OWH Shatel: Props to Callahan

[Eric the Red]

Tom Shatel: Spring brings a collage of change

 

OWH: Tom Shatel: Spring brings a collage of change Reply

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LINCOLN - If Bill Callahan keeps this up, he's going to blow his reputation.

 

Based on who you talked or listened to last fall, Nebraska's football coach was any or all of the following:

 

A finesse coach. A guy who didn't get or care about Husker tradition. A coach who was infatuated with offense and not the minute fundamentals of football. A stubborn mule. An NFL guy who didn't feel the fans' pain after going 5-6.

 

In short, a guy who happened to be the football coach at the University of Nebraska but was not a Nebraska football coach.

 

And then came Saturday morning at Memorial Stadium.

 

The whistle blew. And the players rounded up for a little exercise known as the "Oklahoma Drill."

 

The "Oklahoma Drill" is a beautiful thing.

 

Typically it involves three players: a defensive player, an offensive lineman and a running back. They line up between two tackling dummies, five yards apart.

 

The idea is for the back to get past the defender without getting tackled. The other idea is for the lineman and the defender to knock each other's block off.

 

It's mano e mano. Hat on hat. The essence of football, surrounded by your peers, who are hooting and hollering.

 

Nebraska on Saturday went with a variation: three blockers on three defenders, with a running back and a safety with no one to account for him. It was wonderful. Pads crunched. Helmets cracked. Blood spilled. There was no wristband of plays to look down upon. Just hit or be hit. Embarrass or be embarrassed.

 

The loudest cheer in the stadium - and that may have included all of last season, too - came when senior running back Cory Ross, all of 5-6, 195 pounds, leveled poor Travis Gingery, a sophomore safety and all of 5-10, 180 pounds.

 

"It was interesting to watch the guys in that drill," Callahan said. "Everyone was all cranked up and feeling good about each other."

 

What a concept.

 

Nebraska hasn't felt good about itself for a long time, for a lot of reasons that have been through the wash and rinse. With their minds cluttered with the algebra of a new system, the Huskers looked tentative. Thinking, not hitting.

 

That's why Saturday's "Oklahoma Drill" - which one former Husker from the mid-1990s said was foreign to him - was a welcome sign of hope for the future.

 

And for the coach. Is the finesse coach starting to get it?

 

"That perception is wrong," Callahan said. "Perception is not reality. The reality is, I'm a physical football guy. I'm an offensive line coach. I love to see the one-on-one stuff. It's the essence of football."

 

But Callahan added: "I learned a lot from last season. I think we all did, as a team and staff."

 

Bingo. That's what you are seeing this spring. There's a collage of change, from the Oklahoma Drill to going to zone on defense to trying new players at punt return to shifting responsibilities on the staff. The common thread of hope?

 

A head coach saying that the problem is more than personnel. It's coaching, too.

 

It may be a reach to say Callahan suddenly "gets it," like he didn't before. He may not have understood the dynamics of this unique job, or maybe he did. And maybe it's just what happens in a transition: the first year you put everything in and weed out the players who don't buy in.

 

The second year, you get down to basics. And, yes, former assistants stop calling their former players on your team, too.

 

"I think we have great chemistry," Offensive Coordinator Jay Norvell said. "Everyone is on the same page. And Bill is comfortable and excited. The first year, you put in the system. The second year, it's get down to business."

 

It's too early to say whether any of these changes will help. Too soon to anoint heroes and superstars of the future. Too premature to say whether Callahan will ever bleed enough after losses for some Nebraska fans, who didn't like his "It's just one loss, one season" comment after the Colorado game.

 

But there is hard evidence that Callahan is trying and trying hard to become Nebraska's coach. In two weeks, at his clinic for high school coaches, he has former NU Offensive Line Coach Milt Tenopir as a speaker. And there was Callahan on Saturday, leading some 500 kids out onto the field in a "Tunnel Walk" before holding an hour-long youth clinic for "little Huskers."

 

Of course, for the real hard evidence that Nebraska football is on the mend, you could look between two tackling dummies down on the turf. Ask Travis Gingery.

[Eric the Red]

But Callahan added: "I learned a lot from last season. I think we all did, as a team and staff."

 

I'm stumped on what this means???

[kramer]

I do a similiar drill to this "Oklahoma" drill with my team. Three defenders in a row about 5 yards between each other, one offensive lineman, one RB. RB has to get through all the Defensive players.

 

That gets exciting.

[Blackshirt34]

My high school team does this drill but a different variation, we give the offense an extra line to exaggerate the neccesity for the defensive team to get off their blocks while getting to the ball. Seeing the difference between the defense my junior year and my senior year (when we implemented this drill) was astonishing. The team as a whole tackled much better. Plus the drill gets everyone hyped about practice and keeps the energy up.