1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - State of Big Ten Tennis: December 9, 11:25am

Episode Date: December 9, 2025

Peter Kobelt talks about the talent inside the Big Ten Conference in tennis. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Welcome back. Husker tennis head coach, Peter, come out in the building. We will ask him. And we apologize in advance, bro. You came in here and hang out. You need to be on a hot seat the whole time. Come on, man. Warm that thing up.

They're warming up, Pete. It's the news that D-Line coaches out at Nebraska, and, of course, it doesn't take long in Nebraska for rumors. and speculation over the next thing. And listen, I'm of this ilk when it comes to this microphone and my reputation. I speak to what I know. The speculation part, you know, you can be curious. Like, I'm curious about what I don't know.

But to speak to what I know, and I don't need to be first. I don't need to be first on the microphone. I need to be right. I'm way more interested in getting it right than being first. and that is a puzzlement to some people because they do not understand that there is a responsibility to sitting here, just like

what you speak of, you take full responsibility for what's in play because you represent a bigger program. You represent the University of Nebraska. You represent the athletic department. You represent now the families of all the young people under your charge.

You're representative and responsible for all the coaches and all the people that work for you. So in the space, and people immediately start talking about, well, who's going to replace. That'll happen in time. All that'll be clear. Like, we don't have enough answers. We haven't heard from the new defensive coordinator yet.

So I'll wait. Come tell me what you're going to do. And then I'll still wait because we've had recent coaches changes recently that didn't work out. And you can go throw confetti and march up and down the street because you got a new coach. Or you got rid of an old coach. But the reality is, in the result, is the truth. And if you tell me that you sign somebody, my first question is going to be,

are they going to help you beat Indiana? They're going to help you beat Ohio State. And that's a, that is a, but that is a, that is a line cutter for me. Yeah. Right. You can tell me about all the other stuff. Who are you trying to beat?

And is what you're doing at practice, in recruiting, in development, is that going to help you? Every time I ask you who your target is, you have a list of schools and you know, and you work from, you know what, I need to get better here, here and here in order for us to beat them. Is that a fair assessment? Yeah, I think so. But, you know, it's tough. It's really hard because you have to find the balance of, look, our goal is for tennis. Ohio State's the best team in the conference.

They've won the conference 19 years in a row in a legitimate Olympic sport where you've got 250 teams. It's a big deal what they've done. USC, UCLA, Michigan State, Illinois, great. But at the same time, if you get too far ahead of yourself and for me, sometimes I do that

and I'm like, well, this is what Ohio State's doing. This is what we got to do. I'm like, well, look, we just got to focus on how we're going to get better every day as our in our program you know uh we had a we had a good year last year we did you know um one of the best ones that we've had in our program's history where'd you finish we've finished 39 in the country um you know we there's been teams well done teams that have been better than us and that's that's that's great you know our goals are to continue to do better as a program each and every single day um you know and every every day i wake up i'm like i you know i wake up and i i got a bad dream and it's it's the

you know, Wisconsin and Purdue and Indiana, they're grabbing at my toes every morning, you know, and I got to pull my toes away because they're coming, you know, that's, if you take your eye off the ball for me and you focus too much on what some of the best teams are doing, for one, you're like, man, we're really far away and it kind of demoralizes you a bit sometimes. And then you're like, okay, well, that's not our goal right now. Our goal is to continue to just do a little bit better than we did last year. So, you know, I think, think in a sport like tennis and where there's not as much attention and vision on the program like there is in football like that might be a little bit easier to do and coach rules got a huge

job and so does same with you know you see teams doing great like volleyball and the women's and men's basketball programs undefeated right now both of them i think ranked um unbelievable job but i think you just got to just figure out ways to to get better make the moves that are going to make you better over time bringing the right guys that are going to make you better in the year two three, three, four years, bringing the right people. Same with the players, bringing the right players. Then give yourself a chance to go swing at some of those guys when you have everything built and put in the right place.

But, yeah, that's just the way I see it. I don't know if that's the right approach. That's just what I believe. It's working. Because to be ranked at 39, in order to give full perspective to it, you have to say where the program was when you got here. It wasn't 39. No, no, but, but at the same time, like, it was, it was in a much better place than it was, you know, three or four years before then.

So, you can't, it's hard. It's, I don't like to play the game like this, where this year, we're better than this last year. Like, it's just for me, it's just like, okay, it's what's today? What's we got to get better today? Are we better than we were yesterday kind of mentality? And if we're not, then what are we doing? Why didn't we get better today? if we're not bringing in good enough players or we're not recruiting well we keep people keep saying

no like what are we doing wrong that is literally identifying success that is literally how how growth and development happens it's just a day by day thing yeah day is its own day and it's you know you got to take out the ego you got to take out the the sad you know something doesn't go your way you can't be sad for very long if something goes good you can't be happy for very long you just got a only for a night. Emotions and you got to, you know,

you got to keep moving forward. You know, I tell our guys all the time, just because the scoreboard says you're losing doesn't mean you can be sad and pout. You got to just figure out the next point. The next point is the next point. You got to figure,

if you win that next point, then it gives you a chance to change the scoreboard. So it is, it is impressive to have somebody come in and kind of share the philosophy. Because a lot of people don't want to share. like because sharing makes you accountable it's like oh no go about said this i it's the thing right that in power four when head coaches have to change the staff whether it be for a positive reason or not positive reason and those things as you said there's always a million reasons

behind the scenes um even somebody that that would volunteer to step down because they have another job there could be some other things that are going on at this level in this program what is the process if you if you let's say your assistant coach gets the head coaching job somewhere else and you fill the position what is your process for filling the assistant coach position on your staff well i think first of all that's the hardest part in my opinion it's one of the hardest part if not the hardest part of the job is hiring and firing people just because anytime you fire someone that's terrible you feel awful as a person it's just part of you hate to do that stuff and then when you hire someone for one it's a lengthy process

and you got to interview and you got to go through that process but finding the right person is also you know really hard to do and it's not always easy to get everyone to get on board and comes to Nebraska and do what you want to do and believe in your vision so that's also really hard and the second thing is if you do have someone leave if you know hopefully you know Brett when he leaves he's he is a head coach somewhere and that's ultimately the the most rewarding one of the most rewarding things that as a head coach you can have happen is someone go and get a better job than what they have now you know that's what you want that means the program's in a healthy spot so yeah I mean what what coach rule he coach rules like the football program's got all the

attention right now because of everything that's happening so it's um coach rules got one of the hardest hardest jobs he's got to have honest meetings and talk to the talk to a staff and bring in new staff. And, you know, I, I don't envy where he is right now just because I know how hard it is to do it. And he's doing everything in his power to uplift the Nebraska football program the best he can. And every movie makes is so critical. And he knows that. Like, that's part of the job. That's what he signed up for. But it doesn't, it still doesn't mean it's not hard. And there's not a lot of personal connections and, you know, empathy that goes into all these decisions like he obviously cares about you know the three guys that he led

go yeah of course he does yeah but at the same time it's what's best for the nebraska football program i got to do what's best that's my job that's what i'm that's what i'm here for so i you know we all got to trust what he's doing he's doing a phenomenal job behind the curtains you know we don't see much we just from time to time see him in the training table say hi but um yeah for what's you know the breaking news that the with the ds the end or d-line coach like he's making the he's he's probably making the right move for the program that's you know we all got to believe in that and trust in that and and i do so to go through let's say your your sister coach gives you notice they're leaving there is a timetable and a

process to finding a replacement yeah who is who is your checks and balances who gives you like if you say i've got immediately i've got like first of all you have to list it right you have to list that the position is open, then you kind of know in your head there's somebody who comes to mind. You have to talk to your boss about, hey, I have a position of need.

What do I have to work with? How much money do I have? And how quickly do I need to have? You know how quickly you need somebody to fill the spot, depending on time of year and everything that's in play, right? Yep.

What is the process for a head coach to find a replacement? Again, I think this is where tennis is a slightly different than football. Yeah, that's why we're asking. 10 coaches in football. So you got it or ish. And you can have a million coaches now if you want because there's no regulations on how many coaches you can have. So I think that makes it even harder.

But for me, I'm always, you know, I know, we're extremely lucky to have bread and schoonia here. But, you know, Shunia may move on after this year. Hopefully we keep them another year if we can. So I'm always, you know, when we go, when I go on recruiting trips, I talk to other coaches. I pay attention to how other teams are doing. You know, why are they doing well? Is it because, oh, it's because they got a good assistant or something's changed.

So you always have kind of an eye out for what other programs are doing and how other coaches are coaching and would they potentially fit here? If this happens or that happens, I think you always have to kind of have an eye on what's going on. And then you kind of have to try and make the best move you can if something happens. But yeah, there's a whole process. The HR, you know, you got to go through a search. You have to have a committee. You have to, you know, interview people. You have to have questions. You have to, you know, there's a whole lot of things that you have to go through, a whole lot of hurdles you have to jump through to hire somebody new. So I think the most important thing you can do is take your time

and not rush into it and make sure that you hire the right person. Because once that, happens, then you know you're in a good position for the remainder of their time that they're going to be here at Nebraska. So for me, I value, I value trying to bring in the right person more than how fast I can get them turned into the program, even though that's not always an easy situation with recruiting and bringing people in and all the different hurdles. You got to jump through there. So that's just for me. I would much rather have someone that I know is going to do a good job over the course of the next three, four, five years than to make a quick decision for something, some other reason. It's remarkable. I don't know how coaches at this level do it,

quite frankly. Been around it on the high school level, the pro levels, there's a whole system to it. There's a whole different set of conversations in place. But at the college level, and then because of the sports and the variety and diversity in those programs, it's all a little different. So it'll be interesting. We're going to put, we're going to go to break. We're going to come back. We're going to put

the commissioner of football cap on Coach Colbel. We're going to have him fix the college football playoff system. We're going to have him fix it. Right? We're going to say it's currently 12. We'll start at 16.

How would coach Cobalt get to the best 16 teams or the fairest 16 teams or just 16 teams. We're going to get to his 16 and how he would get there from the inside out. Coach, you up for it? Let's give it a try. Commissioner Cobalt coming up.