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(Kickin around a theory here… old-timers and historians feel free to chime in because I have no first-hand experience or memories of the old old days.)
NU fans and admin have been desperately trying to recapture the culture and successes of our past for years and years. We’ve gone about it from all kinds of angles with all kinds of wildly different coaches and administrators and teams. But I think our biggest problem is that we’ve been aiming for the wrong part of our past. Our program has been so focused on recapturing the days of Tom Osborne, when we really should be taking cues from the original NU architect, Bob Devaney.
Before 1962, Nebraska had 5 straight non-winning seasons. (Sound familiar?) Devaney had a good thing going at Wyoming, going 35-10-5 during his tenure, but Nebraska was seen as a higher-profile job, even in the middle of a 20 year downturn. When Devaney was introduced to the press for the first time, OWH sports editor Wally Provost said, "He is a down-to-earth gent who would have no trouble making friends in Nebraska. There also was every indication that he knows exactly what he needs to build winning football — and how to get it.” From that point he got right to work touring the state of Nebraska, meeting fans, HS coaches, boosters, and recruiting. By all accounts he arrived with his hair on fire, and was committed to not only having a good team, but building the best and most innovative athletic program in the country from the ground up. His motto, as he told the LJS at the time, was "recruit like crazy, and organize."
His personality lent itself to doing that. He was famously tough, gregarious and fun-loving, and he knew how to articulate his vision to players and fans and boosters. He was a force of nature and inspired confidence and a renewed sense of energy to a program whose good memories were two decades old by that point (again, sound familiar?). But he wasn't trying to recapture the 1940s, he was trying to create something brand new, and make it fun to be a fan and player along the way. As Osborne said, "He insisted on players being tough... toughness was important to him. He interjected a little bit of levity in the program. He had a good sense of humor. Yes, he had a temper. He could get on people pretty good. But he never left the field mad. He'd have his arm around the guy by the end of the practice. He'd tell a joke or two by the end of the practice. He made it fun for the players."
As we all know, Devaney built Nebraska into a national powerhouse. At that point, Osborne took over and was the perfect guy to lead that national powerhouse. His personality was wildly different - sober, guarded, dry, conservative. But it worked, the foundation stayed strong based on TO's incredible coaching skills, and the player-led leadership that took hold behind the scenes while his stoic personality kept the ship steady.
Fast forward to now - Ever since Osborne retired, a huge chunk of fans seem to think there is only one way to have success at Nebraska - be like Tom Osborne. Don't celebrate too hard, don't let the other team see you have fun, be calm and collected, shake hands, and go home. The Nebraska-ness of Freewheelin' Devaney, the guy who was called a goddamn "raconteur and humorist" in the first line of his New York Times obit, is lost to history. Osborne has influenced our collective psyche so much that Frost himself seemed to drastically change his own personality when he arrived, in order to be more stoic and detached like his hero.
But my theory is that you can't really build up a new program with an approach like that, and a new program is exactly how we have to view Nebraska after the faceplants of the past 20 years. So what lights that fire that spreads and takes hold as the ever-elusive 'culture'? Because a culture can't just appear out of thin air no matter how many times the right words get repeated. It has to be demonstrated into existence. As Benning brought up on his show yesterday, how do the players learn and understand if they don't have the leaders of the program constantly drilling it into them to show them the way? That part has to happen before you can expect the players themselves to carry it on their own. We clearly don't have the foundation built up to pull off the player-led program of the Osborne model, and we also don't have any of his magical culture left over anymore. The last bits dried up two decades ago and it's time to figure out how to start something new again. Ironically, to do that we should look even further to the past and embrace a Devaney-like attitude. An authentic personality that inspires belief and confidence, an innovative organizer working his ass off behind the scenes and leaving no stone unturned, someone who is excited to take some big swings and lead the charge instead of grappling with the expectations of being the caretaker of a mythical program that doesn't exist anymore.
Now, the question is - does that person exist? Can we identify him and persuade him to take on the project? Can the fans and the suits get onboard with someone else's vision the way they did in 1962? And before we put the cart before the horse, is there ANY chance that Frost can learn from his failures, reset, shake off his cobwebs, and become that guy over the next 10 months?
NU fans and admin have been desperately trying to recapture the culture and successes of our past for years and years. We’ve gone about it from all kinds of angles with all kinds of wildly different coaches and administrators and teams. But I think our biggest problem is that we’ve been aiming for the wrong part of our past. Our program has been so focused on recapturing the days of Tom Osborne, when we really should be taking cues from the original NU architect, Bob Devaney.
Before 1962, Nebraska had 5 straight non-winning seasons. (Sound familiar?) Devaney had a good thing going at Wyoming, going 35-10-5 during his tenure, but Nebraska was seen as a higher-profile job, even in the middle of a 20 year downturn. When Devaney was introduced to the press for the first time, OWH sports editor Wally Provost said, "He is a down-to-earth gent who would have no trouble making friends in Nebraska. There also was every indication that he knows exactly what he needs to build winning football — and how to get it.” From that point he got right to work touring the state of Nebraska, meeting fans, HS coaches, boosters, and recruiting. By all accounts he arrived with his hair on fire, and was committed to not only having a good team, but building the best and most innovative athletic program in the country from the ground up. His motto, as he told the LJS at the time, was "recruit like crazy, and organize."
His personality lent itself to doing that. He was famously tough, gregarious and fun-loving, and he knew how to articulate his vision to players and fans and boosters. He was a force of nature and inspired confidence and a renewed sense of energy to a program whose good memories were two decades old by that point (again, sound familiar?). But he wasn't trying to recapture the 1940s, he was trying to create something brand new, and make it fun to be a fan and player along the way. As Osborne said, "He insisted on players being tough... toughness was important to him. He interjected a little bit of levity in the program. He had a good sense of humor. Yes, he had a temper. He could get on people pretty good. But he never left the field mad. He'd have his arm around the guy by the end of the practice. He'd tell a joke or two by the end of the practice. He made it fun for the players."
As we all know, Devaney built Nebraska into a national powerhouse. At that point, Osborne took over and was the perfect guy to lead that national powerhouse. His personality was wildly different - sober, guarded, dry, conservative. But it worked, the foundation stayed strong based on TO's incredible coaching skills, and the player-led leadership that took hold behind the scenes while his stoic personality kept the ship steady.
Fast forward to now - Ever since Osborne retired, a huge chunk of fans seem to think there is only one way to have success at Nebraska - be like Tom Osborne. Don't celebrate too hard, don't let the other team see you have fun, be calm and collected, shake hands, and go home. The Nebraska-ness of Freewheelin' Devaney, the guy who was called a goddamn "raconteur and humorist" in the first line of his New York Times obit, is lost to history. Osborne has influenced our collective psyche so much that Frost himself seemed to drastically change his own personality when he arrived, in order to be more stoic and detached like his hero.
But my theory is that you can't really build up a new program with an approach like that, and a new program is exactly how we have to view Nebraska after the faceplants of the past 20 years. So what lights that fire that spreads and takes hold as the ever-elusive 'culture'? Because a culture can't just appear out of thin air no matter how many times the right words get repeated. It has to be demonstrated into existence. As Benning brought up on his show yesterday, how do the players learn and understand if they don't have the leaders of the program constantly drilling it into them to show them the way? That part has to happen before you can expect the players themselves to carry it on their own. We clearly don't have the foundation built up to pull off the player-led program of the Osborne model, and we also don't have any of his magical culture left over anymore. The last bits dried up two decades ago and it's time to figure out how to start something new again. Ironically, to do that we should look even further to the past and embrace a Devaney-like attitude. An authentic personality that inspires belief and confidence, an innovative organizer working his ass off behind the scenes and leaving no stone unturned, someone who is excited to take some big swings and lead the charge instead of grappling with the expectations of being the caretaker of a mythical program that doesn't exist anymore.
Now, the question is - does that person exist? Can we identify him and persuade him to take on the project? Can the fans and the suits get onboard with someone else's vision the way they did in 1962? And before we put the cart before the horse, is there ANY chance that Frost can learn from his failures, reset, shake off his cobwebs, and become that guy over the next 10 months?
