The Rise and Fall of the Nebraska Football Dynasty-Part 3

The rise of strength and conditioning.

Boyd Epley - Original Nebraska strength and conditioning coach /

This series of articles was written by Husker fan Chris Fort. Here is a little background on Chris.

I was born and raised in Illinois and currently reside in Chicago. I have no ties to the university, unless you count an uncle with a degree from Colorado and a hatred for all things Husker. I was initially intrigued after Black 41 Flash Reverse, but after learning about the sellout streak, Brook’s story, Osborne going for two, etc. I was infatuated. My first game as a fan was the 2001 Buffaloes game – clearly, I’m the bad luck charm. Still, I’m a diehard fan who wholeheartedly believes Nebraska is what college football should be. 

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How did Nebraska shape those walk-ons and less celebrated scholarship recruits? How did they maximize the potential of the prep All-Americans who arrived in Lincoln? How did they turn the desire of local heroes into results on the field? While Nebraska’s talent acquisition strategy was nuanced and vital to their success, they only ranked 14th on average each year in recruiting rankings. Nebraska’s real advantage was in developing their players. Upon signing with Nebraska in 1990, eventual All-American and future Athletic Director Trev Alberts was told by Dr. Tom that “basically anything you can think of, spiritually, physically, emotionally, socially, Nebraska will have a plan and a vision around, a facility, elite people and commitment to make it work.”

That started with strength and conditioning.

The facilities Bob Devaney inherited in 1962 were abysmal.[1] But his overnight success renewed fandom among the locals, initiating the sellout streak his first year and increasing ticket revenues to the point that Nebraska could afford to upgrade at Devaney’s insistence. This would have enormous implications for the Huskers’ future.

Weightlifting was not a practice of football teams in its first hundred years as a sport. But Nebraska routinely innovated, never more famously than they did when they hired Boyd Epley as the first full-time paid strength coach.

Today, Epley looms as a legend in Nebraska’s storied program, anointed by ESPN as “arguably the single most important individual in the history of strength and conditioning in college athletics.” The cloth upon which his story was written is thread so well-worn by this point that Husker fans, and fitness fanatics alike, can recite it in their sleep: In 1969, Devaney hired Epley, a Husker pole vaulter who became so big and bulky from his weightlifting that he broke the bamboo poles he was meant to hoist himself up with. Epley was a student of fitness who swore up and down for all to hear that he could make Devaney’s football team better. At that point Devaney had hit the lowest point of his career, going 6-4 two straight seasons. So, Devaney took a meeting with Boyd, partly at the behest of Osborne, and hired him to teach his team to lift weights with the caveat that if anyone got slower, he’d can Epley in short order.

Nebraska didn’t get slower. The gains made from lifting were evident on the field. The Huskers averaged 3.9 yards per carry in 1970, a full 1.2 yards more than they did in 1968. Nebraska won their first championship that year, with the 1971 squad that followed being routinely lauded as the greatest team of all time.

While the Huskers of that era were not the first to do the barbell squat – that distinction likely belongs to Knute Rockne-era Notre Dame – they did establish the first strength and conditioning program to go along with the first full-time strength coach. In addition to program-wide strength training, they were the first to champion in-season workouts and summer conditioning, foreign concepts in college athletics at the time.[2] Throughout the 70s, Epley fine-tuned his quickly expanding craft, culminating in the formation of Husker Power, an amalgamation of Olympic lifting, power lifting and bodybuilding elements. Coaches flocked to Lincoln to learn his philosophy on fitness. So respected did Epley become that in 1984 the New York Yankees adopted the strength regimen he developed for the Husker Baseball program.

While competitors studied and stole from Nebraska’s program, Epley and Osborne worked to keep the Huskers ahead of the curve. In 1985, the Huskers became one of the first programs to implement a training table for “fueling” at the urgence of Dave Ellis, then a member of the Strength staff with a keen interest in dietetics. Intrigued by Ellis’s appeals, Nebraska put full-time nutritionists and dietitians on staff, almost unheard of at the time.

Supplementary to Epley’s Husker Power regimen and Ellis’ training table was the use of creatine to aid in weight gain. The supplement helped teenagers like Brenden Stai, Lance Lundberg, and Russ Hochstein grow from weedy 245-pounders upon matriculation into 300-pound road graders by the time they graduated to the starting lineup in the 1990s.

The use of creatine was somewhat controversial upon its release in the early 90s, but the Huskers were rarely scared of being different. Most every team had heavy elements of distance running in their workout schedules, a nod to both conditioning and mental toughness. Epley was more interested in “game-applicable” conditioning, which meant working to train football players anaerobically for quick burst and recovery. He eschewed distance running almost entirely.

Instead, he trained the Huskers to develop quick twitch muscle fibers, using state-of-the-art custom-made equipment that was ahead of its time. The results were plainly obvious. “The Huskers’ legs and hips became explosive, agile, and more adequately adapted to the physiological demands of the game than that of their rivals.”

The Huskers also steered clear of fads like plyometrics and an overreliance on the bench press. Rather than follow what everyone else did, Nebraska chose to be different and take chances. It worked out to the point that they became the frontline of strength, nutrition, and dietary supplementation in college athletics.

Style of Play

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“A bird flies, a lizard crawls, and Nebraska runs the football.” – Ron Brown

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During his tenure as a head football coach, Bob Devaney never had a single losing season. Not at Nebraska, not at Wyoming, not even as a high school coach in Michigan. He attributed much of his success to fitting his scheme to the personnel he had.

As coach of Wyoming, Bob Devaney’s teams were comparatively smaller units that prized speed above all else. But when he got to Lincoln in ’62, his Husker teams quickly developed a reputation for winning with punishing, “always tough” defense and a plodding run-first offense. "I hated Nebraska with a passion,” I-Back Joe Orduna said of the offense he was recruited into. “It was that three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust stuff all the time."

Much of the offense was run with an unbalanced line, a full-house backfield, and a tight end on the unbalanced side with a receiver split wide. Devaney believed in a “jam it down your throat” offense. [3] His assistant Tom Osborne, a former NFL receiver, believed in a more prevalent passing game. Nebraska led the Big 8 conference in passing in 1964 and 1967. Despite this, the team struggled in ’67 and ’68, going 6-4 both seasons despite a strong defense to lean upon.

Two significant changes followed these disappointing seasons: the introduction of Epley’s weight training, which has already been discussed, and a new offensive scheme. Devaney turned over the reins to his newly appointed offensive coordinator, Tom Osborne, who installed an I-Formation offense starting in 1969. Results were immediately noticeable, improving their points-per-game by 3.5 from ’68 to ’69 before taking a quantum leap in 1970, improving PPG from 19 to an interstellar 34.1 on their way to their first national title. From 1969 on, behind the forward thrust the I-formation provided, Nebraska never won fewer than nine games the remainder of the century.

Osborne maintained a similar offense upon his ascension to the head role in 1973. His teams ran a balanced attack out of the I-formation that led the conference in passing from 1974 through 1976. However, after years of frustration losing to the rush-heavy Sooners and their Wishbone option, Tom began the migration to a more option-centric attack in 1980 . His teams in the 70s routinely ran some option, calling the play as a change-up a handful of times each game with pocket passing dynamos like Dave Humm and Vince Ferragamo. But now, the Huskers would make it a focal point. That meant he needed to recruit a different kind of signal caller. “We weren’t willing to line up with a 4.9 (seconds in the 40) quarterback anymore,” Osborne said.

The option game proved potent, nearly winning a national championship in 1983 under Turner Gill and the “Scoring Explosion” offense that averaged a remarkable 52 points per game. Nebraska continued its consistent offensive success through the 80s. Then, despite criticism in the early 90s following poor offensive performances against teams like Miami and Florida State, Osborne stayed true to his run-focused option offense, electing not to make significant changes. His steadfastness paid off, first on the recruiting trail. The Huskers were set to lose USA Today All-American Tommie Frazier to Colorado until the Buffaloes told him they wanted him to play defensive back. The Huskers won Frazier’s services in large part because they allowed him to play quarterback. Frazier rewarded the Huskers’ faith in him by piloting them to two national championships and teeing them up for a third by the time he graduated in ’95.

Similarly, several schools recruited Frazier’s predecessor, Steve Taylor, at other positions due to his immense athleticism. But Taylor was determined to play quarterback, a chance few besides Nebraska were willing to give. “Nebraska was one of the pioneers in playing mobile quarterbacks… black quarterbacks,” Taylor reflected.

Regardless of the offensive alignment, the forty-yard-dash time of the quarterback, or who called the plays, Nebraska always hewed closely to one central tenet: run the damn football.

Even in the 70s, when Nebraska fielded more pass-oriented offenses, the Huskers still ran more than twice as often as they passed the ball each season. By 1977, they began running the ball more than three times as often, and by 1984, four times as often.

And they did it exceedingly well. The Huskers won 13 NCAA rushing titles from 1962 to 2001, finishing outside the top four in rushing offense just once (they were 6th in 1998) from 1978 to 2001.

Nebraska’s emphasis on the running game played a crucial role in their consistency. As the play calling suggests, Osborne lost his affinity for the passing game relatively early in his career, expressing that the Huskers total yardage stats through the air were not equating to wins and thus amounted to empty calories. “I always felt that a rushing yard, in terms of winning, probably was worth more than a passing yard because you can accumulate a lot of passing yards, but it doesn’t necessarily get the ball in the end zone.” The running game provided a sturdy and far more reliable foundation upon which to play winning football.

The option game was added as a weapon in the Huskers’ run-based scheme in part because it offered an advantage for teams with superior athleticism at the QB and RB spots looking to open run lanes on the outside. But its deception and blocking schemes made it inherently difficult to prepare for. “I just know from a defensive standpoint, if you play a team that does not run the option, then your preparation time and your headaches are reduced seriously,” Osborne told Huskers Illustrated in ’97.

Nebraska’s power option attack also helped mitigate their available talent pool, which was practically barren by blue-blooded program standards. Their rush-heavy offense allowed the Huskers to recruit shorter linemen otherwise ignored by other major programs more interested in longer blockers. Two-time All-American and Outland Trophy winner Aaron Taylor stood a mere six feet and one inch tall and garnered most of his offers from Division 1-AA (now FCS) programs. Nebraska took advantage and gained a two-time All-American and Outland Trophy winner.

It also provided balm for the sting of being spurned by prized pass catchers from the high school ranks, who were naturally inclined towards warmer climates and pro-style offenses. Nebraska’s system did not require wide receivers or tight ends with blue chip pedigrees that could run pro-style pass routes. Instead, it asked them to block and to use their natural ability to run past defenders on the occasional play-action. This meant they could get by with less talent on the outside and instead focus on finding dynamic athletes at quarterback and especially the all-important I-Back spot.

Omaha Central high school, in Nebraska’s backyard, provided a pipeline of those I-Backs from the prep ranks to the front door of Memorial Stadium. Noted Central alumni include Joe Orduna, Leodis Flowers, Keith Jones, Calvin Jones, and Ahman Green, all five of whom still rank in the top 40 of the school’s all-time rushing yardage. But Central wasn’t the only Omaha prep school with a celebrated lineage of running backs. Omaha Bryan supplied Ken Clark, Northwest bred Damon Benning, Omaha North sent Clinton Childs, and Creighton Prep gifted George Achola. The power run and option game was a system that the state catered to. “You could always rely on high school teams throughout the state of Nebraska and parts of Kansas to run the option,” Aaron Taylor reflected, “When it came time to recruit, Coach Osborne could always find players to fit into the Husker mold. There was so much identity back then.”

But Osborne considered it a necessity as much as an advantage to run the ball. Devaney himself recognized this early on, choosing to marry the talent on hand with the scheme that best suited them rather than do what he did at Wyoming. After a statement-making win over Colorado in 1992, Osborne recognized this in his subtle criticism of Colorado’s pass-heavy offense, paying homage to his predecessor in doing so. “At this locale, with this climate, you've still got to be able to jam it at people. ” Jam-it-down-your-throat offense never went out of style on the Plains.

Despite the simplicity and dumb-bully nature of the offense, the Huskers’ playbook was thicker than casual observers realized and far more inventive. Osborne had twenty-seven different run plays at his disposal, all of which were blocked several different ways and executed from more than a dozen formations.[4] One of those plays was the Counter, a sister play to the classic power run, which Osborne and Tenopir are credited with developing in the late 70s. Joe Gibbs and the Washington Redskins saw what Osborne was doing, copied it, and employed it for their own devices to great effect, winning three Super Bowls in a ten-year span.

With superior size and strength cultivated by Boyd Epley and Dave Ellis, coupled with a primal, raw-boned line mashing style on offense, Nebraska routinely fielded a bigger, meaner crew that cut through opposing linemen like a steel plow cuts through roots. Starting in 1970, the Huskers had an All-American offensive lineman in 25 of the next 28 seasons, becoming synonymous with superior offensive line play.

Perhaps most importantly but far more difficult to quantify, the run game gave Nebraska a distinctive identity to mold their culture around. It also brought an inherent element of toughness. “Physicality comes from running the football,”[5] said former Colorado and Nebraska offensive coordinator Shawn Watson. Short body blow runs in the first half running the football often turned into long touchdown haymakers by the third and fourth quarter. “Osborne turned physical football into a science,” Henry Cordes wrote in his account of Nebraska’s ’90s dynasty. Dr. Tom calculated that the offense needed to knock down one and a half defenders per play, so that eventually by the conclusion of a ball game, they lost their will to keep fighting. Never was this style more famously demonstrated than in the 1995 Orange Bowl, when a tight defensive contest was won in the fourth quarter with two fullback trap plays that resulted in touchdowns. “We won in Nebraska-style,” coach Tony Samuel said after the game. “We broke them.”

Nebraska consequently built a reputation for grit and tenacity that matched the state’s ethos. One Florida State veteran of the ’94 Orange Bowl described Nebraska as “tough mothers,” explaining how he bore witness to “Zach Wiegert hitting [linebacker] Derrick Brooks like I've never seen anybody get hit in my life." The Huskers' brand of smashmouth football contributed to the mantra of toughness, once being described by a rival coach as a blunt weapon. "Nebraska can grind you," said former Colorado coach Rick Neuheisel. "They take that thing down and sledgehammer you, sledgehammer you." Years of being a bigger, meaner, and stronger outfit bestowed Nebraska with a psychological edge that would win them games before they even took the field.

The roots of Nebraska’s storied physicality can be traced back to Walter “Bummy” Booth (Husker coach 1900-1905) and Ewald “Jumbo” Stiehm (1911-1915), both of whom preached smashmouth offense that waylaid defenders with superior size and strength.[6] Even from the outset, it appears, the Husker football team exemplified the hardscrabble qualities of Nebraska’s people, right down to their austere uniforms and brutal style of play. Nebraskans, in turn, took to the evolving sport with uncommon zeal. A state of farmers and cattle ranchers that weathered the unforgiving plains was well-suited for a little brutality.

[1] Devaney, Bob. “Devaney.” Page 72. 1981.
[2] 2002 Interview with Boyd Epley
[3] “Husker Century,” NETV Documentary
[4] Cordes, Henry. “Unbeatable.” Page 27.
[5] Shatel, Tom. February 2010 Interview with Shawn Watson.
[6] “Husker Century.” NETV Documentary.

Next up: The rise of continuity and culture

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