Joe Dailey

[np_husker]

Steven M. Sipple: Dailey a natural fit for coaching

 

Tuesday, Jun 10, 2008 - 12:52:26 am CDT

Joe Dailey feels fortunate that, ever since his high school days, he knew he wanted to be a football coach.

 

“You go into college knowing what you want to get out of it, and then you come out with more than you ever expected,” he says.

 

He got more than expected, all right.

 

Try two schools, four head coaches and five offensive systems.

 

That’s what Dailey experienced at Nebraska and North Carolina from 2003-07. He says he learned from some good coaches, and even some not-so-good ones.

 

“I feel like I reached into their souls and pulled out what I liked,” says the New Jersey native, who now begins his own coaching career with a wealth of perspective.

 

Dailey remains in the “Husker family,” so to speak, having taken a job in April as a graduate assistant coach under Buffalo head coach Turner Gill, another former NU quarterback.

 

“I took extensive notes as a player,” Dailey says. “I have tapes and playbooks. Everything you can imagine.”

 

As a backup at Nebraska in 2003, he says he learned from Frank Solich the importance of communication and continuity throughout a football program and athletic department. In essence, Dailey learned people lose jobs when such elements are lacking.

 

“I learned it’s important to have a sense of family and community,” Dailey says.

 

In 2004, he learned from Bill Callahan the significance of organization and attention to detail.

 

Dailey also learned the hardships of being a starting quarterback at a school with a fervid fan base. He learned that some of those fans can become brutally tough on players as losses mount, as was the case in 2004, when Nebraska finished 5-6.

 

“I’m very proud of everything I went through,” Dailey says. “All of the crazy phone calls. All of the articles. I lived through it. I was the one harassed, the one criticized. I’m still standing. My motto was, ‘Can’t quit, won’t quit.’ I never will, regardless.

 

“I’m proud to say I went to Nebraska.”

 

Dailey, a Husker captain in 2004, begins his new career under the coach who recruited him to Lincoln. Dailey becoming a coach makes perfect sense given his experiences in college, cerebral nature and well-spoken persona. Butch Davis, for whom Dailey played at North Carolina last season, describes Dailey as “brilliant.”

 

Dailey’s a deep thinker. He says he hopes to become a quarterbacks coach because training a QB “is the most important ritual in all of sports.” Think about all the communication that must transpire in the seconds before the ball is snapped. No wonder he says playing quarterback can be mentally exhausting.

 

“That’s the case no matter what offense you’re in,” he says.

 

It was particularly true in Callahan’s offense.

 

Dailey, of course, faced an unwieldy situation in 2004. Recruited for a run-based system and surrounded by players recruited for such a system, he suddenly was being force-fed a complex West Coast system. Yes, Callahan was organized. He was seasoned. He was intelligent. He also was stubborn in some ways.

 

“I learned a lot of football (under Callahan), but it wasn’t organized learning,” Dailey says. “I mean, it was scattered. There was so much information that it couldn’t be processed. It took me two years after I left that place to really figure out and sort through everything and analyze it, and really understand it.”

 

In talking to former Nebraska players, Dailey discovered Callahan eventually pared down the playbook. At any rate, the Callahan years at NU will be remembered as a bizarre and exceedingly uncomfortable period in program history.

 

Bizarre? Well, Dailey sewed together three wristbands with plays written on them and wore those bands around his belt during games. He recalls having as many as 18 audibles against certain defensive looks.

 

“It was ridiculous,” he says.

 

Dailey threw 17 touchdown passes in 2004, but also 19 interceptions. He transferred to North Carolina and sat out the 2005 season per NCAA transfer rules. In 2006, Dailey, sharing time with redshirt freshman Cam Sexton, struggled once again, throwing for seven TDs, with 10 picks. The Tar Heels lost nine of their first 10 games, and head coach Jon Bunting was replaced by Davis.

 

All told, Dailey played under three coordinators at Carolina.

 

“A smarter player is always a better player,” he says, referring specifically to the dreaded 2004 season, for which Dailey accepts his share of the blame.

 

“The coaches did everything they could to try to get us to learn, and we didn’t pick it up well enough,” he says.

 

Dailey pushed on. He kept learning. He can talk football for hours at a time. He’s grateful to be embarking on a professional career that doesn’t really feel like work. He’s grateful to have the chance to make a difference in the lives of young men.

 

“You’re pretty much a life coach for these kids,” he says.

 

He stays in contact with ex-Nebraska coaches and players. He mentions Tony Samuel, Jack Pierce, Tommie Frazier, Jay Norvell, Randy Jordan.

 

“Nebraska people take care of Nebraska people,” Dailey says.

 

In that regard, he says, Gill always has treated him as if he were a son.

 

“He’s the same great guy he was in 2003,” says Dailey, rewinding to the start of a period in his life that would challenge him in ways he never could have imagined.

 

Reach Steven M. Sipple at 473-7440 or ssipple@journalstar.com.

[tattooedhusker]

Good luck to him, I wish him the best.