The Rise and Fall of the Nebraska Football Dynasty-Part 4

The rise of continuity and culture.

Nov 1987; Lincoln, NE, USA; FILE PHOTO; Nebraska Cornhuskers head coach Tom Osborne during the 1987 season at Memorial Stadium. / Malcolm Emmons-USA TODAY Sports

Fourth in a series of articles by Husker fan Chris Fort. | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Continuity

Continuity in both scheduling and coaching unsurprisingly played a prominent role in Nebraska’s stability through the years. In his autobiography, Bob Devaney wrote, “The number one thing you need in a staff is loyalty. The next thing is an ability to do the job.”[1] Devaney had both loyalty and ability at his disposal as head coach of Nebraska. His first staff, which included two holdovers from Bill Jennings, consisted of six coaches, all but one of which would stick with him his entire time at Nebraska (George Kelly left for Notre Dame in 1969). Three of his assistants would coach at Nebraska well into the 1980s with Osborne. That doesn’t even include Dr. Tom himself, who was serving as an unpaid graduate assistant at the time.

Devaney’s assistants were a talented lot too. Carl Selmer, Jim Walden, and Warren Powers all took head jobs at major college programs eventually. Player-turned-coach Bill “Thunder” Thornton went on to coach in NFL after a stint with Nebraska. But none of his assistants went on to the acclaim Monte Kiffin did. In 1966, the future NFL hall-of-famer and Nebraska native would join his staff as a GA, becoming defensive coordinator in 1969. Kiffin served as head coach of NC State for a short stint in the early 80s before receiving praise as defensive coordinator for the NFL’s Buccaneers, developing the famed “Tampa 2” defense with Tony Dungy.

It’s often neglected among the shinier excerpts in Nebraska’s rise that the dynasty smoothly transitioned the day Bob Devaney handed the reins head coaching reins to his Offensive Coordinator, as he did at the end of the 1972 season on the heels of an Orange Bowl romp over Notre Dame and the Huskers’ third consecutive top 5 finish. Only Carl Selmer, thought to be Tom’s chief competition for the head job, left with Devaney. Selmer would take the Miami (FL) head coaching job in 1975 but lasted just two years. Osborne forged ahead with a seasoned staff, legendary coach Kiffin still manning the defense, and four others who’d coached in Lincoln for more than a decade by the time he donned the headset.

Almost all would stick with Tom until at least 1976 (the lone exception being Rick Duval), with Mike Corgan, John Melton, and Cletus Fischer staying on-board until the mid-80s. By the late seventies, Osborne had assembled the core of a staff that would serve with him through the 1990s title run, including Charlie McBride, George Darlington, Milt Tenopir, and Frank Solich. Strength Coach Boyd Epley retained his title as strength coach from 1969 until 2003.

In 2010, Steve Sipple reflected on the coaching staff’s longevity, noting that “in 25 seasons as Nebraska head coach, Osborne had 12 assistants who spent at least 10 years on his staff — almost unheard of, in any era.[2]” The Huskers’ cumulative aggregate coaching experience panned 162 years in total the final season of Osborne’s tenure, 191 years if you count Boyd Epley in his 29th season overseeing Strength & Conditioning. That’s just coaching experience at Nebraska, specifically, and doesn’t consider total experience inclusive of all schools the coaches worked at prior.

It wasn’t as if there weren’t offers for Tom’s assistants to leave. Charlie McBride had offers to join storied NFL franchises in Green Bay and Dallas but declined. Frank Solich was offered the Wisconsin offensive play calling duties by Barry Alvarez and was courted for Minnesota’s head coaching gig in the early 90s. And they were just two of the many coaches to field tantalizing bids from outsiders hoping to capture some of the Husker’s dominance for themselves. Osborne himself entertained an offer from conference foe Colorado in the late 70’s but fortunately chose to stay in Lincoln.

But a select few did move on. Like Devaney, Osborne boasts an impressive coaching tree, despite the loyalty of his lieutenants hindering their opportunities to make a name for themselves outside of Lincoln. Craig Bohl would start the North Dakota State dynasty of the 2010’s by winning the first of three FCS titles in 2011 before taking the Wyoming head coaching job in 2014. Jerry Moore would also make waves in the FCS ranks as coach of Appalachian State, never more so than when his Mountaineers defeated the number 5 ranked Michigan Wolverines in 2007. Speaking of improbable victories, Turner Gill won a conference crown with Buffalo in 2008 before taking the Kansas University job. Tony Samuel and Kevin Steele served as head coach at New Mexico State and Baylor, respectively. Steele is still a coveted name in the SEC as a defensive coordinator and recruiting ace. And Ohio University ended up naming their field after Frank Solich, who won more games than anyone in MAC conference history.

But what use is the consistency Nebraska achieved if it doesn’t serve a function? Modifications were made over the years, sure, but the same core concepts and principles were embedded into Big Red for decades, an engine kept on its same familiar trajectory. The Cornhusker machine was reworked at times, as it was when Devaney had Osborne install an I-Formation offense in 1969. Osborne adapted again in moving to the option game in 1980.

Perhaps the biggest retooling was conducted prior to the championship run in Tom’s final seasons. Up until the late Eighties, Nebraska would take an abundance of running backs out of high school and turn the ones that weren’t going to start into defensive backs. The results were a team that could bulldoze the majority of their Big Eight competition but routinely get routed when matched in a bowl game against teams from the south. Osborne’s resolute loyalty and belief in continuity prevented him from making changes after a particularly disappointing 1990 season, when Nebraska was drawing fire for losing their four straight bowls. “Things won’t really change.” Rather than fire assistants, he allowed them to adapt, figuring that Nebraska didn’t need to re-invent their machinery; they just needed to improve its metallurgy. His assistants married new advances with the Huskers foundational principles, particularly in recruiting and defending, opting for a 4-3 defensive alignment starting in 1992. They found fast, rangy athletes in places like Texas and California to give the Huskers speed to compete with their southern adversaries. Osborne’s bet on stability paid off in the form of three national titles in four years.

Key to Nebraska’s consistency was its familiarity, not just with the coaches on its sideline, but with its opposition on the other side of the field, too. In stark contrast to the 21st century’s ever-volatile conference realignment, the Huskers nested in the same conference – the Big 8 – from 1928 until it was extinguished by the formation of the Big 12 in 1996 (the Big 8’s final form took shape in 1957 with the re-admission of Oklahoma State). 

What’s more, the Big 8 conference could more appropriately be categorized as the Big 2, a contest between Oklahoma and Nebraska for the conference crown each year – though Missouri (1970s), Oklahoma State (1980s) Colorado (90s), and Kansas State (late 90s) all crested at one time or another. There was simply not the same mad rush to invest in football programs that exists in modern day college athletic programs.

All told, Nebraska beat Kansas State thirty games in a row, Missouri twenty-four in a row, and both Kansas and Oklahoma State thirty-six times each.

Culture

Far more important to the Huskers’ success but equally elusive in ascertaining is the Husker’s culture throughout those forty years of dominance. Culture is an overused buzzword in the college football lexicon, and one used interchangeably with words like identity and attitude but ultimately serves as a rough catch-all for the intangibles a team possesses.

Years of Husker football clippings describing the culture are rife with familiar verbiage that pop up time and again. Words and phrases like “toughness”, “accountability”, and “peer leadership.” Reserve wideout Aaron Davis perhaps summed it up best when he opined, “There was a culture of excellence, a culture of high expectations, a culture that mediocrity would not be tolerated.”

These values were derived in part from the state they played for. Nebraska was arguably no more than a collection of small farming communities at the dawn of the 20th century. But the university football program gave the state a collective identity and purpose. They looked to the team to embody their virtues. 

When Devaney was hired, he worked to accomplish that. The first thing he did was create unity of purpose. He successfully sought cooperation from the administration regarding class scheduling, mandating that his players focus exclusively on football, and dissolving the annual Varsity-Alumni showcase with an actual scrimmage, now known as the Spring Game.[3]  Toughness was in short supply under his predecessor. He worked tirelessly to build that through intense practice sessions and by replacing a fun exhibition with a full-padded game. With the advent of the Blackshirts, he created a legacy of defensive dominance that still resonates sixty years later. 

Devaney also inspired belief. The Husker coach knew that if he fixed the Huskers’ mindset, the team would start winning. He saw plenty of talent when deciding whether he’d take the job. And he was right – fourteen of the players Devaney inherited from Bill Jennings would be drafted to the NFL.  Belief became reality in the 1962 Michigan game. The machine he was building needed a jump start. They found it in defeating the Wolverines. 

The culture started under Devaney was passed on to successive generations of Huskers exposed to it as underclassmen. Osborne was more process-focused than his fiery predecessor, preferring to have his team emphasize the day-to-day things that they could control. 

“Our goal isn’t to win the national championship,” famously brash quarterback Steve Taylor said before the 1988 season, “it’s to play well. We want to do the things we need to do to win. Then we might have a chance.”

Deeply embedded in that process was a standard for excellence that players and coaches alike would demand of one another. “There were just expectations,” former athletic trainer Doak Ostergard said. “You walked out on the field and I think you just expected to beat the snot out of somebody.”

Failing to meet that standard was difficult to stomach. On the heels of the 1998 season, eventual All-American Dominic Raiola said that it felt as though the world was ending. “We were embarrassed to walk around campus.” Being the first four-loss team since the sixties weighed on the Huskers. It wasn’t good enough for a team that had enjoyed such consistent success. "There was an accountability that came with the culture," Raiola said. "That's what came with the territory of playing at Nebraska."

Together, between the years of standardized practices, the interminable training reps, the all-too-familiar drills, the recruiting formula, the steady, unchanging coaching staff, and the near-endless success, Nebraska gained the moniker: the Big Red Machine. And Nebraska was indeed a machine, as described by fans and pundits alike. The workmanlike quality of their blocking (lovingly recounted by Milt Tenopir in his aptly titled book “Assembly Line”), the clockwork processes which Osborne’s teams followed, and the way they seemed to self-replicate each fall, all contributed to the machine trope. "Nebraska is Nebraska," said former Colorado coach Rick Neuheisel. "The numbers change, but the bodies stay the same."

Winning begat more winning. The Big Red Machine achieved something in the way of autocatalysis, a self-reinforcing cycle of success. It can be seen in the way Nebraska parlayed its name recognition into playing the first Kickoff Classic game in 1985, the proceeds Nebraska earned then being used to start the Training Table. The success Devaney achieved at the outset of his tenure led to the construction of North and South Stadium. The additional seating provided the funds needed to upgrade the training facilities that would become so famous under Boyd Epley. More success on the field meant more TV play, helping lure recruits like Steve Taylor and I.M. Hipp, who then perpetuated Nebraska’s winning culture further. And being a winning program meant that a flyover state like Nebraska could attract around two top 100 national recruits per year, as they did under Tom Osborne. On the heels of the 1984 Orange Bowl, Nebraska recruited the top ranked class of 1985, headlined by Broderick Thomas. Because they could dominate the opposition with superior talent, their backups got valuable game reps and were ready to become the stars of tomorrow.      

Once the Big Red Machine got going, its momentum carried it down the track at increasing speed; a juggernaut. Shawn Watson, Nebraska offensive coordinator from 2007 to 2010, found it all remarkable. “The practice reps, the situational reps, the organization. They did a tremendous job of not only developing their starters but also their backups, and it seemed like once it started, it never ended.” [4]

It wouldn’t until the early 2000s. 

[1] Devaney, Bob. “Devaney.” Page 261. 1981.
[2] Steve Sipple, Lincoln Journal Star, February 14, 2010
[3] Chatelain, Dirk. “Finding Devaney.” 2012
[4} Shatel, Tom. February 2010 Interview with Shawn Watson.

Next up: Recruiting Fall

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