Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule met with the media following Early Signing Day. On Wednesday morning, the Huskers saw all 20 of their commits sign with the program. According to the recruiting service On3, the class ranks No. 20 in the nation and No. 6 in the Big Ten out of 18 teams.
Rhule spoke with the assembled press about the class of 2025 but also discussed the plan for offensive coordinator Dana Holgorsen’s staff. The head coach confirmed that a new wide receivers coach has joined the staff.
We’ve hired Coach (Daikiel) Shorts to come in and coach the receivers even before this. The initial plan was to have both he and Garret (McGuire)there. In Dana’s offense, they’ve always kind of had both an inside and outside receivers coach. It was Dana’s only request after four weeks, he said ‘Matt, I love the entire staff, I like working with Glenn (Glenn Thomas), Satt (Marcus Satterfield), Donny (Donovan Raiola), EJ (EJ Barthel), but I do want to bring in my guy that I trust and believe in.’ He’s one of the best recruiters. Great coach who kind of knows our system, so we made that, we’ll see what happens as a result.
Shorts previously worked under offensive coordinator Dana Holgorsen while at Houston. He was the wide receivers coach from 2021-2023. While with the Cougars, he worked with several notable players, including current Houston Texans receiver Tank Dell. He spent 2024 as the wide receivers coach for the Kentucky Wildcats.
“John Butler. John is definitely a candidate for the job. I brought him in knowing that at some point Tony (White) was going to leave whether it was a coordinator job or a head coaching job. John has been a DC before, so right away I said ‘Here you go John, take this over and run with it.’ He’s done a great job this season with putting together game plans and passing game plans with Tony. He’ll take that. I’ll talk to some different people. I have talked to some people. I’ve had some players come in and voice their opinions. A lot of guys love John on the staff, on the team. It was one of the reasons we hired John in case this happened, so we’ll see how it goes.”
“Despite all the angst, I get all the angst. I don’t want to make a bad decision. I think sometimes when we rush, we make a bad decision. Yesterday I was able to go out to practice and we put the ball down and we’re competing and John’s (Butler) calling the defenses and I can kind of get a rhythm of how he calls it and all that, so I feel really comfortable with him, I feel really comfortable with some other coaches. I can’t tell you about how many people are interested in the job. I’m talking about sitting Power Five coordinators. I think what’s important to me is that I like how we play defense. I like this defense. I like these fronts. I like the multiplicity of what we did. We did some different things against Iowa I thought were great. I don’t want to switch to something different. I want to do this defense. Whoever that is, I don’t want to make that decision for a short term, ‘oh we feel good about it.’ I don’t want to make a splashy hire. If we’ll remember when I hired Tony (White) in the three-three-five, my phone didn’t stop blowing up. People were asking how the three-three-five was ever going to work. People were panicking. I think it’s worked out pretty good. I have no timetable other than to just get it right. Just to make it right.”
