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Big Red Breakfast Corn Flakes - USC edition Big Red Breakfast CorN Flakes - Holiday Bowl Edition courtesy of Doug Law and Lisa Runco. Sean Callahan - on recruiting Former Husker Player (81-'82) Mitch Krenk - Bounce Pass Gill to Fryer to Krenk v. OU talking on Coaching transitions http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=...9ACD1679277C9A Tom Osborne - Coach - featured speaker BIG RED BREAKFAST Corn Flakes, 13th Edition 12/12/14 NU vs USC (Bowl Game) Recruiting Information - Sean Callahan: When a coaching change like this happens, it really opens up a lot of questions with the recruiting. After Sunday, coaches cannot be out on the road visiting candidates in homes until January 15. Coach Riley only had about a week to do in home visits after he was hired. It's really incredible what they've been able to do. Two DBs from Colorado, highly touted, Riley went to visit them, they have decided to stay even though they were considering taking official visits elsewhere. The Davis twins in Missouri have had a visit also, did a good job, but they are still considering visiting Missouri. They really have not lost anybody, which is pretty amazing. NEBRASKA IS STILL NEBRASKA. They have officially lost only Jerkovich to Ohio St. Kendall Bussey is still questionable, but Riley will be in Louisiana visiting this weekend. He is #1 RB in Louisiana. Three official visitors will be in town this weekend: two of them were committed ot Oregon St at one time, top O-lineman from Will Shields' old school, Matt Snyder - TE of our Cali, currently committed ot Oregon St. DB out of Florida, also an Oregon St commit. Former Player: Mitch Krenk (recipeient of the "bounceroosky" play - Gill to Fryar to Krenk Sometimes that play worked and sometimes it didn't It was our last game as seniors in Memorial Stadium, playing Oklahoma. Coach O told Irving not to throw it if the TE was covered and Irving threw it anyway - sometimes he didn't listen coach - hah! Rimington the huddle said "we are not running that @#$#*# play"......Mitch said, I am just the messenger, Dave. HAHAHA. I was a walk-on from Nebraska City. They were running that play on local TV a lot after that. Play was also on ESPN - Coach Osborne reached into his bag of tricks - Turner Gill threw the ball to Irving Fryar..who threw the ball to "a tight end".....hahahaha! What is new now, we have social media - all those raw emotions that our current players are feeling are out there and you hear about it right away. Things have really turned around from what I've heard. There will be players who will remain upset, but some will see it as an opportunity and relish a change in that regard. I am a Husker fan now We have been through the struggles. Bo was always nice to me. I'm sure with Coach Riley we will all be fans. There are no bad stories about Coach O. I do remember how I got to NU. I am a walk-on, grew up in Neb City, I was an average high school player, a bit on the small side. Nobody recruited me. It was a different time back then, there was a very strong freshman program and walk-on program. I decided to drive up to Lincoln and walk on at Nebraska. I went to football camp so I knew where coaches offices were. Went up there, asked to speak to Coach O. Do you have an appointment? No. Well, let me see. Sure enough, he came down the hall and started talking to me. He asked me how my grades were - I told him I was A/B student. Will enroll in school if you let me walk on. I didn't know it then, but it would change my life. He wrote on a piece of paper, here is where you go and what to do. All the friendships and memories I have now, thanks Coach. Today's Speaker, THE Coach, The One and Only Tom Osborne Coach's comments - Thanks Mitch, great to see Mitch again. He was a very fine player, but he also got hurt a lot. One time in spring ball, he seemed to be in a lot of pain. I asked him what was wrong. When I push here, I get this awful pain, when I push here it is excruciating. We got pretty worried, called trainer over. Hauled him off on stretcher. Took him to hospital. They found out he had a broken finger......hahaha!!!! Gary called me, had a hard time reaching me. Called all of the retirement homes in Lincoln. Finally somebody found me by the fireplace in my rocking chair, blanket around my shoulders. He is quite a salesman. We have contacted a bunch of people, nobody will come. You're the last option.....so it makes you feel really good. When this breakfast first started, we were down at Johnny's Café...we had 400-500 people who showed up regularly, I would come to every one, and I was doing radio and TV shows, then I had my heart issue....so I started to delegate more. Not appropriate for me to talk about the coaching change. I was on College Football Selection Committee, as you know. The Championship game is Jan 11 or 12. We do have an issue here in Nebraska. From 1962 - 2003, Nebraska won 82% of its games. A lot of you are still not happy about that other 18%..ha! In that span of 42 yrs, Ohio St was next at 74% and so one. Over time, people got to assume that if you had the N on your helmet, you were going to win and win Big, it was just expected. But football programs are fragile and nothing is forever. In spite of that winning percentage, this is a small population state, we don't have geographical or weather advantages. Given all those factors, it's fairly remarkable that any of this happened. Why did it happen? History is a great teacher. Start with Bob D in 1962. Bob was new, I was a GA. I went to see him when he got to Lincoln. He was having trouble with some of the players in the dorm - I was asked to move in with them in order to get free meals at the training table - that's how I started. I got on the field the next year. Worked with freshmen. Bob always thought he would win, we had an identity that we would be very physical, aggressive, we were going to be able to RUN THE BALL. Bob shortened practice to 1:15 hrs. He had a temper but he never stayed mad, players liked to play for him. He had a certain amount of flexibility. In 1967-68, we kind of stubbed out toe and only won 6 games. Fans got restless, petition going around in Omaha, people wanted to fire Bob. I learned as a young guy, at age 32, there was a lot of pressure on Bob to fire assistants. His attitude was, if one guy goes, we all go. Great sense of loyalty, I really appreciated that stance and I never forgot it. He did ask me to change the offense, put in the "I" formation, brought in Boyd Epley as strength coach. When I took over, we lost to OU a bunch of times. We had had some advantages during the '60's with recruiting, in the 70's limits were put on which hurt us. There were also different entrance exams in the Big 8 than other conferences did in the 60's. We had a lineman come in one time, met with registrar, asked for "short form" of entrance exam. Registrar asked the player one question: What is the capital of the US? He blurts out Baltimore. Registrar said, I'll tell you what, the capital of the US is Washington, Baltimore is 30 miles from Washington, 30 from 100 is 70 and 70 is a passing grade.....HAHAHA!! In the 70's, we knew we were really going to have to develop players, take in late maturers. Walk on program became so important. All players were treated the same, fairly unique. Also, the way we practiced - we had 4 stations, 2 offensive. Primarily focused on running game at one station, at another, we focused on our 3 pass patterns - hahaha! Our system allowed lots of reps for lots of players. We had 5 kinds of options, 3 kinds of traps, ran inside zone, outside zone. All sorts of sets. Reason we were able to do all of this is because of the repetition we had in practice. Most of the time, we were able to get some things done. Defensively, same thing, we had 2 stations. One focused on run. What gap did you fill? Other station emphasized pass defense. There wasn't anything we didn't see or correct or go over with our players. Nick Saban in Alabama has adopted this system I've been told. Craig Bohl was doing this at North Dakota St. We tried to stay ahead of the curve - first program to have weight training, first program to have nutrition, did a lot of unique things academically. Culture is really critical. According to the players who have been asked about those years, integrity was prime. No one was ever offered any inducements: cars, clothes, cash - the entire Southwest Conference imploded because of it. We were losing players because of it. That was difficult. We never did it, we never joined them. Particularly after 1986 when SMU got the sudden death penalty, alot of that stuff went away, but one thing that didn't go away was promising kids playing time or changing systems for them. Our players would say, Nebraska never promised us anything but an opportunity. We did lose some players, but not many. We tried to catch players doing things right, point that out and reward it. We focused on teaching. I can't say that Charlie McBride never raised his voice - hahaha! But after he chewed somebody out, he always had his arm around that guy in the end. No one ever felt they were being belittled. Lou Holtz came up and watched practice one day - he said he couldn't believe how positive all of our coaches were, he had never seen that before. People handle adversity three ways: they quit, they blame "it's not my fault I'm not starting", or some look at adversity as an opportunity. So we very seldom lost 2 in a row. After a loss, we came in and noticed what we did well and focused on what we needed to do and get better. We went down to Tempe AZ and played, final score was 19-0. Went back to Nebraska, lots of articles in the paper - dynasty is over, bad coach, QB horrible. We decided to turn this into something really good - we were exposed. Then ran off 9 in a row. Should have played in national championship 5 straight years, but dumb coach did not get players flu shots and most of them were sick when we played Texas that year. Otherwise we would have played Florida St in championship game. Rivalry against OU taught us a lot. Our QBs learned to throw. Spiritual Element - devotion to a cause that you find larger than yourself. Most of our players were so devoted to our program, it became important than themselves. Jason Peter and Grant Wistrom were first round draft picks - they stayed an extra year so that we could win a championship - put team ahead of personal goals. Nothing lasts forever and there are no guarantees in athletics, there will be ups and downs. There will always be things that you don't get down, athletics will be cyclical. This is part of the deal. We've had stability, coaches stayed with me and Bob a long time, stability and unity of purpose are really important. If there is constant speculation about whether or not you are going to be retained as a coach, recruiting gets really hard, kids read and hear these things and they bail. It doesn't mean people don't get fired. But you better be behind the guy that is there. Questions: 1. What have you seen the most progress in, and what do you see still needs reform? Compliance is much better. It used to be the wild wild west. Academic support is much better. There is a higher percentage of student athletes that are graduating than the student body at large. Tyranny over the smaller schools has gotten better. More awareness that the players have been left out. Scholarships are less than they were in the 60's. 2. NCAA makes billions of dollars, what can we do to share the wealth with the people who do the work? NCAA makes most of its money off the basketball tournament. What needs to happen is cost of attendance needs to be addressed. I don't think players should be made employees. Needs to be some type of escrow fund that players' injuries in later years that can be tracked back to their playing days can be taken care of. Players should be allowed to come back and finish their studies if they didn't while they were playing. 3. Playoff - was the experience good, any way to improve it? We went to Dallas 7 straight weeks, lots of hours in meetings and studying films. People worked very hard, didn't always agree, but general outcome pretty good. Why don't we expand the number of teams? Right now there is a contract that says 4 teams. College presidents are concerned about season getting too long, some teams will have played 15 games by the time they are done. Pro season is only 16 games. You have to look at injuries and what it is doing to kids academically. 4. Barry Alvarez is coming back to coach Wisconsin - did our players try to get you to coach one more Bowl game? There is this lady I live with who would shoot me if I did that, nice thought, but it ain't going to happen. The game will be touch, lots of kids are injured. USC has great players, they don't have as many because of the sanctions.