Wait, do teams really lose the week after playing a Rhule-coached team?

Nebraska AD Troy Dannen said of Matt Rhule that "nobody ever won the week after they played Temple." It's a good soundbite, but is it true?

Courtesy Nebraska Athletics

Nebraska introduced new athletic director Troy Dannen Wednesday, and this is probably one of the least important things he said during his press availability:

“Here’s the thing about Coach Rhule that I really admired at Temple. Nobody ever won the week after they played Temple. Nobody ever won. They were physical, they were tough. You knew it was going to be the most physical game of the year.”

Dannen (then Tulane’s AD) and Matt Rhule (then Temple’s head coach) overlapped for two seasons in the AAC, 2015 and 2016. In theory, if playing a Rhule team had a knock-on effect the following week, Dannen could’ve known about it.

I love nothing more than a fact-finding mission. I am a potentially strange animal¹ in that I often feel as if I’m just waiting around for somebody to give me something to research. Dannen did, so here we go, even if it might be inconsequential.²

“Nobody ever won”

OK, well, obviously some team played Temple one week and then won the following week, but introductory press conferences are essentially political rallies—you’re going to say some things, maybe only things, that play to the base. Teams that have faced a Rhule-coached team are not 0-for-infinity, but what is their record?

As a Nebraska fan, presumably, you might be familiar with the Body-Blow Effect. It has most often been attributed to option teams, and definitely was during the Huskers’ option era. The thinking is that not only were option teams hard to prepare for, playing one, with all of those run plays and cut blocks (when that was still allowed), took a physical toll that could linger beyond the 60 minutes on the field. This is basically the sole domain of the service academies at this point—though Kennesaw State is joining FBS this season—so I was mildly surprised to hear the Body-Blow Effect linked to Rhule.

Is there anything there? Here are the records for teams in the week after facing a Rhule-coached team compared against those opponents’ combined record in each of those seasons.

Some thoughts

• Add it all up and over Rhule’s entire coaching tenure, teams that went 496-509 (.493) overall³ went 38-48 (.442) the week after playing a Rhule team. When you add in the vagaries of schedule strength—for example: Temple beat Penn State 27-10 in 2015, but the Nittany Lions hosted Buffalo the following week so even if the Owls had beat them up a bit the previous week, Penn State would’ve had to have been in the hospital to lose to Buffalo—I don’t know if the post-Rhule gap is enough to prove there’s a Body-Blow Effect. But it doesn’t disprove it either, which is about what I expected.

• For Your Cabinet of Curiosities If You Want It, pt. 1: Rhule’s best year for supporting the Body-Blow Effect theory was his first year at Baylor. The Bears only went 1-11 that year, but opponents went 2-9 the week after playing Baylor. Thing is, Dannen was still at Tulane then so unless he was closely following Rhule and Baylor through a one-win season, it seems unlikely the long-term effects of facing a Rhule team would’ve registered.

• For Your Cabinet of Curiosities If You Want It, pt. 2: In Rhule’s first two years at Baylor, Duke went 2-0 against the Bears and went 2-0 the week after playing them. Oklahoma also went 2-0  against Baylor those two seasons, but 0-2 in the following games. In 2017, the Sooners lost 38-31 to Iowa State as a 30-point favorite, though OU had a bye week after Baylor so either a) Rhule and the boys really beat up Oklahoma, or b) the events are unrelated. In 2018, Oklahoma beat Baylor and then lost to Texas as a touchdown favorite.

• Dannen’s first first-hand encounter with Rhule football was in 2015. Tulane was a 14-point underdog against the Owls in October and the Green Wave was annihilated, 49-10. The following week, Tulane was a 21-point underdog to a very good Houston team and lost 42-7. Maybe this was the genesis of Dannen’s memory of Temple under Rhule.

• Not only did some teams inevitably win the week after facing Temple, Dannen’s own team did in 2016. The Owls (-15) stomped Tulane for the second consecutive season, winning 31-0, but the Green Wave (-1.5) won 38-13 over UConn the following week.

“We’ll take the best, forget the rest”

So, maybe we can’t say with certainty that Rhule’s teams always left opponents so bruised they were still feeling it a week later. Those opponents didn’t fare drastically worse, but they didn’t fare better, so that’s something.⁴

Nebraska AD Troy Dannen meets with the media March 26, 2024. | Courtesy Nebraska Athletics

But total accuracy isn’t the point of a comment like Dannen’s, and his memory of those Temple teams came from somewhere. Given Rhule’s defense-first approach, and how much he preaches physicality, the Body-Blow Effect felt like it could be a trait of his teams. It felt close enough to the truth for me to pull the records, at least.

Given so much in the world is unmeasurable, I’m usually drawn to things that are. Hopefully that doesn’t make me a reply guy. Better strange than that.

1. This has nothing to do with anything but typing those two words kicked up a melody in my head, and now you have to deal with it. If you want to experience the most 1980s you can in less than 5 minutes, watch this music video for Canadian classic “(You’re a) Strange Animal” by Gowan. It’s so 80s it’s like injecting New Coke—released the same year as this song, incidentally—which is definitely not recommended for multiple reasons, least of which is that your New Coke is past its Best By date by now. But if you’d like to safely know what that might’ve been like, check out the video. I don’t know if the song is good or bad, but I do know that it’s perfect. I also know you’ll be hum-singing the chorus later today. I’m sorry/you’re welcome.

2. It’s possible I like researching inconsequential things even more than consequential things. Nothing beats the feeling of “well, maybe that means nothing but at least we know now.” Doing the work is always rewarding, but there’s an extra level you can unlock if the work is elective and doesn’t change the world.

3. Minus wins and losses against Rhule.

4. Footnotes are like my 1980s for music. You could really do anything you wanted then as long as you made a video because MTV really wanted the inventory. For example, in the video for “The Best of Times” by Styx—the lyrics include the words in the heading to this section—the bass player is wearing a tuxedo and the drummer is wearing a white pilot’s shirt with navy epaulettes. Why? Because they could.

If you followed the link in the first footnote you will, undoubtedly, never forget Gowan. For Your Cabinet of Curiosities If You Want It, pt. 3: Gowan became the lead singer of the touring version of Styx in 1999 and still has the full-time gig today. If you listen to both songs, you’ll hear why. Anyway, nobody should’ve given me footnotes.