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That great American philosopher Frank Sinatra famously recorded a hit song about the need to have confidence in your own abilities in order to accomplish big goals. His 1959 song “High Hopes” won an Oscar for “Best Original Song” from the motion picture A Hole in the Head.
“Just what makes that little old ant
Think he’ll move that rubber tree plant
Anyone knows an ant can’t
Move a rubber tree plant!
But he’s got high hopes, he’s got high hopes
He’s got high apple pie, in the sky hopes
So any time you’re gettin’ low
‘stead of lettin’ go
Just remember that ant
Oops, there goes another rubber tree plant”
The month of April means that we are in the middle of the college football spring practice season. Most major universities will conclude spring football practices by playing a scrimmage game for the fans to watch. These games rarely reveal any significant indicators about what the future actually holds for the new football team.
However, the spring games allow football fans and the players a chance to get excited about the fall football season coming in just a few months.
Two major college programs recently hired new football coaches. Fans of the Colorado Buffaloes and Nebraska Cornhuskers are downright giddy as expectations of future bowl game appearances and conference championships dance in their heads.
Will the new football coaches be able to deliver the success which these loyal fans are starved for?
Former NFL star Deion Sanders jumped into college football coaching at Jackson State University a few years ago. In two years, he quickly transformed the JSU Tigers into winners on the field and rejuvenated student and alumni interest in the school’s proud football program.
Self-nicknamed as “Prime Time” as a football player, former NFL defensive back Deion Sanders was talented enough to earn a place in the pro football Hall-of-Fame. His ability to cover opposing wide receivers and outstanding punt return skills made him a very special player. However, his over-the-top verbal rhetoric made him either a fan favorite (if he played on your team) or a top target for the opposing team and their fans.
Upon retiring from the NFL, Deion Sanders became a popular football analyst on television.
He then decided that he wanted to try his hand at coaching. Sanders became the offensive coordinator for a high school in the Dallas, Texas area where his two sons played football.
In 2020, Deion Sanders surprised the sports world by being named head football coach at Jackson State University. During his two years at the school, the JSU Tigers won the Southwest Athletic Conference in both seasons. The offense was led by the coach’s son – quarterback Shedeur Sanders.
The Pac-12 football program at the University of Colorado has been mired in a period of decline. Last year, the Buffaloes finished just 1-11. Since 2006, the Buffs have won more than six games only one time (2016). The football team has appeared in just three post-season bowl games during that 16-year period.
Though Deion Sanders’ magic at Jackson State came against a slightly lower level of competition, fans in Colorado are really buying-in. This week, the school in Boulder announced that season tickets for this fall were now sold out for the first time in 27 years.
This Saturday at 1PM Central time, the Colorado Black and Gold spring football game will be played in front of a sold-out stadium. ESPN will be on hand to jump aboard the “Coach Prime” bandwagon, too.
At the exact same time on Saturday in Lincoln, Nebraska, the Nebraska Cornhuskers will kick-off their annual spring football game in front of a sea of thousands of red-clad fans with high hopes, too.
“Once there was a silly old ram
Thought he’d punch a hole in a dam
No one could make that ram, scram
He kept buttin’ that dam
‘Cause he had high hopes, he had high hopes
He had high apple pie, in the sky hopes
So any time you’re feelin’ bad
‘stead of feelin’ sad
Just remember that ram
Oops there goes a billion kilowatt dam”
Nebraska’s new head football coach is Matt Rhule. Much like Deion Sanders at Colorado, the hiring of Matt Rhule has excited the Cornhusker fan base. Perhaps their football fortunes are finally about to improve.
Unlike the athletically gifted Deion Sanders, Matt Rhule was a walk-on college football player. He became a linebacker for the Penn State Nittany Lions under Coach Joe Paterno. He earned all-academic honors while graduating from Penn State with a degree in Political Science. He later added a Master’s degree in Educational Psychology from the University of Buffalo.
Like many college football coaches, Matt Rhule moved from school to school to gain the coaching experience needed to advance to higher levels of responsibility.
Rhule became the head football coach at Temple University (Philadelphia) in 2013 at age 38. The Owls went just 2-10 in his first season. The team improved to post 10-4 records during years three and four of his tenure at Temple.
After the 2016 football season, Matt Rhule left Temple and moved to Waco, Texas to accept a difficult job at Baylor University. The Bears were coming off the Coach Art Briles era. A sex scandal involving the football program rocked the university and the sports world. The entire football coaching staff was either fired or voluntarily left Baylor before Matt Rhule took over as the new head coach.
After posting a 1-11 record in his first season at Baylor, Matt Rhule led the Bears to a 7-6 record in Year 2 and then posted an 11-3 mark in 2019. The Bears were ranked #8 at the time they played in the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans (losing the game to #5 Georgia).
The turnaround job at Baylor made Matt Rhule one of the hottest coaching commodities in the nation. The NFL’s Carolina Panthers offered him their vacant head coaching position in 2020. Unfortunately, Matt Rhule (like other college football coaches) was not as effective in the NFL. By the middle of his third season in Charlotte last fall, Matt Rhule was fired by the Panthers.
The coach still had an outstanding track record of producing winners in college football. The Nebraska Cornhuskers remembered that and quickly negotiated a deal to sign Matt Rhule.
The Huskers have a long history of winning football teams and are supported by incredibly faithful fans. Nebraska’s 80,000 seat Memorial Stadium has been sold out for every home game since November, 1962. Through good times and bad, the Nebraska football sell-out streak reached 389 consecutive home games by the end of the 2022 season. The fans still came even as the Nebraska football team finished with a 4-8 record.
Much like the excitement happening at the University of Colorado, Nebraska is ripe for a revival of Big Red football. New head coach Matt Rhule wants to lead the Cornhuskers into a post-season bowl game soon.
Also like in Colorado, Nebraska has not posted a winning record in the regular season since 2016.
Coach Matt Rhule’s Nebraska Cornhuskers and Deion Sanders’ Colorado Buffaloes formerly played against each other annually as members of the Big 12 Conference. In 2011, Nebraska bolted for the Big Ten. In the same year, Colorado left to join the Pac-12 Conference.
In the second week of this fall’s 2023 college football season, Nebraska will travel to Boulder and renew this former Big 12 Conference rivalry.
The two new head football coaches will meet on the field with high expectations for their respective programs. Deion “Coach Prime” Sanders at Colorado and Matt “Glad to be back in college football” Rhule are going to do their best to turn around the football fortunes of these two proud programs.
No matter which team wins the Week 2 match-up in Colorado on September 9, fans of both of these great football programs already have high hopes for the future!