Nebraska head football coach Matt Rhule highlighted his team’s Grade Point Average at the Big Ten Media Days on Wednesday. During his opening statement on Wednesday, Rhule announced that the football team finished the semester with a GPA of 3.241, the highest in school history.
“We think we have a really good team, and we think we have a team that people are going to have to deal with this year. I’ve liked the way that they’ve worked. We finished the semester with a 3.241 cumulative GPA, the highest in school history. Our guys are getting it done in the weight room, they’re getting it done in the classroom. Now we’ve got to get it done on Saturdays.”
The Husker head coach was later asked to elaborate about the importance of education.
“I’m the son of a high school teacher. My dad is a teacher and minister. My mother gave her life to working with women. We lived in New York City, and football has brought me so much. Football brought me a bachelor’s degree. It brought me a master’s degree. I was on my way to a Ph.D. and got lucky enough to get a coaching job, and this is my passion. We’re proud of the players. We have 20 graduates heading into the season. We’ll have 10 more in December. So when we go to our bowl game, we’ll have 30 college graduates on our team.”
Rhule acknowledges the importance of what happens on the field as well but doesn’t want that to distract from his goal for the program and players off the field.
“At the end of the day, we all want to win, but if you don’t have a purpose that states we want to raise great men, that we want our players — I want our players someday to look back and say my life is better because I played at the University of Nebraska and I played for those coaches. I can think of no better way of doing that than education, followed closely by community service and giving back. So we’re going to try to win on the football field and off.”
Nebraska has a nation-leading 108 CoSIDA Academic All-America awards, according to Nebraska’s Sports Information Department.