Nebraska...not feeling Frosty anymore

[Wild Hoss]

Who was his "buddy" with the Jets? Are he and Jerry Jones pals now? Did he "buddy" the Jets into having multiple Pro Bowl linemen?

[entropy]

Bad coaches get hired in the NFL... As I said. Happens all the time. Once you're in the club, you're part of the cycle.

He is a failure as a coach, regardless what what one wants to pretend. He's a great football mind... Not a coach

[THE_WIZARD_]

Bill Callahan is one of those guys like you met in college...got great grades...and then never amounted to jack shit. I think he knew football X's and O's...particularly on offense...obviously...but his ability to lead others and empart that knowledge was horrible. How he has stayed employed in the NFL this long is a fucking complete mystery to me.

[Wild Hoss]

He's there because he's good at coaching offense, and OL in particular. Head coach obviously isn't his gig, but that won't be a problem for him going forward.

[hack]

You have leaders and you have technicians. There is art and there is craft. Both are important.

[THE_WIZARD_]

He reminds me of Rain Man. Brilliant at some things but a social retard.

[Wild Hoss]

Agreed hack...he did coach his team to a Super Bowl, but that appears to be the outlier in his head coaching career, and a fairly puzzling one. He's definitely an Indian and not a Chief.

[Wild Hoss]

He reminds me of Rain Man. Brilliant at some things but a social retard.

LOL. Summed up well.

[entropy]

He reminds me of Rain Man. Brilliant at some things but a social retard.

standing ovation on that one..

[entropy]

http://journalstar.com/entertainment/movies/former-unl-pole-vaulter-lands-in-hollywood-as-a-stuntwoman/article_0eba2dea-ab6b-534a-8a49-f9a246a48050.html

Jessie Graff isn’t certain what her final University of Nebraska-Lincoln exam was. She thinks it might have been for a history of rock and roll class.

What she remembers is how ready she was to finish it and get outside to her prepacked car.

"I walked out and drove here," Graff said during a phone call from her Los Angeles-area apartment, which houses a battle ax.

It shares space with a 12.5-foot-long pole for pole-vaulting where the living room wall meets the ceiling. There are harnesses and stunt pads all over the place. In a December 2011 video on her YouTube account, you can watch Graff and her roommate, who is in the circus, decorate an L.A.-style Christmas tree -- a ladder wrapped in a green blanket -- with climbing carabiners, motorcycle gloves and nunchucks.

In Lincoln, Graff, a 2007 graduate, majored in theater while competing as a pole vaulter on the Nebraska Cornhuskers track and field team. She also climbed trees in Pioneers Park, dove from great heights into bins full of cardboard and staged fake fights with her roommate.

All of that prepared her for a career as a Hollywood stuntwoman.

On the same YouTube account, you can watch stunt reel footage of Graff tackling a hula dancer, sending them both off a cliff and into choppy waters. She jumps from a bridge and lands on a moving boxcar. She kicks and spins through the air in a manner that wouldn’t look out of place in a game of “Mortal Kombat.” She whips around and pivots off a wooden staff while wearing Nebraska sweats.

The user name for her account, “JessieTumbleweed,” is her nickname, too.

“It basically comes from the fact that I've always been so quick to travel,” Graff said. “I go where the wind takes me. There's not a specific story, but the moment an opportunity pops up, I'm already packed and ready to go. I've moved 19 times -- twice with my parents, twice for college, and the rest of them were usually because I'd found a new gym that I would spend five hours a day at, and I just wanted to live closer to it.

"One Wednesday last year, I decided to go to Thailand. I left that Friday and stayed for a month. While I was there, I started at a muay thai training camp, then moved into the jungle to learn survival skills and then wound up road tripping with one of my favorite action star's stunt double."

She balances those impulses with hours and hours of training and prep work. (Before she moved to California, she'd mapped out the highway routes and time it'd take to get from one studio or gym to the next.) She practices falls and jumps and crashes from every direction. And sometimes, if she sees a nice-enough cliff, she throws herself off it.

[entropy]

Here's her IMDB page. She's been busy.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2421085/

[Wild Hoss]

Unlike some people, apparently.

hi!

[entropy]

Steven M. Sipple: Erstad's grand plan includes daunting schedule

The New York Yankees evidently were unavailable.

Otherwise, Darin Erstad might have stuck Joe Girardi's crew on Nebraska's daunting nonconference baseball schedule.

"Where we're going (as a program), we're going to have to learn to beat the best and compete with the best on a consistent basis," the second-year Nebraska coach said Friday as practice began for the 2013 season.

"Not only that, we're going to have to go on the road and learn how to have the mentality to win those games. I'm preparing this team, in the long run, to win a national title, not to just win conference championships."

Erstad leaned on a fungo bat as he spoke to reporters at Haymarket Park, squinting into the early afternoon sun. The temperature reached the 40s -- a godsend for the Huskers. Erstad was fiery, as usual. He is the kind of coach who makes you want to run laps around the field before you do whatever it is you do, such is his abundant energy and can-do nature.

Any ol' ball coach can proclaim the aim is to win a national championship. Somehow, when Erstad says it, it seems a realistic possibility in the years to come. Somehow, you trust him when he says his team is ready for the formidable schedule that begins in three weeks. More important, his players trust him.

Say this for Nebraska's nonconference slate: You will know perhaps all you need to know about the Huskers by the time they open Big Ten play March 22 at Illinois.

Nebraska will have played four games at Cal State Fullerton, a college baseball blue blood that is ranked 22nd by Baseball America. The Titans have reached every NCAA Tournament since 1992.

The Huskers will have played three games at Cal Irvine, ranked 30th by Collegiate Baseball, and three at Texas, the winningest NCAA Division I program. The Longhorns are ranked 21st by Collegiate Baseball.

Granted, the Longhorns were only 30-22 (13-10 Big 12) last season and were left out of the 64-team NCAA field, in large part because their pitching went bad.

"Rejection's a b----," iconic Texas coach Augie Garrido said.

Restoring a program that has missed four straight NCAA Tournaments isn't a joy ride, either. Nebraska won't magically return to CWS-caliber form. Erstad is in the early stages of his restoration project. But know this: He wants to win now.

He can't stomach the thought of a surging New Mexico program invading Haymarket Park in early March and whipping the home team. The Lobos are ranked 21st by Baseball America, the first preseason ranking in program history.

Erstad doesn't want to hear any bellyaching about the fact Nebraska plays 18 of its first 23 games on the road, including the Big Ten-opening series in Champaign, Ill.

Erstad's no-nonsense approach has become ingrained in at least one Nebraska player. Junior pitcher Brandon Pierce bristled when asked why he thinks the Huskers can "get through" its nonconference gantlet in good shape.

"We don't want to 'just get through it'; we want to win every game, that's our mentality," he said. "If we had any other mentality, there would probably be an issue."

Erstad wants a band of fighters. He reminds me of Dave Van Horn in that regard. The Nebraska teams that made the CWS in the early 2000s had a fighter's mentality, a razor-sharp edge. Will Bolt, now Erstad's right-hand man, helped lead the way.

Did I mention third-ranked Arkansas, led by Van Horn, comes to Lincoln in mid-April?

This should be fun. Erstad likes his roster. Nebraska returns nearly all the firepower from the team that led the Big Ten in six offensive categories last season. Out of the 14 pitchers who saw action a year ago, nine return, including four who started four or more games.

So, bring on the West Coast tough guys. Bring on Augie, the Lobos, the Yankees, whoever. In the nonconference season, Nebraska obviously can generate valuable RPI steam that is difficult to produce in the Big Ten. The Huskers can enhance how they're perceived nationally, and perhaps how they perceive themselves.

Ah, but there obviously is risk involved.

"We could lose a bunch of games, and I could get fired," Erstad said. "I'm not too worried about that. You have to be willing to put it on the line and have a little courage to get the ultimate reward."

Interpret "ultimate reward" any way you like. If I'm reading Erstad right, he's talking about competing for national titles in the not-too-distant future. Suddenly, it doesn't seem so far-fetched.

Post Extras:

[entropy]

Looks like UNL might lose a second kid to auburn this week. Odd how committed they become during the visit.


Fuck the SEC... And fuck their cheating. I refuse to watch and hope they all die of horrible diseases.

[WM Wolverine]

Auburn has some really great boosters.