Cody Glenn wants to brag on his alma matter. But it hasn’t been easy.
In the five years that the former Nebraska running back and linebacker has coached football at Cy-Fair High School on the fringes of the Houston suburbs, the Huskers have yet to author a winning season. While his fellow assistants would puff up in the hallways and during staff meetings about their own programs, Glenn protected his sanity by following NU like a casual fan.
“You’re in the office and you try to trash talk a little bit about your team being better than that team,” Glenn said. “I’ve been the quiet one in the office but hopefully that can change.”
The 36-year-old Glenn felt that old familiar gameday jolt last weekend while attending a regional meeting as a member of the Texas High School Coaches Association. The running backs coach heard Susan Elza address a crowd as Nebraska’s chief of staff one year after she commanded a room of 200-300 hundred coaches as the director of athletics for the University Interscholastic League, the governing body of the state’s high school extracurricular activities.
Glenn heard 24-year-old Husker receivers coach Garret McGuire — a former quarterback at Baylor from the Dallas area — talk, too. Coach Matt Rhule spoke at another regional site that day, prompting THSCA president-elect Kendall Miller to tweet “Nebraska is the Big 10 School of Texas!” The Nebraska staff is planning to be at the statewide coaches clinic in San Antonio this summer which annually draws thousands from the profession.
“Whatever (Elza) says or Rhule says is golden and we can trust that,” Glenn said. “A lot of it last weekend was reaching out to these high school coaches in Texas and earning that trust as Nebraska comes back down to the state of Texas to start recruiting. We feel comfortable sending our kids there because we know they’re going to be taken care of.”
Nebraska won over Glenn out of Rusk, Texas, in the 2005 class. It was easier to dip into the Lone Star State back then, he said, because part of the recruiting pitch was that the Huskers would play a game nearby every year against a Big 12 South opponent.
Two years after the running back arrived, NU mined his home state for talent like never before with 34 Texas signees between 2007-11. Rex Burkhead. Cody Green. Ciante Evans. Jamal Turner. Aaron Green.
The next 11 classes produced just 23 such players — names like Brenden Jaimes, Damion Daniels, Maurice Washington, Omar Manning and Marques Buford — as the Huskers transitioned into the Big Ten. Nebraska in 2016 didn’t sign anyone from Texas for the first time since 1983. The school hasn’t played a game in Texas since the Big 12 title game in 2010.
“When we had the Texas kids we were more successful,” Glenn said. “I always tell friends I wish we would have stayed in the Big 12 because we can recruit Texas a little heavier. Now it’s going to be a little bit harder but with what Matt Rhule and them have going at Nebraska with the buzz and excitement, I think we’re headed in the right direction.”
The Huskers signed six Texas high school scholarship prospects in 2023 — Arlington Martin teammates Jeremiah Charles (receiver) and Ismael Smith Flores (tight end), Bay City receiver Brice Turner, Cypress Woods linebacker Dylan Rogers, Austin Manor defensive lineman Princewill Umanmielen and Argyle D-lineman Riley Van Poppel. Baylor receiver transfer Joshua Fleeks is also from the Dallas area.
Nebraska has already offered at least 36 Texas prospects in the 2024 class and nine in the 2025 cycle since Rhule joined Nebraska barely two months ago. Tight ends coach Bob Wager arrived last month after 17 years as head coach at Arlington Martin.
Why should the Huskers return to Texas? The depth and quality of talent, obviously, Glenn said. But there’s also a cultural overlap between Nebraska and those in the Friday Night Lights circuit. Kids start workout programs for padded football games in second grade. Coaches work and teach in the school — Glenn, for example, is also an economics teacher and the head boys track coach — and often spend more time around players than their own families. The sense of community support goes deeper than just athletic success.
That aligning of values is key in why Rhule and Nebraska are making such quick inroads, Glenn said. NU last week offered one of Glenn’s players at Cy-Fair in 2025 defensive line prospect Landon Rink, whose growing list of suitors already includes USC, Texas and Oklahoma.
“If you come in and you’re not truthful and not genuine, you might not be able to go back to that high school,” Glenn said. “Building that trust, building those relationships with the family and coaches and town, that’s a big thing.
Glenn would like to be a head coach in Texas someday. It was his dream job from his playing days, when his own high school coach was a father figure he didn’t have at home. That impact pushed him to a playing career in college and even for a couple of years in the NFL — including a Super Bowl appearance with Indianapolis after the 2009 season — before a neck injury forced him to retire.
He’s been back in Texas ever since. Lately, it feels like an extension of home is building again a few hundred miles to the north.
“I tell these kids, ‘We’re still Nebraska,’” Glenn said. “I know we haven’t been for a while, but we’re still Nebraska. I think they’re starting that pipeline — hitting it heavy now — to set it up for the future.”