The New York Giants are interviewing anyone and everybody for their head coaching position, but it’s clear there are front-runners. Like Baylor head coach Matt Rhule, the former Penn State linebacker who has become a coveted NFL coaching prospect.
Rhule has been the head coach at Baylor for three seasons and at Temple for four seasons prior to that. In 2012, Rhule was the Giants’ assistant offensive line coach under Jim Fassel.
If any job can lure Rhule away from the college ranks, it’s the Giants job. But he appears to be playing hard to get at the moment.
“I plan on that,” Rhule said recently when asked if he’ll be returning to Baylor. “I certainly think I will be.
“One thing people don’t realize is coaches, we pick up our families. We rip them out of their homes. We rip them out of the places that they are. Sometimes you do that until you get to a point where you find happy. You shouldn’t mess with happy.
“There’s a lot to accomplish at Baylor. And most importantly, it’s just each and every year, I want to put together a championship-caliber team. And I think we have a chance to be even better next year than we are this year. … More than money, it’s about the situation for my family.”
Head coach of the Giants might trump all of those ambitions. It is one of the few jobs in sports that is almost impossible to turn down. Some the greatest coaches in the game’s history either had it — or wanted it — at some point: Parcells, Lombardi, Landry, Belichick, etc.
“The most impressive thing to me was the guy is a sponge,” former Giants head coach Tom Coughlin told ESPN three years ago. “He’s very, very smart. He’s very perceptive. He has a very unique talent, in my opinion, and that is sincerity. When he’s talking to you, it’s like he’s talking to you and only you. The players very much sense that. He’s really a people person, a relationship-builder.”
“He’s able to connect with all his players, so that just makes you want to be able to play for him that much harder,” Giants safety Sean Chandler, who played for Rhule at Temple told The Post. “Me and him, we come from different walks of life, but it was like I was talking to my friend when I was talking to him, it wasn’t like I was talking to a coach, and I feel like he could do that with all his players.”
The Giants need an injection of genius with a human touch. Maybe Rhule is that genius.
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