In a news conference on Feb. 1, Nebraska Cornhuskers head coach Matt Rhule told reporters he may cancel the upcoming spring game over fears of having his players poached by other schools.
While canceling the game may seem extreme, Rhule’s concerns are justified after what happened to the Cornhuskers following their previous spring game.
Matt Rhule May Cancel Nebraska Spring Game Due to Tampering Concerns
Rhule said, “The word ‘tampering’ doesn’t exist anymore. It’s just an absolute free open common market. I don’t necessarily want to open up to the outside world and have people watch our guys and say, ‘he looks like a pretty good player. Let’s go get him.'”
Rhule’s concerns are valid, as last spring, Nebraska drew in a crowd of over 60,000 fans, and the game was nationally televised.
According to Rhule, after the Cornhuskers 2024 spring game, some of Nebraska’s top players were approached by other schools and offered money to transfer out of Nebraska.
In the same press conference, Rhule said, “I dealt with a lot of people offering our players a lot of opportunities after that. To go out and bring in a bunch of new players and showcase them for all the other schools to watch doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.”
It truly is a new time in college football, where the players that coaches work so hard to recruit to their school may be poached any minute by another school.
Rhule’s concerns echo the trend of this college football offseason, in which NIL has made it so that college football coaches must work overtime to continue to recruit the players that are already on their roster.
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Rhule’s statement may end up starting a trend in college football, in which more and more colleges start to cancel their spring games out of fear of other schools finding and poaching talent by watching them.
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