Checking the numbers on Rhule’s “biggest and leanest” claim
Public roster data can’t prove everything, but it does show Nebraska has become a bigger team since 2023.
“This offseason we added 677 pounds of lean mass. At the same time, they lost 188 pounds, as a team, of fat,” coach Matt Rhule said this past Saturday. “This will be the biggest and leanest team we’ve had.”
I understand the instinct to roll your eyes a little (and I’ve seen plenty of it on social media). It is August. Every program is stronger, faster, closer, more bought in, more physical and more connected than they’ve ever been at this point.
But Rhule put actual numbers on it and I am unfortunately exactly the kind of person that heard that and immediately started wondering what the roster says.
I’ve done this before with Nebraska. I’ve also done it across the Big Ten. It is never a perfect exercise. Listed heights and weights are not body-composition scans and they do not tell us who can (and cannot) win games.
They do give us something, though.
If Nebraska’s head coach is going to say this is the biggest and leanest team he has had here, I think it is only fair to ask what part of that shows up publicly. So I went through Nebraska’s official rosters from 2023 through 2026—you know, Rhule’s teams—and compared the 2026 Huskers against the rest of the Big Ten.
