Tag: tom osborne

The last 31 opening day quarterbacks for Nebraska

Take a trip down memory lane!!

With the recent news that the Nebraska Cornhuskers will start true freshman Dylan Raiola at quarterback when the season opens on August 31, it’s time to take a trip down memory lane and look back at the history of Nebraska’s starting quarterbacks.

The Huskers have a long line of memorable starting quarterbacks. The program features QBs that have won the Heisman, the Walter Camp Trophy, the Davey O’Brien Award, and the Johnny Unitas Award.

There were a few names I had forgotten were once starters for the Huskers, but the list contains a few memorable players and Nebraska football legends.

Scroll below and take a look at Nebraska’s starting quarterback history.

Nebraska officially opens the new Osborne Legacy Complex

The new facility was a $165 million construction project to create a state-of-the-art 315,000-square-foot home for Husker athletics.

The Nebraska athletic department held the grand opening for the Osborne Legacy Complex on Wednesday afternoon. The new facility was a $165 million construction project to create a state-of-the-art 315,000-square-foot home for Husker athletics. Per the Nebraska Athletic Fund website,

The Osborne Legacy Complex is the new training home of Nebraska Football and includes the primary student-athlete dining center and academic center for all 22 sports. The 315,000 sq. ft. athletics performance facility is named in honor of legendary Coach Tom Osborne.

Tom Osborne coached at Nebraska for 25 seasons, from 1973 to 1998, and finished with a record of 255-49-3. As a head coach, he won 13 conference titles and three national championships. Athletic director Troy Dannen said the grand opening was a landmark event for Nebraska athletics.

“We will point back to the completion of this facility as a landmark event in everything that happens going forward.” Coach Osborne, it’s fitting that your name graces the building. Your life set a standard that we all still aspire to achieve. This building is the physical standard for what every will aspire to achieve.”

A statue of Osborne and quarterback Brook Berringer has been installed outside the building. Artist Fred Hoppe sculpted the statue, initially installed outside the Osborne Athletic Complex on the north side of Memorial Stadium in 2006.

https://twitter.com/Huskers/status/1831344475786158265

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Matt Rhule discusses Tom Osborne’s current impact on program

Tom Osborne last coached for the Huskers in 1997.

Nebraska football head coach Matt Rhule is preparing for his second season with the program. Despite his relatively new position, he still makes sure to keep in touch with the legends of the past. That includes Husker great Tom Osborne. Rhule appeared on The Jim Rome Show earlier this week and talked about what the former Nebraska head coach can still bring to the table.

Osborne still regularly shows up at Huskers practices, offering Coach Rhule insight. The latter gave Osborne a glowing review as Nebraska prepares to embark on the 2024 campaign. Osborne is still very active in giving Rhule advice, even diagramming play ideas.

He’s been everything to me. He’s helped me on a personal level. He’s spoken well of me. He’s come in and drawn up plays for us last year. We lost a quarterback and started running a little more option. At 87-year-old he comes in and grabs the marker and it’s amazing the detail.

The intertwining of current and past Nebraska football personnel is something that makes Lincoln special. As far as Rhule is concerned, he will look to establish his own story with the program as the Huskers look for their first season-opening win since 2019.

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Nebraska honors Tom Osborne and Brook Berringer outside new athletic complex

A statue of Tom Osborne and quarterback Brook Berringer has been installed outside the Osborne Legacy Complex. 

The Nebraska Football team has honored Hall of Fame Coach Tom Osborne outside their new athletic complex. A statue of Osborne and quarterback Brook Berringer has been installed outside the Osborne Legacy Complex.

Fred Hoppe sculpted the statue, which was initially installed outside the Osborne Athletic Complex on the north side of Memorial Stadium in 2006. In a social media post from Tuesday, Hoppe explained how he convinced Osborne to agree to a sculpture.

Tom Osborne was approached about getting a sculpture. He’s just a modest man and said no to everyone, the regents and the coaches. So I met with him and showed him a picture of Brook Berringer with his (Osborne) hand on his (Berringer) arm. He paused for a minute, got kind of emotional, and said, ‘I will do that.’

The new Osborne Legacy Complex was a $165 million construction project to create a state-of-the-art 315,000-square-foot facility. Per the Nebraska Athletic Fund website,

The Osborne Legacy Complex is the new training home of Nebraska Football and includes the primary student-athlete dining center and academic center for all 22 sports. The 315,000 sq. ft. athletics performance facility is named in honor of legendary Coach Tom Osborne.

Osborne coached at Nebraska for 25 seasons, from 1973 to 1998, and finished with a record of 255-49-3. He won 13 conference titles and three national championships as a head coach.

Berringer is best remembered for relieving an injured Tommie Frazier in 1994 and leading Nebraska to seven straight wins on the way to a National Championship. He was tragically killed in a plane crash two days before the 1996 NFL Draft.

The school is scheduled to dedicate the facility next month. The initial social media post announcing the sculpture’s big move is below.

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Former Nebraska Head Coach Scott Frost ready to return to coaching

The former head coach was 16-31 in just over four seasons as head coach.

Scott Frost is talking about returning to the sidelines. The former Nebraska head coach spoke with Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports about his future and said he can’t wait to get back into the game he loves.

“For the first time in my life, I don’t know what’s next. I’m dying to get back in.”

Frost came to Nebraska in 2018 in what was seen as a homecoming for the former National Champion. The Wood River, Nebraska native was expected to return the Huskers to form after successfully rebuilding Central Florida.

That did not come to pass, as Frost would go 16-31 and was fired just three games into his fifth season in Lincoln. The former Husker said he always knew he was on a path to be a head coach.

“My whole life I was a little league player and a high school player and then a college player and then an NFL player and then a [graduate assistant], and then a position coach, then a coordinator and then a head coach. It was on a trajectory, and I knew what was next.”

The piece doesn’t see Frost speculate or comment on why he fell short of expectations at Nebraska. His former head coach, Tom Osborne, has said the fourth-quarter woes were never solved.

“For whatever reason, they couldn’t hang in the fourth quarter and lost a lot of games.”

Frost also says he doesn’t necessarily need a head coaching position to step back onto the sidelines.

“I know this. There’s some good coaches out there. I’m a good coach. I belong doing it. I just don’t know for sure where that’s going to be right now. If the right head coach job comes along, I’d take it. If the right coordinator job comes, I’d take it.”

Frost will likely return to coaching at some point, but where and in what role remains to be determined.

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Social media wishes Tom Osborne a happy birthday!

Happy 87th birthday to College Football Hall of Famer and former Nebraska head coach Tom Osborne.

Happy 87th birthday to College Football Hall of Famer and former Nebraska head coach Tom Osborne. Osborne was the head coach of the Cornhuskers from 1973-1997, ending his career with a career record of 255-49-3.

He won three national championships (1994,1995,1997), 13 conference championships (12 – Big Eight, 1 – Big 12), and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1999.

Osborne was drafted in the 19th round of the 1959 NFL draft by the San Francisco 49ers. He would make his NFL debut as a wide receiver with Washington during the 1961 season.

In 1962, Osborne joined Bob Devaney’s coaching staff as an unpaid assistant. He became the offensive coordinator for the Cornhuskers in 1969 and took over as head coach following the 1972 season.

His teams never won fewer than nine games a season, finished in the top 15 in the final AP Poll 24 out of 25 years, and were ranked for 304 out of his 307 games as a head coach.

After leaving football, he was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Nebraska’s 3rd district from 2001-2007. Osborne returned to Nebraska in 2007 and served as athletic director before retiring in 2013.

Scroll below to see social media’s happy birthday messages!

How 12 football head coaches fared as the replacements for legends like Bill Belichick and Nick Saban

Who replaced Bear Bryant, Don Shula and John Madden and how did they do?

During one of the craziest weeks of football in recent memory, we saw the end of an era for legends like Bill Belichick and Nick Saban.

Belichick, 71, and Saban, 72, are easily two of the greatest coaches that the sport has ever seen. Next season, college football will look very different without Saban coaching Alabama. Meanwhile, the NFL will also look very different without Belichick coaching the Patriots.

Both teams will have huge decisions about how to fill these massive shoes. While there are some interesting candidates for the gig in New England and the job in Tuscaloosa, can either live up to the reputation that Belichick and Saban built?

We looked back at some of the most legendary coaches in football history, both in the NFL and in college football, to learn how these replacements have typically fared.

The results are a fairly mixed bag but if there is one thing we learned, it is that it is not easy to replace someone as accomplished as either of these two Hall of Fame-caliber coaches.

Husker legend makes surprise appearance at football practice

A Nebraska legend made a surprise appearance at football practice on Tuesday.

A Nebraska legend made a surprise appearance at football practice on Tuesday. Hall of Fame coach Tom Osborne stopped by the Huskers practice facility to visit with Matt Rhule and his staff.

It’s no surprise that the coach should visit the week of the Colorado game. Osborne had a long history with the Buffaloes, holding a record of 21-3-1 against the former conference foe.

Osborne’s connection to Colorado goes deeper than just coaching against the program. The Hall of Fame head coach almost left Nebraska for the Buffaloes job.

As Mike Babcock reported in Hail Varsity in 2018, Osborne was offered and considered the Colorado head coaching job. Following the 1978 season, Colorado offered Osborne more than double his pay to move west from Lincoln to Boulder.

The head coach told the Lincoln Journal then that his players were the most significant factor in his decision to stay in Nebraska.

 “I thought about when it would come time to line up next fall against the Nebraska players I had recruited and coached,” he was quoted in the Lincoln Journal. “That was an over-riding factor in my decision” to stay put.

Osborne would coach at Nebraska for 25 seasons and would finish with a record of 255-49-3. He would win 13 conference championships and three national championships as a head coach.

Find a photo gallery of Osborne’s career below.

What role did Tom Osborne play in Nebraska’s new 3-3-5 defense

Nebraska head football coach Matt Rhule recently appeared on the Husker Radio Network. The conversation touched on various topics, including Nebraska’s new defense. The Huskers will be running a 3-3-5 scheme this season. Rhule has had some …

Nebraska head football coach Matt Rhule recently appeared on the Husker Radio Network. The conversation touched on various topics, including Nebraska’s new defense.

The Huskers will be running a 3-3-5 scheme this season. Rhule has had some experience with the defense.

When I was at Temple we were really good on defense. We were in the Top 25 for three of the four years. We always mixed around with some three-down (lineman) stuff. We’d run some 3-3 stuff. Then when we got to Baylor, you know it’s a wide-open offense. We played a little bit of it but the last year we ran a true 3-3 and jumped through the roof and won 11 games. That was my history with it, I knew Tony and knew the success he was having.

As Rhule explained to host Greg Sharpe, former Nebraska coach Tom Osborne helped plant the seed of trying something different.

It was really listening to Coach Osborne talk about making Nebraska a place where people have to adjust to something in just two or three days. Again, he was talking about the option. On defense, let’s do something I know a little bit about from my history. Is it simpler? Our guys have taken to it and learned it but a lot of it has to do with their hard work as well.

Nebraska defensive coordinator Tony White has been among the more popular topics of conversation among the Cornhusker faithful. White runs a 3-3-5 base defense. That’s three down linemen, three linebackers, and five defensive backs.

He learned the defense under Rocky Long, who was considered one of the significant influences on the modern spread defense. White’s defenses are known for their aggressive and unorthodox style.

Tom Osborne on what went wrong with Scott Frost

Former Nebraska head football coach and College Football Hall of Famer Tom Osborne has shared some of his thoughts on the failure of the Scott Frost regime.

Former Nebraska head football coach and College Football Hall of Famer Tom Osborne shared thoughts on the failure of the Scott Frost regime. Osborne spoke with former Husker Adam Carriker about what went wrong under Scott Frost.

While he believes Frost did do some good at Nebraska, Osborne believes, ultimately, the former Husker quarterback was dealt a tough hand.

“I think he went through a very difficult time. He came in on the tail end of a not very successful recruiting regime from the coach previously.

It’s not like he was dealt a really good deck. Then you had COVID and the thing that was a little puzzling was that if you looked at the score at the end of three quarters, Scott would have had a really good record.

Frost was dismissed three games in the 2022 season following the Cornhusker’s 45-42 loss to Georgia Southern. The former quarterback went 16-31 in his four-plus seasons on the sideline.

Osborne went on to talk about the current state of the coaching profession in modern college football.

For whatever reason, they couldn’t hang in the fourth quarter and lost a lot of games. As you know, this is a business of what have you done for me lately.

It’s really hard to stay employed if you have four losing seasons. I think Scott did a lot of good things.

I know social media is brutal, but a lot of the stuff you hear is over the top. I wish Scott the best.”

While the former Husker was linked to several coaching jobs across college football this offseason, he ultimately will remain off the sideline in 2023.

Find a photo gallery of Scott Frost’s college football career below.