1962

Ponderosa

Ponderosa

Five-Star Recruit
How did Devaney turn a 3-6-1 team into a 9-2 team?

I've searched the HB, Google, YouTube, College Football Datawarehouse and others, but find no info on how he coached - his quotes, approach, recruiting, scheme...anything.

Nebraska was terrible in 1961 and had only three winning seasons for the past 21 years. In his fourth year, he had NU playing for a national championship.

Any stories & personal accounts or DVDs & books suggestions would all be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

I did find one quote:

"You learned you can come back. Remember that. That is the lesson of life."

 
I made a similar thread last week here.

It was actually 4 winning seasons with another being a .500 season in 21 years before Devaney's arrival.

1940, 1950, 1952, 1954 = Winning seasons

1955 = .500 season

I know of one Husker booster who told me that Bo Pelini is most similar to Bob Devaney philosophically speaking. Both coaches inherited teams that had losing seasons before their arrival and both were GREAT motivators that knew how to get players to buy into their hard work, blue-collar system. Both were born and raised in Big Ten country and got their start under legendary Big Ten coaches; Duffy Daugherty @ Michigan St. (Bob Devaney), Hayden Fry @ Iowa (Bo Pelini).

To get a glimpse of Devaney through the eyes of his former players, these two articles are worth reading.

Husker History Book

Alvarez: Walk-Ons Were His Key to Success Too

Here's a couple of quotes from a Thunder Thornton interview that Huskerpedia did back in 2004:

. . .That’s one of Devaney’s legacy is the ability to talk to individual players and a group to get players to play above and beyond their ability. He was great at that. Those are the things that stand out and doing so served to set a standard for the incoming players and once that’s set the players understand it and they commit to it then success is bound to happen.
HP What were the coaches meetings like.

BT They were good. The thing about Devaney’s philosophy was get yourself organized, put it out there and do it as short as possible and get out of there. He didn’t like long drawn out meetings. That made guys, particularly coordinators, very sensitive as to how they wanted to do things. He was interested in details and how we were going to teach it. He would put himself in that players position and he would sit down with you and spend time with you it was amazing how much better you felt going out and teaching techniques or a system. He was involved a lot and he was popular and the time he spent with the staff had to be divided up with his public obligations. Then Tom came in and he extended some things, especially offensively.

LINK
Click to expand...

 
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Thanks Nexus and huskalova. That's perfect.

And Nexus it doesn't surprise me at all that you already had a similar post.

Great read about "Thunder" Thornton. There are about 25 other interviews as well.

Those will keep me entertained for a bit. You've set me on the right path.

Found this - the correct link for the UNL yearbooks: http://yearbooks.unl.edu/index.html 1883 to 2001. The link(s) are broken on Huskerpedia.

BTW, athletics starts on about 252 of the '63 yearbook.

I've placed my order for "Devaney". There was a copy in the house when I was kid. Never bothered to pick it up, much less read.

Thanks again.

Nexus - one side note. Take a look at the attendance figures. Consistent data starts around 1946. Pretty cool.

 
Ponderosa said:
Thanks Nexus and huskalova. That's perfect.

And Nexus it doesn't surprise me at all that you already had a similar post.

Great read about "Thunder" Thornton. There are about 25 other interviews as well.

Those will keep me entertained for a bit. You've set me on the right path.

Found this - the correct link for the UNL yearbooks: http://yearbooks.unl.edu/index.html 1883 to 2001. The link(s) are broken on Huskerpedia.

BTW, athletics starts on about 252 of the '63 yearbook.

I've placed my order for "Devaney". There was a copy in the house when I was kid. Never bothered to pick it up, much less read.

Thanks again.

Nexus - one side note. Take a look at the attendance figures. Consistent data starts around 1946. Pretty cool.
Click to expand...
Yes, I've been to that site recently. Very interesting indeed. :thumbs

 
Ponderosa said:
How did Devaney turn a 3-6-1 team into a 9-2 team?

I've searched the HB, Google, YouTube, College Football Datawarehouse and others, but find no info on how he coached - his quotes, approach, recruiting, scheme...anything.

Nebraska was terrible in 1961 and had only three winning seasons for the past 21 years. In his fourth year, he had NU playing for a national championship.

Any stories & personal accounts or DVDs & books suggestions would all be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

I did find one quote:

"You learned you can come back. Remember that. That is the lesson of life."
Click to expand...
Devaney did have some talented players on the team. Bill Jennings (fired after 1961) was able to recruit. He just wasn't as scuccessful as a coach, Devaney was. One thing I read that Devaney did was ask the players what they didn't like from previous years was that the practices were to long. So he said ok and shortened them. Players liked him right away. Jennings was not able to get Gayle Sayers to commit to the Huskers. To bad. Or maybe if he had he would not have been fired??

 
cb1954 said:
Devaney did have some talented players on the team. Bill Jennings (fired after 1961) was able to recruit. He just wasn't as scuccessful as a coach, Devaney was. One thing I read that Devaney did was ask the players what they didn't like from previous years was that the practices were to long. So he said ok and shortened them. Players liked him right away. Jennings was not able to get Gayle Sayers to commit to the Huskers. To bad. Or maybe if he had he would not have been fired??
Click to expand...
This was my first thought - and another similarity between Devaney and Bo

 
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