1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - January 19th: 10am - Vershan Jackson joins the show

Episode Date: January 19, 2022

Players are being dumbed down in this day and ageHaving former players around to go to and ask for help would be beneficial for the current athletesAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It's time to go one-on-one with D.P. Coming at you live from the Coppull Chevrolet GMC Studios, here is your host, Derek Pearson, presented by Beatrice Bakery, on 93-7 The Ticket and the Ticketfm.com. Wednesday morning, Lincoln, Nebraska, it's cold. Cold. So cold out there. Cold.

I'm glad to be inside one-on-one. 402, 464-5, Sarderhamian text line, Honda Liggin Hotline. You can hit us up. Hit me with a one up. We will talk. You can also follow on the Sartarhamming video stream, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitch. The captain is going to hang. We're going to do, he's going to hang with me, and I'm going to hang with him for an hour.

In his show, he's got his show all lined up. What you got today, kind of, Todd Euler. Running back week, this is what we're doing. Running back week still. Big time running back week. Next week will be Ety Bidi receiver committee mixed in with a little hit, hancho, general black shirt, toe. I'm waiting for fullback week. I, you know, fullback week.

I'm waiting for fullback week. I'm waiting for February. February is fullback week. Okay. All right. Because I got to line that up. That's got to be the fullbacks. I mean, I love the Nebraska fullback.

it's got to be the right guys. And I'm trying to stay away from it, but there will be tight-in week. Absolutely be tight-in week. Are you kidding me, man? You got to have, for Nebraska, you can have probably two or three full-back weeks, but you probably have to have at least four tight-in weeks,

which give us plenty of time. What's the difference in those two rooms? Between the full-back room and the tight-room? Full-back is responsible more for, blocking for the running back, of course, but also just destroying the linebacker. He is the up-the-gut guy. He is kind of a personal protector, if you will.

Tight-in, on the other hand, it has to kind of be a jack-of-all-trade. You have to be smart enough to understand how to double block, how to combo block, how to set the edge. We were talking about setting the edge with Jay. You got to know how to set that edge.

I got to know how to outflank Jay if he's been taught to go and not give up the outside and I've been taught to take the outside away no matter how far he runs up the field, I have to run out at his outside shoulder in order to defeat that. And then tight ends,

we had to just do things on the fly, you know? If that block, if that linebacker in there, that middle backer we were supposed to be picking up and down blocking on, if he gets caught up in the wash, then we go to the safety. You go straight up,

to the safety. Well, but that's, that's that, that creative thinking, if this than that, if this than that, you know, let's say your edged center and your tackle inside takes a loss, you've got to bail on your responsibility, clearly edge so the tackle can get up field and get to your guy. But that is a different kind of thought than players are playing with now. Well, now, because this time, I don't know, again, they, they live. look to the sideline to figure out what they're supposed to do instead of already knowing.

We already knew what we were supposed to do based on the play call. And if the quarterback, like Tommy said, when he was a senior, 80% of the time, he audible. Think about that. 80% of the time. His senior year, 80%, he had enough, coach gave him enough latitude and longitude that 80% of the time, If the play call was a 43 dive and he got up there and he saw that he had nine people in the box, it's probably not a good place to run the 43 dive. But if we go 52, which if they're on an all-out blitz, you sneak the tight-in out on a little,

like a little two-yard out route and all we needed to get was one or a touchdown. I mean, he was smart enough to put us in that play. Is today's game allowing of that college quarterback? They're dumbing down the players. That's what I feel. Well, I'm saying, is it being done at the level that Tommy Frazier was doing it? He was actually coming up and making decisions on the actual play call. Yeah.

It wasn't a check with me situation. No, no check with me stuff. It was not check with me. It was 43 dive passes to play. Tommy get up there and see, you know, 43 dive were going to the left. Well, maybe they've got seven defense. on the left and only three on the right. Identifying Mike.

Yeah, to go through that. Two opposite call, right? Okay. So the quarterbacks were called to know what was going on and they had to look at it. They had to find it in their mind and they had to say, is this a good play to run? So what we see now, offenses come to the line of scrimmers. They line up. They've been in the huddle.

So you're only getting four, and base base call. You're taking the element of surprise to me out from underneath the players because any time you have to get up to the line of scrimmage, you should be looking to see your keys. You shouldn't have your attention taken off of your keys. But then they do the fake simulation.

Then they all stand up and look over at their group coach. Not good. And then they go through, and then it's either we're going to run what we ran. In the NFL, you hear the kill call, but at college you don't hear that because there's a coordinator or a coach on the side who's giving everybody the signal for the blockers.

Here's the blocking scheme you're going to use. Receivers. If we're in route combinations, this is the combination we're going to use. If it's receivers and we're going to run the ball, what their assignments are, running back, what your assignments are, the game isn't organic anymore. No.

You're teaching plays and not teaching them how to play. Yeah, well, if you got to look to the side, just think about this. You got, what, is it 30-second clock now? Is that right? You got a 30-second clock. Get up to the line of scrimmings because we always wanted to snap the ball with 15 to 17 seconds left on the clock. So, you know, you're talking about we're going, going, going. So you get out there, play clock is going.

You have to get up there, run to the line, boom, look over to the sideline, change the play. all right they change the play now you got to rethink what you just thought now it's it's not organic to be able to see what you're doing because now you're getting up to there and you're going well you don't know okay have you identified who the mic is have you what's their strong side what are they defending what are they trying to take away uh how are they going to cover whatever this is no matter how you line up if you want if you line up in triplets defensive backs have different responsibilities out linebackers now are coverage play.

Players don't have to decipher that now. The coaches are doing that from the eye in the sky and from a play call on the side. And I think that's what's taking the college football play. That's why everybody is kind of grouped. There's no real, like, you've got those upper echelons teams,

three or four teams, and then you got everybody else. And then you've got a three and nine team that can play with a 12 and 2 team. That never really has. But now that you've got, if everything is given the same, now athletic ability takes place over. And but the resources are everywhere. Like money's everywhere.

And so when people talk about a three and 19, if you're a three 19, there are a lot of things that had to go wrong for you to be a three and 19 in this day and age. Same for basketball. That's a, you know, it's not exclusive to Nebraska or a program. There are programs around the country where the guys who used to play the game, at a certain way have evolved. My question is have they evolved for the better or for the worse? Is the evolution of having guys like you and J who have played in a certain era at a certain standard? And then you're around young people who may not share your medal.

They may not share your standard. Can you guys get to this place where you can communicate with today? athlete to perform at the level that you did. Oh, I think so. I think, I mean, anytime you, it's infectious. People see the energy that you breed and, and the confidence that you breed,

and it becomes infectious. There's always one person that can say one thing to you that can change your life based on that one thing that they told you if you hold on to that one thing. So I think the former players who have a wealth of knowledge, And by the way, our all grown men, some of us have grandkids, some of us have kids, you know, we've been there, we live life, we've made our mistakes. But now when you, you know, you come an older man, sometimes you look at things a lot differently.

So the things that we learn back then can still be taught today. Well, that's just, that's like I tell my daughter this all the time. I made the mistakes so you don't have to. and what makes her intelligent is for her to go, okay, I need to accept that. That he's not boundering me for some nefarious reason. He's simply saying, look, I already did that. I already bumped my, I stub my toe there.

Don't you go and stub your toe. But you guys are now parents. What I'd like to see is that generation of players that their young people are now playing for Nebraska. Well, you have to have, that's the tie-in that's missing. I think that's the missing key to Nebraska football and getting back to the greatness is having the former players in the room, having the former players just sitting at practice,

having the former players sitting in the meeting rooms, not to be in the other. I don't know if they have to be in the room or practice, but I think having them as a resource. Another thing that when a player bounces to the extreme of their boundaries, that there's a knowledgeable, positive thinking, experienced Husker player to reinforce that, wait, this is a space you shouldn't be in, and here's why. Yeah, but.

Like to know to come to you, right? It was like with Kobe yesterday. you are affecting Kobe just by simply giving him another resource to go to. I'd be more effective with Kobe at practice because I can see what's going on. I don't disagree. That's why I go to practice. Yeah. And I can see, okay, I might need to just tweak one little thing in his mindset, not in his basketball game.

It's never the physical stuff. Yeah, it's the mindset. It's how they process. How they think. What makes them tick? And so I would like to see that part. That's why I say having former players at practice, first of all, it makes the players that's actually there playing be like,

oh, that guy played, oh, that guy played. Oh, that guy played. Oh, that's a three-time champion. Well, they should know you, though. My big issue is that they don't know you. But that's because they haven't made-Calahan. Okay, we talked Callahan on Jay Show, right? Okay, so in old school, Callahan made it, he made it kind of off-limits.

for us to come around. So that was the beginning of the end, and I don't know. How is it with Scott in charge and Trev in charge, former Huskers of note? How have they not rebuilt the bridge? I think Trev and Scott, they're trying to rebuild that bridge. I think that's something that they're working. I know Trev for sure is working on. I know he wants to make sure that we, as former players,

we get and take care of a little bit better than we have. And I don't think in a couple of things. So we'll get to the text line. First, Sanderson says Vichron was the fullback at one point, correct? Yes, he was. I thought his memory was getting bad. I'm like, no, no, Dave, we got you. Dusty says what up?

DP and Vijay, had to tell you, a random D-Walk yesterday at Walmart. The guy was super impressive. I've been high on him since the start of the season and we'll be rooting for him even harder now. I really hope they can get things together. That's another young cat. Derek Walker from the basketball team.

He's their captain. overachiever, extraordinary young man. There's another guy I want to get in front of you because that's your kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of kind of spirit and how you approach things. Tiny Pig says this. Could a bunch of ex-players at practice lead to overcoaching? Negative.

I get that you... I didn't say coach. I said, show up. Well, presence. Presence. Presence. Presence. Chearing guys on when they make great plays,

letting them feel the energy of practice. Because remember, our practices was harder than games. So I'm not saying that we need to be out there telling kids, hey, you didn't do that technique right, and you didn't do this, you didn't do that. No, that's what the coaches get paid for. But to have, it's just like anybody else who has a child that's playing a sport. If you don't go to the sport to support them, if you don't go to the game and they look in the stands, they got nobody there in their mind,

What am I playing for? Well, it's a big part of Alabama, you watch Alabama game. There are NFL dudes up and down the sideline. All time. Like all the time. LSU. Miami, LSU, Dota Dame,

those folks were there and they're there. It's not just certain players. It's a bunch of people. And it, it ironizes the fraternity. Right? Knowing that it's not just one and done. It's not just three and done.

that this is family long term, that those people still are around the program. Yeah, and I'm being facetious, Tiny Pig, D.P., I'm about to be facetious. We need to get overcoached right now. I'm being facetious, Tiny Pig, we need to get over. Listen, more coaching the better right now. I'm talking now. I think some exceptional opportunities there just in reinforce. what the coaching staff is asking for.

Because I get players that ask, well, hey, you know, they're saying I need to get them playbooked. I think I know it. No, you need to listen to what they said. But I can go with you if you need another place. Because sometimes it's the familiar voice that they shut down on. They don't want to hear it anymore. They don't hear that voice.

They don't recognize it. They feel like they're smarter than the people who are in those coaching spots. but you guys are there to reinforce what the coach is asking for. You're not going to ask for them to do anything against the program. Negative. You're going to ask for them to do the thing that's good for them because you know what's good for them. You know what's going to work for them.

And I just think throughout the programs, like I don't know that I see it. I love it. I don't see it on basketball either. I asked a former player like, hey, do you guys get together with the, basketball players. Well, they're finally going to have, they're going to have an alumni weekend. And Tony Farmer was the one that told me.

He said, they're having an alumni weekend February 4th here in Lincoln. Yeah, but nobody knows. Nobody knows. Nobody knows. I'll share him with you the message. It was like, I'm here. I don't even know. And he was like, yeah, like, we're trying to figure out what to do with hotels and

have a meeting place and restaurants to eat. And I said, you know, Tony's thing is, well, apparently something's going on because the pricing, hotel pricing is crazy. I'm like, bra, you got a room at my crib. So you ain't got to worry about it. But get to town and then get to work because, you know, Chubuk's around the program. Pikes around the program because there's, you know,

they had young people, Pike has people around the program. But, DP, that's my problem, though, okay? Is the problem that I, that exists for me is there were other guys besides the NBA, NFL, guys who meant more to the program that don't get the respect that they deserve. Because it's not just the Grant Winstroms. It's not just the Jason Peters. It's not just those guys who helped this program to be great. It was everybody that embodied 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, moving forward.

And then you go back to the 80s. You go back to the 70s. All those guys instituted 1.000. what we were as Nebraska football. We don't know anymore because, again, you had Cali Ann come in and flip it all the way upside down. Well, once it was flipped upside down, you lost all types of tradition.

How do you get that tradition back? You got to have somebody who knows. And you've got to get your bearings, right? The worst thing for you underwater is when you flip around and you've got to recalibrate and figure out, okay, which way is up and how I'm going to get there. I thought with Trev and Scott originally that they would get together and then hit the reset button. Like I actually thought this was going to be a reset.

Like, okay. We explain reset. So to know the space that you're in, in order for you to determine what the ultimate priority is for the program, you have got to say what the mandatory must have steps are in order. You also have to determine what is the goal. What is the mission of this program and then the next team? And it's in that order. It's you honor the program and then you get to level of coaching the team.

Right? Because the program means a standard is set already in place. for minimum things that are allowed, coach, and accepted within the program. There's so many things that's been flipped upside down that Trev has to recalibrate that it's not going to get fixed in six months. Okay, but that's why we have the discussion.

That Trev has come in and said that winning is top of the pyramid. And I like to ask that question all the time. What's the pecking order of Nebraska athletics and Nebraska football. Is it winning at the top of the pyramids? You imagine the John Wooden Pyramid of Success. At the very top of it is the thing that matters most.

Most. And then you have to ask the question. Is it the check riders that make decisions behind the scenes? Is it the fans? Is it the 30,000 boosters that you ask the important questions about how the stadium should work? Is it the student athletes? Is it the academic requirements and the standards that you set there?

Is it Lincoln as a community? Is it the alumni base? And then all of those things make your pyramid, what's the thing that overrides? When that thing goes wrong, that everything else has to be rechecked. And it has to be winning because winning cures all the other stuff. You get more checks when you win.

The fan base is happier. The student athletes are living and experiencing a greater level of success. The alumni are more connected and they're more positive. If you're losing at the top of it, it affects money. Money is another thing that has to be a part of the pyramid. It's money at the top of it, right? Because if you start making decisions where money is the priority, then you get into a situation where it's, well, I'm not satisfied with the winning.

So I got to make a decision. And if money is either the reason why you get into a thing or the reason you get out of a thing, then you've made money that priority over winning. That's been the problem, though, over years that we have opened up our wallet and our checkbook to coaches who not necessarily prove themselves, and we gave them proven money. And I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm talking, I'm going back now. Okay. Okay.

And then because of whatever reason, I mean, you go to a Bo Polini, and no matter how you cut the cheese, right, I bet you, if you ask fans and fans, look, get in with us, Sider-Hamond Text Line 464-5-6-8-5, would you rather have kept a nine-win Boe-Polini for the last 10 years? Or,

Mike Riley and then kind of what we're doing now. Okay, and I'm just talking I'm just talking numbers. I'm talking wins and losses. You can ask that question, and unfortunately, for Nebraska family base, what I found out is you have to ask that question without speaking the names of the coaches, but simply about the facts about the coaches.

Like, I'm a fan. I hear the facts behind coaches. I can love Fred Heidelberg and still say, this record isn't good enough, right? Like that's fair, that's simple. But the standard was with 10 miles and before that, listen, 19 wins wasn't good enough. 20 plus wins because some things, other things became the priority,

rather than you honoring the thing that you built in your pyramid that said this is what's most important. Because winning allows for a whole lot of other things to take place. You say to keep the names of the coaches out of it and all that stuff. If this is something I just thought of, if the same records and the same results and everything had been happening, the Bo tenure, but it was Mike Riley as the head coach,

would people have been as upset with how Mike Riley and everything and how people were like, oh, he doesn't do this, he's too nice, he does this. And then with Bo Pellini, it was, oh, well, he hates the face, He has freakouts on the sidelines. He's making Nebraska look bad. If the nine wins and the blowouts to Wisconsin, Ohio State, whatever, happened, and it was Mike Riley as the head coach, what's the take away from that?

I'll go a step further. And we'll go to break, and I'll let people ponder it. You guys will have time on the text line to get your text in. And then Vashon can tell us what really think. But I imagine that you had Pellini, but you had Tom Osborne's record. Would it have been okay? Like would you have Well, but that's

That's that's That's exactly my point. People get caught up in And you mess up You get caught in the wash Speak to the thing that's most important About what you're trying to do And then identify why you're trying to do it

And as soon as this program gets back to that It'll it'll straighten itself out The problem is there's so many people muddling the waters with agendas and narratives rather than dealing with the thing you're supposed to be dealing with first. We'll talk about that when we come back. Frasb is here.

Rico is here. I'm D.P. You're listening to 101 on 937 The Ticket. Download our app by searching 93.7 the ticket in your app store. You're listening to one-on-one with DP on 937 The Ticket in the Ticketfm.com.