Matt Rhule - Coach to Watch

I think we can all agree that it's nearing the sunset of Frank Beamer's tenure and it's entertaining to speculate about who could be the next head coach. I'm in the belief that getting a young up and coming coach could breathe life into the program and I believe that Matt Rhule is a guy that would be a great candidate.

Matt Rhule is the head coach of Temple which is currently 7-0 and has College Gameday visiting for a prime time game against Notre Dame on Halloween. There has been a Gobbler Country article listing the case for him but seems like he hasn't been mentioned much beyond that article as a possible future coach for VT. From what I've read on Rhule I think he'd be a great fit for VT because of his recruiting acumen and his coaching philosophy.

Recruiting

"It'll be great for us recruiting wise," Rhule said. "I'm excited about College GameDay coming, and I'm really excited about recruiting."
- You can see from the above quote the emphasis Rhule puts into recruiting.

I believe that the biggest impact a new coach could make on the program is in recruiting. VT has found itself involved with many star recruits that have had VT as their leader until it came time to close when another program's head coach has come in to sway a that recruit at the last moment. A lot of top programs have coaches that love to recruit and I believe that with all of the investments Whit has made over the past couple of years in the recruiting support staff that the next head coach needs to have that passion.

Rhule is known as being a quality recruiter and there's a great article by 247sports that can be found here that highlights how involved in recruiting Rhule is and that likely comes from his background as being a recruiting coordinator for several years. His recruiting emphasis at Temple has included areas that VT needs to make progress in such as the Mid-Atlantic region, especially the DMV area, as well as his belief in going into Florida and he's stepped into the 757 this year with a commit from Indian River's Keyvone Bruton. He's shown ability to recruit against bigger programs such as Penn State, Maryland, and Pittsburgh which could help if he was at VT recruiting against FSU, Alabama, and other programs that have started to focus in on the 757.

Philosophy of Toughness

"It's just the way we are playing,"coach Matt Rhule said. "We are running the football and being physical. You aren't going to always come out and out physical people right away. It's a cumulative effect .. you hope you can win in the fourth quarter."

I believe that VT needs to keep the philosophy that was prevalent in it's golden years of being a tough football team and Matt Rhule emphasizes toughness. I imagine that Rhule's philosophy comes from many points in his football background including playing linebacker for Joe Paterno, coaching under Steve Addazio, and being an assistant OL coach for Tom Coughlin. Rhule emphasizes the BeamerBall ideals of running the ball as well as playing tough defense and good special teams.

Going to a coach that emphasizes the power run game provides for a quicker rebuild than a spread coach with the current roster. VT has a stable of young RBs available for next year and returns objectively their 5 best offensive linemen. The current staff has been moving to try to develop a consistent run game and I believe it's not that far away especially with continued good OL coaching and recruiting.

Program Rebuilding

Right now the best program in the ACC is Clemson and I believe that how they've built up their program is a great blueprint to follow. Clemson has built their program with a young affordable coach that had a strong emphasis on recruiting and was able to invest more into coordinators to help. Matt Rhule would be a very affordable option with his current salary listed as $648,633 and with a bump to ACC levels would still allow plenty of money to go after great coordinators that believe in his philosophy. Whit has done a great job of putting in the support staff for recruiting and believe that more could be done investing more money in the overall program than paying an under performing buddy most likely the second biggest salary in the ACC (sorry Rich).

There's a number of coaches out there that are great candidates (including Tom Herman who's team could face a tough challenge against Vanderbilt) and I'll be paying attention to Temple this weekend imagining that Whit could possibly be paying attention as well.