Matt Rhule: 'You don't get a harvest unless you sow seeds.'

Trev Alberts taking the AD job at Texas A&M was stunning for Nebraska. It wasn't just their AD taking, in their view, another job that's at best a lateral move. It was one of their own making that lateral move.

This, on the heels of NU system president Ted Carter leaving to become the president of Ohio State back in August and that position remaining unfilled, created a feeling among many Huskers that something must be rotten at the core of the University of Nebraska.

Into that void stepped Matt Rhule. 

Rhule was scheduled to speak to the media to preview his team's spring practices, but spent the first 12 minutes of Monday's press conference calming the natives and selling the masses on the future of Nebraska. 

"I would not send my son here if I didn't think it was an amazing place," he said. "My wife's opening a business down in south Lincoln. We would not invest our money and our future in a place we did not believe in. We love the state of Nebraska, we love Omaha, we love Lincoln. We love everywhere that we've been and everyone that we've met."

Rhule is not only Nebraska's most important ambassador at this fragile time. With no chancellor and no AD, he's by default Nebraska's most important and most visible employee, period. 

Sensing that leverage he has, Rhule used the opportunity to stump for what he wants in the next Nebraska athletics director. And what he wants is someone who will spend more money on football. 

"We can't take a step backwards. We have to take a step forward. We have to be unabashed in our desire to be the best. We cannot worry about optics. We cannot worry about what people say. The way you win in college athletics today is you invest. You don't get a return until you've invested. All the agriculture across our state, you don't get a harvest unless you sow seeds. 

"Whether it's salaries, facilities, upgrades, we need to return to the days where everybody across the country is coming to the University of Nebraska to see how things are being done. I called Kirby Smart last week to see if I could come down and visit Georgia. We sent our performance and nutrition people down to see Florida and Alabama. I want people coming to Lincoln. 

"The issues everyone thinks are out there, I don't think they're out there. I think we're just on the precipice of a really, really important time to get the right leadership in here, who's not worried about making tough decisions, who's not worried about making tough decisions, who's not worried about, 'Man, what are people going to say if we hire a few more people?' This is the time."

The next AD got some help Monday from the Nebraska legislature. 

Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen reached out to Rhule individually to insure his commitment to remaining a Husker. "That meant a lot to me, personally," Rhule said.

One season in, Matt Rhule now has a lot of influence at Nebraska, and on Monday he was not shy in using it.