1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Nebraska tennis coach Peter Kobelt, why teams are skipping bowls: December 9, 11:00am

Episode Date: December 9, 2025

Nebraska tennis coach Peter Kobelt joins the show. Why schools are skipping bowl games. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hey, what's up y'all? Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. My favorite thing about the holidays? Decking out my whole house. It's not a competition, but if it was, well, I'd win the season with Wayfair. Outdoor inflatable Santa? Got it on Wayfair. Trees, lights and ornaments? Wayfair. Hosting must-havs, like dining sets, beds, sheets, and towels. Wayfair. For everything in your style delivered with fast and free shipping, visit Wayfair.com or the Wayfair app to win the season. But again, it's not a competition. 4-73313 or visit our website at windowworldlincoln.com. Windowworld Lincoln, where quality meets affordability. This is Lincoln's home for sports talk on the FM dial. Also online at the ticketfm.com.

On the internet. KNTK FM Firth, 937 the ticket. It's time to go one-on-one with D.P. Coming at you live from the heart of Lincoln America, a 93-7 the ticket and the ticket FM.com. Here is your host, Derek Pearson, brought to by Canopy Street Market. It is. Yeah, come on a hot, hot box.

It is 11.02 in the city, 11.03 currently, uh, 44 degrees. We're going to get to 54 degrees today. 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock. handle your business. High of 54. Get it in. Whatever you're going to do. 402,

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Lots to talk about it in the hour. I got a special guest in studio as usual on Tuesdays. But first, first, Bach, kank sir, if you would please pay the bills. Yes, today's show is sponsored by Hamilton Telecommunications, bringing you the latest quality technology and communication services since 1901. Whether it's residential or business, Hamilton has the answer. Visit hamiltontel.com for more info today.

Thank you, kind sir, Bach. How the heck are you? Mr. Gray hoodie? What are you doing over there? Oh, not too bad. It's enjoying a nice day, like you said. A good day for a weather update. There we go. Well done. What's in your water? It's tea. I'm on a sugar diet. So this is sugarless tea. Sugarless tea. Yes. Who hurts you? Well, the first time my wife got pregnant, I gained about 10 pounds of sympathy weight. So my goal is to not do that this time. Correct. Well done.

Bach, go ahead and gain the 10, bro. You have every dude's dream. You have permission to gain weight. Like, you have the past, man. It's what happens. Let's bring him in. Head coach, Nebraska tennis, Peter Cobalt. Coach, what's happening with you?

What's up, D.P.? What's up, Bach? Yeah, I agree with the D.P. Bach. That's why they called a dad, bud. Yeah. Or they called it dad, bud. Yeah.

Like, this was, you know, and I waited. I waited a long time. I wait until, like, I was 35. Like, I waited late in the game to get the dad by. I was still out here running the streets, man. I was trying to play softball and flag football and be, like, semi-pro. Nonsense, I tell you, nonsense. I'm still paying the bills, man.

That's why I have all this meddle in me. I should have settled in and just gone fat dad. I'd have been cool. I'd have been cool. My son's already pointed out my belly, so that also is a little bit of a motivation. Oh, no, but you're supposed to giggle like the Pillsbury Doughboy. He's only doing what he saw on TV. He saw the pook, the doughboy to giggles.

Just giggle, Bach. That gives you permission. It is full, full, full that in this day and age, again, one of the joys, and I'm grateful that Coach Cobalt comes in to share wisdom and knowledge, just to give insight to, we get in our vacuums of how we talk about different things. in sports. And sometimes you just want somebody to come and go, okay, there's another way.

Or here's how we think about it. And whether it's validation or educating, right? You're either informing or performing, and we understand that. But that in this day and age of Transfer Portal, NIL, and now college football, where the story is that bowl games are being set aside for a variety of reasons.

And I want to go to a coach. in the system to say that or to ask coach if your team was invited to play in a tournament at the end of the season into the season what are the things that would would jump to the head of the of your brain in your decision making as to why why to take it or why not to take loaded question that's why i loaded it on purpose there you go dp gun's loaded no i would say it kind of as a head coach you're kind of trying to analyze what kind of team you have and what kind of team you have coming back next year and i think nowadays with the all the money going around trying to analyze your financial situation as well

too and who you're going to be able to bring in who you're going to be able to retain so i'm guessing you're alluding to notre dame and the decision they made to not go to a bowl game That's why you're a program lead, sir. After being a snubbed from the playoffs. So I think there's a few things that go in. Probably Marcus Freeman's like, look, I got a young team. All these guys are coming back. The guys that are leaving, you know, natural attrition to the program.

Yeah, as a coach, you always want more practice time, more time, more reps with your guys. So he must feel pretty confident with his team going forward, knowing that, you know, okay, we don't have this extra practice time. And then there's always the, you know, why am I going to, you know, we're going to have guys leaving. We're going to have guys sitting out to get healthy. So we have some really good players that are not playing right now and they're going to get reps in this bowl game. And if one or two of them have a good game, then we've got to worry about retaining them now too or else, you know, they're going to be picked off by some of these other programs that are looking for players. So I don't know.

I think there's a little bit of the, we got snubbed at the last minute and the CFP. process was kind of you know not in their favor at the very last second when it looked like it was for most of the for most of the show but I think there's some logical things

that they did Hey what's up y'all Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair my favorite thing about the holidays decking out my whole house it's not a competition but if it was well I'd win the season with Wayfair outdoor inflatable Santa got it on Wayfair Trees, lights, and ornaments, Wayfair.

Hosting must-havs like dining sets, beds, sheets, and towels, Wayfair. For everything in your style delivered with fast and free shipping, visit Wayfair.com or the Wayfair app to win the season. But again, it's not a competition. Wayfair, every style, every home. In terms of just maintaining their program and, you know, okay, like we have a good team coming back and we don't need to practice. And it's more valuable to keep these guys here than it is to get. two more, three more, four more weeks of practice in before a bowl game later on in the year.

As the program lead and as the coach, yeah, there is some concern about giving exposure to your unprotected players, right? But you're Notre Dame. You're Notre Dame. You're not going to have any problem reaching into the transfer portal. You're not going to have reaching a problem explaining your brand to football players across the country. You're not going to have any problem identifying to parents who you are and why you should come and play in front of touchdown Jesus and where the golden dough. So what are you afraid of exactly?

And is that is that leadership that you can get behind? You know, I don't honestly know. Like it's just it's all speculation. And that's what, you know, more or less we're doing here too. Yeah. But I think Marcus Freeman, he was a he played at Ohio State. I played at Ohio State. That part.

He played for Jim Tressel. I was there. I was in college when Jim Tressel was there. So they value culture and they value team connection and everything like that. So I think he's like, yeah, we could probably go and get a guy or two in the portal and they probably will, just like everyone will. But I think it's harder and harder to build the team culture if you're swapping guys in and out. And I don't know. Maybe there's other things going on.

always stuff going on that no one knows about. So maybe that's just what they felt, what the right decision was. I think they said the team also didn't want to play, according to the statement they put out. Like it's the, they signed it as the Notre Dame football team. I don't know. But all I know is that it's not ever a simple answer. There's probably a multitude of things going into it.

And Coach Freeman, I think is a great coach. And he's obviously done a great job at Notre Dame since he's taken over. and he's probably making what he thinks is the best decision for the program. So you kind of got to go with it. Let's remove Notre Dame from the discussion. Sure. And then say that if we say that we're worried about players who are going to worry about the draft status, right? We also know that 98% of the players on Notre Dame's roster aren't going to play in the NFL.

Yeah. that of the 22 starters on either side of the ball, that the likelihood is that three of them will be drafted and make some manageable money in the draft, right? So that's the replacement factor. Everybody else, all the juniors, sophomores, freshmen, who have gone to practice, got their heads kicked in, got cuckus, bumps, bruises, broken bones, etc.

an opportunity for them to do the thing that they were brought to campus to do, which is to play football. And for any athlete out there that at the end of your run, and at some point there's an end of your run. For sure. And if you're not one of the elite, that top 3%, then having control over the last time you play a game is a vital, valuable thing. that shouldn't be taken away from people yeah 100% i think uh i think uh there's there's a lot

of different components that go into it and that's that's definitely one of them you're taking one more game one more one more um chance to put film out there for for for the for the draft for nfl scouts you know you name it um you know at the same time i feel like yeah there there's not a whole lot of loyalty going back and forth from either end so at this point it's like hey we got to do what's best for the program and and yeah well you whatever you know i have a message or three three different things on my board in in my office and says you can never make no matter how hard you try you can never make everybody happy that's a part of leadership so you know whatever the coach is and whatever the program is they're going to have to

make a decision and there's going to be some people that um are happy with it and there's some people that that aren't and that's just kind of how leadership goes and so you kind of you try to do the best for the most um the best for the program you know every decision i make as a head coach i take i try and take everything personal out of it and i say hey look we got to make the the decision that's going to best suit the program and that's how you got to live with it and that's just the way it is and you know it's real easy for these guys to say hey all right well i'll go somewhere else then to play it's coach it's a big part of what we try to do you day is to have different conversations about some of the things that happen around sports.

Yep. And most of the time, these are life decisions. These aren't really, these are humanity decisions, right? And head coaches have that duality and that they have the program that they're responsible for and two, right, the people that hired them and all the expectation and rules. And then there is the athlete in that experience. And, the fact that you're asking these people to be a part of your vision for their life going forward, which is a really powerful thing. And I'm not going to ever slight coach Freeman for doing, because I couldn't do what he does.

So I tend to ask the questions that give me, give my curiosity some rest. Sure. Right? That in this, that this is also the time of year where assistant coaches moved. yeah they move some move voluntarily some not so voluntarily yep um i've often said that i would love to be a part of the conversations that happen between head coaches and assistant coaches when they're applying for the job i don't know those are those are tough conversations right because that sets the table That's the GPS, the literal GPS for how a head coach, what he's looking for, what he needs, his blind spots that maybe he wants covered.

He needs somebody that has his back, but that also go nose to nose with him when he's wrong, all of those things in place. So you as a program lead, when you're hiring an assistant coach, what are the things at the top of the list that you want? Do you want friction? Do you want that positive friction, which is, hey, coach, I'm here to make. make you better like I'm here to tell you a thing or add a thing that maybe is missing or I'm just here to support you in whatever you decide I'm here to support that. How does that work for Coach Kobup? Well, I believe it's a it's always a top down approach. So I think if you're the CEO of a company, you have to kind of lead the charge and where the where the company wants to go, needs to go, that sort of thing. And then you have people, I don't want to say below you,

but in the reality, that's what they are that that kind of help you make decisions. and guide the company in the right direction. So, yeah, with tennis, we only have one paid assistant, and then we have a graduate assistant too. And for me, I'm always asking them questions, what do you think about this? What do you think about that? Because I don't always have the right answer.

And it's sometimes when you're the head coach, you're thinking about, you know, this or that. And really, you just need to be focusing on this one thing. And I think we got, you know, Brett, our assistant does an amazing job. And, you know, for him, and I hope he feels like this, but I truly rely on him a lot to make a lot of these big decisions. I have a, and I have an idea of how we need to, to make the decision. And then I'll, I'll just ask him. I mean, what do you think? And most of the time, we, we agree because we see things the same way. But, but I think you got to empower the people

around you. I think that's really important. Give them a lot of responsibility, everything they can handle. You know, Brett does a lot of our recruiting. He understands what we're looking for. And I put a lot of responsibility on his plate there. And hopefully it makes him feel like he's got ownership of what we're doing here. So I think that's a huge part. I think you've got to give people responsibility. I think you got to let them coach. You got to let them work. And that over time that helps them grow and gets them better at their job. And we're going to be able to put out a better product every year because everyone's growing in the program. So I think it starts with me. And then it just moves moves its way.

down the coaching tree there but for me on in our staff we have you know our support staff meetings we have meetings with our just our coaching staff it's not a huge group so everyone's got to be connected everyone's got to be on the same page but it's up to me really to set the tone and the vision for the program it's always interesting again in this time of movement right that in the exit interviews where a decision is made that assistant coach you went through the process So you moved your way up the chain. How much responsibility or credit goes to the head coach who sets up the assistant become their own head coach? Well, from the public's view, it's almost like, from my experience, from the public's view,

and from the university's view, really, it's more for the head coach, which, you know, it's their program. They're the one making all the moves. They're the one hiring and the one that hired me. So I think that's a huge part of coaching is bringing in the right people into your program, players and staff. I think that's a fundamental piece of having success in your program. So that's what the head coach is responsible for. So rightfully so, the head coach should get the most credit. But the pillars of the program are the players and the surrounding coaching staff.

So for me, you know, if we do great, it's all about our players. and our coaches and the supporting coach the supporting staff and then if it goes wrong it's all on me you know because ultimately I'm the one responsible for all the decision making and I press I press the go button after all the decisions are made all the questions are answered and then it's really on my plate if things go bad and if things go great then it's a testament of to the guys and to the other coaches that are doing a phenomenal job so that's your leadership that I mean that literally is why I applaud your leadership time because if something needs fixed you need to lead to fixing and if credit is done you go okay

well we're really good at this we've done a good job at that and I think I'll add one more thing and I think as a as a coach your program should start to take on your personality and who you are and what you want it to be after about two or three years like whether the success or not kind of depends on a multitude of things but just like when you come to practice how hard are the guys practicing what's their mentality like when they go onto the court it takes a year two years three years to kind of get your program to like look the way you want it to from a mental standpoint and so i think this year hopefully with the guys the guys that we have on our team we have some seniors we have some older guys i think this is the going to be last year a little bit

I think we had it. I think this year it'll start to look like a coach it'll hopefully start to look like a team that I'm coaching and I think you know, after two or three years you should be able to tell

what kind of a coach is coaching that team. I think that's fair and I think that's good but Bach and I often have this conversation about time that a coach needs in a program and people will say Nebraska fan, especially football

fan, they're always split about if I hire somebody, I need immediate results because we're the Huskers and we need change now. Then the other third of it is, my goodness gracious, we need to give them three years or four years.

And that is assuming that Coach Cobalt, the people you bring in in year one, stay for three years. That doesn't always happen. That doesn't always, in the transfer portal, coaches may get a head coaching job. There's tons of changes that happen. Is it fair to expect

a coach to come in? And I think Kurt Signetti and Indiana is really kind of flipping the conversation. So what's the fair way to look at this? Is it okay to have the Kurt Signetti, Indiana, hey, I took them from worst to first conversation in a short period of time, or is it, you know what, I need four years of consistency and building my program, or is it both? Yeah, I think every situation is slightly different. so with with coach signetti obviously he's a phenomenal coach they just won the big 10

indiana first time since what 1950 1948 i don't know something like black will find that out so it's tough for other head coaches that are just kind of getting going and um i we i get it but you know he came he came from was it jm you and he brought in 30 40 of his guys with him who knew a system he brought in his entire coaching tree he brought in everybody so it was just it was more like a heart transplant than anything else so i think that got him off to to a really good start had a lot a really good momentum got everyone that wasn't a part of his program to buy into his program right away um which which i think is which i think is huge and and there's there's a there's a there's a you know a bunch of different things you know coach rule came from the panthers and had the rebuild

to staff and, you know, it's, that's, for me, that's hard, you know, getting guys to stay, getting guys the right guys in, getting the right players in, obviously, and then there's the expectations of the program, you know, and Kurt Signetti kind of had to rewire the expectations of the Indiana football program in here. It's like, you know, national title, kind of, or bust, or Big Ten title or bust. So the different pressures that come with each job as well. So, uh, I know coach rule, like we speak from time to time, like he's, He's a phenomenal coach, phenomenal guy, the right leader for what we're trying to do and where we are and everything in today's day and age.

And I know he's going to figure it out. Like I've told you multiple times, year one, year two, year three thing. I think that's kind of, I don't want to say an extinct model because there's so many variables now in college coaching. But like he's going to figure it out. He is figuring it out. He's doing, he's making all the right moves. He has the leadership above him that's helping him.

with everything i you know i would for a husker nation out there for for i don't know the fourth or fifth time i'll come out and say it like we're in good hands and we're moving in the right direction whether or not the record says it or not and things are getting figured out and and coach rules the right guy for the job and we're we're moving in the right direction 100 percent sure i and i'm fascinated by it because a lot of the conversations we've had is to try to get nebraska tennis to be on the level of those elite programs of the Big Ten nationally. And to see

what you've done, like to make tennis relevant here, is a major task. And you've done that. And I don't think you're satisfied with that. I think you really are shooting for the stars. And I'm impressed by that because not everybody would want to do the most.

Not every coach is really built to go, you know what? I'm shooting at the big guys. Like, I'm always impressed by that. I tend to lean away from dudes who go less is better. I'm not a less is better guy, so I don't understand that. So I truly appreciate it. Well, thanks.

Yeah, I mean, it's a big project. Obviously, it's a phenomenal tennis community here in Lincoln. It's not the biggest community, but it's a very strong one here in Lincoln and then also up in Omaha. And we were just out in Carney the end of November doing a clinic out there with the community out there. also another phenomenal tennis community. So there's pockets of it here in Nebraska, and my job as the head coach is to kind of try and rejuice.