Teaching Stopped During Callahan's Era

[Spartness]

Interesting article. Pretty much confirms what most of us thought. One thing I believe is (not in the article) it wasn't Cozgrove who made Callahan worse. It was Callahan who made Cozgrove worse. Coz at Wisconsin was probably considered an adequate D.C. and nothing more. But with B.C.'s stupid system of not teaching, he made Coz a below average D.C.

 

 

 

http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=1200...;u_sid=10293118

 

 

NU Football: Progress halted by lack of teaching

BY DIRK CHATELAIN

WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

 

 

 

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Football coaches like their handshakes firm and their chinstraps tight and their teams physical — can never be too physical.

 

So think of today's topic as a physics class.

 

Bill Callahan is the professor. Each day at 2 p.m., he introduces a set of formulas, concepts and packages — technical jargon you and I wouldn't understand.

 

At 3:30 p.m., his students move to the laboratory to practice what they've heard.

 

Next day, new lesson, new lab assignment. Stick to the schedule.

 

This is the regimen Nebraska football players followed the past four years.

 

Bo Pelini described a different philosophy on Monday.

 

"You just don't get an installation schedule and throw it at them and say, 'This is what we're staying with.' You set things and say, 'This is where we're going to start.'

 

"Then you move on as you need to, as you're ready to. . . . It's a teaching progression."

 

Spring football starts Wednesday at Memorial Stadium, and Pelini's students may be surprised by the new classroom procedure.

 

Callahan emphasized rhythm and repetition in his practices. That's how you perfect timing within a West Coast offense. That's how you stay one move ahead in the war of X's and O's.

 

Players had questions and players made mistakes, but they were best solved in the meeting rooms. Time spent deliberating on the practice field equaled time wasted.

 

These principles made Callahan's drills a sight to behold. Observers marveled at the pace. Legs were constantly churning.

 

"Callahan always wanted to keep going and going and going, get a certain amount of plays done for each period," receiver Nate Swift said.

 

But Callahan's routine, conceived in the NFL and tailored to prepare starters for Sunday games, had a drawback at the college level, some believe. It's a problem every kid who's ever taken a science or math class can understand: Comprehension of one day's material determines comprehension of the next day's. Fall behind, even a day or two, and the test questions get mighty hard.

 

Nebraska football players often fell behind.

 

"Coaches weren't really in teaching mode," safety Larry Asante said.

 

So whoever understood the information, Asante said, "that's the guy who played."

 

"There were guys out there lost."

 

Like freshman defensive back Eric Hagg. Asante remembers filling in the blanks for Hagg so he could keep up with the "rapid-fire" installation of blitzes and coverages.

 

"For an incoming freshman, even for a juco guy coming in for spring ball, you're just getting drilled with so much stuff right away," defensive end Zach Potter said. "It was something new every day. It's not like you got something and had a week to digest it."

 

That's one reason newcomers struggled to make an impact, Potter said.

 

The problem, Swift said, wasn't so much the volume of material, but how coaches waited until film-room sessions to point out mistakes and answer questions from the previous night's practice.

 

"You had to watch film (of practice) and kind of correct while you were watching," Swift said. "With the younger guys learning the system, I think it's definitely helpful to correct them right on the spot."

 

Pelini described a more flexible routine, which Asante called "comforting." There's an order to the lessons he'll teach, but no fixed schedule.

 

"You don't progress 'til you're ready to progress," Pelini said.

 

If a coach moves too fast, he confuses the whole offense or defense, Pelini said. He offers his own metaphor.

 

"It's like if you put the walls up before you have the foundation built. The whole thing gets screwed up, right?"

 

For example, Pelini may have planned in advance to install one phase of the defense.

 

"If on Wednesday they don't have what we're doing on Wednesday, then I might say, 'Let's move what we were going to do Friday to Saturday.'"

 

Certain concepts need to be covered this spring. But Pelini doesn't expect to have everything established by the first game. Better to be great at a few things than average at several.

 

"You can make the mistake of trying to be the Patriots tomorrow," Pelini said.

 

The past few years, defensive coordinator Kevin Cosgrove had a base defense, a speed defense, a nickel defense — and different calls within each. It might have become too specialized, Potter said.

 

Potter expects a simpler, less-stressful system under Pelini.

 

The offensive routine is a little murkier. Callahan's coordinator, Shawn Watson, is still running the show.

 

Swift isn't sure how practice will change. Maybe fewer repetitions. Maybe more time between plays for discussion. More teaching moments.

 

It's a little strange, players say. Pelini's a first-time head coach, so no one knows for certain what he'll be like.

 

Intensity will be unrelenting, they know that much. Effort will be critical. Winning can't wait long.

 

But when it comes to the practice field, Pelini's players have already learned one lesson: To take big strides, sometimes you've got to slow down.

 

 

 

 

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[huskernation20]

Great read, its good to finally hear these kids coming out of the woodwork and say what they thought was going wrong!!!

[BIGREDFAN_in_OMAHA]

Yep! Callahan thought he was taking the team for a ride on the information super highway yet drove the program into the dark ages. Coach Pelini will show us the light again!

[NU fan in Denver]

For some reason that doesn't surprise me. As time goes on, more and more of Callahan's brillance shows through.

[hskrpwr13]

Basically, he "coach" himself into the same problems here as he did with the "dumbest team in America".

[HuskerfaninOkieland]

Good read!

[billdozer15]

Yep! Callahan thought he was taking the team for a ride on the information super highway yet drove the program into the dark ages. Coach Pelini will show us the light again!

 

I agree. I just hope that light you talk about isn't a train coming down the tunnel. Only time will tell.

[tattooedhusker]

excellent read!

[MCAT800]

Well none of us can expect to understand what BC was doing, after all it's just to technical for us.

[The Pit]

This MSG is important for all to understand. Copying and pasting an entire copyrighted article is beyond illegal. For those of you who don't care, keep your smart ass comments to yourself...they do nothing but reveal ignorance. Also, if you push the quote button instead of the reply button, you are retarded. You don't need to quote a three page, illegally copied owh article.* If you don't know how to use the quote function, don't use it. How old are we? Twelve?

 

*nobody quoted the article in this post, but spread the word because it is very common here at huskerboard.

[Spartness]

After the CU game. I hoped they wouldn't fire him, and as long as Cosgrove was gone I would have been fine. But it's hard not to be excited by how we finished recruiting and how the players have been reacting to the new staff. Wait and see.

 

This was from another thread, and I have read other posters write similar opinions before. But, come on, you all now have read the OWH article about B.C. not teaching and throwing out something different each day before the team could learn those fundamentals, causing many players to get behind in the learning curb. This caused a lot of confusion for both the offense and the defense.

 

This caused Cozgrove, who was an adequate or average D.C., to become much worse. Yes, I don't think Cozgrove was that good, but I blame B.C. for many of Coz's problems with the defense. And how would the defense had gotten any better with a new D.C. if something different was thrown at them each day? Folks, with or without Coz, the defense would still had sucked.

[zoogs]

^ I made the highlighted post there, so I'll respond.

 

A lot of these negatives have come out after his firing. Honestly, I was willing to consider 2007 a lost year and thinking Callahan deserved a chance to show that it was a fluke and get back on track in '08. But after all's been said and done, I think we are in a much better position now than if we had retained him.

 

The reports about how teaching stopped with Callahan are just flooring. It very much seems clear that if nothing else, the man did not have the ability to lead this program.

 

Although, I'll add a little grain of salt to those articles - I sincerely hope that it's not just players blaming everything on last year's staff, because that would be counterproductive. Look ahead, and don't compare to the past.

[BigWillie]

After the CU game. I hoped they wouldn't fire him, and as long as Cosgrove was gone I would have been fine. But it's hard not to be excited by how we finished recruiting and how the players have been reacting to the new staff. Wait and see.

 

This was from another thread, and I have read other posters write similar opinions before. But, come on, you all now have read the OWH article about B.C. not teaching and throwing out something different each day before the team could learn those fundamentals, causing many players to get behind in the learning curb. This caused a lot of confusion for both the offense and the defense.

 

This caused Cozgrove, who was an adequate or average D.C., to become much worse. Yes, I don't think Cozgrove was that good, but I blame B.C. for many of Coz's problems with the defense. And how would the defense had gotten any better with a new D.C. if something different was thrown at them each day? Folks, with or without Coz, the defense would still had sucked.

 

BC left the entire defense up to Cosgrove. Anything that happened with that defense was all on him.

 

And I don't see how anyone on the offensive side of the ball can complain. We have had average talent on that side of the ball with a lack of playmakers, but yet we still put one of the better offenses in the country out there. Callahan had his flaws in how he coached (playcalling, offensive line) but he damm sure didn't do anything to make our offense worse. Taking guys like Zac Taylor and Joe Ganz who are marginal talents and turning them into productive players in their time here. Or guys like Todd Peterson and Nate Swift who are marginal talents and making them into productive B12 wide receivers.

 

It's the same song and dance you hear every time a coach leaves. Players will find things to nit pick, the media will glorify it and we all will rejoice about how much things better are. In reality, we may be no better than we were when we went thru this same thing during Callahan's first spring here as coach.

 

Really, these players need to stop making it personal with the coaches that recruited them here and gave them a chance. The media of course will not let it die, but they need to let it die.

[huskered17]

Coz, Callahan, Callahan, Coz doesn't matter which one we want to blame. They both had a hand in taking the program to new lows, but I doubt that we will see a season similar to what Callahan put on the field his first and last year. Just the intensity level should show the change in the attitude of the team. This team will have a better record than what BC put on the field his first year. The players are there and now the teacher is also in the building.

 

GBR!!!

[HuskerTrucker]

I mentally refuse to read anymore about Callahan....I wish the mods would put a filter on here that would filter out anymore posts about him so we could move on from the era of enlightenment.