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Mickey Joseph on the radio: 'I demand that you do things the right way'
ByBRIAN CHRISTOPHERSON 2 hours agoThe music's turned off at practices. Mickey Joseph wants his team to bring its own energy. The blackshirts aren't around for the time being. Nothing negative there. Mickey Joseph wants his guys to start from scratch and earn them back.
As the Husker interim coach spoke on Thursday, two days before he leads the team out of the tunnel against Oklahoma, he said the Huskers have upped the tempo. There's some schematic changes but it's obviously not wise to spill the specifics. What he would say is he expects the boys to play hard.
"We expect their best punch and we're going to give them our best punch ..." Joseph said during an hour-long interview on the Huskers Radio Network two days before his team meets No. 6 Oklahoma. "This is why you come to play college football, for games like this ... As Coach (Bill) Busch always says, 'Mickey, the game's on TV, they're keeping score.' That ought to get you excited."
He spoke with Tom Osborne at 10:15 Monday morning and asked his former coach to tell him what he was seeing. Osborne gave him an honest answer.
He also called his four team captains and Casey Thompson, his starting QB, into his room and explained his vision and some things he thinks this squad needs to do.
"And they know it's going to be a little different. I'm going to be a little more feisty, I'm going to be more in your face. And I demand that you do things the right way. And everybody gets it. And that's what they know."
Off we go into the Joseph era. At least nine games. Maybe more. Here's what he had to say before Game 1.
HOW HAVE THE GUYS REACTED SINCE SUNDAY?
"You just pull them in individually. Pulling them in sometimes two or three at a time, making sure that they're OK mentally and that they understand this is the part of the business – you want to say it's the sad part of the business that changes are being made. But it happens everywhere in college football. And to just to get them to understand that their feelings matter to me. I'm going to be there for them and it's my job to comfort them and make sure to let them know that everything's going to be OK. And I think for the most part all of them are pretty good."As for his message to his coaching staff?
"That they're responsible to get their group to play ... And to coach them up until kickoff. Continue to coach them and give them confidence. Be positive with them but get your group to play."
What's practice been like?
"Fast. Fast. We've been running around pretty good. We picked the tempo up. We're getting in and out of drills. We're transitioning fast, but it's been fast."
SATURDAY WAS A TOUGH ONE FOR THE DEFENSE?
"Absolutely, but like I told the team. They weren't out there by themselves. Everyone just saw that part. I always tell the offense, 'The offense's job is to score one more point than the opponents.' Special teams job is to play penalty free and make a big play on special teams. (The defense) wasn't out there by themselves. So they can't take the sole responsibility of that loss. No, it wasn't their best day, but they weren't out there by themselves."ARE YOU WORRIED ABOUT A FRACTURE WITH THE TEAM?
"No, this is a high character team. These are good kids. These are good boys, so no. It's not going to be any finger pointing. Even with Frost was here, he didn't allow that so they're not going to allow that. When there was a loss he put it on the coaches and said we've got to coach them better. But no, that locker room will never be divided."
WHAT CHANGES CAN BE DONE TO FIX DEFENSE WHEN YOU HAVE THE SAME PERSONNEL AND COACHES?
"We moved Coach Chins back to the secondary to coach the safeties and the nickels. And we gave Fish just the corners. We talked about doing some different things on defense. It comes down to gap integrity and we did a really good job this week of being in our gaps. I don't want to get too much about what we changed schematic-wise. That wouldn't be smart right now. You'll see some changes but what you're going to see, you're going to see the boys play hard. They're going to play really hard."
ABOUT THE OLD RIVALRY WITH OKLAHOMA
"It's a healthy rivalry because I think we both respect each other. I think it's going to be a good game on Saturday. I think both teams will show up."You had your leg broken in a game against OU.
"You want to say it was a freak accident. The guy who hit me ... we're friends today. It was a wet turf because it was an old turf (they had to water down) ... but the mistake I made was I ran out of bounds and Coach Osborne taught not to run out of bounds. And I ran out of bounds ... and slid. Yeah, I cut my leg open. But I was blessed to be able to come back. I still have a big scar on it, but it's OK. It's part of football. Injuries happen."
HOW MUCH SLEEP HAVE YOU GOTTEN THIS WEEK?
"Not much .... You got to watch all the tape on offense, defense, special teams. You're putting in the long hours: 14, 15, 16 hour days. But it's part of the job ... It's exciting, but you just got to cover a lot of bases, so no, not a lot of sleep."Anything surprised you the last few days being a head coach?
"All these interviews," he joked. "All these cameras and microphones. I'm not ready for that. I'm more of a laidback person and stay at home and go to the office. But there's a lot of interviews."
THOUGHTS ON SPECIAL TEAMS
"We're going to continue to get better but I think Coach Busch has done an excellent job ... He's always been really detailed in what he's done and he's always done a great job with the special teams. Brian (Buschini) is punting at a high rate. The punt team has given up zero return yards this year. I think he's averaging 45.7 (net) per punt. That's really good. He turns the field over. Timmy (Bleekrode), he's got a miss or two, but Timmy was really consistent this week. But as a whole that special teams department has just done a good job with Busch ... and our kids are buying into special teams and excited about special teams."And that's what's got to happen."
NO BLACKSHIRTS AT PRACTICE THIS WEEK?
“It’s nothing negative. We talked about a new era starting. We said everybody is going to have a clean slate, so we’re zero and zero. So now it's like we're starting from the beginning. So we’re going to practice and we’re going to earn those Blackshirts. And I’m confident that they will get them back. But they weren’t taken away from them because of the game."It's just, if we say everybody is on a clean slate, well, we got to give other kids a chance to be able to get their Blackshirts also. So that was the reason for taking the Blackshirts from them — not to be negative. Just to say, 'Hey, it’s a clean slate — one team, one heartbeat. We’re all going to wear red and white.’ And then when we feel like you deserve to get the Blackshirts, we’ll give them back to you. It’s a great tradition here. We’re going to keep the tradition going. But right now we’re zero and zero with me. So I’m going to give the Blackshirts back when I think they should."
WHAT DOES GOOD LEADERSHIP LOOK LIKE?
"You've got to care about people. You've got to worry about the person's best interests. And I think that sometimes as a head coach you've got to be a strong leader of young men. And some people think you've got to be a coordinator to be able to do that. I think you've got to be a natural leader. And it comes with your upbringing, the responsibility that you accepted when you were young when you first started playing football. And then you've got to have other people let you know that you're a good leader, that you're a captain of the team."What kids do these days is they follow good leadership. And they fold under bad leadership ... I visited with Coach Osborne Monday at 10:15 and I just said, 'Tell me what you see.' And Coach Osborne was honest and told me what he saw. So that was some of the things I needed to fix. But I will tell you this, that we have good leadership on our team with our players. And usually player-driven teams are the best teams. So we're putting the ball in the players' court right now saying, hey, we need you all to lead. We need you to do things the right way. For the most part they've done everything I've asked them to do since taking over Sunday."
HAS EFFORT BEEN AN ISSUE SO FAR?
"Well, I couldn't tell you with the entire team because I don't look at their grades when I was just the receivers coach. I know in the receiver room Caz (Mike Cassano) and I grade them really hard on loafs and a loaf is you don't change speeds ... I don't know how many people had in their room but we had six or seven in our room out of 70 or 75 plays. That's still too many. So that's one thing I'll be tracking is loafs. But I've got to tell you, this week I've seen effort in practice. I've seen it ... Because now coaches are pushing them. 'Hey, let's run, we're moving, we're moving.' And everybody is screaming the same thing. 'Transition, let's go, let's get there.'"So practices have been shorter but practices have been faster."
YOU MENTIONED CASSANO. CONFIDENCE IN HIM?
"Absolutely. Caz is my right-hand man. Didn't know much about the kids when I came here and I didn't know much about (Mark) Whipple's system when I came here. I knew Whipple but I didn't know his system. And Caz had worked with Whipple at Massachusetts. So he understood what was going on and he understood and he gave me a layout of the kids. Caz is really sharp. He's a really good football coach and he's really detailed. That's what I like about him. ... He's a big-time coach and we're happy to have him here at Nebraska, and hope to keep him because he's such a good coach."
STATUS UPDATE ON TRAVIS VOKOLEK?
"Travis still day to day ... We hope that we get him back on Saturday but he's trying. He's trying to get back. He's working hard and hopefully we can get him back on Saturday."
HOW HAVE THE LEADERS OF THE TEAM HANDLED THE TRANSITION?
"They were really receptive of what I was seeing. I met with the captains and explained to them my vision of where I wanted to go, where we needed to go, what we needed to do to win. And they were good. They said, 'Coach, let's go. We're going to ride with you. We're going to support you.' Because they know me. I got here and I have a good relationship with them. I brought the four captains in and I also brought Casey (Thompson) in because he's the quarterback. I have a good relationship with these kids and they understood what I wanted to do."And they know it's going to be a little different. I'm going to be a little more feisty, I'm going to be more in your face. And I demand that you do things the right way. And everybody gets it and that's what they know. (Brendan) Franke can get it. The punter. Timmy the kicker. Whoever. I got to get you to play at a high level and sometimes getting in your face, that helps. You've got to be able to handle it. Because in life, that's going to happen. Sometimes when life gets in your face, you've got to be able to handle it and that's what they're going through right now. It's a life lesson."
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO SEE FROM YOUR TEAM AS FAR AS EMOTIONS AND ENERGY?
"We spoke to the team and I spoke to the coaches about the energy – bringing your own energy. So what we did at practice was we turned the music off and now we bring our own energy. Because that's what you have to do during a game. You've got to bring your own energy. I know our fans are going to bring energy. Because our fans, we need to compete against each other: What section is going to be the loudest? We're going to need our fans to be as loud as they've ever been before. Because we're going to need them. We're going to need that noise to disrupt them on offense."But energy, that's what we're preaching right now. The kids have a lot of energy, the coaches have a lot of energy, the trainers have a lot of energy, the strength coaches have a lot of energy. Energy has to be throughout the building because I think that's what pushes you to be great."
WILL THE STARTERS BE THE SAME AND WHAT DOES HE EXPECT OUT OF SATURDAY?
"Well, I'm sure there's going to be a shakeup somewhere down the line. But I think it's going to be a really good football game. I think the kids are going to come out and give maximum effort. And I'm sure OU is going to come out and give maximum effort. They're a top-1o football team. So we expect their best punch and we're going to give them our best punch. ... This is why you come to play college football, for games like this. National TV. Top 10 football team and you've got a chance to do something good. Like Coach Busch always says, 'Mickey, the game's on TV, they're keeping score.' That ought to get you excited."
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