1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - What needs to happen to get Nebraska Football back on track: January 2, 11:00am

Episode Date: January 2, 2026

What needs to happen to get Nebraska in the right direction going forward. Nebraska-Utah Las Vegas Bowl reaction. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

D.P. Coming at you live from the heart of Lincoln America, a 93-7-the-ticket and the Ticketfm.com. Sponsored by the Downtown Lincoln Foundation. Here is your host, Derek Pearson. It is the first, 2026. Ah, good to be back in your face, in your face. We are in your face today. Let you know, do not go gently into that good night. Rage, rage. 11.03 of the city, 27 degrees.

That's what we're doing in the new year, how we're bringing in 2026. Appreciate y'all hanging out with us. Lots to discuss over these. two hours and hey I hope you had a fantastic end to your 2025 and a great start to you 2026 let this be the best year of your and our lives that's the mission there's nothing else there's nothing else the best year of your life that's what i'm that's what i'm wishing for each and every one of you pretty simple stuff if you deem it's the best best for your year that's what I want for you. I'm rooting for that

for you. So there's that. 4024-6-4-5-6-8-5 is the starter hammered text line. You want to be a part what we're doing. Please come on in. Hit us with a happy new year and cool. We will include you into the conversation

questions, answers, opinions all. You can follow on all the live video, streams, Facebook, YouTube X, Allo-20-9-61 and then download the ticket at, please. For us, you follow us on all the social medias. I'll say it like us old folks should say it.

These social medias can follow us, please. Greatly appreciate it. Before we get into this full, full dose of Lincoln, Nebraska sports talk and conversation. But first, how the heck are you? Happy New Year. Happy New Year. from Vegas. I know Vegas is a lot of fun. The game wasn't necessarily,

but hopefully you had fun. We definitely had fun back here, and it's a little cold, but other than that, it feels good to be in 2020. All right, kind, sir, if you would, and as only you can do, pay the bills, 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 answers. visit hamilton tell.com for more info today thank you kind sir just a sidebar um and put a pen if you're looking for something to do before the basketball game tonight or something cool for for for your kids go on down to to 1040 oh come down to the ticket and make sure you stop by uh from five until eight it's culture and coffee with mike smith from the bay uh the boy boys will be on location um there'll be a modified ramp, Bach, and I'll have to share it with you of the videos of them.

They set it up last night to see what it would look like. But inside the middle, there will be a skateboard ramp and beverages, something hot or cold, depending on your choice and preference. But it will be an indoor skate park. You should be able to shop for some vintage items, probably some really cool Husker T-shirts and swag. But they'll be here on premise at 11.0. from 5 to 8 o'clock, the first Fridays every month with Mike Smith for culture and coffee.

Great way to start your evening before Nebraska and Michigan State. Bach! Sir! Okay, so, Bach, I'm going to send you something, and I need for you, we're going to get into the Husker talk, and we're going to get into the Bull talk. The, Bac, I'm going to send you something, and you have to promise me, all right? You have to promise me that you will share it. in the street.

Okay. Okay. Now I'm going to, do you want me to text it to you or do you want me to just send it? How do you want this delivered to you? Yeah, text would be good. It'll take me a few minutes to get it up. Okay. Yeah, it will, and you will understand why I'm giddy and I'm so, like, everybody knows

I am an absolute grown man boy. I'm a grown up man child. And so things that make me chuckle and cover my mouth and laugh, I'm all four. And sometimes you see things and you just go, okay. So Bach, every now and then, you know, as a rejoin, we will send, we will send, we will come back from break. And, Bach, you have to look at your phone.

And you have to, you have to, you have to, so when we come back from, from, from commercial breaks, we play the ultimate warrior. we play the ultimate warrior and I scream at the top of my lungs paint your face blow up your hair pump up your biceps go sprinting through your offers or home shake the walls get your warrior on Bach Bach is getting I hope you're on the streams people because Bach has to share this thing that we just put in. Bach,

if you would, please, sir, share with the masses this wonderful piece of art that was created on your behalf and in your image. And I'm pretty sure this is how your son sees you. And at some point,

maybe this is how Maria sees you or saw you at some point. But I found great. I, Bach, I really lost my mind over this. I really lost my mind over this. I had this done. I was like, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. This is. So, Bach, how long will it take you to load that? Just give me a few minutes. Yeah. It is, it is, it is spectacular. Over the course of this, these two hours, there's a, there's going to be a lot of talk of

transfer portals in and out. There'll be lots of conversations about revenue share that'd be lots of conversation about the state of affairs and the state of the union and the state of Nebraska football. And when I speak to groups, I often lead with this question. Do I have your permission to tell you the truth?

And not everybody really wants the truth. And far too often in this space and space like it, sports, sports talk, you know, water cooler. Too often people want to dance around topics and subjects

and try to stay away from the truth. Now, the one thing I will lead with is trying to find a truth is important. And I don't know how many absolute truths there are when it comes to sports, especially Nebraska sports because I say all the time that there are thirds, right? That there's a third of people who want the absolute truth.

There are people who want to live in Utopia, Nirvana. They do not want to know anything bad about the thing they love and care. And then there's folks in the middle who would determine which way the needle swings

because they will look at the ideal truth and the absolute unicorns skittles and rainbow version of a thing and then they want to land there you land somewhere in the middle over the course of the next hour i'm going i'd like to start with what this thing what you as husker fans sports fans want this thing called nebraska football to look like what do you want it to look like what's it what's acceptable and what is not it

acceptable for Husker Nation. And I don't have the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, I should have all the answers. I do want to get to the right question. So, we'll try to get to one state of affairs to fixable, identifiable issue and fixable resolution. Fock, is that a fair thing? Yeah. Pretty good space to be in.

Okay. We're going to do that. But first, but first, we have to give the public, the public coronation of Bach Warrior. And if you're not on the stream, go find, go find yourself, go get yourself on the stream, go find it. You'll find it later. I'm going to have Bach share it on social media as well, as well. but this is you know and Bach is a wrestling fan he's a fan like I don't think there's any I don't think we're out of line by calling Bach a fanatic right yeah that's right and so

in full tribute for that this thing was created that I thought was fair folks we premiere warrior Bach I love it it makes me miss my hair I used to be able to grow hair like that. Not quite as, not quite as, you know, I'd have to get some more volume into it. But never necessarily had those muscles as of yet. You've still working on that. You got time. Yeah, yeah, there's still time.

You got time. So there on the stream is an image. And so you have these AI folks who can create the thing. And so this is your hair, or at least the idea of your hair because I stole it from an old picture of yours. Oh, okay. Yeah, with longer hair. Right. so what's awesome

right right I wanted this close I told the guy I'm like how close can you get so he goes oh no we can we can definitely work with this because he already has the hair so we don't have

we just do it and thankfully your complexion is dark enough that it almost it meshes anyway with the warrior so if you're not on the streams get on the streams I will have box share that uh on social media uh but i found well here's the thing i'll have box here because if i share

it i will write something i will write something i'm going to allow box control of this monster like i because if you allow me to do it who knows what goes with this what is attached to it so i thought the mask the other day was was cool enough man i'm fully transitioning to warrior right like it's it's there um i'm working he's working on one for character because that's kind of you know yeah yeah i would think uh but i think with cariker it's almost goldberg yeah it's almost goldberg but but but they're friends and i don't want to you don't want to icon out your friends like it's a little weird so um So the text says, so when are we getting the one?

Yeah, it's a shame that radio folks can't see this, but we're going to put it on social media and we're going to have box share. So when are we getting one for DP? Need the tag team duo. Yeah, it is, here's the thing. With the tag team things, it runs in several forms because I did one with Jay. And then Haas and I, because we do a wrestling show, we did one with the belts. Yeah.

Which was pretty cool. As a matter of fact, it's the graphic for the breeze. And it's funny, there's some places online where we've seen this. Like, you have wrestling fanatics who find wrestling shows and they featured it. They featured the breeze and they've shown the pictures and kind of tracked who's going to be where. Like, oh, DP and Haas are going to be at the event. Yeah, we're kind of doing that. I am slightly disappointed in myself for not being here when Tony Storm was in town.

You know, I fully in full, but Huskers first. It was tough for them. I know, I don't know how much they pay attention to the bull draw, but that was a tough, because AW was in the state in the area. Well, they scheduled a long time ago. So, you know, there's some, there's something to that. There were, and I think the right way to start this is to say, is to ask if you're happy with Nebraska football

satisfied with Nebraska football or not satisfied with Nebraska football. Right? Because we work in thirds, right? Satisfied, not satisfied, indifferent, maybe the third? not moved, right? Because if you're satisfied, you've moved into the direction.

If you're not satisfied, you moved into the direction. But in the middle is somewhere, you know, and we could just say middle, right? So satisfied, not satisfied, middle. And I think in watching this, and I'll give two takes just to set the parameters for where my head is. That, from the coach standpoint, if I'm speaking to help Nebraska, right, Nebraska fans. But when I walk into a new school, the mission is to find out the state of affairs, what's caused the state of affairs good and bad, fix, identify what can be fixed, what can't be fixed, and what has to be fixed, right?

That's, and to tell you, I generally run at 75% success in year one in a new school. Pretty simple. And that's been Utah, Virginia, Texas, North Carolina. That in four states, no matter what school I was walking into, to be able to identify and win at a 75% rate at various levels in high. high school. But to identify what, what are you? What are you currently? Why do you, why are you where you are and where do you want to go? Because that helps me identify a whole bunch of stuff. So, Bach, where shall we find you in the satisfied, dissatisfied, or middle?

I would say dissatisfied just because of the way that the season ended and where we are now, right? I mean, you want to leave feeling like you're heading in the right direction, and I don't feel that way. I think overall, if you step back and you look at two seven win seasons, you know, that's a step in the right direction for where Nebraska has been. But again, it just doesn't feel like it's heading the right direction. So I think this year feels a lot, and we all talk about, I mean, I can't say for how many years now, I've mentioned the year 2016 and referencing back to the nine wins and other things, you know, everything goes back to 2016, you know, the last ranked win, all that, that was not a great year.

And in fact, this year reminds me of 2016 because it's kind of similar where if you remember that year, they went nine and four, right? That's why I referenced back to it. They won nine games. So you can say, well, how did that not? well they lost four of the last six games they lost three of their last four games that you know three of the last four games that they lost were in blowout fashion specifically got blown out by Iowa fired their defensive coordinator it sound familiar right and they get blown out in the bowl game

so I feel like you're kind of in that spot and we all know 2017 did not go well right and it did not go you know so that's where I'm kind of worried about where Nebraska is it's like yes, there's been some progress as far as like getting to, you know, getting to seven wins, having a first team All-American running back. You know, there's some things that are exciting and that we should remember well upon this year. But unfortunately, a lot of it's just about how it ended in three blowout losses in a row and, you know, kind of throw in the side stuff that's kind of going on, all the, you know, okay, I think there's a lot of finger pointing, it seems like. there's a lot of throwing under the bus,

whether it be from snow to the previous defensive coaches, you know, and Matt Rule said when he's fired people, it's not necessarily, he's blaming them, it's just not working, but it just seems like a lot. And then something that I think can't go understated

that really bothers me is the raise for coach, for strength and conditioning coach Cory Campbell. And, you know, maybe that's a small thing. It's not going to impact me much. He gets a raise,

right? That's fine. But it's just kind of speaking to a larger problem of, you know, how many of these guys, even under coach rules, watch have come in and cashed in a big paycheck and not shown other results on the field. I think one of Nebraska's biggest problems right now appears to be strength and conditioning. You know, that's a job where there's not a whole lot of middle ground. What's your job? Strength and conditioning.

It's written in the title. And Nebraska is getting blown out and losing once again in November. that tells me there's a problem. So, you know, I just, I don't feel good about where this program is headed. I think if you just evaluate the year overall, I would say it was unmoved. But I think in general, where the program is right now and moving forward, dissatisfied. Now, you've got your chance in the portal, maybe to make some moves and correct this thing, but it is not in a good spot.

Let's, let's, so text line go there with us. Stay with us and go with us. satisfied, dissatisfied middle. Because I want to take the temperature of the room before trying to set the temperature of the room, right? Don't want to turn the heat up if it's not necessary. Don't want to cool it down, if not necessary. If the temperature's right, let's leave it alone, right?

Let's figure out how to make it more pleasant. But let's figure that out. So from the text line, downtown Scott says happy new year i want the skirts to look like a winning team ultimately compete for championships that might uh that might look like seven six this year i don't know uh if we're working to if we're working to winning at a high level seven and six is acceptable we went three and nine a few years back it's hard to know the truth hard to understand the plan troy told us that he believes in that's plan i want to

believe uh but we are we on the other side of it coming up the hill instead of going to down. And then he finishes with, I'm in the middle. Kip says, no, no, no, no, it's recruiting. They need big linemen. It's so simple. I'm going to read these and then we'll go back through. Text for 5704 says, if I would have told you at the beginning of the season, we had an all-American running guy, what would you say? What do you say I record would have been? Yeah, I that is such a huge I don't know that that's the compliment that people think it is because if you have an all-American running back

that means that you've committed to a style of play and a level of success but then if you have an all-American running back and you only win seven games and lose the final three what does that mean? Does that mean you underutilized? You did everything else so poorly that

it outshone, it dimmed the light of an all-American running back? I don't know. And I don't know. Jeremy Lincoln says, I dissatisfied. Schedule was a major reason for seven wins. Don't feel like we can compete

with the good competition going into year four. Fix the lines, please, before any more shiny new tours. But I don't know that, In the state of affairs, and Bach, I'd like you to make a note to that text. Because give people credit in the executive offices for understanding what brings peace to a third of the population. Shiny new toys always appease one third of the fan base. A third of the fan base will say, shiny new things.

Hooray! And a third will say, I don't need shiny new toys. I need toys that work. I need substance. I don't need shine. I need substance. I need foundation.

Tell me you've decorated the front yard and the house with all the bright lights and glitter. but there's no furniture inside or the foundations week. All of those things are in play. And then if there are the people will go, it doesn't matter what's outside the house or inside the house, it's who's inside the house. What are their rules of engagement? How are they living?

Are they healthy in the house, Bach? What, nothing worse than seeing. A beautiful house. Fantastic law. right great furniture but there's dirty dishes in the sink there's bugs running around and leaks everywhere so we're trying to figure it out so load up the text satisfied to satisfied middle and then we'll get into the next phase of it which is your text and where it's your text and where takes us because I want this to be a conversation.

Nope. Next week, hey, Bach, I'm holding up a notepad with some details and numbers that I cannot give until next week because I need to verify some things. But I want to find out what the shared revenue, the NIL, the transfer portal numbers actually would be and how they're being used. because that may explain how we get to where we've gotten to. But we'll get to your tax. Fire them up.

Fire them up. I'm just letting you know, yeah, I would have loved for the first move to be big boys. But that's not the first big move. It explains so much. One-on-one by DP. We'll be right back. Download our app by searching 93.7.

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