Despite leaving the Carolina Panthers early in the 2022 regular season, Matt Rhule, the head coach of the Nebraska Cornhuskers, is unable to stop talking about his previous squad.

Five games into the 2022 season, Rhule was let go by the Panthers and accepted a position with the Nebraska football team. Rhule has had early struggles with collegiate teams in the past, but by year three or four, things started to come around. Rhule assisted in leading Nebraska to a 5-7 record in his first season, and this offseason he signed Dylan Raiola, the nation’s eighth-ranked recruit, a transfer from Georgia to Nebraska.

Put another way, Rhule’s success at Temple and Baylor demonstrate his caliber as a college coach, but his time with the Carolina squad wasn’t great. Perhaps this explains why he’s so keen to blame his former team.

When questioned about then-Iowa State signal-caller Brock Purdy of the San Francisco 49ers, Rhule says he brought Purdy’s name up in Carolina but was overruled on picking the quarterback.

Matt Rhule claims he wanted to draft Brock Purdy in Carolina.

This may be accurate, but even in the unlikely event that it is and Purdy gets selected by the Panthers, he is probably not the player he is today. The 49ers have weapons that would aid in the success of a rookie quarterback, something that the Panthers did not have and still do not.

It’s also simple for executives and coaches to declare, “Oh we were going to take Purdy!” at this point, but in reality, nobody did until the very last pick of the 2022 NFL Draft. As one of the players that helped lead the 49ers to the Super Bowl, Purdy is a member of that team. Most likely, I would have said that I too wanted to draft him!