Matt Rhule hasn’t wasted any time revamping the Nebraska Cornhuskers football program, where he took over as head coach at the start of the 2023 season.

After cruising to a dominating Week 1 performance over UTEP, Nebraska was thrown into the national spotlight on Saturday night and delivered in a major way, knocking off the rival Colorado Buffaloes in commanding fashion. The Cornhuskers were in complete control from start to finish of a 28-10 victory.

The 2-0 start for the Huskers has placed them in the top 25 of the AP Poll for the first time since 2019, earning the No. 23 spot after two weeks of the 2024 college football season.

Rhule met with the media on Monday and recognized the significance of getting ranked so high in a national poll. However, he emphasized that Nebraska has much bigger goals in mind this season and plenty of room to improve.

“It’s where we should probably be but it’s not where we want to be,” Rhule said. “Our kids were excited, so happy for them. Our players were probably excited. But bigger plans than that.”

When it comes to handling the expectations of being a ranked team, Rhule said he’s simply focused on what needs to be fixed from the Colorado game. For now, Nebraska is right where it expects to be but is shooting for higher things.

“I think there’s so much on the film from this past game that we’ve got to get corrected. I think that speaks for itself,” Rhule said. “We come here to have high expectations, we come here to play in big games and to play in front of that crowd… We expect to be ranked, but whatever it is, that’s not where we want to end up. Go 1-0 each week and see what happens.”

Rhule took over the program that was coming off 6-straight losing seasons. While he had been recently fired from his head coaching job with the Carolina Panthers, the Nebraska brass saw his track record of revitalizing struggling college programs from his time at Temple and Baylor and locked him into an 8-year contract worth $74 million.

While Nebraska finished last season with a (5-7) record, the Cornhuskers have been gaining momentum all offseason by adding talent through the transfer portal and on the recruiting trail. Their most high-profile addition was getting freshman QB Dylan Raiola to flip from Georgia to Nebraska at the last minute, and the young QB has been as advertised so far.