Former Nebraska head coach Tom Osborne stands on the sidelines during the Red-White Spring Game, Saturday, April 27 at Memorial Stadium. Osborne spoke about the current challenges of college football at the Lincoln Executive Club meeting on Monday, May 13.
Diary Star JUSTIN WAN
It is informative and refreshing to hear and see the world of college athletics through the eyes of Tom Osborne in these days of ever-changing times in the business of sports.
The legendary former Nebraska football coach offered some words of wisdom and perspective Monday at the Executive Club’s weekly luncheon in downtown Lincoln at the Graduate Hotel.
“Coaching is always a little more complicated than it looks from the 50th row of the stands,” Osborne shared as he opened, just before embarking on some standout humor with a football story surrounding the 1977 Liberty Bowl between North Carolina and Nebraska.
Osborne’s tactical recollection was self-deprecating in describing how his offense on this particular night couldn’t find a rhythm until his second-year quarterback, Randy Garcia, improvised on fourth down with a fake play to MI Hipp, then found a wide open Tim Smith. in the end zone to seal a comeback victory 21-17. Osborne concluded that the only reason the play worked was because his quarterback called the action on his own without direction from the inept head coach.
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Jokes aside, Osborne expressed frustration for college coaches having to deal with the advent of NIL and the transfer portal causing complications in their sport. Put kindly, he said it wouldn’t be easy for those involved.
“Right now some people say ‘Well, college football is like pro football.’ But it really isn’t, because in professional soccer you have contracts and you know that about 90% of your team will be back next year,” said the three-time national champion coach. “But in college football, every player on your team can leave and be immediately eligible elsewhere. And unfortunately, players have people calling them and offering them money. Everything that was once illegal now appears to be legal. It has really become very difficult.”
Osborne said he feels like today’s college athletics, with the NIL and the transfer portal, has introduced a lot more variables to overcome. And when comparing the NFL to college football, the NFL salary cap limits the amount of money that can be spent on each team, while payouts for college football teams can be unlimited because there are no salary caps.
“So you could imagine that Alabama or Texas or maybe even Nebraska would do better than, say, the state of Kansas with the NIL money they could raise,” Osborne reasoned. “The playing field would certainly become very, very uneven. “I don’t know where this is all going, but it’s getting difficult.”
But one college football topic in particular that he likes and is intrigued to pursue is Husker head football coach Matt Rhule. He said he sees signs that things are changing in Lincoln, and the key word is “culture” when it comes to what Rhule is doing with the program.
“I really like Matt Rhule. He’s a good communicator, he’s a good guy,” Osborne said. “And what’s actually quite telling, I think it was in the paper yesterday, that Nebraska lost eight players to the transfer portal this year. Now the national average is about 20-25. So, Nebraska was No. 1 in the country by losing the fewest players to the transfer portal. What that does is speak to the culture, because it means that a lot of the kids probably could have made more money elsewhere and are loyal and like what’s there. going on. I’ve stayed that way, so I think the culture has really improved.”
Osborne also mentioned some improved numbers regarding one of his other favorite interests: TeamMates. He said TeamMates began in 1991 when he asked his football team if they would be willing to serve as mentors for seventh- and eighth-graders in Lincoln Public Schools. He said 22 hands went up. He said that five or six years later, when the 22 mentored children became seniors, 21 of the 22 LPS students graduated on time and the other student graduated a year later. And 18 of those kids went on to college, which Osborne said immediately showed he had something special.
“We started it in Lincoln with LPS. But now we have expanded the program to Iowa, Kansas, South Dakota and Wyoming and we are mentoring 10,000 children,” Osborne said. Then he asked the question: “Does it work?” about teammates.
“We are very data conscious,” he said. “Every year it varies a little. But for the last 10 years, our graduation rate has been between 95% and 98%. And most of these children come from single-parent families living below the poverty line.”
And he shared one more number. He said 80% of those graduates already had college plans prepared to enroll.
The author, Tim Brusnahan, is program president of the Lincoln Executive Club and an employee of Lincoln Data Centers.
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