Matt Rhule’s can take his last day off like Carolina Panthers head coach, according to Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk.
Hired in 2020 after overseeing the successful turnaround of Temple and Baylor college programs, Rhule is expected to transform the Panthers in a similar way. That plan didn’t materialize when the Panthers fell 1-4 for the season after another ugly loss at home, this time to the San Francisco 49ers.
During his post-game press conference, Rhule declined to speculate about his future with the franchise. “I have nothing to say about that,” He said he wanted to focus on Sunday’s game instead.
For a coach on the verge of needing to send his resume to potential employers, he may want to draw less attention to his team’s most recent performance.
The Panthers trailed 397-308 in total yards despite running four more runs than the 49ers. The Panthers are averaging 18.6 points per game this season, placing the Dallas Cowboys at 24th out of 32 teams. In the previous two seasons, the Panthers finished the season with 24th and 29th places in points per game.
Rhule isn’t the first head coach to try his hand at the professional level only to find he’s a better fit at the college level. Nick Saban, who many consider to be the greatest college football coach of all time, spent two poor seasons with the Miami Dolphins in 2005 and 2006 before turning Alabama into a modern dynasty . And before him, Steve Spurrier had not found much success with Washington Command; he had much more success as a college head coach in Florida and South Carolina. And then there’s Urban Meyer, a coach who won college national championships at Florida and Ohio State but failed to last a season in the NFL.
Rhule helped fix Baylor’s football program after it rocked by misconduct under the watch of former head coach Art Briles. Rhule leaves Baylor as the 13th-placed team in the final Associated Press poll for the 2019 season after an 11-win season, the same number of wins that Rhule has posted in his two-plus seasons. with the Panthers.
