Matt Rhule reveals if he has any regrets taking Carolina Panthers job

Nebraska coach Matt Rhule has had a lengthy journey as a coach, one that took him from some ultra-successful college gigs to the grinder of the NFL. It didn’t really work out at the professional level.

Rhule was fired as the coach of the Carolina Panthers after going 11-27 in two and a half years. That came after he had led Baylor from a one-win campaign in 2017 to 11 wins in 2019, just two years later.

“I don’t regret it one bit,” Rhule said of taking the Carolina job on Next Up with Adam Breneman. “First of all, I met some amazing people. And I went through some hard things. I learned a lot of things about myself. And I became a better coach as a result.”

Nebraska is hoping it can get the best version of Matt Rhule going forward, having signed him to an extension last fall. So far, results have been mixed — Rhule is 19-19 in his three years in Lincoln.

But for Rhule, the Carolina stint provided a lot of great things. Even if the football didn’t bear fruit.

“More importantly, my son, who’s doing great as a sophomore here, he went there, he found a great group of friends,” Rhule said. “He found a high school. He was able to go to the same high school for four years. He stayed there for four years. He went to a school called The Fletcher School in Charlotte. I think it changed his life. He’s thriving in college as a result.”

Rhule pointed to his family as the main reason the stint in Charlotte, brief as it was, was such a huge success. It was a pivotal point in his life.

“I would give anything to have my three kids someday say, ‘My dad did the best he could as a father,'” Rhule said. “My wife made great friends, my kids did. So yeah, was it painful at times? Was it hard at times? But as a father, you’d go through anything for your own kids. So that’s one piece of it.”

As noted, Matt Rhule believes he picked up some things in Charlotte, too. Things that could potentially help him get this group of Nebraska players over the hump in 2026.

That will certainly be the goal. A 10-17 Big Ten record over the last three years has some folks antsy.

“It led me to here and it prepared me for this,” Rhule said. “There’s more media at a press conference here than there was in the NFL. And so the only way to do this job here is to do things, like, everyone cares about the program, so they’re going to have an opinion, is to say, ‘You know what, it’s not going to be popular, but I’m going to do what I think is right.’ Had I not been through the fire in Charlotte I’m not sure if I would be able to handle it as well now.”

The pressure will be on Matt Rhule to perform. Nebraska needs to start looking like the turnaround jobs he executed at Temple and then Baylor.

The more Rhule looks back on his time in Charlotte, though, the more convinced he is of his answer. He regrets very little.

“I also loved my time with those guys,” Rhule said. “We have three dogs. Our third dog and probably my favorite dog, Nala, I mean Brian Burns gave me that dog. I loved coaching Brian. I loved being around those guys. I loved the fact I got a chance to coach in the National Football League.

“So no, I wouldn’t regret a thing. I learned a lot. It might affect my decisions, maybe moving forward. It showed me what real leadership is, because I’d always led previously on teams that eventually won. It’s really easy then. I never got it done in Charlotte, but I still stood there till the very end with my head held high, never taking a shot at anybody. Taking arrows that sometimes maybe should have hit someone else, but proudly standing there and, like, you know what? That’s what life’s about.”