Director of Athletics Trev Alberts Quotes

Nebraska Football Introductory Press Conference of Head Coach Matt Rhule
Trev Alberts
Vice Chancellor, Director of Athletics
Monday, Nov. 28, 2022
Hawks Championship Center

“Good afternoon everybody and welcome. Thank you so much for being here. What a great turnout. Give yourself a round of applause for being here. There’s a lot of energy in this room right now. We really appreciate you being here. I know we’ve got some of our football team here and a lot of our staff, and other student-athletes, so we’d like to welcome you to the Hawks Championship Center, and of course we’d like to welcome the Rhule family, so thank you for being here. We’re so appreciative of that. Today is a great day. Today is obviously a great day for our football program, it’s great for our athletic department, I think it’s great for the university, and it’s really great for all of our alumni and the entire state of Nebraska.

We have the privilege today of introducing the 31st coach in the history of Nebraska football - one of the best out there in Mr. Matt Rhule. I know you’re not here to hear me, you want to hear Coach Rhule, but I want to go through a few thank yous. I want to walk you through a little bit on the process, how we got to where we are today. I want to talk a little bit about the vision that we have for the Husker football program, and finally, what those characteristics - key characteristics - of our coaches that we were looking for, that ultimately landed on Coach Rhule.
 
First and foremost, I want to start by thanking Coach Mickey Joseph. I’ll tell you, Coach Mickey Joseph and our staff and our players did an outstanding job. Many of you here recognize nine games ago when we made a change, and Mickey Joseph was the head coach. Mickey did an outstanding job. I had a lot of respect for Coach Joseph prior to him becoming our interim coach. I have more respect for him now. The way that he worked, continued working, doing the right things, fighting hard for these young men and investing in them, was really something. And to see them have that moment against Iowa was really special. So, I am really really proud of Coach Joseph and his staff and our players, and I want to thank them. 
 
I want to thank President Carter. I want to thank Chancellor Ronnie Green. I want to thank our Board of Regent members who we have here. I want to thank Governor-elect (Jim) Pillen. I’d like to thank our staff. I’d like to thank the media. And I’d like to thank you for giving me the space to run an effective search. I know it was a long time. I think it was the longest search in the history of Nebraska Athletics, probably. It was very meaningful to me that you all allowed us to do a real search and gave me the space to do that, so thank you very much for allowing me to do that. I’d like to thank my wife, Angie, and I’d like to thank our staff. The fact of the matter is, for the last couple months, I’ve been a little bit remote. This consumed all of my time, and I’m just so grateful to have the staff we have in Husker Athletics, who worked really hard to make sure that everything was moving forward appropriately, so I want to thank them. I want to thank Julie, Bryant, Vivienne, and Leona. Thank you, guys, so much for allowing your husband and your father to become the head coach at the University of Nebraska. You’re going to love this place. Husker Nation is going to love you, and we’re going to support you and your family, so thank you for believing in us. I want to thank you for being Huskers. This is awesome.
 
I just want to tell you a little bit about the process. We talked to - interview is the wrong word - we interacted with 13 coaches as a result of this process, and some multiple times. As I told you a long time ago, we were going to dive into a really deep, detail-oriented process, and we wanted to talk to a lot of people. I really want to thank all of those folks who took the time to talk to us. I learned a lot in that process. Obviously, we’re not going to be releasing the names of all the people that we had an opportunity to talk to. But I also want you to know that candidate-1A for me and the University of Nebraska was always Matt Rhule, from the beginning, so we’re really glad that we ended at that point.
 
I also want you to know that we tried to use all the tools at our disposal possible. One of the cool things you have now is analytics. And so, we really were able to dive into a lot of analytics and some of the details behind that. We were able to use a firm that helped us look at successful Big Ten programs, looked at all of these candidates, and tried to match up. Obviously, analytics aren’t the primary driver, but it’s a tool. And so, we tried to use all of our tools for our benefit. 
 
I just want to tell you a little bit about our vision. It's really simple to me. The University of Nebraska has been and always will be the premier development program in the country. That's our DNA and that's who we are. For those of you who drove up and you saw the Go Big Project, you can see the investment of our donors into that project. That's the brick and mortar behind the greatest development program in college football. That was going to be really important to me as we looked for our next head coach. 
 
Secondly, a focus on toughness. If there's anything this program has been about the last 30, 40 years is this is a program that is based on toughness. So, I was looking for coaches who understood what toughness looked like. What practice looked like and ultimately getting back to the vision of being the most physical team on the field on Saturday. That's Nebraska football, that's Husker Athletics, and toughness was a key component to what our vision was going to be. 
 
Third and finally, was a clearly defined identity. It's something that I really believe in. We're going to believe in something and we're going to dive into it and we're going to play complementary football. I believe that's what Coach Matt believes as well. He'll get a chance to tell you about his vision. Some of the quick coaching characteristics that we were looking for, and some of this is redundant and obviously we have talked about this before, but an authentic leader. It's really important to me. We need leadership. We need someone that our players are willing to follow and our coaching staff. We have that with Matt Rhule. We need a man of integrity. This program has been built on integrity. We do the right thing all the time. Having a leader of integrity was really important as well. A culture builder, a people manager, someone who understands how to build it brick by brick from the bottom was critically important to me. A process oriented individual, details matter. If you think about the Big Ten Conference and where we're going and how USC and UCLA and perhaps others someday come into our league and the level of coaching that's going to happen in the Big Ten, attention to details and process are going to be really important to our future. 
 
Being a grinder as I have talked before is really important. You have got to work at this job. You have got to be passionate about winning. 
 
Finally, a strategic thinker. As we said about our process and talking to those coaches, there was one coach that constantly stood out from everyone else. One coach that went to multiple places and levels and had the strategic vision to create the structure around what it took to win at that palace. Let's be honest, we are at a critical juncture in our history as a football program. Having someone who has a track record of understanding how to build a program at multiple levels and multiple locales with multiple strengths and weaknesses was really important to me.
 
Matt, I want to thank you. I want to thank you for believing in me and the University of Nebraska. I want you to know that the Husker Nation is behind you. We're going to support you and we're going to work as hard as we can to help you and help our program be successful. So, it is now my distinct privilege and honor to get to introduce the 31st head coach of the University of Nebraska football program, Mr. Matt Rhule."
NU Athletic Communications