Sam McKewon on Matt Rhule is visiting Miami recruits

The 2025 four-star receiver — a Top 100 recruit according to Rivals — is willing to see NU again, too. Especially after the Huskers’ head coach, Matt Rhule, paid Mills a return visit to Homestead last week. Rhule talked to Mills’ mom, too. Maybe you saw the photo on social media.

“He’s a great dude,” Mills said of Rhule in an interview. Head coaches are now allowed to fully visit non-senior prospects in January instead of bumping into them. Rhule made the rounds in one of Nebraska’s newest recruiting hotspots — Miami.

In their 2024 class, the Huskers signed five from the city, landing three on Signing Day alone. Of that quintet, three — Jacory Barney, Vincent Shavers and Larry Tarver — have four-star ratings with Rivals.

Amid the focus on signing in-state prospects and NU’s continued focus on recruiting Texas, it got lost, a little bit, that Nebraska made as big a haul in Miami as ever. Teams that build their programs on recruiting the city would tell you it can work. Louisville, which coxed both Teddy Bridgewater and Lamar Jackson out of the city, probably owes its football success, and ACC membership, to Miami.

Nebraska hasn’t had that kind of hit rate in the city or the state. As Rhule puts a premium on roster retention and development, he’ll look to change NU’s trend of landing Florida prospects without making them starters.

Of the 24 non-IMG Academy Florida high school recruits Nebraska signed in the 2014-2023 classes, three — Chris Jones, Alex Davis and Dicaprio Bootle — became regular starters. Four more — Sedrick King, Braxton Clark, Marvin Scott and Tamon Lynum — were either part-time starters or regular contributors over multiple seasons. Two didn’t make it due to grades. And 15 left within two years of their arrival.

You’d like to at least have a 50% hit rate on starters/contributors. NU’s hit rate over those years was 29.1% — and we’re probably being generous with Scott, who also transferred after two seasons.

COVID didn’t help. Nebraska signed seven from the state — and four from Miami — in the 2020 class. Many left within the next calendar year. By the time Rhule arrived, only Lynum remained, and now he’s left, too.

But Rhule’s going for it in the Sunshine State, hiring Mills’ former high school coach, Phil Simpson, as a defensive quality control coach. As NU shuffles its assistant coaching staff a bit, Simpson — who knows every corner of Miami — has been on the road recruiting, posting photos of all the schools he’s visiting. He’s not just in Miami either.

“Coach Simpson, he’d have a lesson for you every day,” said the 6-foot-2, 167-pound Mills, who had 53 catches for 1,176 yards last season. “We learned a lot from him.”

Evan Cooper, NU’s defensive backs coach, spent six months as Miami’s director of player personnel back in 2015 before working for Rhule in the same role. Cooper and Simpson work the city and state together.

“When they speak, people listen,” Rhule said of Cooper and Simpson on Signing Day, just hours after three Miami players picked NU. They had visited the weekend before, when the temps were in the mid-20s. “There’s no tricks, there’s no gimmicks. I said ‘hey, walk around. This is what it feels like.’ They recognize real and they recognize what’s transparent and they’re coming for the right reasons.”

According to 247Sports’ offer database, Nebraska has extended more than 20 offers to 2025 Florida prospect and nine to 2026 Florida prospects. Impressive. Aggressive.

Mills might be the best of them. His top six: NU, Clemson, Georgia, LSU, Miami and Penn State.

“I’m looking to go somewhere that wants to develop me and treats me like family,” Mills said.

Rhule puts family high in his pitch. If he has another big year in Miami, retaining the talent will be key.

Two things can be true at once, and in the case of Sherrone Moore taking the head coaching job at Michigan, they are.

First, Moore earned the right to take over for Jim Harbaugh after coaching the Wolverines to two huge wins over Penn State and Ohio State during Harbaugh’s Big Ten-imposed suspension.

Players seem to like him, and had Harbaugh signed a long-term deal with the Wolverines, Moore would have been the top candidate for a power-conference job next cycle.

“Sherrone stepped up this fall and served as the interim head coach when the program and especially the team needed him,” Michigan Athletic Director Warde Manuel said when he announced Moore’s hiring. “Sherrone handled that situation in a way that sealed my already-growing confidence in him.

Second, assistants-in-waiting have a so-so track record following legendary coaches.

Tom Osborne exists on the far end of the positive spectrum, though, if you’d asked Husker boosters before the 1978 Oklahoma game, they may have had a different opinion. Osborne paid it forward with Frank Solich, who peaked in years two and four and never quite captured Osborne’s magic.

Gary Gibbs couldn’t replicate Barry Switzer’s success at Oklahoma. Ditto for Rick Neuheisel after Bill McCartney at Colorado. And Gary Moeller after Bo Schembechler at Michigan.

Then there’s Ryan Day at Ohio State. He’s 56-8! And on the hot seat.

Moore has to finalize a staff, develop a quarterback to succeed JJ McCarthy, and keep players from transferring, since Harbaugh’s departure triggers an open window. And UM’s 2024 schedule is a doozy — Fresno State and Texas to start the season, with games against Big Ten newcomers USC, Washington and Oregon later in the year.

Death. Taxes. Caitlin Clark dropping 30 on Nebraska women’s basketball.

She did it for an eighth straight time Saturday, a 38-point special on just 22 shots. Clark had a nice 72.7% effective field goal rate when one accounts for her eight 3-pointers, only a few of which Nebraska could do much about. Clark became an elite 3-point shooter in the offseason — she’s making 41% on practically record-breaking volume — and hasn’t stopped working over officials to her advantage.

NU hasn’t found an answer for stopping her — and probably won’t in two weeks, when she visits Pinnacle Bank Arena on Super Bowl Sunday.

Between now and then, the Huskers play three teams Purdue, Rutgers and Michigan — who have less depth and star power. Three straight wins would send the Huskers into a sold out Pinnacle Bank Arena.

A good chunk of that crowd will be there to see Clark — whether they’re wearing red or black and gold.

Of course Nebraska has its own Caitlin Clark — in softball.

Jordy Bahl and Co. hold a combo fan day and media day Saturday, and not a minute too soon.

NU, ranked No. 13 by D1 Softball, starts the following week in Mexico with No. 10 Washington and No. 8 Duke in back-to-back games.

The Huskers haven’t won many tilts like that in recent years, but Bahl, one of the sport’s top pitchers, changes the conversation. When Nebraska has had an elite pitcher (Jenny Voss, Peaches James, Tatum Edwards), it competes for the Women’s College World Series.

Bahl, a Papillion-LaVista grad will attract a bigger spotlight than any of them. If she wasn’t ready, she wouldn’t have transferred from defending national champions Oklahoma — a college all-star team — to Nebraska.

“This university puts women up ‘here,’” Bahl said at last year at an introductory press conference typically reserved for coaches. Husker women’s athletics keeps growing stronger.

Wisconsin point guard Chucky Hepburn, another Omaha star, heads home this week for his annual game in PBA. The Bellevue West graduate operates the Big Ten’s most efficient offense — fourth nationally, according to KenPom — while shooting five fewer times per game.

That’s what the right transfer can do for a program.

AJ Storr rolled in from St. John’s and averages 16 points per game. Hepburn’s assists are way up, and he ranks second in the Big Ten in steals. In three seasons, he’s never missed a game — or a start — for the Badgers, who surely eye a first/second round NCAA tournament placement in Hepburn’s hometown.

Hepburn provides a good glimpse of what Jamarques Lawrence can eventually be for Nebraska. Lawrence won the point guard job going away — Jarron Coleman has logged five minutes in Big Ten play — but he has experienced growing pains of the role, too.

It’s almost like his freshman year, in a sense. He’s got promise, and Fred Hoiberg has to stick with him.

Four seasons of one-year transfer point guards (Cam Mack, Dalano Banton, Alonzo Verge and Sam Griesel) led to Lawrence’s learning curve.