A popular name in Penn State’s head coaching search just became a little less popular as Nebraska signed Matt Rhule to a two-year extension, bringing his agreement with the Huskers to 2032.
The 50-year-old native of State College and “BFF” of current Penn State athletic director Pat Kraft was rumored to be among the candidates for Penn State’s head football coach opening. While this extension doesn’t *totally* take Rhule out of the running, his side of the buyout does increase from $5 million to $15 million. An impossible chunk of change for the Nittany Lions to get to? No. But still, Rhule likely doesn’t sign this extension if one of the following is true:
- He doesn’t want the job.
- He doesn’t think he’s a leading candidate to get the job.
We’ve talked about Rhule’s candidacy plenty of times since the job opened, and one of the major pieces was him (AKA Nebraska) looking impressive over the latter half of the season. Through two games, the Cornhuskers got embarrassed by Minnesota on a Friday night and then barely squeaked by Northwestern at home. So not much juice in raising his profile if he had wanted the job, eh?
We’ll see where the Penn State search goes from here. As a reminder, despite the fact the job has been open for almost three weeks: we still got a long way to go. I wouldn’t anticipate a hire until the season ends, so we are looking at an eventful November which will separate the contenders from the pretenders.
