More Pressure on Matt Rhule as Billy Napier’s Strong Florida Stance Adds to Nebraska’s Tampering Woes

College football reality is rapidly changing amidst the crucial advent of NIL and the stung fear of giving up players for a bigger paycheck for the rivals is real. The lure of money has provoked the school to go for unethical ways to snatch the best talents not always through the portal. Terms like “poaching,” “manipulating,” and “tampering” keep circulating through the mix more and more, instilling doubt even more. But Nebraska Cornhuskers‘ HC Matt Rhule ain’t just sitting with this fear, rather he is coming to a decision even if it demands a price.

In a rather radical step, Rhule wants to hold off the spring games. Yes, quite oddly so. It’s like finding a one-stop solution, albeit drastic, for all the problems.

Florida Gators head coach Billy Napier, however, adds to his concern with a pinch of business-like pessimism.

Billy Napier’s counter comment on the tampering reality adds to Matt Rhule’s concern

Matt Rhule said some players received a handful of offers from other programs to enter the transfer portal during the spring window. Because of that looming threat, he wondered if playing and broadcasting a traditional spring scrimmage would be safe. But the Gators fellow head coach has the same yet different views on this.

Napier thinks it’s a loss either way. If they decide to shut down on the spring games, the fanbase will be after them and if they do the reverse, players will keep getting swapped. Judging on the lesser evil theory, Napier noted,

”I figure that dealing with this fan base is probably worse than having somebody tamper with your players so I would go with him too.” ”Yeah, I don’t like it, but it’s not going to stop tampering, let’s be real, whether you have a spring game or not, coaches are too connected with each other to not know what’s going on,” Hightop Sports analyst made it too obvious not to put all the blame on the spring games alone. Like, they are almost scapegoated. And yes, in a college football periphery where paranoia runs wild, you can say that the once beloved spring games have eventually become a slow-death deal right now. But even if it’s not there, players keep being highly volatile to the wider better options. So, skipping the game can never be a solution. “The spring games aren’t just random scrimmages for guys to fool around,” the analyst added, highlighting the stereotype of the event. It’s not that Rhule doesn’t understand the game, he does, it seems he’s a little too worried about his talents.

Matt Rhule breaks down why he’s against a spring game

Nebraska HC Matt Rhule has highly been aware of the situation we’re undergoing. Rhule, among the loudest critics of the portal’s current catastrophe, cut Nebraska’s spring game altogether despite 60,452 fans attending gracing up last year, marking it the fourth-most in the country. But in a reverse picture, all he got is an added headache from his players. He revealed that a lot of his players received unauthorized phone calls right after the event and were offered big time for a jump.

However, there is still value for television networks like ESPN to telecast spring games especially when the story sells well. They do their job but coaches are on their toes, realizing it’s high time they should stand up. But yes, another concern under the table is that crimes have become more and more dilute day by day. It’s not even a wonder how.

“The word ‘tampering’ doesn’t exist anymore. It’s just an absolute, free, open, common market,” Rhule said, and this is the very reason he wants to safeguard his talents quite heavily. ”I don’t necessarily want to open up to the outside world. I don’t want these guys all being able to watch our guys and say, ‘Wow, he looks like a pretty good player. Let’s go get him.’’

Time will tell whether the approach is good or not, but coaches are slowly mulling over a similar mindset as Rhule. After all, no coach would want their talents to get distracted by unwanted attention and lumpsum offers beyond the ethical transfer portal methods.