IOWA CITY, Iowa — Mickey Joseph left the field for the final time as interim head coach Friday after Nebraska beat Iowa 24-17 at Kinnick Stadium, serenaded with adoration by thousands of the Huskers’ traveling fans.

Something that former coaches Scott Frost and Mike Riley could not do in seven tries, Joseph accomplished in his first attempt. But his 11-week run is over. Nebraska won three of nine games with Joseph in charge, finishing 4-8 and second to last in the Big Ten West at 3-6.

Coming home. #GBR pic.twitter.com/KvxUdFHnyR

— Nebraska Football (@HuskerFBNation) November 26, 2022

Passion for the 54-year-old former Nebraska quarterback runs deep — in the Huskers’ locker room and around the state.

Advertisement

Don’t expect Joseph back in Lincoln next season, though. Nebraska is on the verge of hiring former Carolina Panthers coach Matt Rhule as its next head coach. Signs point to an announcement over the weekend.

Rhule would want his guys on the coaching staff. Athletic director Trev Alberts is not going to stand in his way.

And Joseph, holding toddler son Mickey Reign on his lap for a final news conference Friday in Iowa City, recognized the moment.

“I’m good,” Joseph said, “because I understand the next guy who comes in, he deserves to pick his staff. And I’m good with it. I’ve been in this thing over 25 years. I’ve got a pretty good resume. So somebody’s going to hire me.”

• If you’re Rhule, why not use every available resource to encourage Joseph to stay? Maybe he will. But it’s a complex situation. Losing Joseph would set Nebraska back. It would burn bridges in recruiting and on the returning roster. More Huskers would transfer. More recruits would decommit.

Nebraska would lose a former favorite son for the second time in less than three months.

The Huskers would likely also lose wide receiver Trey Palmer, whose 165 yards and two touchdowns on nine catches Friday gave him the single-season Nebraska receiving-yardage record with 1,043. Palmer followed Joseph to Nebraska this year from LSU. He’s a fourth-year junior with one season of remaining eligibility.

But if Joseph stayed, it could create division. Some players might remain loyal to him and slow progress as Rhule tried to build his culture. Rhule could figure that he’s best served to take a step back in the short term to move ahead more smoothly in the years that follow.

• Rhule hit the reset button at both of his previous college head coaching jobs. In 2013 at Temple, he finished 2-10. Baylor won one game in his first season, 2017. Incremental progress followed, bolstered by an emphasis on physical play and player development.

Advertisement

He won six and seven games, respectively, in his second seasons at the schools, then jumped to 10 and 11 wins in his third seasons.

• Is Nebraska in need of a total rebuild, too? It depends on the incoming and outgoing transfers, in addition to the decisions of standouts like Palmer and quarterback Casey Thompson, who accumulated 278 yards on 20-for-30 passing Friday with three touchdowns and no interceptions.

Thompson played most of this season with a slight labrum tear in his right shoulder, he said. He also suffered ulnar nerve damage, an elbow injury that restricted feeling in his right hand, during the Huskers’ Oct. 29 loss against Illinois.

Thompson, 24, is set to receive a Master of Applied Science degree next month. Like Joseph, he sounds prepared to move on.

• Thompson and Palmer torched the Hawkeyes in leading Nebraska to its first win in the series since 2014. And it came as no surprise to the Huskers’ offensive duo.

“I didn’t feel like they could guard any of our receivers, and I didn’t think they could run with Trey,” Thompson said. “Our goal was to take the top off the defense.”

They shocked the crowd of 69,250 with early fireworks. An 87-yard strike, the longest play from scrimmage in the Big Ten this year, opened the scoring on the first play of Nebraska’s second possession.

“We dialed it up,” Palmer said. “I said, ‘Just throw it as far as you can. You ain’t gonna out-throw me.’”

Palmer’s second TD put the Huskers up 17-0 at halftime. They led 24-0 when Thompson hit Marcus Washington on a 14-yard strike early in the third quarter.

“Honestly, I think we could have thrown for 400 or 500 yards,” Thompson said, “so I would have liked to just keep throwing the ball down the field.”

• Nebraska turned conservative in an effort to burn clock as the second half progressed. Iowa made it a one-score game after Drew Stevens’ 45-yard field goal followed a Rahmir Johnson fumble with less than six minutes to play.

Advertisement

The Huskers went three-and-out twice in the final five minutes. But they twice made defensive stands against the Hawkeyes, playing backup QB Alex Padilla after ineffective starter Spencer Petras was injured in the first half.

Linebacker Chris Kolarevic intercepted Padilla, the Huskers’ fourth takeaway, to secure victory in the last minute.

Still, the lack of depth and strength in the trenches again showed, hampering Nebraska’s ability to win comfortably after it built the big lead. The next coaching staff must work fast to improve line play on offense and defense.

• No matter his future with the Huskers, Joseph walks away from this season proud of his players’ accomplishments.

“They fought,” Joseph said. “Nobody could deny that. I love them for that. They finished something that they started.”

Six days after the Huskers lost 15-14 at home against Wisconsin, blowing an 11-point lead in the fourth quarter, Joseph said he implored them to finish at Iowa.

“I told them, ‘You let Wisconsin off last week. Let’s not let these guys off,’” Joseph said.

• The victory denied Iowa a return trip to the Big Ten title game and snapped its 14-game November winning streak.

Veteran Nebraska players especially enjoyed the victory. Outside linebacker Caleb Tannor, who equaled a Nebraska record by playing in his 56th career game Friday, dedicated the victory to all of his former teammates who did not beat Iowa.

Back against da wall ery time still ain fold🥷🏾 pic.twitter.com/Yyh6EwYo7L

— Caleb Tannor 2️⃣ (@cvleb10) November 26, 2022

Fellow defensive captain Garrett Nelson paraded the Heroes Trophy around the field in victory, allowing Nebraska fans to touch it.

“It’s just Iowa,” Nelson said. “For years, these guys have acted like our big brother. We were tired of it, tired of hearing that.”

Advertisement

Palmer and Thompson, a Texas transfer, while unfamiliar with some Big Ten traditions, savored the experience in Iowa City, too. Palmer, in fact, tweeted Friday morning, after doing the same last Saturday, that he woke up angry.

“I don’t like Wisconsin or Iowa,” he said. “I just woke up feeling pissed off. You see what happens when I wake up feeling pissed off.”

• So much about Friday felt as if things had come full circle.

The final scene of the season for Nebraska.

If you’ve been around this program long enough, you see that history repeats itself. Still, the symmetry for Mickey Joseph with the exits in 2003 of Frank Solich at Colorado and Bo Pelini here in 2014 is more than just a bit striking. pic.twitter.com/FMAlS2H06t

— Mitch Sherman (@mitchsherman) November 26, 2022

Even if his coaching stint here lasts less than 12 months, Joseph has no regrets about returning to Nebraska — where he started at quarterback for Tom Osborne in 1990.

“I picked to come to Nebraska two times in my life, in 1987 and 2021,” he said. “I could have went anywhere in the country when I came out of high school. I could have went anywhere in the country when I left LSU. But I chose to come back to Nebraska.

“It’s a good feeling. I love Nebraska. I love the state. I love the people.”

(Top photo of Braxton Clark and Casey Thompson: Reese Strickland / USA Today)

ncG1vNJzZmismJqutbTLnquim16YvK57knJqb3FhZXxzfJFrZmppX2eDcLrEm6maq5uWeq6t061kq6ClobJuucicop6xXZ%2B8tLHPoWY%3D