Mike Grant on the 'other side' again

[huskernumerouno]

Mike Grant on the 'other side' again

 

BY BRIAN CHRISTOPHERSON / Lincoln Journal Star

Saturday, May 24, 2008 - 12:42:50 am CDT

 

As the mess got messier, Mike Grant watched in foreign colors with as much interest as anyone.

 

He saw the Husker football program’s derailment through two lenses. There was the view of a proud alum: Mike Grant, former Big Red quarterback. But there was also the vantage point he had gained as a coach, a sort of professional curiosity as to if another coach (Bill Callahan) could bring in a completely new system and tread water long enough to somehow make the thing work.

 

As an alum, “it was really frustrating to watch, frustrating to see what had been built and now slowly crumbling.”

 

As a coach, “you realize to actually change a coach or program really takes time. No one prior to that time had really recruited for that kind of (West Coast offense) scheme. ... I knew, I felt anyway, that it was going to be very frustrating for the fans and frustrating for the players as well.”

 

That’s not to say Grant wasn’t plenty busy as he kept an eye on his old team.

 

As Nebraska football morphed from a title team to one without a bowl invitation, Grant was carving a respectable coaching career.

 

It started stuffing envelopes.

 

After finishing as a Husker quarterback in 1992, a senior when Tommie Frazier was a freshman, he had expressed interest to Tom Osborne in a graduate assistant job. The coach said yes.

 

“By day I was stuffing envelopes and helping with recruiting and by night I was working with Coca-Cola,” Grant says.

 

The hours were long but worthwhile. The Huskers were rolling. The trophies were coming. Soon Grant secured a job as a full-time assistant at James Madison. He moved up the ladder to Iowa State, then spent a year at Southern Miss.

 

Now, he’s at Western Michigan, the team from Kalamazoo that will come to Nebraska to open both team’s seasons this fall.

 

“I didn’t realize it until after I took the job,” says Grant, who was hired this year to WMU as a receivers coach. “Coach (Bill) Cubit told me we got some big games. We got Illinois at Ford Field (in Detroit). We’re opening up with Nebraska.’ I was like, ‘Oh, great.’ It seems like I’m always on the other side.”

 

Grant’s nine years spent at Iowa State (1998-2006) have familiarized him with what it’s like to be on the other side against NU.

 

It will never feel as strange as that first time he came into Memorial Stadium wearing Iowa State colors. Frank Solich, the man who had helped recruit him, stood across the field. There were so many recognizable faces that he was now trying to beat.

 

The setting changed. Callahan took over and brought in new coaches. It started to feel more normal to take on Big Red, sometimes even taking them down. ISU beat Nebraska twice while Grant was there, once against Solich (2002) and once against Callahan (2004).

 

Grant spent last year in Southern Miss. Without Nebraska on the schedule, he could wear his school ring if he so wanted. Sometimes he did.

 

But then, despite 17 years of mostly successes, Southern Miss coach Jeff Bower was fired. Grant went looking for a new home.

 

He didn’t know what to expect at Western Michigan, but when he got there, “I was really actually shocked by what I saw.” The facilities impressed and so did the people. This seemed a program pointed in the right direction.

 

The Western Michigan receivers he is now in charge of are heavy on talent, arguably the strong suit of the football team. None is better than senior Jamarko Simmons, a pro prospect. Out of the same MAC conference as Ball State (one of NU’s many headaches last season), WMU was in a bowl game two seasons ago and last year beat Iowa 28-19 in Iowa City.

 

Grant said the team runs a spread offense similar to that operated at Missouri and Kansas.

 

About this year’s trip to Lincoln, he says, “I think now with Tom being there and some of the guys I was around when I played now coaching, it will be hard going in. But I always know what colors I got on.”

 

Grant still talks with his Husker pals. He wouldn’t have minded attending some of this spring’s events for alums, but thought it best he stay clear this year.

 

“As long as I’m an opponent, out of respect for everybody, I don’t show up,” Grant says.

 

But when he does return to Lincoln, there will be plenty of people greeting him by his first name.

 

Then the game will start and he’ll hear those same roars that once greeted him after scoring six.

 

“Fans have always been so good there,” Grant says. “Before the game, they say, ‘Hey, Mike. Hey, Coach.’” He laughs. “It still doesn’t stop them from screaming against you on third down.”

[Touchdown Tommie]

It would be tough to come back and coach against the team you gave your heart and soul for......I hope the Huskers welcome him back by putting a hurt on WMU and then they all can be friends again.