on the side of the stadium, ‘Day by Day,’” Rhule said. “That's the key. It wasn't that we ran the ball or ran option or played this defense, it was this mindset from Coach Osborne, from Coach Devaney, from Coach Solich, every little detail matters every single day.
“… That's the whole core of what we try to do, is to block out all the noise and block out all our thoughts and learn from the past, prepare for the future, but live in the present. That present focus is what will determine who we are.”
That’s Nebraska’s mindset.
That’s why Rhule believes Nebraska will win. And, in turn, eventually, make NU’s opponents respect and fear the Huskers again.