Matt Rhule has passed on the opportunity to become the next New York Jets head coach, leading the club to hire Adam Gase.
Rhule would have been the second current or former Big 12 head coach to land an NFL job this week, following the Arizona Cardinals' hiring of ex-Texas Tech head coach Kliff Kingsbury.
Like Kingsbury, Rhule has minimal NFL experience. He spent the 2012 campaign as the New York Giants' assistant offensive line coach, but other than that has spent the entirety of his career in the college game, most of it up and down the Eastern seaboard. The former Penn State linebacker coached at Albright College, Buffalo, UCLA, Western Carolina and Temple before returning to Philadelphia in 2013 as head coach, where he led the Owls to a 28-23 mark in four seasons.
After starting his tenure at 8-16, Rhule guided Temple to a 20-7 mark with two American East championships in 2015-16.
That success led him to Baylor, where he earned accolades and respect for guiding the program out from under the rubble of the Art Briles Era's implosion in 2016. After a 1-11 debut, Rhule went 7-6 at Baylor this fall, closing with a Texas Bowl victory over Vanderbilt.
That lack of NFL experience led to a reported sticking point between Rule and the Jets, with the two sides failing to agree on who would join Rhule's staff as assistants.
That impasse led the Jets to move on from Rhule, and quickly after word of Rhule remaining in Waco went public, it was reported that Gase would be the next Jets coach.
Gase made his name in the NFL working with quarterbacks, and he'll need to use that ability to turn around a Jets franchise that is 14-34 in its past three seasons and hasn't reached the playoffs in eight years. However, the club drafted Sam Darnold No. 3 overall in 2018, and Gase's fortunes in New York will hinge on his ability to get Darnold to live up to his billing.
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.