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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 Welcome to Sunday Morning Quarterback
00:04 with Jay Stockwell and Bob Frady.
00:06 Coach Tom Osborne, what a pleasure to have you
00:10 on Sunday Morning Quarterback.
00:13 You have been in my life for all of it.
00:16 In fact, you started as a graduate assistant in 1964,
00:19 the year of my birth.
00:20 So for 59 years, I've been impacted by you.
00:24 And it's very fitting on the 100th anniversary
00:27 of Memorial Stadium that, you know,
00:32 looking back over the timescales,
00:33 you've been associated with the program for 59 years.
00:38 That's just amazing.
00:39 And I think it's probably a tribute to the fans,
00:43 which have been selling out the stadium since 1962.
00:45 So can you just talk about Nebraska fans
00:48 and how unique and different they are from other programs?
00:52 Obviously, we have a very loyal fan base.
00:54 And when you look at the fact that in sport of football,
00:59 we've had six losing seasons consecutive.
01:05 I would imagine most places in the country,
01:07 you have 25 to 40% of the seats empty
01:13 and somehow, some way we've maintained a sellout streak.
01:18 And actually, I didn't come to Nebraska in '64,
01:24 it was actually in 1962.
01:26 Bob Devaney and I arrived at Nebraska in January of '62,
01:31 almost simultaneously.
01:33 And of course, Bob came from Wyoming.
01:38 I'd been in the NFL for three years, an injury,
01:42 and decided to come back and go to graduate school.
01:44 And I went in to see Bob and I said,
01:49 "I'd kinda like to ease my way out of athletics
01:51 "and maybe I could be a graduate assistant coach."
01:53 And he said, "Well," he said,
01:55 "you know, we've got all the coaches we need.
01:57 "We don't really need you."
01:59 And he said, "But you know, we got these guys over
02:02 "in Quadrangle, and I understand
02:06 "they've been causing trouble.
02:08 "They threw the dorm counselor out.
02:11 "And if you'll move in over there
02:13 "and ride hurt on 'em and settle 'em down,
02:16 "we'll give you meals on the training table."
02:19 That was the best Bob ever I had.
02:22 So I--
02:23 (laughing)
02:24 Okay, so I went over there and broke up a few fights
02:27 and settled things down.
02:29 And then when spring ball came, Bob said,
02:31 "Well, you know, I think we could use you."
02:33 And so apparently he liked the job I did.
02:36 But anyway, that's how it started.
02:38 But it's been a long time ago.
02:41 - So coach, the thing that amazes me
02:44 is your sustained excellence as a coach.
02:48 There were obviously a few hills and valleys,
02:51 but mostly hills.
02:52 There's you, there's Nick Saban,
02:54 there's maybe a couple of other coaches
02:55 who have had that sustained excellence.
02:57 What do you attribute that to?
02:59 - Well, I had a lot of help.
03:02 I think one thing that was helpful
03:06 is that we were the only major Division I
03:09 football school in the state.
03:11 And so I'll give you a little bit of tortured history,
03:16 but back in the '60s,
03:21 the Big Eight Conference had the most liberal
03:24 recruiting roles in the country.
03:26 We could bring in 45 initial scholarships
03:30 and there was no upper limit.
03:32 So if you kept them around,
03:34 both schools in the Big Eight had 150,
03:36 160 players on scholarship.
03:40 And so it was no accident that in 1971,
03:45 we went one, two, and three.
03:47 Nebraska was one, Oklahoma two, and Colorado three.
03:52 So there were really strong football teams.
03:55 In the first year that I became head coach in '73,
03:58 the NCAA got together and they said,
04:01 we need a national standard.
04:03 So we can't have one conference with this
04:06 and we'll run another with that.
04:09 So at that time, the edge we had
04:13 in numbers of scholarship players
04:17 went away.
04:18 And so we thought about it.
04:21 We said, you know, sometimes the 45th scholarship
04:25 that we gave, or the 44th, turned out to be our best player.
04:30 And we think that maybe a lot of these guys
04:34 that are being overlooked are pretty good players.
04:37 And so we opened the door of Walcons
04:40 and we actually recorded them and treated them
04:43 just like we did every other scholarship player.
04:46 And as a result, we were able to compensate somewhat
04:50 for that loss of scholarships.
04:53 And so as you know today,
04:55 the scholarship won with 25 initials and 85 total.
05:00 So that cut down significantly from where we were.
05:05 Anyway, we tried to do that.
05:08 Then the other thing I think that was important,
05:11 we had a lot of cottonwood inter-hoc coaches.
05:15 The average Division I coach leaves
05:18 about every three years.
05:19 And maybe because they're fired,
05:21 and maybe because they have another job opportunity.
05:25 But on average, I think our coaching staff
05:30 stay together in most of those coaches.
05:32 Some of them at least were there for 25 years with me.
05:36 And so we had a lot of institutional knowledge
05:40 that we could draw on somebody and line up differently
05:43 than what we thought we were gonna see
05:46 on the first play on Thursday afternoon.
05:49 Where you think about it, well, back then,
05:51 four years ago, we saw this and here's what we did.
05:56 And so that institutional knowledge
05:59 and that continuity was very helpful.
06:02 - Thank you very much, that's a great answer.
06:04 Coach, you were 255, 49, and three,
06:07 15 conference championships,
06:09 three national championships as a head coach,
06:11 five in total.
06:12 Looking back, are there any individual games
06:15 that stand out in your memory as,
06:17 oh my gosh, that was an amazing game,
06:19 or a team within that long history that really stands out?
06:24 - Well, I would say probably the 1978 game
06:29 against Oklahoma stood out
06:32 because the fans were getting restless.
06:35 We, I started in '73, in '72 we lost to Oklahoma.
06:41 In '73, '74, '75, '76, '77, we lost to Oklahoma.
06:46 And so, most of those years we won nine, 10 games.
06:52 If you didn't beat Oklahoma,
06:54 it kind of got to the point where it was a one game season.
06:57 And if you lost to Oklahoma, it was not good.
07:01 And so we played Oklahoma up here,
07:05 they were rated number one, that's what,
07:07 and the very hard hitting game.
07:10 And we knocked the ball loose a bunch of times,
07:14 had some turnovers, and finally survived it,
07:18 and beat 'em 17-14.
07:20 And from that point on, we didn't beat 'em all the time,
07:24 but we certainly held our own
07:27 and probably did a little bit better
07:29 than losing some games.
07:33 And so that was kind of a turning point.
07:36 I think at that point,
07:37 the fan base was a little bit more accepting
07:41 'cause the history book is not kind
07:46 to coaches who take over
07:48 for well-known established coaches.
07:52 And so if you think about the guy who followed Bear Bryant,
07:56 he never lasts very long.
07:58 Joe Paterno, not gonna last very long.
08:01 Bob Devaney, probably not gonna last very long.
08:05 And so the thing that I did have going for me
08:09 is I had Bob Devaney as the athletic director,
08:13 and that was helpful.
08:15 And then the administration,
08:17 I had a guy, Woody Barber was the president,
08:20 and I remember some of those losses to Oklahoma,
08:25 there'd be a knock on the door,
08:27 I'd be at home, the light's out,
08:29 and the phone off the hook,
08:31 'cause they had a listed number at that time,
08:34 and I got some very unpleasant phone calls after a loss,
08:39 and there'd be a knock on the door.
08:42 And it'd be-- - Wow.
08:44 - It'd be Woody Barber and his wife, Paula,
08:49 and they'd come over, and it's kind of like a wake.
08:52 They always had a good sense of humor,
08:54 where suddenly, smile a little bit.
08:57 But to have a university president who would come over
09:02 and spend time with all the things he had going on,
09:06 that was kind of remarkable.
09:08 So I had good administrative support
09:11 and good coaching staff,
09:13 and lots of players who worked hard for a long time.
09:16 - So coach, who was the coach
09:20 who you really had to prepare extra hard for?
09:24 Like who was the best opposing coach
09:26 that you think you had?
09:27 - Well, because of the Oklahoma,
09:30 Oklahoma, Nebraska situation,
09:34 it was definitely a rivalry.
09:37 And the reason it was a rivalry,
09:39 I think over a period of 30 years,
09:42 the winner of that game
09:44 was the conference champion in 29 times.
09:49 And probably a dozen times it had to do
09:52 with national championship possibility.
09:57 And so it was a big game.
10:00 And the problem with Oklahoma
10:02 was that they went to the wishbone
10:05 about the time I became head coach.
10:07 And so people don't realize it right now,
10:10 but the wishbone was a different animal,
10:14 in that most of the time,
10:17 you go through a whole season
10:18 and you'd see people in the I formation
10:21 or spread offense or whatever.
10:24 Then here in the last game of the season,
10:25 we had the wishbone.
10:28 And in order to stop the fullback,
10:29 the quarterback, and then the pitch on the option,
10:33 it'd be very disciplined.
10:34 And you also had to involve your secondary.
10:37 There's no way you could cover all of that
10:40 just for a defensive end
10:42 and the defensive tackle or linebacker.
10:46 So you had to have your safeties coming up.
10:48 And so that was difficult to get ready for
10:54 in four practices.
10:55 And so we began to practice on Monday of every week.
11:00 We spent 12, 20 minutes on the wishbone.
11:05 And so then by the end of the season,
11:08 we were not quite as flat-footed.
11:12 And last time we played Barry Switzer in the wishbone
11:17 was in about '87 or something like that.
11:21 I think the final score was something like seven to three.
11:25 And it was down in North, rainy day.
11:29 And we beat 'em seven to three.
11:31 And I don't think they had over 180 yards total.
11:35 So we got a lot better at defensing the wishbone.
11:39 - Coach, last football question.
11:41 And then we wanna talk to you about teammates
11:43 'cause we're huge fans of the teammates program.
11:45 It seems to me Matt Rule is an amazing hire.
11:50 And it seems to me that Trev Alberts
11:52 is an amazing athletic director.
11:55 To me, this seems like an eye formation.
11:58 Do you think we have everything in place now
12:00 to return us to something close
12:02 to what we have been in the past?
12:04 - Well, I like Matt.
12:06 And I have this feeling that he's pushing the right buttons
12:10 and he's big on accountability.
12:14 That's a good place to start.
12:17 Or, you know, if he will do it,
12:18 it doesn't have to be big stuff.
12:20 But most people being late to a meeting,
12:23 a little bit late to practice, not going to class,
12:27 that eventually erodes the culture.
12:31 And so I think he's bought in the idea
12:35 that you have to have accountability.
12:38 I think he does realize that in this part of the country,
12:42 you're gonna have some weather problems
12:44 during the football season.
12:46 And probably the thing that most people don't realize,
12:49 the thing that's most damaging,
12:51 let me read you that,
12:53 most damaging to the passing game is wind.
12:58 And so we're almost always gonna have two or three days
13:01 where it's gonna be 30, 35 mile an hour wind,
13:04 and in the stadium, it's swirls.
13:06 And so you better have a good running game
13:09 because if you're gonna try to win 'em all,
13:13 or at least a high percentage,
13:16 you better be able to not rely totally on the passing game.
13:20 And he's done that,
13:22 and of course our defense is playing very well.
13:26 I think the offense will get better.
13:28 So I like Matt, and I think we have a good chance.
13:33 And of course, there's no way to predict the future exactly,
13:38 but I think he gives us a very good chance.
13:43 - And could you just comment about Trev Alberts as well,
13:45 'cause it does seem to me that he hasn't missed
13:48 a single step since he started as athletic director.
13:51 - Well, Trev, of course,
13:53 knew something about Nebraska football
13:56 since he played here.
13:57 We had some really great pass rushers,
14:00 and probably of all the pass rushers we had,
14:04 Trev was right there with the very best.
14:08 Was an All-American player and played in the NFL.
14:11 And so he had that background,
14:13 and knew something about the culture.
14:16 But then I think his time at University of Nebraska Omaha
14:21 was good because there,
14:24 you don't have the same resources financially,
14:27 and somehow you gotta survive.
14:30 And so I think he had good training, good experience there.
14:34 He was very articulate, obviously, and intelligent.
14:39 And so he's a good person.
14:42 And so I think he's doing a fine job,
14:45 and will continue to do a fine job.
14:48 - Well, we are excited about the future,
14:50 and excited for the weekend.
14:51 My son and I are coming down for the 100th anniversary,
14:53 so hopefully we'll get to maybe stop by and see you.
14:57 Now, moving to teammates.
14:58 I have to say, Bob and I are both big fans of Des Moines Adams.
15:02 The fact that we're sitting here right now,
15:04 Des Moines actually cultivated this relationship.
15:06 I live in Minnesota, Coach, and he came up,
15:09 and I got a call out of the blue from Des Moines,
15:12 and we met at my country club,
15:14 and that was a few years ago now.
15:17 And I probably now met with Des Moines,
15:19 I don't know, 15 times.
15:21 And he's just, I think,
15:23 a really wonderful face for the program.
15:27 So just start us off by just talking about
15:29 how you founded teammates,
15:31 what the kind of current status of the program is,
15:34 and how you came to select Des Moines as your successor.
15:38 We've been talking a little bit,
15:40 go back quite a few years now.
15:44 I was coaching at Nebraska for 36 years,
15:47 and started in 1962, and as time went by,
15:52 I began to notice the changes.
15:55 First, in the family structure.
15:58 One point back in the '60s, we very seldom had a player
16:03 on our team that wasn't growing up under the same roof
16:07 with both biological parents.
16:09 Time went on, we began to see one parent
16:13 living in one city, one parent in another.
16:16 And a lot of times, there was no dad present.
16:20 And in a few cases, we had players
16:23 really had neither parent that was involved in raising them,
16:27 maybe a grandparent, maybe a foster parent, whatever.
16:31 And so the disintegration of the family structure
16:35 really hit us hard.
16:37 And then you saw the advent of the drug culture
16:40 back in the late '60s.
16:43 Then we began to have some drug-tested players,
16:45 and that was a problem.
16:46 Then a lot of the messages that kids are inundated with
16:50 today, and even back in the '90s,
16:55 quite different than what they were 30, 40 years ago.
17:00 So social media, and some of the content of movies,
17:02 some of the content of music lyrics,
17:05 much more socially destructive than what they once were.
17:11 It wasn't "Leave it to Bieber" anymore.
17:14 Or Andy Griffith, it was stuff that was sometimes darker,
17:19 and sometimes much more misleading.
17:22 But anyway, all of those things went into the decision.
17:26 One day, I got up from our football team,
17:29 I said, "How many of you guys be willing
17:30 "to serve as a mentor to a seventh or eighth grade boy
17:35 "like in public schools?"
17:37 This was in 1991.
17:39 22 hands went up, and we didn't know much
17:43 about what we were doing.
17:44 And we went to public schools, and they said,
17:46 "Yeah, I don't really think that we could find
17:48 "22 young guys who would like to have
17:50 "a football player as a mentor."
17:53 And we told them, "Just meet with them once a week.
17:55 "And if you want to bring them to practice,
17:58 "you can bring them to practice, you do whatever you want."
18:01 And so we matched them up, and then once a month,
18:06 we'd have them all get together,
18:08 we'd have the speaker have some pizza.
18:10 And so anyway, things went along,
18:14 and after a couple years, I began to realize
18:17 these kids were now getting close to 16.
18:20 At that time, you could drop out of school at age 16.
18:23 So again, I get worried about it,
18:25 and I got up in front of all those.
18:28 And then I said, "If you guys are out of trouble,
18:30 "graduate high school, we'll pay your way to college."
18:34 It's kind of like a recruiting talk
18:37 that had no substance behind it,
18:40 'cause we didn't have the money.
18:41 And after a couple years, we raised about $50,000,
18:46 and that was the money.
18:49 And so we were gratified when we got the seniors
18:53 in our high school, and that was 22,
18:58 and one graduated on time.
19:01 And I'd say I was really surprised,
19:03 this was the 21, only 22, and 18 went on to college.
19:08 And we thought from that particular population,
19:12 we might have four or five that went on to college.
19:15 We thought maybe 2/3 would graduate,
19:18 'cause that was not necessarily a population
19:21 of Phi Beta Kappa candidates that we were given.
19:24 And so anyway, we thought, "Well, there's something
19:27 "to this," we expanded first across Lincoln,
19:31 and then across Nebraska, and then into Iowa,
19:35 Kansas, South Dakota, and Wyoming.
19:38 So we're currently mentoring over 10,000 kids
19:41 in 191 school districts.
19:43 Des Moines Adams is a former football player.
19:51 And actually, when I resigned from coaching,
19:56 and Frank Solich took over, I told him I'd stay on
20:00 to the recruiting season and then try to help out.
20:03 I remember going down to Arkansas,
20:07 and meeting with Des Moines at that time,
20:10 and he decided to come to Nebraska,
20:13 and it wasn't necessarily 'cause of me,
20:15 'cause the head coach at that time was Frank Solich,
20:19 but that's when I first met Des Moines,
20:22 and he had a fine career, good student, good person.
20:27 He worked for teammates for eight or nine years,
20:31 and was one of our key employees.
20:33 And eventually, we had him take over,
20:37 and he's now the CEO, and has done a great job
20:41 cultivating all those chapters that are spread all over,
20:44 and a very steady leader, we appreciate him.
20:47 So coach, how can people get involved?
20:49 Like, if our listeners are interested in getting involved
20:52 with teammates, what's the best way for them to do so?
20:55 - Well, we probably just go to teammates.org, very simple.
21:00 Teammates.org, and that will show you how to sign up
21:04 as a mentor, walk you through the process,
21:07 and of course, we train our mentors,
21:09 and we of course have a screening process.
21:13 We've actually mentored over 47,000 kids since inception,
21:20 and we're not a single case where we have had
21:24 any mentee abuse or mistreated by a mentor.
21:29 And part of that is because we're school-based,
21:31 and mentoring occurs in the school,
21:34 but a lot of it I think has to do with the quality
21:36 of mentors that we've had.
21:38 So you're one of them, and appreciate that.
21:42 And you must have passed the background check.
21:45 (laughing)
21:49 I don't know if I did, but my check did.
21:52 So it's a--
21:53 (laughing)
21:55 - Obviously a high-quality person.
21:57 (laughing)
21:59 Anyway, that's kind of a short summary of teammates,
22:04 but it does make a difference.
22:05 And graduation rate this last year was 98%,
22:10 and we consistently-- - That's fantastic.
22:12 - We're 95%, which is, when you think about the fact
22:15 that probably most of our kids are free and reduced lunch,
22:20 and most of them are from single-parent families,
22:23 that is a considerable improvement
22:26 over you'd normally expect, maybe a 70, 75% graduation rate.
22:31 And then most of them have post-secondary plans
22:35 where they go on into college,
22:38 either community college, trade school, four-year school.
22:42 'Cause we feel that everybody should have a marketable skill.
22:45 And usually you don't,
22:46 just come out of a high school with a marketable skill.
22:49 So some type of post-secondary education
22:52 is really important.
22:54 - Well, let me just say,
22:54 on behalf of the entire Husker Nation,
22:57 thank you for your 59 years of involvement with the program.
23:01 I think you are a huge reason
23:03 why we've had consecutive sellouts since 1962.
23:08 And it's been a real honor to have you on our program.
23:11 Thank you very much.