Note: This post was originally meant to be in the "We won't have Jimmy to kick around" thread. But I surprised myself with what came out and decided it would be more appropriate here in ATX's Coach Rhule fanboy thread.
I don't think Rhule could improve his work environment by moving on. I was just pointing out how much green it would take to make that happen.
I understood what you were saying and agree with you that it's not likely to happen.
Here's something we all should understand about Rhule by now: He's
NOT your typical, Alpha Jock turned Alpha Coach.
Don't take this wrong, he played the game as a walk-on and is clearly super-competitive. But (IMO) what makes Matt Rhule 'tick' is not the same as it is for Nick Saban or Brian Kelly or a Jim Harbaugh. From my pretend-psychologist point-of-view, Matt Rhule's heart beats to a different drummer.
Drill down to Matt's core and I believe you'll find the beating heart of an educator. He comes by it naturally--he grew up in a family of educators. And as an educator, what makes him 'tick' are his students. Talk to any true-blue educator and they'll tell you
they'd love a fat paycheck but money is not what motivates them to do what they do.
I tried to think of other coaches who,
like Rhule, were educators at heart as examples we could all agree with and could relate to. I had to smile because the best example I thought of was our own Tom Osborne. Another one was UCLA's John Wooden. I know that on the surface, Tom and John are as different from Matt as night and day. But when you drill down and examine how they approach coaching their sport, you'll find a number of striking similarities. I believe it's because those guys were died-in-the-wool educators who happened to stumble into coaching.
And thank goodness for it. 