As receiver Malachi Coleman hauled in the touchdown pass to set off a huge roar in Memorial Stadium, Nebraska football coach Matt Rhule looked up from the sideline and pointed to the skybox where Tom Osborne sat.
The first-year coach had met with his legendary predecessor days earlier to pick his brain on the option offense. One of the plays Osborne suggested produced this critical touchdown late in the Huskers’ 17-9 win over Northwestern on Oct. 21.
Up in his suite, Osborne didn't see Rhule’s gesture. But as Osborne watched that play unfold three weeks ago, he certainly recognized it — it was called “32 option pass†when he was calling plays for the Huskers.
Twenty-six years have passed since Osborne last stoically stalked a college football sideline. That’s longer than the 25 years Osborne spent as coach of the Huskers.
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Now at age 86, the elder statesman of Nebraska football has slowed down.
But he remains active in the youth mentoring program that has become his big post-football passion. And he’s a close observer of the Huskers, enjoying the friendly, respectful relationship he's struck up with Rhule.
Osborne was happy to talk about such things, too. Just don’t get the impression he is some kind of mastermind pulling strings behind the scenes in Lincoln.
“I don't want to have this come off as I somehow made a huge amount of difference,†Osborne said recently. “If there’s anything they would like my help with, I’m glad to do it. At no point do I ever go in and say, ‘You ought to do this.’ That’s not my place.â€
For his own part, Rhule said he's grateful for the chance to get to know Osborne and pick his brain. Along the way, Osborne has amazed him with his powers of recollection and attention to detail.
The retired coach can still draw up plays his team ran decades ago. Sometimes, Osborne will point out a small misstep by a player he noticed the previous Saturday that caused a play to break down.
"I have coaches on my staff who can't see those details in the game," Rhule said last week. "His ability to remember small details of the things that he coached is really really, really really, really impressive."
That play against Northwestern isn't the only way Rhule’s Huskers have flashed shades of Osborne and old-school NU.
Rhule said his emphasis on all players getting repetitions in practice and the physical style his team seeks have also been influenced by nuances he has picked up from Osborne.
“When I got here, my one goal was don’t change anything that Tom Osborne did,†Rhule said.
Ron Brown, who coached receivers under Osborne and now serves on Rhule’s staff, said he isn't surprised to see the relationship that has developed between the two.
Both are teachers at heart who possess innovative football minds and humble demeanors. So Rhule has not been afraid to seek Osborne’s counsel, and Osborne is willing to give it.
“Coach Osborne is one of those guys that will never force himself on anyone, so he's always very careful about how he comes off, even when he's asked for advice,†Brown said. “Coach Rhule’s willingness to be open — and yet still put his own stamp on the program — it’s been fun to watch. And it’s been very productive for our team.â€
Meaningful bonds
A walking slice of Husker history, Tom Osborne strode past the wall of team photos inside Memorial Stadium's east side marking more than a century of Nebraska football.
Dozens of those portraits show a younger Osborne as both a head coach and assistant, often squinting into the camera amid the hundreds of players and coaches he worked with during his hall of fame career.
On this day in late October, one of those players was about to have his own hall of fame moment.
Quarterback Tommie Frazier helped Osborne’s 1994 and 1995 teams to back-to-back undefeated seasons and national championships. Now in this Memorial Stadium ceremony, Frazier was being inducted into the school’s Athletic Hall of Fame.
Before it started, Osborne greeted the quarterback and his parents, who Osborne first met on the recruiting trail in Florida more than three decades earlier.
Osborne said there are times those glory days seem like ancient history. Then there are moments like this that bring it all back.
“Sometimes it seems not so long ago,†he said, “like when I’m sitting with Tommie.â€
More than the victories or glory, the relationships with the players were what made football most meaningful to Osborne. While he loved the X’s and O’s, he most relished the chance to get to know his players and help set them on a path to success beyond football.
“If you ask anyone who ever played for him, he’s had a huge impact on the way they live their life and the way they do things,†Frazier said. “To lead young men, you have to build a bond with them, and he was great at doing that.â€
Those bonds were also why it was difficult for Osborne to walk away from coaching.
When he stepped aside in 1997, he was at the pinnacle of his profession. His ground-pounding option offense helped the Huskers go 60-3 over his last five years, including three undefeated national championship seasons.
But Osborne made a promise years earlier to assistant Frank Solich that he would coach five more seasons before stepping down. And while Osborne still enjoyed the daily grind, he knew at age 60 he couldn’t keep up with the 80- to 90-hour weeks forever.
He's had a few other diversions in the years since.
For a time, he threw himself into politics, serving six years in Congress. He came back to NU as athletic director from 2007 to 2012.
All along, he also devoted much energy and time to the Teammates mentoring program he and wife Nancy launched in 1991.
While he has cut back, he still visits the Teammates office for a few hours almost every day. He primarily helps raise funds and speaks to community groups and businesses recruiting mentors.
He is so devoted to the cause that he also personally mentors two young men, a high school student and another who attends community college.Â
“His passion for Teammates mentors is what gives him life,†said Teammates CEO DeMoine Adams, who came to Nebraska as part of Osborne’s final recruiting class. “And even though he's 86, if you sit down and listen to him, he's still pretty sharp.â€
For many Nebraska fans, it seems like a long time since Osborne coached. The last quarter-century has certainly seen a reversal of football fortunes.
The Huskers lost 49 games during Osborne’s 25 seasons. After losing to Maryland on Saturday, they've now lost 50 in the past seven seasons.
And while the Huskers went to a bowl game in every season under Osborne, NU has gone six straight seasons without qualifying for a bowl. It's the only school among the five major conferences that has not been to a bowl in that time.Â
Through the ensuing years, Osborne has remained an interested observer of Nebraska football, rarely missing home games while at the same time careful to keep his distance. He said he made it clear to every coach who followed him that he would always be there to offer assistance, but only if asked.
“The worst thing you can have is some old guy trying to influence things,†he said once.
During Solich’s tenure, Osborne in particular didn’t want to be seen as looking over his successor’s shoulder. Going to Washington for much of that time helped.
Solich was fired in 2003 after a 9-3 season that wasn’t up to the lofty standard many fans came to expect after Osborne.
In the two decades since, Nebraska cycled through four other coaches. Some had more success than others, but all were eventually fired after failing to return Nebraska to the ranks of college football's elite.
Recently, Osborne helped lure Scott Frost — the quarterback of his 1997 national championship team — back to Nebraska. Husker fans and national pundits saw the young coach who had just completed an undefeated season at Central Florida as a natural choice to bring Nebraska back to prominence.
Instead, the program endured its most sustained stretch of losing in more than six decades.
In a recent interview, Osborne didn’t want to dwell on why Frost didn’t have more success.
But he said the pandemic proved a major disruption in the midst of his tenure. And it seemed Frost couldn’t catch a break, as his teams went 5-22 in games decided by one score.
Last November, athletic director Trev Alberts — another former Osborne player — hired Rhule.
The coach known for engineering big turnarounds at Temple and Baylor talked to Osborne for the first time the day his hiring was announced.
Osborne told Rhule the new coach didn’t need to seek his blessing.
“I trust Trev,†Osborne told him.
He also told Rhule he would be there if needed. Rhule told Osborne he would take him up on that.
Still a teacher
On the first day of training camp in July, Rhule made sure all the players, including the freshmen, were getting lots of practice reps.
“It’s just kind of what Coach Osborne told me, you make sure they all get reps,†Rhule said that day, a verbal embrace of the former coach and Nebraska tradition.
The relationship between Rhule and Osborne was first fostered in early January when they were seated together at the Outland Trophy dinner in Omaha.
Rhule said they talked for an hour that night about offensive philosophy and practice methods. That led to further discussions on a range of topics, including how Nebraska's wind impacts gamedays in Lincoln.
One of the reasons Rhule chose the NU job over others was because "it's been done here before," Alberts said — referring to winning championships. So it was natural for Rhule to want to learn how it was done.
"Matt's interest in developing a relationship with Coach Osborne was not superficial and not based on convenience," Alberts said. "He genuinely respects Coach Osborne for what he accomplished, and thinks he can learn from it."
Rhule threw out the welcome mat to Osborne and other former Husker coaches, with Osborne becoming a regular at practices.
In fact, Osborne was at practice Friday with his arm in a sling, days after breaking it in a fall.
"Nothing really keeps him from where he wants to go," Brown said. "He's pretty doggone stubborn."
Osborne says he goes to practice about once a week, mostly because he enjoys it and is interested in the team. He tries not to take up coaches' time, either, knowing firsthand how busy they are in preparation for each week’s opponent.
"He will come check in and wish us luck," Rhule said. "He never, never wants to be in the way, but he's obviously an unbelievable resource for all of us."
In fact, the way the Huskers practice is itself a reflection of Osborne's era.
Most college teams practice team drills with two stations, one for offense and one for defense. Most of the practice reps go to the first-team players, with others most often reduced to spectators.
Conversely, Osborne always ran four stations, splitting up his staff to run two stations for offense and two for defense. He considered it one of the biggest keys to Nebraska's success.
The four-station system gave backups almost as many repetitions as the starters, assuring they developed and were ready to step in if a first-teamer got hurt. Starters also couldn't get complacent, with someone pushing behind them.
Rhule said Osborne gave him a copy of his practice schedule early on, and explained how it flowed.
It was a different time back then, with Osborne having up to 200 players on the field. But Rhule said he tried to take Osborne’s general philosophy “and bring it forward to this era.â€
He developed his own practice system that sometimes uses four stations, sometimes three, but always stresses maximum reps for everyone.
“No one’s watching, everyone’s working and learning,†Rhule said. “(Osborne's system) was similar to things that we believed in, but having him walk me through the hows, that's helped me a ton.â€
George Darlington, a former Osborne assistant who also is a regular at practice, sees a lot that's familiar.
“They have their system, it’s very well organized and very intense, and (players) are practicing,†Darlington said. “There’s not any of the standing around like some of these previous staffs.â€
Darlington and Osborne said Rhule’s emphasis on repetitions for all has likely already paid dividends this year, as the Huskers have been ravaged by injuries. It’s also the way to build a durable program, they said.
Rhule, like Osborne, also preaches a physical style of play, believing the team that delivers the most body blows is the one that wins games in the fourth quarter. To emphasize that, he has brought back an Osborne measure of physical play.
Osborne had turned physical football into a science, counting the number of times his offensive players knocked down opposing defenders. He set a goal of averaging 1½ knockdowns per play, figuring if the Huskers hit that figure on Saturdays, they would usually prevail.Â
Now, Rhule has Brown count knockdowns on Saturdays.Â
“Coach Rhule from the very get-go honored the tradition of Nebraska football,†Brown said.
Rhule said rules have changed, so it’s hard to rack up the kind of numbers Nebraska did in Osborne’s day. But Rhule said it has proven a useful metric for his team.
Then at the season’s midway point, Rhule sought some strategic counsel from Osborne.
The Huskers entered their bye week with a 3-3 record and were facing consecutive home games that would go a long way in determining whether they could achieve the six wins needed to qualify for a bowl game.
Rhule and his offensive staff had been running some option plays to take advantage of the running ability of sophomore quarterback Heinrich Haarberg.
So to start the bye week, Rhule brought Osborne into the football offices to talk to the offensive staff about option football.
Going in, the staff had already cut some grainy clips of Nebraska’s 1990s option offense, as well as clips of option plays the Huskers have been running this year.
As they watched the clips, Osborne and the coaches discussed the option’s intricacies.
“It’s one thing to have the film,†Rhule said. “It’s another thing to have the architect walk you through it.â€
Under Rhule, NU has been running the “belly G option,†an Osborne staple in which the quarterback fakes to the fullback then runs the option with a trailing running back as a pitch man.
“If you guys are going to keep running the belly G option,†Rhule later recalled Osborne saying, “you have to run the belly G pass.â€
As Osborne later explained, what makes the option difficult to defend is that covering the fullback, quarterback and pitch man often requires the defense to commit players from the secondary to help. That makes them susceptible to a pass over the top.
Brown, who was also part of the session that day, said at one point Osborne took to a marker board to help illustrate the pass variation off the belly G.
Osborne said they talked about a lot of things in the session.
“I hope it was of some value,†the former coach later said after the Northwestern game, in typically understated fashion.
'Don't be offended …'
On the day of Nebraska’s game against Northwestern, Osborne stopped off at a parking lot tailgate hosted by a former player on his 1994 championship team.
Then the living legend walked by the statue of himself and quarterback Brook Berringer that stands outside North Stadium, entered the front door of the Tom and Nancy Osborne Athletic Complex, and rode an elevator up to the Memorial Stadium suite where his family takes in games.
Osborne did some socializing with fans and boosters. But once the game started, it was all business.
Osborne is there to watch the game, and does so intently. He says his assistant even has a letter she sends to guests joining him in the suite that more or less says, “Don’t be offended if Tom doesn’t talk to you.â€
“Everyone is eating hot dogs and popcorn and grandkids are running around, and he’s over there in a corner hunkered down, and he’s watching the game,†said Jack Stark, a member of the NU Board of Regents who served as team psychologist under Osborne.
Stark wasn’t in the box that day. But Charlie McBride, Osborne’s former defensive coordinator, was.
McBride described Osborne as observing with a quiet intensity that anyone who watched the coach on the sideline would recognize.
“You get the feeling it’s, ‘OK, guys, I’ll be busy now,’†McBride said. “His emotions are in the game.â€
You won’t hear any hooping or hollering coming from Osborne, though McBride recalls a few groans over the years when the ball bounced the wrong way. And while Osborne has opinions on what he’s seeing on the field, “He keeps them to himself,†McBride said.
Featuring a stout defense and an offense that has struggled to score points, most Nebraska games this season have gone down to the wire. The Northwestern game proved no exception.
Early in the fourth quarter, the Huskers were clinging to a 10-9 lead when they took over at the Northwestern 44.
That’s when offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield decided it was time to dial up the belly G option pass.
Haarberg faked to the fullback. The defensive backfield read it as a run and came up to make the stop.
“It worked perfectly,â€Â Rhule said.Â
Coleman streaked by the defenders, wide open, and caught the pass in stride after crossing the goal line.
On the Husker sideline, Rhule glanced at Brown with a knowing look. Then he pointed to Osborne’s box.
Up in that box, there were cheers. Though not from Osborne, McBride said.
With Osborne, he said, a little smile usually says it all.
For his part, Osborne later offered he was more relieved than anything, as the touchdown gave Nebraska some breathing room.
He saw Rhule at practice days later, the coach telling him about his sideline gesture.
“Well, I’m sorry I missed that,†Osborne replied with a grin.
Liking Husker trajectory
While Osborne misses coaching, he doesn’t envy the job Rhule and other coaches have in a new era of college football, with players transferring to whichever school offers the most name, image and likeness money.
“It’s a difficult landscape,†Osborne said.
But Osborne likes what he has seen from Rhule and the general direction of the program.
With Saturday’s 13-10 loss to Maryland, the 5-5 Huskers are still striving for the elusive sixth win that would end the school's six-year bowl drought.
Not only are Husker fans starving for a bowl, the game would give Rhule and the young Huskers several extra weeks of practice.
But regardless of first-year results, Osborne likes the fact that Rhule has not been looking for quick fixes.
It seems to him that Rhule and his staff are working hard to recruit high school talent, and focused on the process of developing them into football players.
Much the way it was done in Osborne’s day.
“He’s trying to build a foundation which will be more permanent,†Osborne said. “So hopefully it all works out.â€
Rhule said he’s grateful for Osborne's public support and the “unbelievable opportunity†to benefit from the knowledge of one of college football's coaching legends.Â
“I love coaching,†Rhule said. “And no one did it better than Coach Osborne.â€