Tommie Frazier on the Quarterback Room and Establishing a Winning Culture

The key to establishing a winning culture is competition

© Long Photography-USA TODAY Sports

“Dominant” is not a word used to describe the Nebraska football teams of the last two decades. Yet it is a word that is synonymous with the Husker teams led by Tommie Frazier. Remembering the Nebraska teams during the 1990s has kept Husker fans warm through cold years of disappointment and decline. The dominance of those Nebraska teams has also served as the standard many Husker fans hold as the North Star on the climb out of the pit of mediocrity that has marred the program in recent years. But how does this current Nebraska team take the first step on the long road back to dominance? Tommie Frazier believes the first step is establishing a winning culture. “When Bob Devaney came in here, he completely changed the culture. When Coach Osborne took over for Bob Devaney, the culture didn’t change, he just improved on it…What’s the one thing you don’t see there now? Culture. Because you have so many different coaches and so many different leaders and administration changes there, to where it’s hard to establish culture.”

Frazier also believes that a key to establishing a winning culture is competition. “When you bring in a new staff, no one’s job is safe. Competition for the whole team right now is good, particularly at the quarterback position…If the top 3 quarterbacks are in there competing, good things should happen.” Not only are the quarterbacks competing, but they are competing live. 

“They have gotten a lot better. That Saturday live scrimmage really helped them. They had a live day last week where they were live in the red zone. That’s really helping our quarterbacks,” head coach Matt Rhule said during his press conference Tuesday. These are the kind of steps Frazier believes the Huskers need to take in order to establish the kind of Nebraska culture he experienced under Tom Osborne. “The best guy is going to be on the field playing. If you want to play you had to prove it to him [Osborne]. So in the last 15-20 years I know for a fact some of the best guys weren’t playing because of politics. And that’s why Nebraska is where they are now.”

It is a good sign for the Huskers that Rhule has Coach Osborne’s culture in mind when structuring practice, particularly during the quarterback drills. “When you’re trying to get four quarterbacks ready, that’s tough. So the repetition and the way we’re practicing, always having at least two maybe three drills going at once, the blueprint that Osborne laid out. We’re trying to maximize that so that they’re getting a ton of reps.” It seems that Coach Rhule has taken his first steps this spring to establishing the winning culture that Tommie Frazier experienced under Tom Osborne at Nebraska. Husker fans will have to wait until the fall to see how far those steps have taken this team on the road back to dominance.

Tune into the Husker Heisman Huddle to hear more from Tommie Frazier on the winning culture of the Osborne era and the 2023 quarterback room. Make sure to like and subscribe on YouTube and your favorite podcast app (Spotify, iHeart, and Apple Podcasts).

The Jet Award

On April 13th, Johnny Rodgers will be hosting the the "Jet Award" ceremony at the Baxter Arena in Omaha to honor this year's winner of the award TCU's Derius Davis. The ceremony will feature keynote speaker NFL Hall of Fame inductee Kellen Winslow, as well as guest speakers Trev Alberts and Matt Rhule. For more information on the "Jet Award" please visit thejetaward.com.