Matt Rhule made a great impression in his first offseason at Nebraska by speaking glowingly of Tom Osborne and the program’s proud history.

Rhule gets it.

But does he know anything about Nebraska’s present?

Turnovers have been the modus operandi of Cornhuskers quarterbacks since the program joined the Big Ten in 2011.

Heading into the season, Nebraska quarterbacks combined for 146 interceptions in their 12 seasons in the conference. By point of comparison, Ohio State quarterbacks have thrown 85 INTs in the same span despite a much heavier passing volume.

Want to reinvent Nebraska’s culture? Find a quarterback who isn’t constantly putting you in harm’s way.

Which made it curious, to say the least, that Rhule went into the transfer portal and decided upon Jeff Sims as his first Nebraska quarterback.

The book seemed to be written on Sims in 3 seasons at Georgia Tech, where he combined for a troubling ratio of 30 touchdown passes and 23 interceptions. Exactly the type of high-risk, high-reward quarterback the Cornhuskers should be running away from if they want to avoid repeating their recent failures.

But Rhule’s line of thinking appears to have been, “Well, that was at Georgia Tech. They were terrible. He’ll surely be a changed player at Nebraska!”

Welp. Here we are. Sims is at Nebraska. And the only thing that’s changed is a total loss of the confidence that once made him a compelling prospect.

Just 2 games into his Cornhuskers career, Sims is directly responsible for 2 touchdowns and 6 turnovers. And it feels like there’s little way of salvaging the situation from turning into a full-blown disaster — if it isn’t there already.

A parade of self-inflicted wounds

It’s one thing to throw bad interceptions. And Sims has done plenty of that thus far. Though 1 of his Week 1 INTs came on a deflection, at the end of the game he forced a throw that enabled Minnesota’s last-minute drive to win.

It was inexcusably poor decision-making.

Sims attempted threading the needle between 3 Gophers. If he would have finished his progressions, he would have seen his 4th option was open just short of the sticks. Or he could have thrown the ball away and lived to play another down. The worst-case scenario for this situation should have been the game going to overtime.

But Sims found a way to invent an even worse scenario.

And in Week 2, he proved it was no fluke.

Sims’ worst decision against Colorado, surprisingly, was not a turnover. It was on Nebraska’s final offensive play of the first half.

The Buffaloes had 1 timeout with less than a minute on the clock. With Nebraska facing 3rd-and-17, there was only 1 possible outcome: run the ball and make Colorado burn that timeout. Punt, pin the Buffs, get into the locker room facing only a 10-0 deficit.

Instead, Sims again found a way to make the worst-case scenario even worse. After gaining 8 yards on a throwaway play, Sims scooted out of bounds and stopped the clock.

This allowed Colorado to preserve that valuable final timeout with 49 seconds left. And it came in handy with 1 second left as Deion Sanders used it to set up a 32-yard Jace Feeley field goal at the gun.

That’s not to suggest Sims’ turnovers weren’t horrendous, because they were. Twice he failed at the most basic functions of quarterbacking — taking the snap and handing the ball off.

His fumbled shotgun snap gave Colorado the ball at the Nebraska 19, setting up the Buffs’ first 3 points of the game.

Later, Sims’ poor form on a handoff was at least partially responsible for a fumble credited to running back Gabe Ervin. Ervin had to reach out to grab the football rather than having it placed in his gut. FOX analyst Joel Klatt, a former Colorado quarterback, immediately pointed out the play as an example of what not to do as a quarterback handing the ball off.

All that said, Sims deserves only so much blame for these early-season failures. If you put a blind driver behind the wheel at the Indianapolis 500, you can hardly get mad at the driver for what happens next.

What’s Matt Rhule looking at?

Sims’ early-season struggles place serious doubt on Rhule’s ability to assess the position.

Casey Thompson doesn’t provide the same running threat as Sims. And he was certainly erratic in his lone season as Nebraska’s starter, completing 61.1% of his throws for 17 touchdowns and 10 interceptions.

Thompson passed for 280 yards with 5 touchdowns and an interception in his Florida Atlantic debut. Granted, the opponent was hardly Minnesota or Colorado — it was FCS Monmouth. Regression may be in order.

But will that regression be worse than what we’ve seen out of Sims?

Seems unlikely. And that makes it the first red flag of Rhule’s tenure. The Huskers faithful can only hope there aren’t more to follow. They’ve already been through enough of this.

But from the looks of it, they’re going to go through quite a bit more pain in Rhule’s first year.