pretty good read from Omaha paper re: Pelini and NU

[King Crimson]

http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=1 ... d=10391390" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Tom Shatel: An insightful day with Prof. Pelini
BY TOM SHATEL
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

Tom Shatel: An insightful day with Prof. Pelini

LINCOLN — Finally, my head has stopped spinning.

Nebraska spends $50,000 a year on postage and shipping. Football coaches get to go home early on Wednesday nights. The Huskers nearly upset Florida State for the national championship in the 1994 Orange Bowl, thanks to a jock strap.

I remember that Mike Shanahan helped give Bo Pelini a career boost. But I can't seem to recall if the "Otto" blocks the "G" or the "three technique." Does the "Mike" linebacker fill the "B" gap on the "over" or the "under?" Let me check my notes.

This much I know: There's a defensive scheme that Pelini has named after a basketball team. To signal it in, he acts like he's shooting a jump shot.

I went back to school on Friday, in the same way that Rodney Dangerfield once did.

The class was called "Football 202," taught by Professor Pelini. It was a way for Nebraska football to raise some money and offer the serious football fans a front row seat into the program. The best way to describe it would be to ask one question:

Click to Enlarge

World-Herald columnist Tom Shatel soaks in the information on Friday at "Football 202," an opportunity for Nebraska fans to get an up-close day with Husker coaches, players and facilities
Would you pay $249 to spend the day with Pelini and his staff in their football cave?

A total of 132 said "yes." The number seemed a little low to me. Aren't there more than 132 serious Husker heads in this state? If the word hadn't gotten out this first year, that shouldn't be a problem next year.

The ones who showed up were treated to an amazing, unforgettable experience. No doubt those 132 fanatics, dressed in Nebraska jerseys and various Husker gear, headed home to brag to their friends about the total access they were granted into the world of Pelini and Big Red.

It was a long, fun day, mixed with story-telling, philosophy and mind-numbing X's and O's. When it was over, what I learned the most was how much I didn't know.

8:30 a.m.


The "students" gather in the football auditorium. They range from age 18 to 70 and most are male.

Jeff Jamrog, director of football operations, welcomes the group and goes through the whirlwind itinerary. He spends more than an hour talking about how the program works, day-to-day operations and the budget. Some highlights:

• The program brings in $33 million in revenue and spends $13 million. Some of the more unusual expenses are $12,000 for autograph footballs, $60,000 for clerical supplies, $40,000 for equipment rental and film, $112,000 for dietary supplements and $560,000 for recruiting, including travel expenses.

• One expense was the addition of some 27 new lockers in the Hawks indoor facility to accommodate the expansion of the roster from 123 to 150, thanks to the influx of walk-ons in Pelini's program.

10-11a.m.


Trev Alberts, the 1993 Butkus Award winner who works for CBS' College Channel, talked about his experience at NU. Alberts' topic du jour was recruiting and how the "star" system is overrated.

Alberts told his own story, of a gangly farm kid from Cedar Falls, Iowa, who had offers from Northern Iowa, Iowa State and Minnesota. Alberts said he picked up a copy of Tom Lemming's recruiting service to look at the top high school prospects. Alberts said he couldn't find his name, not even on the All-Midwest honorable mention list.

"My dad wrote Lemming a letter, telling him where I was being recruited and asking why I wasn't on the list," Alberts said. "Lemming wrote back and said, 'If you send in $25 for a subscription, I'll make him second team."'

In an hour filled with stories, my favorite was from the 1994 Orange Bowl, when Alberts was captain of a Husker team that was an 18-point underdog to FSU. In a wild thriller, NU fell short 18-16.

"As the captain, they wanted me to talk to the team before the game," Alberts said. "It's kind of strange, but the Orange Bowl gave us jock straps. I mean, you didn't want to wear them and get them dirty. They had '1994 National Championship Game' embroidered on them.

"Someone had gotten me one of the Florida State jock straps. They had put '1994 National Champions' on their jock straps. Well, I got in front of the team and held that up. There were some pretty upset country boys in that locker room."

Someone asks Alberts about a famous poster of him at that Orange Bowl, with Alberts holding up three fingers.

"I would always find my dad in the stands and wave to him," Alberts said. "That was after my third sack of the game. I was signaling to him after my third sack."

Alberts also told the group that he never once heard a coach curse during his time at NU. I guess he never met his defensive coordinator, Charlie McBride.
11:15-Noon


Pelini addresses the group. He tells his own personal story and talks about his philosophy.

• Pelini was a young coach working as a scouting coordinator and assistant secondary coach of the San Francisco 49ers when fate came calling. Two 49er assistants — Shanahan (Broncos) and Ray Rhodes (Eagles) — left for head coaching jobs and both offered Pelini a chance to come with them.

But Pelini said Shanahan told him to think hard about staying on with San Francisco, with head coach George Seifert and defensive coordinator Pete Carroll. He did stay.

"Mike said, 'You can go take the money now or ride it out here,'" Pelini said. "He said, 'Until I got to San Francisco, I didn't know anything about coaching.'

"The best move I made in my coaching career was the job I didn't take."

• Pelini on trust: "If the players think you're in it for you, and not for them, you're going to lose them. You have to love them up, but at the same time, you can't compromise what you're going to ask them to do the next four or five years. It's a fine line."

• On teaching: "We want to teach them not only what to do, but more importantly, why. If you play 70 plays in a game, you have an enormous amount of decisions to make. Our job is to give them enough knowledge and teaching to make the right decision more often than not. To do that, you have to explain to them why they are doing something."

• On simplicity: "They call me the mad doctor because I'm always coming up with some idea or something new. But if I take one of my ideas and a player can't execute it, it's out. At the end of the day, our job is to make sure there is no indecision out there."

Noon-2:00


Lunch and a tour of the facilities. Most in the group were very impressed with the tour of the weight room, training room, locker room and other facilities. We went up into the press box. Hey! This is the room where we eat pizza!

One of the good stories from the tour related by our tour guide: The large horseshoe that hangs above the door where the team leaves for the field came from a Clydesdale. The story goes that, in 1949, a team trainer went to St. Louis on vacation and went to see the Clydesdales. He was given a horseshoe to take home and brought it back to practice. Coach Bill Glassford decided that his team needed some good luck, so they hung it above the door.

Sounded good to me. And all the talk about Clydesdales made me thirsty.

2-3 p.m.


Eric Crouch addressed the group. He began by saying he could have handled his departure from the St. Louis Rams better, but that he was "burned out" from football and "bored" with playing receiver.

There were two good Crouch stories. One happened after his senior year, when he was in Orlando for the ESPN Awards Show. He ran into the Walter Camp Award folks, who told him to get dressed up and join them for dinner.

"On the way down, I got out of the elevator and saw Rex Grossman," Crouch said. "He had shorts and a T-shirt and was holding a pizza box. I said, 'Aren't you going to dinner?' He said, 'What dinner?' I was like, 'Oh, I guess I must be getting this award.'"

Also, Crouch on signals during his career: "We had a signal for a hot read. If I did this (makes motion with his hand), this (player) was the hot read (or player to go to). If I did this (another signal), the other guy was. There were times we didn't change them. I would do this (signals again) and four defenders would move over to where we were going. I said, 'Oh, well, I'll just run it."'

3-4 p.m.


Offensive coordinator Shawn Watson and offensive coaches Barney Cotton, Ron Brown, Ted Gilmore and Tim Beck show up for an "install."

The idea here is to simulate how the staff installs the game plan each week. They went over two plays on the big screen. They had everybody in the group pick a position group. Then, we went with our assistant coach to the individual position meeting room to learn the plays and our "assignments."

I'm not going to bore you with the details here. Besides, Watson told the group "we don't want this on the Internet." But there were a lot of phrases like "tight zone," "wide zone," "first force," "tite single," "slow swap" and outside and inside footwork.

And they went fast. Too fast, at times. Some of the students were following along. Most of them had this glassy-eyed look at what was taking place. Then again, the fast pace of Watson's jargon and terminology gave everyone a sense for how quick and intelligent the coaches and players have to be.

I went with the offensive line group. Cotton is really a treat. He talked about the return of some blocking schemes and plays that Husker fans are going to love. He kept showing a play from spring ball where the center and guard were double-teaming the "three technique," or defensive tackle. The center looked off to make sure that the linebacker wasn't blitzing. If he blitzed, the center released and took him on. Cotton loved that move.

There was a comical moment when Cotton got fired up talking about zone blocking and said, "People say zone blocking isn't physical, but look at this — that's bleeping physical!" Then, noticing a woman in the group, Cotton apologized profusely for a good 10 minutes for his slip-up.

4-5:15


Pelini returned to show us what his defense was all about. I won't get into specific names and schemes, but it was pretty darned interesting. Some highlights:

• He labels the offensive personnel groups "21" for two backs and one tight end, "12" for one back, two tight ends, "11" for one back, one tight end and three wide outs and "10" for one back, no tight end and four wide outs. For each one of those numbers, he has a corresponding defensive personnel group.

If the offense comes out in one of those formations, Pelini has his grouping ready to go. He said a lot of schools call defenses based on where the ball is on the field (hash mark). Pelini says he bases his calls on the offensive formation, which he says is an NFL thing.

An astute fan in the front row asked Pelini how this would work against the no-huddle offenses. Pelini said it was designed to combat the hurry-up offenses.

"I like going against the no-huddle," Pelini said. "They think they're going fast. Well, that allows me to go quicker, too."

• Pelini showed the group the names of all the defensive terms (or packages). There were 18 passing terms, eight running terms, eight zone blitz terms, eight man blitz terms. There were five names for "over" formations and five names for "under" formations. There were 13 names for pressures vs. a "12" formation and 13 pressures for a "21" formation.

You get the picture. It was confusing. But Pelini says it's very simple to learn.

It's all part of a system in which Pelini says is flexible before the snap. He showed how if a tight end moves from one side to the other, the defenders all move over a few steps and each knows the change in assignment.

I could try to explain it to you, but they'd have to kill me. And, well, I couldn't do it anyway.

• Pelini showed some hand signals he uses, though he also might point to his wrist band (and the middle linebacker knows what to do on his wrist band). He added that both he and brother Carl, the defensive coordinator, give the signals. But only the players know the "hot" signal, or the right one.

"There's a lot of stealing signals that goes on," Pelini said. "Ask the Patriots."

5:45 p.m.


With information overload, we were taken down to the field for a "Tunnel Walk" and a meet and greet with players Cody Glenn, Marlon Lucky, Niles Paul and Barry Turner. They went back up to the auditorium for a question-and-answer session. Some of the fans tried to bait them with questions about number of carries and which team they wanted to beat the most. The media would never do that.

Then, at 6:30 p.m., it was over. Time for pizza and pop with the coaches. Pelini signed every autograph and asked everyone if they enjoyed it.

I did. And hopefully by the season opener, I'll remember all of it.


• Contact the writer: 444-1025, tom.shatel@owh.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Danimal]

It was a good article, maybe I'll go down to Lincoln for Football 202 next year. Money goes to a good cause, think it's cancer-research, anyway.

Only time will tell of Bo succeeds but he definitely has a better grasp of Nebraska football than Callahan and Callahan's POS boss Pedey ever did.