What made Matt Rhule the right fit for the Panthers? He’s no BS’er

If you’re a traditionalist about your football coaches, you’ll like that Matt Rhule moved a mattress into his Baylor office the week of the Oklahoma game.

If you prefer coaches to have more life balance, you’ll like this: Rhule, the Carolina Panthers’ new head coach, chose to watch a Little Mermaids Live performance with his daughter, rather than monitor the College Football Playoff’s first ranking unveiling last fall.

Rhule is leaving Baylor to become an NFL head coach for the first time. His only prior NFL experience was in 2012 with the New York Giants — one season as offensive line coach.

But Rhule, 44 and a New York City native, has a global understanding of football — a position coach on offense, defense and special teams along the way — and a knack for fixing major messes. He took over a scandal-ravaged Baylor program in 2017 — losing to Liberty that first 1-11 season — and went 11-3 this season.

“What I walked into was a disgrace. Really bad. We fixed that,” Rhule said Tuesday afternoon in an interview with ESPN-Central Texas’ David Smoak.

“I don’t think anyone really understood where Baylor was when we got here. We restored the program to what it’s supposed to be. Where players come and leave as better men. Get an education and were transformed ... We didn’t just use players for football, we tried to better their lives.”

His time in Waco, Texas, suggests a guy who demands discipline and toughness, but also has the capacity to laugh at himself, as in when he agreed to a Muppet-style video for Baylor’s introduction of its 2019 recruiting class. The puppet portraying Rhule continuously preached “Process,” a gag about his favorite buzz word.

“I think our players believed in the process, like practicing a certain way,” Rhule told Smoak. “When something works, you don’t want to stray from it.”

Rhule left Temple for Baylor in 2017, after coach Art Briles was ousted over multiple reports involving, among other transgressions, the program not thoroughly investigating accusations of players committing sexual assaults.

Rhule tightened up the program quickly and dramatically. He reached out to faculty, requesting that if a player was even a minute late for a class, the professor report that back to the football office.

“Late is late ... This is how we do things,” Rhule described of that philosophy in November. “What happens sometimes is you start winning (and rules become lax). That’s just not how we do things.”

Being a stickler for punctuality might be a function of one of his mentors. Then-Giants coach Tom Coughlin — known for his five-minutes-early-or-you’re-late mantra — hired Rhule in 2012 as offensive line coach. Rhule at the time was an offensive coordinator at Temple, and no expert in the nuances of line technique. He formed a bond with Giants linemen that season by first admitting he was still learning, but would devote himself to improving them.

“He’s so humble; no ego,” Coughlin told the Observer on Tuesday, “no BS’er and he was such a sponge for what he could learn, and did an outstanding job for us.”

Transition to pros

Like Rhule, Coughlin left a Power 5 college program (Boston College) for his first NFL head-coaching job (the Jacksonville Jaguars in 1995). He has perspective on the transition Rhule must make between overseeing college players and pros, and reached out to the new Carolina coach Tuesday.

“The best advice I’d give Matt is to be himself,” Coughlin said. “He’s already achieved in totally different (football) situations. At Temple (where Rhule was head coach from 2013 until taking the Baylor job), they were very physical — a power team.

“Baylor is a whole different world (in the Big 12), and he excelled in the wide-open style they play. Professional football players aren’t all that different. They want to be coached in a way that allows them to win.”

Coughlin said taking over the Panthers, who lost their last eight games in 2019, is no more daunting than what Rhule faced at Baylor. He called Rhule’s communications skills rare, and linked that to Rhule never acting like a know-it-all.

“Coaching looks so difficult but in fact it’s simple: It’s about getting rid of self — players setting aside (individual agendas) for the good of the team,” Coughlin said.

“He is very good at helping players get better because he comes off as so human. He’s good about admitting mistakes, and that’s a way of saying he wants to get better and help everyone else get better.”

Finding fixes

Coughlin said Rhule is used to sizing up who does and doesn’t have the resolve to be part of solutions:

“You have to understand how Baylor was such a difficult situation: Some players left, but some stayed. Those who stayed got a lot better.”

Rhule didn’t just value talent, as far as who he wanted at Baylor. During recruiting visits, he scheduled prospects to watch some sort of team workout to evaluate whether they were engaged in football. Rhule always monitored which recruits were on the sideline, absorbed with drills, and which were in the stands, playing with their phones.

Rhule’s comments Tuesday suggest that while the tens of millions he’ll make is nice, the sense of backing he felt from Panthers owner David Tepper was crucial.

“All I’ve ever looked for is alignment,” Rhule told Smoak.

“It’s not about money or fame or anything else. It’s everyone having the same rules, the same players at the highest level and fending for yourself — what you can do.

“Just like (Baylor) took time and Temple took time, this will take time.”

This story was originally published January 7, 2020 at 6:22 PM.