Football 202

I really enjoyed my day at Football 202. There were about 130 people attending the event. Most of the day was spent in the film room which fit this size perfectly. From 7:30-8:30 was check-in. We got a name tag, advanced copy of the media guide and the schedule for the day.

Jeff Jamrog talked for the first 45 minutes. He discussed the athletic department budget, the scheduling of non conference opponents, and the daily schedules of the coaches during the season.

Next up was James Dobson. James Dobson is Nebraska’s strength coach. He talked about half hour on the workouts the players did and how they changed throughout the year. He also talked about the message he sends potential recruits and knows if they’re cut out for husker football or not. I really liked his change of philosophy to more burst rather than just strength.

Trev Alberts talked about an hour on his experiences as a Husker and afterwards. Best part of his speech was the story about the 94 Orange Bowl (93 season). I guess the Orange bowl gave the players jock straps. On the Nebraska ones, they read 1994 Orange Bowl, Neb vs. FSU. He asked all the guys to hold up their jocks and look at them. Then he held up an FSU jock strap one of the trainers was able to obtain. It read 1993 National Champs. Nothing else was needed to be said.

Bo Pelini finished the morning talking for about an hour about his background and coaching philosophy. Then we had lunch. I met Diane Mendenhall, Asst. Athletic Director of Development, as well during this time. She’s been great to work with and it was nice to see her again. After lunch we took a tour of the facilities including the locker room, indoor facility, weight room, and the press area of the west stadium skyboxes. I hung out with Tom Shatel during this tour. We’ve both been on it before and gravitated to the back of the group talking about the coaching changes, expectations for the year and some old Big 8 football. It was fun listening to his old stories. After the tour we listened to Eric Crouch talk about his time as a husker and his new business selling playground equipment.

Next came the best part of the day, the X’s and O’s. The Offensive coaches broke down a play and showed the different assignment based on the defense the opponent was showing. Watson really explained all the variation they can show without being complicated to the player. We then picked a position, and went with the position coaches and they broke down the play for that position. I was with coach Gilmore and the WR’s. He did a good job explaining the WR assignments and how the WR’s look at each play as a triangle. We then went back to the main film room. Coach Watson took us through some more plays and why they design them a certain way. After Watson finished, Bo Pelini showed the different defensive terminology and schemes. He showed various defenses with the x and o type drawings and then showed the same stuff using game film.

Then the group did the tunnel walk as they played a video on the big screen in Memorial Stadium. We met up with 4 players, Marlon Lucky, Niles Paul, Barry Turner, and Cody Glenn. When we went back inside, they answered some of our questions. Day ended with a social hour and t-shirts. I ended up with an XXL. Maybe they were trying to tell me something… I also ask Bo Pelini when Football 303was going to start. He just laughed.

It was a nice day overall. If I could have changed one thing it would have been more time with the film and the X’s and O’s. I really learned a bunch and found the strategy of the game to be much more interesting. It should shed new light on why players are doing certain things during the game.

Tom Shatel did a great job recapping the day in his Sunday article. I tried not to duplicate too much…
Tom's Article (click here)

oh.. and Go Big Red!