Who's Really About It: The Single Digits Are Coming, and a Freshman Could Get One

Big Red Nation, training camp is in the books — and the announcement you actually care about is close.

Matt Rhule confirmed Saturday that the single digits are coming back. Asked whether the tradition he brought to Lincoln would continue, he did not hedge: “Single digits. Yes. Yep.”

When? “Soon.”

He wanted camp finished first, and the reasoning is worth hearing. Three weeks of camp is a résumé — the offseason isn’t.

“It’s one thing to be gritty and tough and care about your teammates in the summer in the offseason,” Rhule told reporters. “It’s a lot lot lot different when you’re trying to fight through the grind of camp.”

Season-long captains are a different question

Here’s the part that surprised us. Rhule said he had never named a season-long captain until last year — and only then because the players came to him and asked for one.

His instinct runs the other way. Leadership shows up in the bad weeks, not the convenient ones.

“It’s easy to be a great leader when things are convenient,” he said. “It’s hard to stand up here and answer the tough questions when things aren’t going well.”

So the single digits are settled. Captains are genuinely not. Rhule laid out three options — vote now, wait until the fall, or wait until the season is over — and landed on “we’ll see.”

And yes, a freshman could wear one

This is the part Husker fans should sit with.

“I don’t care who that is,” Rhule said. “I don’t care if that’s a freshman.”

He has been here before. At Temple, a young safety named Sean Chandler got a single digit as a true freshman — the No. 3 — because his teammates decided he had earned it. Rhule has said he didn’t want to give a single digit to a freshman back then. The players overruled him.

Chandler went on to sign with the Giants as an undrafted free agent and play 32 games there, before joining Rhule again in Carolina.

Not a bad argument for trusting the locker room.

The players decide — and Rhule put an edge on it

He is handing them the vote, and he was blunt about what could go wrong with it.

“They can either make it a popularity contest, or they can make it a hey, who’s really about it,” Rhule said. “I hope they make good decisions.”

That is the whole test, isn’t it? A vote tells you as much about the people casting it as the person winning it. Rhule said he’s hoping this team is entering a phase “where it’s not whose feelings are going to get in the way, but it’s really just what’s the right thing for the team.”

He also said he liked what he saw in camp — a group with “a little bit of edge,” holding each other accountable without needing one guy to deliver a speech.

Soon we find out who they picked.

Husker fans, the numbers are coming — and the names on them will tell you everything about this team before Ohio ever takes the field.