10_point_buck: “Lots to do and I honestly feel it could be another decade, if ever. College football has blown right by us and we are always trying to catch up. No kid we are recruiting knows us other than what we have been, which is pretty plain and mediocre. How do you sell that to anyone?”
Nebraska had an identity that worked in the 20th Century. The Huskers need to redefine and refresh themselves in a way that works in the 21st.
Vince Lombardi - not a bad coach in his day - once said, “Football is blocking and tackling. Everything else is mythology.”
As many have stated on this board, if you can’t block and tackle you haven’t got a prayer. Not today and not tomorrow.
He also said, “Football is a great deal like life in that it teaches that work, sacrifice, perseverance, competitive drive, selflessness and respect for authority is the price that each and every one of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile.”
That’s something the Huskers can sell in the 21st Century. Teaching those things to young men is, in fact, more important than the outcome of any football game or season.
One more from Vince, “The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have.”
If the Huskers are doing everything they can with everything they have, they are winners in the bigger picture. Pretty numbers on the scoreboard is fun, but being as good as you can be is the best anybody can do. If they are not doing everything they can, then everyone else knows who is responsible for that.
No, you can’t sell losing to recruits. But you can sell the fact that you’ll make better young men out of them and you will put them in their best situation to succeed individually and as a team. No coach or program can ever do better than that. And IF you do that, the wins will come. And then, the glory.
