The Rear View Mirror: New Age Nebraska

Often I think about the day Steve Pedersen hired Bill Callahan. Early January 2004. My wonderful bride and I were off to Omaha for our first doctors appointment for our first child during the press conference. We listened on the radio; I may have rolled my eyes a time or two.

Addison turns 19 next Sunday. She’s a freshman in college and she knows no nationally relevant Nebraska football team. It’s been a hot minute.

In the years since that fateful day when Harvey Perlman hired Pedersen, mired our football budget in the middle of the Big 12 — we will not gravitate toward mediocrity — and fired Frank Solich not much else has worked either.

It’s a long list of quagmires overseen by Perlman and others I think, started the Nebraska football mess. But, some will argue it began long before — when Tom Osborne, apparently, went above his boss Bill Byrne to hire Frank Solich in December 1997.

I am willing to have that conversation with someone as long as we can agree that it probably doesn’t matter anymore. Nebraska has had their head in the sand for far too long, on far too many topics, and the only guy who seems to be able to know how to keep his program ticking — read, nationally relevant — is John Cook.

So, I have a confession.

I think Matt Rhule and Trev Alberts are going to fix it and I have absolutely no idea why. There, I said it (with my hands over my eyes, a lot like how I have watched Nebraska football over the past 20 years).

I mean I do have ideas but they have nothing — and everything — to do with football. I guess something like that doesn’t really make sense.

Maybe it is because he says things like this?

Or because he made me read a passage from Og Mandino’s "Greatest Salesman in the World” and share it with my kids and some girls that I coach. And, they all read it; and really got it and believed in it.

“I will persist until I succeed.

I was not delivered unto this world in defeat, nor does failure course in my veins. I am not a sheep waiting to be prodded by my shepherd. I am a lion and I refuse to talk, to walk, to sleep with the sheep. I will hear not those who weep and complain, for their disease is contagious. Let them join the sheep. The slaughterhouse of failure is not my destiny.

I will persist until I succeed.

The prizes of life are at the end of each journey, not near the beginning; and it is not given to me to know how many steps are necessary in order to reach my goal. Failure I may still encounter at the thousandth step, yet success hides behind the next bend in the road. Never will I know how close it lies unless I turn the corner.

Always will I take another step. If that is of no avail I will take another, and yet another. In truth, one step at a time is not too difficult. I will persist until I succeed.”

And, he introduced me to Rupyard Kipling’s great poem, “If.”

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master; If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoke, Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

I guess — more than anything — it seems that we have a coach who gets life, who gets teaching, who understands that, man, you can build better men — better people — through football. But, that it needs to be tough, disciplined, winning football. And, that you can still do it that way in the 2023 NIL era.

So what does Matt Rhule have that Callahan and Pelini and Riley and Frost didn’t? Better support, maybe. But it’s his differences, personally, that strike me as, maybe, our new Bob Devaney (oh, lord, I hope this won’t come up on Facebook memories).

He seems to want to hang out with us, you know, Nebraska fans. Callahan didn’t. He seems to appreciate that Nebraskans care deeply about their football team. Pelini didn’t. He seems to have a track record of developing winning football. Riley didn’t. He seems humble enough to know that he’s got a lot of work to do. That you can’t just show up. Frost didn’t.

But, what I love most about Matt Rhule, I think, is he reminds me of my dad. A real football guy. One who taught life with a whistle and a clipboard. All those other guys? Dad liked to poke fun at them.

“Seems like he always wants to show everyone how smart he is,” he often said of a couple of them. “Just play football.”

College football is a hard business these days. Television and realignment have changed the way the game is funded and it’s a complete arms race. Totally different than when Matt Rhule and I were kids and there were about 10-12 teams spread across the nation who had a legitimate chance at a national title.

Now, it seems to be about keeping up. But, is it really? Can’t it still be about doing it the right way and building good men? That when you look out on that field, you are proud of not only who they are, but how they play and the state they represent. I think it can be. It should be.

What would be success for Matt Rhule at Nebraska in this new era of college football? Simple, just a few things: bowl games consistently, the playoffs occasionally, which means a conference title every once in awhile, and a national title as a pipe dream. And, it today’s college football he’s getting paid fairly to do just that.

The hardest part? Nebraska fans need to be okay with those expectations right now. They were in 1962 (you’d have been laughed out of Lincoln for thinking about a national title). They need to be 61 years later.

So, it all starts this Thursday. Hopefully without a thunderstorm.

Over the next three months, I’ll continue my perch in the Memorial Stadium press box as the play-by-play typist for home Nebraska football games. And, when they games are over, I’ll try to give you some thoughts. Maybe, just maybe, when we look in that mirror we enjoy what we see.

Make it this far? Thanks! Come along the Flatwater Sports journey with us. Subscribe to our Wednesday and Saturday newsletter here. Cover photo courtesy of Nebraska Athletics.