1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Nebraska Men's Tennis Coach Peter Kobelt Deciphers Coach Speak: July 30th, 12:25pm

Episode Date: July 30, 2025

Nebraska Men's Tennis Coach Peter Kobelt Deciphers Coach SpeakAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Listening to one-on-one with DP, brought to by Canopy Street Market on 93-7 the ticket and the ticketfm.com. I, you know, I think this thing needs to happen. This idea keeps obsessing me that at some point, some fan or some Husker tennis player paints his face. Like the ultimate warrior and plays a match. Just goes all the way. I don't know. Coach is like, no. No, DP, don't do that.

I was going to say. Put that out in the universe. Peter Cobalt, Huskers, tennis, joins us in studio one-on-one. And it's the thing that if, that as a coach

in the program, a program leader, as an former athlete, that you understand when people start talking to the media. One, it's a necessary, fair quotes, evil. Because people will take from it what they want to take from it. But the idea,

it is, It is your chance as a coach to get in front of the media and kind of set the table. Sometimes it's setting a North Star. Sometimes it's redirecting. Sometimes it's rebranding. Sometimes it's planning to see to say, this is the thing you need to be looking at or this is the thing I want you to look at. So camp starts, football camp starts,

and the media days are there and I'm a part of it. So you stand in the pool. I try to have to ask questions in that space because quite frankly, I've got different curiosities than a lot of the reporters who have to write beat stuff. Sure. I look at it from the coaching standpoint, not from the media standpoint. What are you telling me? And if I said that, what it would mean, what it would mean.

So, Bob, if you would, please, can you give Coach Cobalt a little coach Matt Rule? Yeah, this is Matt Rule with asking, talking about having a player-led team. Yeah. Yeah, so when they say player-led, I think it's not like they're saying, like, hey, I think we should practice there or not. Like, I think it's really important to say that. You know, what player-led means is like, hey, we have a process. What we've, oh, it's not the schedule.

Just process for us means like, hey, we're going to attack everything that we can control and hope that that helps us have good win outcomes. And then there's standards in the program. Like, hey, I expect you to do this. I expect you to do this. And what happens all of us is like, you know, we do the standard until we're tired of doing it or it's hard or something we don't think, well, why am I doing this? And what we want is we want players who enforce the standards.

They're like, no, no, this is what we do. And in today's world, players love to, they love to lead through performance. They like to defuse leadership. Like, hey, we all kind of come together. And there's not a lot of like, hey, I'm going to come up to you and say this. And so in year three, what you hope is that they're like, hey, I want to win. I'm tired of losing. It's not all this other stuff.

It's all of us doing the right thing every day. And so it's who's going to be willing to tell someone that they care about or another great player, hey, stop doing that. That's not what we do. Let's do this. Or, hey, I need you to do this. And so when they're willing to have hard, conversations with each other, when they're willing to hold each other accountable, that's,

that's player leadership. And not when things are easy, but when things are hard, you know, I gave an example to them. I have no mind saying it to you guys. Like, it was 13-6 last year against Ohio State. We were losing at halftime. And it was like a revival in our locker room. They were so excited.

They were like, freaking, you know, Johnny just made that kick. And they're like, we're going to come back and win this game. We almost did. And then the next week, it was 13-7 against UCLA and run off the field. People are booing, which we get, right? And we're in the locker room. And it was like literally like, I mean, I was up there like, I was praying, but I'm like, I was like trying to like, come on, guys.

I'm just sad. Gosh, what's happening to us? And nothing happens to you in football. Like you take control of it and you run with it. Right. So it's like, but I think looking back, they're like, well, why were they different? Well, because we're listening to everything else instead of just what's our standard. No matter what the score is, we keep playing.

We find a way. And you know what's crazy about that game? It was then 20 to 7. And it was then 27 to 7. And then we came back. We had a ball in two minute. You know, Heinrich came out there and made a chance to go tie the game to win it. So it's like, but you have to sometimes go through those things to learn, like, just keep playing.

And that's, you know, I can say that until I'm blue in the face, players don't listen to coaches. They listen to each other. Okay. And at the end of the day, like, they listen to each other. You know, they hear me 20 minutes a day. They hear you guys a lot in social media. They listen to fans of social media and they hear each other. So it's like, man, you guys have got to do a great job of saying, like, hey, guys, keep playing, keep playing.

And so I like where we're at in that regard. Let me say that. I like where we're at. I mean, you know, they're doing it. Just can we do it? Continue to it at a higher and higher and higher level. Coach Kobo, what's your reaction in response to it? Well, first of all, I think we're really lucky to have a head coach like a coach rule,

not just from all of experience, but his willingness to be so open to the media. Not every coach is like that. So I think he's very secure. and confident with what he's trying to do and his method and his coaching staff. And so I think he's more willing to talk and open and share everything. So I think he's very, when he speaks, he's being very genuine and he's trying to give you as much information as he thinks he should. And so I would just start by that.

But yeah, I think he's right. I think, you know, there's the quote that says when there's no leadership, you have a bad team when you're when when when the team's led by the coaches you have a good team and when you have uh the players leading the program you have a great team so um that's what clearly that's what he's been trying to do the last two years obviously he spoke at the big 10 media days i try and watch a little bit of that too uh because i learn a lot from coach rule just from how he speaks now he handles everything but um he was like yeah when when he first got here it wasn't a great job and he was having to be the leader you know the coaching staff was having to be a leader and i

think they've been good the past two years and I think he's actually really excited about this year's team. I can tell he feels way more excited about this year's team because there's a lot of that leadership being done outside of the coaching staff by his guys. So I think he's had some, you know, this is third year. And I think when you refer to the mat rule like year one, year two, year three, year fourth thing, I think it has a lot to do with with this, meaning that he's got people that he's been around now for two and a half, three years that have bought into the program that see the evolution of, you know, in the weight room, you know, and just the whole 360 view of the program, they can see how things are changing and there's real belief in that locker

room. And I can feel it as a coach and you get excited, obviously, they still got to go out there and play and win. But, but yeah, I mean, in terms of, are they getting better? Absolutely. are they getting better so you have some similarities in the in the duration that time of that rule year three peter coval sure you've gone through in the rebranding we talked about the rebranding that frankly you've reached a point where there's some people you don't want to lose to anymore and that's a big part of the message how difficult is it to change a program a player or group of players mental image of the program that they're responsible for like to tell somebody it's one thing for you to be a division one tennis player.

Another thing for you to be a big 10 champion caliber tennis player. Now it's quite frankly, we just need to be the best us. How do you process that? How do you get that into your people? Yeah, I think you just do, it's a day by day thing. Every day, you speak, you talk about it. You're all about it every single day. And I think that's coaches talk or whatever.

It sounds cheesy. But I think if you want to change your habits, if you want to change who you are, if you want to create this image of where the Big Ten champions, it starts by believing in it one day and then coming back the next day and believing in again and talking about it and believing it again. And over time, it's who you become and who you are. So I think it takes time. And I think that's why I'm excited with football.

this year is just Matt's had time now here so he's he's had his chance to kind of get his hands on everything and to mold the program how he knows a successful program's supposed to look and and you know that's that's what we're trying to do with the tennis program too is say hey like we're going to take these guys that have bought into Nebraska that love Nebraska that fit our mold here and we're going to make them believe you know every single day that we're doing everything that we can to be big 10 champs and I I truly believe that if, you know, it has to first come for me, the head coach, and then our staff has to believe it 100%.

We have the right staff. You know, I hope to God I'm the right head coach, but I believe I am. And then it's about, you know, getting all nine or ten of our guys every day to come to practice and work like we're trying to win the Big Ten title today. I think that's an important thing. You can't win it. You can't win the Big Ten title until the end of the year, but you can work like you, like you are every day.

I think you can lose it in the all season. 100%. Oh yeah. You can lose it. You may not be able to win it in July, but you can certainly lose it by habit and happenstance. I think it's interesting, right, that to talk about what and changing a program,

changing the culture of a program. And you mentioned Matt Ruhl saying, well, the football program wasn't what it should be. Like it may not be the best job. well, the Nebraska tennis coaching job, maybe not on the list of sexy jobs, but you're turning it into a program. You're turning it into a culture.

Like that takes work, and you can't do that by accident. Sure. No. Like you're making this a sexy job again, and the program is getting exposure for all the right reasons. Well, I think it's important, you know, there's things that we're in control of

and there's things that we're not in control. So for me, it's important to, be able to control the controllables, which is how is our team practicing every day? Are they, is there a good, you know, is the team close? Can we, you know, I believe if you have a really close team, you're going to have success when, because I think in the biggest moments, when things are going bad, having a really tight team that cares and loves tennis that loves Nebraska, you're going to be able to get them to come back and the seasons long and things happen. So I think that's super important. But I would also say, um, with the,

changes that are happening in college sports. And I think just Nebraska is very well positioned for the future. And those are things that aren't in my control. But I tend to see, I give the iceberg illusion. From the outside, it may not look like Nebraska is the best tennis coaching job in the country at the tip of the iceberg. But if you go underwater and, you know, the water, you know, that's going to be. You know, that part of the iceberg, I hope, is eventually seen. But underneath the water, Nebraska is in a really good spot.

There's a lot to be excited about for Nebraska tennis, in my opinion. So I'm quite fortunate to be in the position that I'm in. I think this is a diamond and a rough job looking at it now. I think there's no better place to be for the next, you know, in the future, five or ten years down the road. I think people are going to view this job a little bit differently, in my opinion. But do you have another clip for Coach Cobalt to speak out? Sure.

Here's what the coach rule said he was looking for and the players during this period of time. Yeah, that's a great question. You know, we told the guys exactly what we want. You know, it's a six-day ramp-up acclamation period with a seventh day of rest. So, you know, we want to obviously establish our sort of our standard of effort. You know, we don't have a lot of time to coach effort.

We have a good enough. One of the reasons why you don't have to coach is when you have a lot of depth by competition. If you don't want to play hard, then so be it. We want to reward the guys who know what they're doing. You know, so assignment knowledge. So a lot of testing in the meetings, a lot of, hey, how much did you work, you know, over the summer?

How well do you know what you're supposed to do? We want to keep them healthy. You know, most injuries happen. Most soft tissue injuries happen after the first week, beginning of the second week. So we're trying to ramp up and build up where we're not doing too much. And then we want to establish our practice standards, you know, the way We want to practice everything from like the gear that we wear to when we get into contact, how to make contact with guys, how to hold the ball, ball security to pre-snap penalties.

So all the things that we can control, we're trying to teach this what we can do. And then finally, situational football. You know, we did Dana had them out there. They were doing two minutes, you know, today on offense. We know the games are going to come down in the Big Ten to the last minute of the game. And so we're at a point now where we can really focus on the situational FBI. So that's several things. But some are football and some are just related to the standards.

Coach, what resonates? Yeah, I mean, he said there was a lot of good points in there. But I think, I mean, what all did he talk about again? It was like, you know, what they're trying to do right now at the beginning of the season. I mean, it's tough. He's got to manage, you know, 120 dudes. And I don't know how many coaches that he has. But getting him ready, I feel like.

you know, they've been getting ready up until this point. Getting them ready is more like for him, I feel like at this point, he's, that he knows a lot about his team right now. He likes what his team's doing right now. Now it's about getting them organized, doing some of these basic things that that you need to do at this time in the year to get everyone on board. But I think he knows which guys are, you know, are, well, I like to say dogs, the ones that are going to do all the work, that love the game, that love Nebraska,

are studying all the film that are doing things the right way. Maybe there's a few new guys that he's still, you know, learning that about. But I would assume he has a pretty good idea by this time. Who's in 100% and who's in 99%. So I'm a big believer. If you're 99% in, you're not, you're not trying. You're either 100% or you're not. So once you take the toothpaste out of the, you know, the tube, it ain't getting back in.

So you're either 100% in or you're not. So I think Matt has a pretty good idea of what he's got. I think he's excited about what he's got. And I think Husker Nation should be excited about what he's got. Obviously, this is the Big 10. In the Big 12, there's no Penn State. There's no Ohio State. There's none of these huge teams in the way.

So I think it's going to take time for them to continue to push past all these teams ahead of them. They're all trying to stay there. So this isn't an easy thing that he's that he's trying to do that the football team's trying to do. So they're good. I truly believe deep down they're going to be better this year. Matt, I don't want to put any extra pressure on you, my man. Pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure, from where I'm sitting, you're doing an unbelievable job. You got the entire athletic department's support and we're excited to see what's coming this fall.

I agree with you there. I'm excited about what's happening. And again, this is training camp week one. lots of wars to get into the water, but I think purpose and mission are intact. We'll go to break, we'll come back. I will close out with coach, but a couple of things in play,

because we're going to go through the Husker football schedule. I'm just going to have coach pick wins and losses. Oh, boy, here we go. Huskers are going undefeated. There we go. Listen, I fully there. And then there's an announcement that involves men's tennis

that we will share with you as well, some good news within the Husker men's tennis program. coach Peter Cobalt DP one-on-one. We'll be right back.