Zack Carpenter • InsideNebraska
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@Zack_Carp
The new Nebraska football coaching staff has now sent six of its 10 assistants to the podium for their first press conferences as part of the Huskers’ program.
The latest came on Monday afternoon with defensive line coach
Terrance Knighton and special teams coordinator
Ed Foley taking the spotlight.
Here are five takeaways from their time at the mic:
1: “It’s my job"
Nebraska’s energy and relentless work on the recruiting trail (for both high school players and transfer portal talent) has been the most noteworthy story throughout the last month and a half of covering this program.
There are dozens of subplots to that story, but the one that has grabbed probably the most attention is the work of the team’s special teams coordinator. There are two coaches who seem to have been doing everything everywhere all at once (shoutout to that movie with Oscars Season right around the corner):
Foley and
Matt Rhule
Foley has been tabbed as the Huskers’
foot in the door coach for in-state schools. His priority is traversing all over the state (and other nearby cities outside the Cornhusker State’s borders) to make in-roads with the Nebraska high school players, coaches, trainers, etc.
It’s made for some entertaining Twitter traffic on Foley’s account, which has helped put his activity in the limelight. When asked on Monday to talk about all of that work, travel and why he loves doing it, Foley’s immediate answer was simple and succinct:
“It’s my job,” he said. “Honestly, that’s the way we’ve recruited.”
He gave some more details to give a slight peek behind the curtain to the staff’s recruiting operations – and what it’s been like getting the taste of the town at the local restaurants, which is something he has shown the world via the Twitterverse.
“That’s the way Coach Rhule, the staff and I have recruited which is – here’s four identified players and you go see those four players,” Foley said. “And then what do you do the rest of the day? So my day starts at a certain time and ends at a certain time, and I'd like to fill in that whole day with seeing and meeting as many people within that timeframe as we can.
"And I don't miss many meals. So we try to get a little local lunch, and I like to get a local flavor because I think the local flavor for the food gives you some talking points with some of the coaches and gives you something you can talk about beyond just like, ‘Hey, how's this guy? And how tall is he? How fast is he?’ Instead say, ‘Hey, where can I get lunch today?’ So we're working that into the day, making a day out of the area. That’s what we do, and it makes it more fun. I think it's part of the whole process – figuring out the area, the coaches, the players and all that.”
2: Foley embracing the state, culture
More on the point of Foley’s time traveling Nebraska because I think it’s important: Foley has fully embraced the state and its college football-centered sports culture. It seems like the entire coaching staff has, but Foley is the most clear to see, in addition to Rhule.
And there are clear reasons as to why.
Foley is a New Jersey native, much of his family went to Boston College, including his father and younger brother who each played quarterback at BC. He has strong roots in the northeast, where he has heavily recruited Philadelphia, New Jersey and New York City. College football does not have a strong presence there as the fandom in that region of the country is NFL heavy, Foley says. (As an aside, even though you don’t need to hear it from me, I can attest. I lived in Connecticut and worked in New England for a little more than seven months, and it’s 100 percent true. The NFL is king there with the Patriots, Giants and Jets dominating football conversation and college football a barren talking point.)
“There’s not a true identity,” Foley said in reference to college football’s lack of overall presence in the northeast’s sports culture.
“It’s nothing like this,” he said when talking about the college football-dominated culture of Nebraska.
“This state has an amazing passion (for college football)," Foley said. "Here, every town is Nebraska football. Every person is. I didn’t run into anybody that wasn’t Nebraska football. It’s just driven for Nebraska football. So that part of it was a little eye opening to me.
"The reception has been amazing. Just going town to town, whether it's where you eat or who you talked to, when you were N around town or into the schools, people know you’re there. I’m not really used to having that happen. Again, I've been a little bit limited in terms of where I've recruited and who I’ve recruited for, but that's been fantastic. It really says a lot about what's going on here.”
3: Thoughts on Tony White’s scheme? “Good luck”
Tony White’s hire drew a lot of eyeballs but also a lot of question marks from those who are hesitant that a 3-3-5 scheme can be a long-term success in the Big Ten.
As we heard from Rhule back in mid-December, though, White is not necessarily going to be married to that 3-3-5 look when strategizing against conference opponents – or any opponent, for that matter.
Knighton has now had just about two months to get a behind-the-scenes look at White’s schemes, visions and what the Huskers’ defense will look like ever since he was hired as the program’s defensive coordinator 53 days ago on Dec. 8.
Knighton’s thoughts on that scheme?
“Good luck.”
The most notable word, in my opinion, that Knighton used to describe that defense?
“Attack.”
“Good luck because there's a lot,” Knighton said. “It's gonna be a lot to defend. You're gonna have to look (at a lot of things). You're gonna lose some sleep trying to figure out where we're aligned, where guys are lined up, how we're going to attack you. And you got to have dynamic guys for a scheme like that.”
Knighton says he still has plenty to find out about White’s scheme, though, so spring ball and this entire offseason will be a crucial time to more intimately learn about a defense that won’t be limited in its opportunities.
“I'm looking forward to learning that just as much as I am learning the guys because we've been on the road recruiting, haven't done much football yet,” Knighton said. “But we're getting back into the football things now. And looking forward to hearing his philosophy a little bit more and how he envisions our roster. And once we see the guys moving around, I'm looking forward to hearing his perspective on where guys should line up and how they will be effective.”
4: Knighton speaks right into the heart of frustrated Nebraska fans
One of the phrases heard so often as the driving force on almost every single championship roster?
It’s a player-driven program.
That’s what this Husker staff is pushing for Nebraska to become.
When Rhule first offered Knighton the defensive line job, he says he had “no idea” what the Huskers had personnel-wise. He didn’t have any knowledge of the roster. After diving into it and grinding through the film of the defensive linemen, however, he came away believing that they’re “not far off.”
Knighton admitted to looking at the team’s record and making some preconceived judgments about the defensive line room and the program in its totality.
But one of his judgments, in particular, is well-founded. It’s one that was a chief criticism of the previous Husker regime that many Nebraska fans will hear from Knighton, nod their heads feverishly in agreement and probably yell at the YouTube press conference video,
“YES! Thank you!”
“Losing a lot of close games, for me, I feel like that's culture,” Knighton said. “That's culture in the locker room amongst the players, and that's a direct image of the leadership. Because in the fourth quarter, when the game is tight, you want the players to say, ‘Hey, we're not losing this game.’ You want that to come from the players. So it's just developing that mindset during the offseason of attacking everything each day and making Saturday the easy day of the week.
"So we're gonna attack it this offseason. The guys are kind of anxious right now because this will be the first time they're around the coaches and working with us next week. So I'm looking forward to that and seeing what we have as far as a toughness standpoint and a competitive standpoint.”
5: In-staff competition
I wanted to throw a little plug at the end here to a story I wrote last week –
about this coaching crew’s in-staff competition – because Knighton provided the perfect quote to recirculate that story.
"It's a competitive staff, honestly,” Knighton said. “We're all trying to outwork each other, which helps. Nobody wants to be the weak link. Nobody wants to be outworked by another coach or another position group.
"Coach Rhule kind of sets that tone because you know how much he works. And you know how much he believes in what he believes in, how much time he puts into that, how much he puts into the players."
That intrasquad competition amongst the staff has been
such an integral driving force in its success thus far on the recruiting trail. It’s a characteristic of this group that provides an imperative top-down, trickle-down element to something that I have objectively grown increasingly more confident in: That this thing is going to work. That we are going to see the resurgence of Nebraska football under Rhule.
More coming on that last part later this week.
How’s that for a tease?!
Ed Foley is embracing the state, Terrance Knighton speaks right into the heart of frustrated Nebraska fans and more.
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