So long spring game (probably), hello o-line help and more NU football notes
Matt Rhule offered a handful of football updates over the weekend, while the Huskers landed a needed veteran up front.
College football’s new era has claimed another old standby—probably.
Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule all but confirmed Saturday that the Huskers won’t hold a spring game in 2025, an outcome AD Troy Dannen carefully prepped everyone for during a radio appearance last week.
Rhule said he didn’t know yet that there wouldn’t be a game, “but I’ll be honest with you, I highly doubt it.”
He was as honest about the reason behind the potential change.
“We were one of the more televised spring games [last year], and I dealt with a lot of people offering our players a lot of opportunities,” Rhule said. “To go out and bring in a bunch of new players and then showcase them for all the other schools to watch, that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.”
From a national perspective, we could see last year that spring games might be an endangered species, but I thought Nebraska could be almost exempt from that discussion, writing in April it was one of the schools with enough annual interest that “the spring game might be nearly untouchable.” Wrong, I guess.
In the grand scheme of things, there are worse changes wrought by the increasing—and unfortunately1 incremental—professionalization of college athletics. I might give up nonconference play (much less spring games) if walk-ons could still be a big part of college football’s future.
But I also probably have a skewed view of the annual Red-White game. The first one I was assigned to cover, 2012, was canceled due to deluge. There was, of course, no spring game in 2020. We’ve been spring-game-less in the recent past, but I covered enough to realize I found more value in reading between the lines of everything that was said after spring practices than I did in anything I saw on the last day.
Then again, the spring game wasn’t intended for me. It was a fan event. It served a unique role in offering a way for almost anyone to experience Memorial Stadium. That’s certainly something lost, and the perspective that matters here. I’m interested in the ongoing response to the news: Given Rhule’s rationale, how bummed are you there likely won’t be a spring game in 2025?
There is a chance it could be a one-year blip, at least at a place like Nebraska. In January the American Football Coaches Association voted unanimously for a single, 10-day (Jan. 2–12) transfer window. It was a symbolic vote—a statement of preference—but if the NCAA were to adopt it this would basically set rosters for the season ahead near the start of the spring semester (minus graduate transfers, who can go at any time). Do that and it at least eliminates the concern2 over post-spring poaching. Nebraska could bring its immensely popular scrimmage back if it wanted to in that world.
But I suspect this could be one of those “once it’s (voluntarily) gone, it’s gone” scenarios. It was easy to eye-roll coaches when they said they were worried about putting game action on tape in the past, but roster losses are a more present, persuasive danger.
At least in how the game exists today. Could be, and probably will be, different tomorrow.
Odds & Ends
»Nebraska has yet to hire a special teams coordinator, but Rhule said it was likely to be a non-recruiting position, which offers a whole host of possibilities. In the past, if you wanted a special teams coordinator, he was one of your 10 on-field assistants, could coach as much as every other coach and go on the road to recruit. The other option was to give those duties to an analyst, who was limited in how much instruction he could provide and couldn’t be out there recruiting. Those lines don’t exist now, so this direction makes a lot of sense.
As for the special teams play itself, Rhule had this to say, which ended with maybe the most intriguing quote from his Saturday session (emphasis mine):
“I don’t think we can put any more time into [special teams] in terms of practice. I don’t think we can put any more time into it in terms of meetings. I think our roster this year will be better than our roster last year, and that’s just the building of the program.”
To be clear, he was saying the previous time and energy NU spent on special teams wasn’t lacking, not that it would spend less time. But I’m more interested in the roster assertion. Its validity is somewhat unknowable right now—won’t stop me from trying throughout the spring—but it’s also probably the key to improved performance in 2025.
I don’t think it’s an easy argument to make, but let’s poke around a bit in future newsletters.
UPDATE (10:30 a.m.): According to VolQuest, On3’s Tennessee site, Mike Ekeler is leaving the Vols to become Nebraska’s next special teams coordinator. Obviously a familiar name in Lincoln, I wrote a bit about him on this initial list of potential candidates. If Ekeler is the hire, I’d be surprised if he’s not on the road recruiting, contrary to what Rhule said just two days ago. He somewhat famously was instrumental in the Huskers landing Will Compton. But, we’ll have more on Ekeler in the future.
»Nebraska’s roster currently sits at 126 players and, assuming the House v. NCAA settlement is ratified in April, the roster will need to be down to 105 by the first game of the season. Rhule said every player was told during offseason meetings if he would be in that 105 if cuts had to happen immediately. Some who wouldn’t still elected to stay, but the presumed roster limit won’t be enforced until, likely, the day before a team’s first game. Nebraska can, based on what the coaches think will happen, go into fall camp next August over the limit as long as it’s at the limit before the first game.
»The Huskers landed Notre Dame transfer offensive lineman Rocco Spindler on Sunday. Given the context, it could end up being one of the bigger additions of the winter.
Nebraska pursued a bunch of tackles, getting Alabama starter Elijah Pritchett while missing out on a handful of others. Spindler (6-5, 325) spent most of his time at guard, starting 23 of 29 games for the Irish over the past two seasons.
Wherever he fits in Lincoln, the Huskers needed the depth as the o-line is going to be extremely mix-and-match this spring. Turner Corcoran could miss spring practice after he needed surgery for a hamstring that never fully healed, Rhule said. Teddy Prochazka is coming off a knee surgery. Gunnar Gottula and Henry Lutovsky had minor surgeries in the offseason, as did Tyler Knaak though he might be available for spring drills.
It's going to be an…interesting…spring up front.
“To win in college football you’re going to have to grow your own offensive line,” Rhule said. “We’ve recruited a lot of really good players who have gone through the rhythm of redshirting, being a backup and now it’s their time to really make a move. They have all the opportunities they want this spring.”
As for Spindler, landing any experienced offensive lineman isn’t easy. Getting one this late in the game seemed unlikely.
If this was our inevitable future, it would’ve been nice to just get there instead of how we have spent the past three or four years and how we will spend the next three or four.
As far as I can theorize, this makes everything better for almost everyone involved—fans, coaches, graduates (who then become the only way any team can improve or fill holes after January, and are thus in demand, which is what we all want after completing our degree, right?) and most players. Sure, the player that was maybe on the fence about staying but decided to stick it out for one more spring would lose out, but that player probably doesn’t stick it out for four more months if he’s uncertain. Essentially the FBS coaches voted this winter to say, “yes, we would like something that is a massive net positive and just makes sense.”
Made an update to this story with the reports that Mike Ekeler will be returning to coach Nebraska's special teams.