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No backing down: Pelini has no patience for losing.

By Terry Douglass

terry.douglass@theindependent.com

Posted Jul 22, 2008 @ 12:06 AM

Last update Jul 22, 2008 @ 08:24 AM

 

KANSAS CITY, Mo. —

 

While Bo Pelini offers no predictions about how quickly he might be able to turn Nebraska's football fortunes around, just know that the first-year coach wants to see the Cornhuskers get back on track sooner rather than later.

 

Asked Monday at the Big 12 Conference's preseason media days if Nebraska's knowledgeable fan base equals greater patience, Pelini cut the question short.

 

"I don't worry about that," Pelini said. "I'm not a very patient person myself. Just ask the guys that played in that golf tournament with me on Saturday.

 

"I'm not a real patient guy and I understand. (Fans) have expectations and they want to win, and I want to win. We don't want to wait."

 

Pelini, who is one of three new Big 12 coaches this year along with Mike Sherman of Texas A&M and Art Briles of Baylor, was the first to be interviewed by print media Monday at the Kansas City Downtown Marriott. Predictably, the prevailing message he conveyed to regional and nation press didn't stray from what Husker fans have been hearing since Pelini was hired by athletics director Tom Osborne to replace Bill Callahan last December.

 

The focus is not the end product, Pelini said. Create a winning culture of respect and accountability and the positive results are sure to follow.

 

"Everybody wants a national championship and no one more so than me, but that's something that's for down the road," Pelini said. "That takes care of itself if you just do the right things in your program."

 

Since his previous stop in Lincoln, Pelini spent one year as co-defensive coordinator at Oklahoma and the past three seasons at LSU, where he helped the Tigers win the national championship a little more than a month after taking the NU job. Pelini, who successfully reversed Nebraska's defensive fortunes as a coordinator during the Huskers' 10-3 season in 2003, has seemingly had little trouble winning over his new players and getting them to buy into his system.

 

"It doesn't take a player long to figure out if you have something great going on and everyone believes in Bo and his staff," Nebraska senior guard Matt Slauson said. "The game is fun again, playing for a coach that we can really relate to.

 

"He's a guy that you love to work hard for because you see him working just as hard as you are at everything."

 

Slauson is convinced that the 40-year-old Pelini still wants to play the game, possibly reliving his days as a starting safety at Ohio State back in 1990.

 

"He would love to strap it on every day -- just like us," Slauson said. "I don't know how old he is, but he's still a college kid at heart and that makes him a real easy guy to play for.

 

"The first day he stepped into the meeting room, he had just gotten off the plane and from that moment on, it looked like he was about ready to jump out of his skin.

 

"He was so excited. Just the energy flowing from him kind of impacted everyone in the room. It was great."

 

Pelini laughed off Slauson's observation, saying that his body probably wouldn't hold up long under game conditions. Then again, Pelini never denied it, either.

 

"The great thing about sports is the competition. I like to compete and I enjoy that aspect of it," Pelini said. "It's in my personality."

 

Nebraska senior quarterback Joe Ganz said Pelini has quickly instilled that aggressive, competitive attitude throughout the entire team.

 

"He's fired up," Ganz said. "He's head-butting people in practice, he's slapping people around -- he's like one of us."

 

Slauson said the feeling inside the program has reversed completely since Pelini and his staff took over.

 

"The mood has totally changed," Slauson said. "We're a team that has totally focused on brotherhood and working for each other and getting the tradition back."

 

Pelini should be somewhat more familiar with that tradition than many first-year head coaches. Not only did he guide Nebraska's defense to a remarkable turnaround in 2003, but he would up serving as the interim head coach and led the Huskers to a 17-3 Alamo Bowl victory over Michigan State a month after head coach Frank Solich had been fired.

 

In the following days, Pelini made no bones about the fact that he wanted to be Nebraska's head coach on a permanent basis. However, former AD Steve Pederson gave Pelini what he believed was a courtesy interview and wound up hiring Callahan.

 

Pelini said that experience alone made it seem unlikely that he'd ever return to Nebraska.

 

"The first time I left, I probably would've bet a large amount that I never would have been back here, but obviously, things changed when Coach Osborne came back," Pelini said. "You just think that most of the time, those things don't come back around.

 

"I thought they hired a good football coach when they hired Bill Callahan. Things just didn't work out."

 

On the other hand, things might have worked out perfectly for Pelini.

 

"I'm more prepared now than I was then, I do know that," Pelini said. "I've had a great experience at OU and LSU and in between and I'm a lot better football coach for having worked at OU and LSU. Hopefully, I'm that much more prepared."

 

Although this will be his first full season as a head coach Pelini said he's no stranger to pressure-packed situations. That included his first stint at Nebraska.

 

"When I came in here the first time, I knew what I was getting myself into," Pelini said. "They had struggled on defense, it was a challenge and a lot of people told me I shouldn't take that job that first time around just because of the uncertainty that surrounded the job. That really didn't concern me then."

 

Pelini has no doubts about his system of football and that it works. He said matter-of-factly last spring that if players didn't buy into what he was teaching, there were a lot of other Division I college football programs they could transfer to.

 

"There's not a lot of gray in my world," Pelini said. "They know it's black and white and they know what to expect in every area of what we're asking them to do and we're getting on the same page, slowly but surely."

 

Pelini said two words that fly out of his mouth all the time when talking football are "effort" and "finish."

 

"When they start taking grasp of what you believe in and it becomes who they are, then that's when you program starts to move forward," Pelini said. "That's something that takes some time to happen, but that's what I believe in."

 

Hailing from Youngstown, Ohio, Pelini often gets compared to another Youngstown native in Oklahoma head coach Bob Stoops. While Pelini said he's followed Stoops' career closely and learned plenty -- just as he has from several other coaches he's worked with -- he places importance on being his own man.

 

"Everybody's different and I can't try to be Bob Stoops, I can't try to be Pete Carroll or George Seifert or anybody else I was around," Pelini said. "Ultimately, I have to take the things I learned and apply them to my personality and my beliefs.”

 

good article, but pelini's take on callahan stood-out to me...

 

"I thought they hired a good football coach when they hired Bill Callahan. Things just didn't work out."

 

i thought that this was exceptionally classy. callahan has a great mind for the game. maybe he'll go on and be a great professional football head coach. who knows, maybe he'll return to college football. it just didn't work out here.

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HuskerfaninOkieland Offensive Coordinator

HuskerfaninOkieland

Posted
Posted
Slauson said the feeling inside the program has reversed completely since Pelini and his staff took over.

 

"The mood has totally changed," Slauson said. "We're a team that has totally focused on brotherhood and working for each other and getting the tradition back."

 

out-damn-f*cking-sum-bitch-standing!!!!!

 

That's what I want to hear :woo

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HuskerTrucker Starter

HuskerTrucker

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All you have to do is interview the players, they say it all. There is a spirit of being a team again. There is also a feeling that the Blackshirts are on the mend, they may not put up dazzling numbers this year, but I have a feeling next years defense will be back to what we remember the Blackshirts being.

 

With a different attitude about the offense, I think there are a lot of records that can be broken if Lucky can put on his game. Long gone is the line up and run over people offense, now we have finesse and a passing game. I look forward to seeing the offense do their thing this year.

 

Kick returns could be a major problem, but something tells me that Bo is going to handle it some way some how. Maybe Bo will return kicks for all I know...maybe the NCAA should instill a new rule allowing us to play one coach at any given time...

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