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LINCOLN - In the course of a three-hour football game, Nebraska coach Bo Pelini goes through a gallery of emotions and gestures. He'll crouch. He'll fist-pump. He'll hug. He'll stalk the sideline. He'll come up close to a player and whisper praise in his ear. He'll screw his face up into a pigskin-drawn portrait of disbelief. He'll rage against the bad breaks and self-inflicted mistakes.
Amid that gamut of emotions, Pelini will strike a different pose. A statesman's pose. He will pull his arms behind his back, clasp his hands, stand perfectly still and point his prominent chin down in contemplation. At the start of practice, Pelini sometimes turns this stance into a walk, ambling between the rows of stretching players.
In this image, calm and deliberate, Pelini most looks like the CEO that nearly $3 million per year, a coaching legend of an athletic director and a football-mad state* require him to be. The CEO that, over his first four years as NU's leader, the 44-year-old said he's learning to become.
"I continue to grow into it," Pelini said. "I'm a lot more comfortable. I'm a football coach, and I like to coach football, but I know the job is more than that."
Pelini's companion over his first term? Change. Constant change. Some of which Pelini created. Some of which was foisted upon him.
>> Change in staff, as Pelini has replaced six assistant coaches and both of his coordinators. His current bunch, featuring five assistants younger than 42 years old, could be his favorite.
"I like the way they compete," Pelini said. "It's a fun place to go to work."
>> Change in leagues, from the Big 12 to the Big Ten, which triggered a wholesale change in personnel and recruiting, a "wild ride" that Pelini said is still ongoing.
>> Change in quarterbacks. Four players have made starts in four years, two transfers, one retirement because of injury, one position switch to wide receiver and one player who chose pro baseball before he ever practiced a down. Only now, with junior quarterback Taylor Martinez ready for year three, has the position fully stabilized.
>> Change in his offensive philosophy, which started as a West Coast passing attack in 2008, moved through many phases in 2009 and now has arrived at a no-huddle, option-reliant spread in 2012.
>> Change in team culture, which Pelini said was "dysfunctional" when he arrived in late 2007 and took time to shape into the process-focused environment it is now.
"Now our kids understand what they're getting into," Pelini said during a recent phone interview when asked to reflect on his first four years as Nebraska coach. "As far as going to class, as far as representing this program, they understand. That gives us a fighting chance."
The track record so far reflects Pelini's self-assessment - 38-16 overall, 2-2 in bowl games, 0-2 in conference title games, four consecutive four-loss seasons, a rather tame list of off-the-field issues. If Bill Callahan's 5-7 season in 2007 careened the program close to punchline irrelevancy,
Nebraska, since then, has veered away from the abyss.
But the Huskers' best hardware of the Pelini era - a 2008 Gator Bowl trophy and a 2009 Holiday Bowl trophy - doesn't stand out in the program's display case, and NU hasn't yet finished in the top 10 of either major poll. The team has not won a league title since 1999.
Nebraska came closest to one in 2010, when Pelini compiled his most complete roster and had poured two years of his culture into many of Callahan's best recruits. It looked to be a marriage of talent and teaching. Skill players on offense and defense. A strong kicking game. A preseason top 10 ranking. A chip on its shoulder from the 2009 Big 12 title game, where NU lost 13-12 to Texas.
Pelini then made his boldest, most-debated move: Out of three quarterbacks, he picked redshirt freshman Martinez - recruited by most schools as a safety, quiet as a sniper to the press, in sharp contrast to his chatty competitors - to lead the team.
"There was no question he gave us the best opportunity to win," Pelini said.
A dynamic runner, Martinez was an unpolished passer and inexperienced. He exploded onto the scene in the first month, struggled in a loss to Texas, found his stride again, got hurt and played at half-speed the rest of the year, which culminated in a 23-20 loss to Oklahoma in the Big 12 championship game and a 19-7 loss to Washington in the Holiday Bowl.
Martinez was an ill fit for then-offensive coordinator Shawn Watson, a West Coast offense purist who'd spent his career coaching pass-first, run-maybe quarterbacks. Watson's three-year tenure as Pelini's coordinator - which ended shortly after that Holiday Bowl loss - was perhaps Bo's second most-debated decision.
Pelini retained Watson - a close friend of Callahan's - when he arrived in 2008, and he persuaded him to stay when Alabama coach Nick Saban - who has since won two national titles - tried to coax Watson to leave. It's a decision Pelini defends strongly.
"When I got there (in 2008), I didn't know exactly what we had on offense," Pelini said. "There was some continuity there we had to keep in place. I wasn't sure where I wanted to go with the offense."
Pelini said he didn't know well enough the offensive philosophies of Tim Beck - Watson's successor - in 2008, when Pelini hired Beck from Kansas. Watson had forged a strong relationship with Joe Ganz, who broke the school record with 3,568 passing yards in Pelini's first year.
"In the beginning," Ganz said of Pelini's first year, "he really worked on just getting his point across, about what he wanted this football program to become, his vision."
But 2009 was a different season. Watson and Pelini shuffled through offenses and leaned on a stifling defense - led by Outland and Lombardi Award winner Ndamukong Suh - to win five straight games before the loss to Texas.
"It was clear that doing what we were doing (on offense) wasn't getting us where we needed to go," Pelini said.
Watson's and Martinez's combined efforts still left NU short, as the Huskers lost the Big 12 title game to Oklahoma - a loss Pelini said he remembers as "one we let get away." Soon, Watson left, resurfacing at Louisville. Beck took over. And Nebraska was pegged by the media as a favorite in its first year of Big Ten play.
Pelini publicly embraced those expectations and says now Nebraska could have beaten any team on its schedule. NU did not, losing badly in road games at Michigan and Wisconsin and slipping up at home against Northwestern. The defensive adjustment between the speed and spread offenses of the Big 12 to the power-based Big Ten was daunting, Pelini said.
"I'm still learning a little bit as far as what we're going to need," Pelini said. "We're still working on the linebacker aspect of it. The Big Ten has more variety in it. ... It's a real good fit culturally. But it was a learning curve."
The whole job remains that way. Asked to pick games or moments he'd like to have back, Pelini avoided specifics. He said, instead, he'd learned lessons "like anyone else" every day.
Ganz, who knew Pelini as a player and now as a graduate assistant, said he's seen measurable growth in Pelini's "feel" for the team. Ganz said Pelini can now sense the mood of the Huskers and pick his spots for tough love.
"He's become more calm," Ganz said. "He's grasped the notion of when to get on guys and when to put his arm around guys. It has a lot more effect, because now when he gets on you, you know you really screwed up."
The losses gnaw at Pelini. While he said he's judged all his wins the same at NU, he picks out the losses to Texas and Oklahoma - the twin spoilers of Husker football since 2000 - and the Capital One Bowl loss to South Carolina as particularly tough to swallow.
"That South Carolina game eats at me daily," Pelini said. The 30-13 loss spurred a series of meetings with Nebraska seniors - specifically running back Rex Burkhead and linebacker Will Compton - that led to NU's most ambitious offseason changes since Pelini arrived.
Military training, more film study, players making and taking their own pop quizzes. Redoubling his team's focus to "get better on a day-to-day basis" is the formula Pelini takes into his second term. The same culture, seasoned by experience.
"I ain't perfect, and I never claimed to be," Pelini said. "But my heart is in the right place. I'm going to do whatever I can to help this football program. And I believe I'm a better coach now than I was four years ago."
LINCOLN - In the course of a three-hour football game, Nebraska coach Bo Pelini goes through a gallery of emotions and gestures. He'll crouch. He'll fist-pump. He'll hug. He'll stalk the sideline. He'll come up close to a player and whisper praise in his ear. He'll screw his face up into a pigskin-drawn portrait of disbelief. He'll rage against the bad breaks and self-inflicted mistakes.
Amid that gamut of emotions, Pelini will strike a different pose. A statesman's pose. He will pull his arms behind his back, clasp his hands, stand perfectly still and point his prominent chin down in contemplation. At the start of practice, Pelini sometimes turns this stance into a walk, ambling between the rows of stretching players.
In this image, calm and deliberate, Pelini most looks like the CEO that nearly $3 million per year, a coaching legend of an athletic director and a football-mad state* require him to be. The CEO that, over his first four years as NU's leader, the 44-year-old said he's learning to become.
"I continue to grow into it," Pelini said. "I'm a lot more comfortable. I'm a football coach, and I like to coach football, but I know the job is more than that."
Pelini's companion over his first term? Change. Constant change. Some of which Pelini created. Some of which was foisted upon him.
>> Change in staff, as Pelini has replaced six assistant coaches and both of his coordinators. His current bunch, featuring five assistants younger than 42 years old, could be his favorite.
"I like the way they compete," Pelini said. "It's a fun place to go to work."
>> Change in leagues, from the Big 12 to the Big Ten, which triggered a wholesale change in personnel and recruiting, a "wild ride" that Pelini said is still ongoing.
>> Change in quarterbacks. Four players have made starts in four years, two transfers, one retirement because of injury, one position switch to wide receiver and one player who chose pro baseball before he ever practiced a down. Only now, with junior quarterback Taylor Martinez ready for year three, has the position fully stabilized.
>> Change in his offensive philosophy, which started as a West Coast passing attack in 2008, moved through many phases in 2009 and now has arrived at a no-huddle, option-reliant spread in 2012.
>> Change in team culture, which Pelini said was "dysfunctional" when he arrived in late 2007 and took time to shape into the process-focused environment it is now.
"Now our kids understand what they're getting into," Pelini said during a recent phone interview when asked to reflect on his first four years as Nebraska coach. "As far as going to class, as far as representing this program, they understand. That gives us a fighting chance."
The track record so far reflects Pelini's self-assessment - 38-16 overall, 2-2 in bowl games, 0-2 in conference title games, four consecutive four-loss seasons, a rather tame list of off-the-field issues. If Bill Callahan's 5-7 season in 2007 careened the program close to punchline irrelevancy,
Nebraska, since then, has veered away from the abyss.
But the Huskers' best hardware of the Pelini era - a 2008 Gator Bowl trophy and a 2009 Holiday Bowl trophy - doesn't stand out in the program's display case, and NU hasn't yet finished in the top 10 of either major poll. The team has not won a league title since 1999.
Nebraska came closest to one in 2010, when Pelini compiled his most complete roster and had poured two years of his culture into many of Callahan's best recruits. It looked to be a marriage of talent and teaching. Skill players on offense and defense. A strong kicking game. A preseason top 10 ranking. A chip on its shoulder from the 2009 Big 12 title game, where NU lost 13-12 to Texas.
Pelini then made his boldest, most-debated move: Out of three quarterbacks, he picked redshirt freshman Martinez - recruited by most schools as a safety, quiet as a sniper to the press, in sharp contrast to his chatty competitors - to lead the team.
"There was no question he gave us the best opportunity to win," Pelini said.
A dynamic runner, Martinez was an unpolished passer and inexperienced. He exploded onto the scene in the first month, struggled in a loss to Texas, found his stride again, got hurt and played at half-speed the rest of the year, which culminated in a 23-20 loss to Oklahoma in the Big 12 championship game and a 19-7 loss to Washington in the Holiday Bowl.
Martinez was an ill fit for then-offensive coordinator Shawn Watson, a West Coast offense purist who'd spent his career coaching pass-first, run-maybe quarterbacks. Watson's three-year tenure as Pelini's coordinator - which ended shortly after that Holiday Bowl loss - was perhaps Bo's second most-debated decision.
Pelini retained Watson - a close friend of Callahan's - when he arrived in 2008, and he persuaded him to stay when Alabama coach Nick Saban - who has since won two national titles - tried to coax Watson to leave. It's a decision Pelini defends strongly.
"When I got there (in 2008), I didn't know exactly what we had on offense," Pelini said. "There was some continuity there we had to keep in place. I wasn't sure where I wanted to go with the offense."
Pelini said he didn't know well enough the offensive philosophies of Tim Beck - Watson's successor - in 2008, when Pelini hired Beck from Kansas. Watson had forged a strong relationship with Joe Ganz, who broke the school record with 3,568 passing yards in Pelini's first year.
"In the beginning," Ganz said of Pelini's first year, "he really worked on just getting his point across, about what he wanted this football program to become, his vision."
But 2009 was a different season. Watson and Pelini shuffled through offenses and leaned on a stifling defense - led by Outland and Lombardi Award winner Ndamukong Suh - to win five straight games before the loss to Texas.
"It was clear that doing what we were doing (on offense) wasn't getting us where we needed to go," Pelini said.
Watson's and Martinez's combined efforts still left NU short, as the Huskers lost the Big 12 title game to Oklahoma - a loss Pelini said he remembers as "one we let get away." Soon, Watson left, resurfacing at Louisville. Beck took over. And Nebraska was pegged by the media as a favorite in its first year of Big Ten play.
Pelini publicly embraced those expectations and says now Nebraska could have beaten any team on its schedule. NU did not, losing badly in road games at Michigan and Wisconsin and slipping up at home against Northwestern. The defensive adjustment between the speed and spread offenses of the Big 12 to the power-based Big Ten was daunting, Pelini said.
"I'm still learning a little bit as far as what we're going to need," Pelini said. "We're still working on the linebacker aspect of it. The Big Ten has more variety in it. ... It's a real good fit culturally. But it was a learning curve."
The whole job remains that way. Asked to pick games or moments he'd like to have back, Pelini avoided specifics. He said, instead, he'd learned lessons "like anyone else" every day.
Ganz, who knew Pelini as a player and now as a graduate assistant, said he's seen measurable growth in Pelini's "feel" for the team. Ganz said Pelini can now sense the mood of the Huskers and pick his spots for tough love.
"He's become more calm," Ganz said. "He's grasped the notion of when to get on guys and when to put his arm around guys. It has a lot more effect, because now when he gets on you, you know you really screwed up."
The losses gnaw at Pelini. While he said he's judged all his wins the same at NU, he picks out the losses to Texas and Oklahoma - the twin spoilers of Husker football since 2000 - and the Capital One Bowl loss to South Carolina as particularly tough to swallow.
"That South Carolina game eats at me daily," Pelini said. The 30-13 loss spurred a series of meetings with Nebraska seniors - specifically running back Rex Burkhead and linebacker Will Compton - that led to NU's most ambitious offseason changes since Pelini arrived.
Military training, more film study, players making and taking their own pop quizzes. Redoubling his team's focus to "get better on a day-to-day basis" is the formula Pelini takes into his second term. The same culture, seasoned by experience.
"I ain't perfect, and I never claimed to be," Pelini said. "But my heart is in the right place. I'm going to do whatever I can to help this football program. And I believe I'm a better coach now than I was four years ago."
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