Let's assume for a moment Penn State does its due diligence and comes to the conclusion that Matt Rhule is the man for them. That is only half the equation here. Even if Penn State wants Matt Rhule, should Matt Rhule want Penn State?
First, let's consider the job that the next Penn State coach will inherit.
James Franklin's record against elite opponents became a punchline toward the end of his tenure, but he's going to be a terrible act to follow. To quote Shane Gillis, he's the Navy SEAL ex-boyfriend.
The next Penn State coach will have next to no honeymoon period, and he'll take the job in immediate debt to a mentally broken fan base where the only acceptable payment is a national championship. Start 5-0? Who cares, beat Ohio State. Beat Wisconsin by 20? Doesn't matter, give us a Big Ten title. 10-0 and No. 2 ranking in the AP poll? Yawn. We've been here before. Oddly, the closer the next Penn State coach gets to a national title, the more psychotic Penn State fans will behave. It's not their fault, that's just what college football does to an ordinarily healthy mind.
On a 1-to-100 scale, Franklin got Penn State something like 92 percent of the way to a national championship. As I wrote in A Coaching Autopsy, we don't really know what the Penn State job is, but we know what Penn State thinks its job is. They think it's a job where this is not good enough.
The next Penn State coach will take the job knowing the season starts at 10 wins.
Now let's consider the jobs Rhule has had.
He coached at Temple, where he took to impressive heights but, c'mon, it's Temple, Baylor at the lowest point in that program's history, and Nebraska in the ebbiest ebbs in the history of ebbs. In taking over a program that hadn't even been to a bowl game since 2016, last season's 6-6 regular season was treated like a conference championship (which, by the way, Nebraska hasn't done since 1999). At 5-1 this season, Rhule sent his team to celebrate with visiting Nebraska fans for a 34-31 win at Maryland (Nebraska was favored by a touchdown.)
Nebraska players went in locker room after game, then were sent out … to party and salute the Husker fans in stands. Wow. Wow. Wow.
— Steven Sipple (@steven_sipple) October 11, 2025
Guts. Pure guts.
Rightly or wrongly, at Penn State Rhule would be expected to apologize for not winning that game 28-10.
That's not to say Nebraska fans are wrong for celebrating their team's first 5-1 start in nearly a decade, it's just a shining example of how Big Red is on the complete opposite end of fan base psychology from Nittany Nation.
There would be no celebrating in the stands after a 3-point win over Maryland at Penn State, to put it lightly.
Finally, let's consider the dynamics Rhule would have to take on at Penn State.
No major college football coach will ever have a healthy relationship with his program, but right now the relationship between Rhule and Nebraska is functional. Each knows where the other stands: Rhule is the employee, Nebraska the employer. As Rhule noted Monday, his daughters sit in the stands for Husker home games. "You can’t do that everywhere," he said.
At Penn State, the relationship would be half employer/employee, half mother/son. Rhule doesn't have to look far to see how a relationship between a coach and his alma mater can sour, he inherited one. Scott Frost went from favorite son to persona non grata at Nebraska, all for the sin trying to coach his alma mater and not being good at it. For every Kirby Smart/Georgia or Jim Harbaugh/Michigan, there's a Kliff Kingsbury/Texas Tech or a Scott Frost/Nebraska.
“I love Penn State. Met my wife there, my alma mater, fan since I was born,” Rhule said. “I think probably had a Penn State shirt when I was born.”
The magical thing about alma maters is that, even as the institution itself changes, our relationship to the institution can the same at 50 as it was at 20. That relationship ceases to exist when your alma mater becomes your employer, and especially so in this case. The Penn State of 2025 is not the Penn State of 1997, and the Penn State of 2030 will not be the Penn State of 2025. Maybe that's for better, but it might be for much, much worse.
Perhaps being the Penn State head coach is Rhule's overarching goal in life, and there's no talking him out of it. The heart wants what the heart wants. But if there's even a shrivel of doubt about going home again, Rhule should remain in his adopted home of Nebraska, because once you walk through that door, there's no going back again.