He accomplished what he came here to do. Seems like it could be time to move on to a new challenge if he wants a new challenge
IS USC GOING AFTER MIKE ECKELER?
- Thread starter Jeans_15
- Start date
Youre the one trying to convince us that our best assistant leaving is no big deal. Hes a greedy crook. But we just need to rally around our HC every time he makes another mindsplitting mistake, because its out of our control....that sounds like you better keep going. Were not convinced.
Go back to how any D2 STs assistant from Wayne State could come in and give us the same results Ek did. Just as long as we sign a kicker and LS....you were really making headway with that one.
Just like Rhule running Contreras off for Alvano, just so Contreras could go on to have an all BIG12 season......"any monkey who signed a new kicker coulda gave us the same results!" Definitely not about coaching....see example lol
Just a little dose of reality for all the whiny little bitches on this message board. You can blame it on Rhule for not doing more to keep him here or that Ek wants to get off a sinking ship, but the truth is Ek lacks integrity and has no loyalty. His two longest stints in his coaching career, Nebraska 08’-11’ and Tennessee 21’-24’, every other stop in his career has been 2 years at most and many for only 1 year.
I’ve been a fan and defender of Compton, but maybe he can shut the f_ck up about Ek now. Ek did him dirty after he stuck his neck out to get him here, left at the first sniff of more money.
I’ve been a fan and defender of Compton, but maybe he can shut the f_ck up about Ek now. Ek did him dirty after he stuck his neck out to get him here, left at the first sniff of more money.
Last edited:
I’ll never forget his video a few weeks ago “if there’s anybody in this industry you can trust, it’s me. Elijah Robinson is a done deal. Guaranteed. He’s shopping for houses in Lincoln right now.” Clown.
Great, and there are other coaches that can do what he does. He is a fiery coach that players like, he figured out how to reduce return yardage, I think Nebraska blocked 1 punt and returned 1 kick for a TD.
The reason for the turn around was just emphasizing the process. What he does isn't a secret, you just have to care about it to make it better than it was.
Throughout his career he has been a bit of a gypsy. He doesn't stay anywhere too long. I believe I read that if he leaves Nebraska now, this will be the 5th time he worked at a school for only 1 season. That is in 14 jobs. So more roughly 35% of the times he has been hired, he leaves after 1 year. 4 more times he stay 2 whole years. Now we are at 9 of 14 jobs he is gone within 24 months. 1 of the jobs was his first as a high school coach, then LSU for 3 years, Nebraska for 3, and Tennessee for 4.
The reality is, Rhule is going to be fighting for his job all of next year against a brutal schedule and a bunch of new faces for coaches and key players......If our best(most desirable) assistants see that and end up in situations where they demand more money, to stick with a ship thats taking on water fast, then that falls on the guy whose started 19-19 with no ranked wins.
I am not sure Riley is any less hot water than Rhule is. Their 2026 schedule is eerily similar
at Indiana
at Penn St
Ohio St
Washington
Oregon
I dont disagree with you.....but that brings us back to the dollars. Which sinking ship pays more.
I don't think it is dollars, I think Ekeler just likes to move.
Rhule said the extension offer given to Ek during the season would put him at 1st or 2nd highest paid ST coordinator. So this isn’t “at the first sniff of more money”
It doesn't matter if it is a big deal or not. It is happening. Everything is a big deal in the moment. Then it isn't, you adjust and move on. One of the biggest problems with Nebraska fans and to some extent the school itself, is that it is always chasing the past and what used to be. Until people stop and realize that Nebraska is now what Nebraska is now, then you can move forward. Knowing who you are is key, right now fans and team alike really don't know who or what they are, so it is easy to just blame and be mad about it. I don't have time to be mad about football. Maybe that is just me.
As far as Ekeler specifically, If he doesn't want to be here then he is just going to be looking for the next off ramp. He turned down an offer from Nebraska to be the top 1 or 2 paid special teams coaches in the country. He was out the door then. If he wanted to be here, he would have signed the extension get on with the task at hand. What good does it do for Rhule to beg him to stay, especially when you look at Ekeler's history.
There are other guys that know special teams. The dude he brought with him from Tennessee probably knows his system. If not him, then find another candidate.
puzzling statement.. for me I hate to see us lose GOOD coaches while we support and enable BAD coaches.
Nowhere to go but up. Sadly at Nebraska that's not always a given. Always seems like there's more down for us to go.
Well if your head coach ain’t great on his own, you better try to support him with great assistants. I’m just not willing to call Ek great based on what I saw this year. Too many people are hung up on how bad Foley was and using him as the bar.
that one play where the special teams player let the return man run by him without even looking at him.
then when westside kicker missed everything and it got to where they were blaming how the laces were held/long snapper...
them were the worse of times..hopefully
100 percent accurate. I would say there must be some serious issues considering his family lives here and his daughter is playing college volleyball in Nebraska.
It would have been a blessing in disguise if Ekeler never came here, as we probably lose 3 more games and Rhule gets fired instead of extended.
I despise these sort of statement. When you change one variable every subsequent play changes. Life isn't in lived in a vacuum.
That’s true. How many times have we hit “rock bottom” only to slide further down
Who Nebraska is, is at minimum, a top 15 everything.....Facilities, NIL, Stadium, coaching salary, history, sports science and nutrition, on and on and on.....We ARE putting the past aside. We currently, at minimum, deserve to be one of the top 2-4 teams in the best conference in college football, because that is our real commitment to it. Anything less than that is a big deal and is worth bitching about.
If you dont have time to be upset about football, you dont care because you have no control, and whatever other defeatist trope you tell yourself...then so be it. But why be so outspoken on a message board then? Maybe a lifetime worth of substandard personal and professional outcomes has led you to believe thats the norm?
Until I see the numbers, i dont believe anything Rhule says about money and figures. Remember the "Now we can get whoever we want" debacle......Was Ekler a top 2 ish ST coordinator when we brought him here? Maybe. Is he still a season later? Doubt it. Does he deserve more money to stay aboard a sinking ship? Yes........The issue here is, that Ekler and White have been the only coaches that came here with any kind of reputation and actually produced on the field(well Satt did too, but the wrong kind of reputation). That is why this is a big deal. Its almost more symbolic than it is about STs. It looks like we dont care about success enough to let our only good coaches walk. We sent White packing because he didnt want to be here. Ekler to a pretty strong degree wants to be at NU and it needs to happen.
All we needed was a kicker and a LS.....Until Matt Rhule himself ran off an all big12 kicker. That kind of defeats your argument about it being a personal issue...
Matt didn’t run the kid off and as I recall he sucked the year before for us. Good for him for getting better. We had to sign Alvano and he was pretty good until the groin tear.
Busch is highly over rated. There is a reason, he too, has mainly 1-2 year stops
Alvano was not injured in 2023 and made 60% of his kicks. Bleekrode and Contreraz were sent packing. Bleekrode made 75% of his kicks in 2022 and Contreraz didn't play.....In 2023 Contreraz was 1st team Big12 kicker.
It would sure seem that both before and after Alvano, we didnt have a personnel issue....maybe we just had a mongoloid lip licker at HC and his troll ST coach. Maybe coaching matters.
Lol but any STs coach from Doane could come in and do what Ek did if they signed a new kicker and LS....according to you
You also have to remember we had foley . And yes the LS is extremely important it shoes big time last year 24 when we had **** . The one bad thing about losing EK is Archie Wilson . Will the new guy want the rugby style? And yes a guy from Doane would have improved it over the year before because foley was a joke.
I love how because I don't spend all of my time complaining about things I can't control that means I have substandard personal or professional outcomes. Quite frankly, it's the opposite. I control my personal and professional outcomes so those are where I focus my energy.
I use this forum for entertainment, not to pretend I can affect change at the University of Nebraska. It isn't like politics where I have a vote and a say. The amount of money I choose to donate to the university's athletic department isn't enough to have a building named after me or have a seat at the table when it comes decisions made within the department.
I cannot control who the AD hires, who he fires, how people that want to use their millions to fund the program, spend their money.- What Mike Ekeler does with his career. I can have an opinions and express them on message board but is it really going to change anything? Is me being pissed off really going to change Dannon's or Rhule's mind?
It is Rhule's job to use the money allocated to him on the players he wants to spend them on. If he fails that is on him. Honestly though, even with top 15 everything that you believe Nebraska has, why would I believe that top level players would come to Nebraska over other programs that are winning? People, apparently like you, have a much greater opinion of the state of the program than the current players do. This program has been below average for 11 years and stagnate for 13 years prior to that. I am sure we all want better results.
I remember. I just choose not to downplay the significant role a guy like Ek has made on his unit in such a short time
Last edited:
Absolutely agree Ek is a good ST coach.