"I always felt like it was the first game of the next year": Matt Rhule gets blunt on Nebraska Cornhuskers' bowl game win 

The recent dilemma surrounding college football bowl games has raised concerns. There's growing speculation online about declining interest in postseason games, something that used to be a big holiday season tradition to watch ball on Saturdays. This shift may be linked to the changes in the football landscape, including the introduction of NIL and revenue sharing among programs.

While speaking about these theories, Nebraska coach Matt Rhule shared his two cents during Tuesday's episode of the "Always College Football with Greg McElroy" podcast. Rhule emphasized that it is all about perspective. He expressed his continued love for bowl games, recalling his past coaching experiences and expressing how important bowl games are to him.

“I think going back to the Temple, and then going back to Baylor, the one thing that I knew, and so I said to our guys, I always felt like it was the first game of the next year,” Rhule said. (6:50)

“Now, portals and some of those things that even more so, but I mean, football is a game of competition. We spend a lot of time and we have a committee determining who goes to the playoffs. You know this is the only sport that's really kind of like that and in terms of our national champion.

"So you try to say this is team is better than that team, that team is better than this team. It's a game of competition. It's a game of achievement. Two teams go out there, it's not the better team. It's the team that plays the best. So, I think being a part of that Bowl is going out and competing."

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Matt Rhule finally ended Nebraska’s long-standing postseason streak

The 2024 season was quite prominent for Matt Rhule at a personal level. The Nebraska Cornhuskers finally snapped a seven-year bowl game drought and made it to the Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl at Yankees Stadium, New York.

They squared up against Boston College in an ACC - Big Ten blockbuster where Rhule and Co. secured a 20-15 victory to mark their first bowl game victory since 2016.

Matt Rhule mentioned in the interview that a lot of his Cornhuskers had never been to New York. So it was more like an opportunity for them to play in such a diverse environment in a big city. Rhule enters 2025 with hopes of improving his season record with Dylan Raiola in the pocket. Nebraska went 5-7 in his first year as Nebraska head coach in 2023 and improved to 7-6 during the 2024 season.