Matt Rhule names Dana Holgorsen as offensive coordinator

Nebraska football coach Matt Rhule names Dana Holgorsen as new offensive coordinator Share Copy Link Copy

He got done last year and, you know, probably needed some time and I called him last week and said, hey, can you come in and help? You know, so he and Phil came in and kind of look through everything and I think he felt confident, you know, I think he likes, you know, as he said to me, he likes our coaches, he likes our players and felt like he could help you something like this for *** week 11, you make *** change like this with somebody that's not even in your building to take over calling the place. It's probably unique. Um, but it's what's needed. It's, it's the right thing. Um, I think, um, the kind of the genesis of this was, I think what you're going to see now is as coaches, um, get fired, I think you'll start to see coaches like leaving maybe even before bowl games and coaching bowl games. And so the players can have some familiarity with them. And, um, and I think that, you know, that kind of, that was kind of in my head of like, hey, I think, you know, you've seen coaches take jobs now and then go there and coach the bowl game when I, when I went to Baylor, I, I sat out and didn't do that, you know, and so I didn't really have *** chance to know the players till mid spring. And, um, so last Sunday, you know what, iiiii, I appreciate all the work our staff has done. I, I love how hard they've grinded and cared about the kids and, and, and done their best and, and, you know, produce some good moments and I felt, but I felt like we needed some help. And so I just thought this was, you know, the right thing to do, you know, at the end of the day, like it might be bold, it might be unique. Um, and again, I didn't, didn't bring him at first with that, you know, I said, hey, come and see, and I think as he got here, he felt comfortable and, you know, Marcus walked in right away and was like, tell me everything you need and Glenn did the same thing and Garrett said I can translate this into your language and, you know, so, um, and then Dana is obviously, you know, he's really *** smart guy offensively. He can, he can figure out kind of what we're doing and what we do. Well, so sorry, in your defense coaches, offensive philosophy, I'm gonna score points, you know, I, I mean, I mean, I think the thing with Dana, you know, Dana came up last year, you know, to visit and, you know, at the time I was hoping, you know, maybe he would do one of those, you know, sometimes as *** head coach you get fired, you go and you, you know, you go down to Alabama work for Nick Saban or something like that. And I let that, you know, coach Saban's history of, you know, having Bill o'brien and Lane Kiffin and all those guys as O CS guys who've been head coaches who have perspective, you know, this is *** lonely job sometimes and to have someone in the, in the building who's done that, you have someone to bounce ideas off of. So I, at the time, you know, I was hoping maybe at some point he'd be ready to do this. Um, but no, I mean, you know, I feel like, you know, if I'm being honest about myself, if I look back, I think, you know, we, we've always done *** good job of playing really good defense. Uh, we've always done *** good job of being physical. We've always done *** really good job of developing players, you know, um, when we've had good offenses, we've won games. And so, um, Dana, when I think about what he's done going to Oklahoma State, what he did there going to West Virginia, the run game that they had, I competed against him. It was really, really physical, tough team. And so, um, it just made sense to me. Where do you, um, where does this leave sat and how do you, how do you structure the offensive coaching staff with, with ***, *** change like this in, in three games to go? I'm, I'm just worried about right now, you know, um, you know, Marcus, um Marcus is about as good *** man as, as I know and, um, you know, he could have just said, hey, you know what, fire me, you know, give me my money. I'm gonna go home. But, um, he didn't, he didn't and you know, in *** world where trust me, I get it and it's *** results business, but like we're still trying to teach some life lessons to our guys. Um, he humbled himself and said, what, what do I need to do? And, uh, you know, it's like, you know, the first day Dana said to me, he, he watched practice. He's like, man, you got really good coaches. I'm watching them out there like I'm watching EJ, I'm watching Donny, I'm watching, sat, I'm watching Glenn, I'm watching Garrett like you got, there's great coaches here. We just have to find the things that like our guys do. Well, let's just do those things and, and eliminate all the other stuff. And so, um, yeah, so sat's out there coaching the tight ends. Um, Garrett is coaching the wideouts, Donny's coach on the other line. Glenn's coaching the quarterbacks E J's coaching the running backs and, uh, anything that Dana needs, he's, you know, they're helping him. He's not, you can't come in and change the offense, you know, you can't come in and install the air raid, you know, I mean, you can't come in and, I mean, we're like, we're in week 11, as you said, but you can come in and say, hey, what are the things that we do? Well, who are the guys that make plays and let's figure out how to do it with those guys. So, I think that's, that's the big picture that I think he's doing right now. The air raid be something that you consider down the line after the season, I think right now, I'm just, you know, focused on right now. I mean, I think if you, if you watch what Dana did at, um, West Virginia, I mean, I think all, whether we're playing Lincoln Riley this week, right. They, they all have the air raid principles in them. I mean, everyone's gonna run mesh and cross and, I mean, the place that they invented, everyone runs. Right. So it's, it's, um, it's, it's really taken on *** much bigger picture than that. If that makes sense, I think, you know, Coach Leach was still doing purely the air raid. But I think when you watch what Coach Gerson's done, when you watch what Coach Riley's done, they've built powerful offenses with big people who run the football, play action. And yeah, they have some of those principles in there, but they adopt other things. So, but it's, you know, it's, to me this is, you know, this, to me this is an opportunity. You know, I've, I have Tony White who I think is *** great coach who does some unique things and he's adjusted his offense to our people or his defense to our people. And I think it's been really good and I think, uh, Coach Holgerson will adjust the offense to our people and I don't know what three weeks from now holds. I have no idea. You know, I mean, the off season is the off season, but, um, this is, this is not about next year. This is about right now. This is about, this is about us giving our guys the best chance to go out there and, um, win at us c

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