Nebraska coach Matt Rhule has coached countless players throughout his career as a head coach. But among them all, Dion Dawkins stands above the rest, whom he recruited during his Temple tenure.

“He’s probably one of my favorite players I’ve ever coached,” Matt Rhule said on Pardon My Take on August 3 when he was asked about Dion Dawkins. “I’ll be sitting there. I’ll get a FaceTime at 1 o’clock in the morning. It says “shnow” on it. He keeps changing his contact.”

“He ends up being a second-round draft pick. And he was so good for me because, you know, I’d be losing my mind, snapping out at someone. He’d go, “Coach, people skills, man, people skills.” I think if you want to be the coach you want to be, you have to have guys like that, who aren’t intimidated by you. And I’m so proud of what he’s done, man. He is an overcomer. He’s done amazing things.”

Buffalo Bills’ Pro Bowl left tackle Dion Dawkins and Matt Rhule met during Dawkins’ high school recruitment. The story is as dramatic as it gets. The left tackle initially committed to play college football for Cincinnati. However, before he could join the Bearcats, Dawkins had to spend time at Hargrave Military Academy, a prep school program in Virginia.

Rhule, who had just become the head coach at Temple, reviewed Dawkins’ unpolished but incredibly athletic tape. He was looking at under-the-radar talent in New Jersey who could fit into the program’s ‘Temple Tuff’ philosophy, and Dawkins fit perfectly into that role.

Rhule drove straight to Dawkins’ house on a Friday night and asked him a single question: “Can you dunk a basketball?” Dawkins’ uncle immediately offered to take them to a park right then and there to prove it. Rhule stopped him, skipping the demonstration to avoid any potential NCAA violation, and told Dawkins right then, “If you’re at Temple by 1:00 PM this Sunday, you have a scholarship.” 

The left tackle flipped his commitment away from Cincinnati and signed with Temple in January 2013. Dawkins would go on to play a prominent role in Temple’s success under Rhule.

During his college years, the left tackle anchored an offensive line that led the program to back-to-back 10-win seasons. This was a historic feat for a program that had only achieved a single 10-win season in its previous 74 years of existence. Along the way, he earned plenty of personal accolades, including a First-Team All-AAC selection in 2016.

Rhule’s staff frequently pointed to Dawkins as the ultimate example of a culture where players worked hard because they wanted to, not because they were being forced. Dion Dawkins is currently in New York participating in training camp as the starting left tackle for the Buffalo Bills, entering the 10th season of his NFL journey. He was picked by the Bills in the second round of the 2017 NFL draft.