Latest / Return to Glory - Nebraska / Episode 9 | What is Progress?

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Episode 9 | What is Progress? · Return to Glory - Nebraska

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Go big, Rent that takes the numbers, the chaos Hunter Austin.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Dak talking corn Husker football, basketball, and everything Nebraska sports.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Return to Glory podcast. Good morning, Happy Friday,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Hunter Arbniki here on their Turn to Glory podcast Today.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: I want to ask one question and discuss one question
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: here by myself, and that question is what is progress?
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Not how many games will Nebraska win?
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Not is Matt Rule the right guy for the future,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: not when will Nebraska be back?
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: Just what is progress? Did I think the last twenty
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: five years, and really in my.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Lifetime, Nebraska football has spent this whole time trying to
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: answer that question, year in and year out, And at
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: one point, maybe not when I was alive, ten wins
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: wasn't enough.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Well, now nine wins wasn't enough.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: And then eventually over the past few years, making a
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: bowl game has seemed to be the tallest task. And somehow,
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: through it all we still name this podcast or Turn
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: to Glory.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: And maybe before we can return to glory, we need
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: to be.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Honest about how far away from glory we actually are.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: I know we've talked about changing this podcast to return
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: to mediocrity, we maybe should just talk about what progress
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: looks like, and especially in year four under Matt Ruhle,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: where we've invested very heavily in him.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: We're very heavily invested in football at least.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: For now, and the fans at least for now, are
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: very much emotionally and financially invested in the program. Now
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: basketball is creeping up here too, and we've had volleyball two.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: But what are we looking at. We're looking for progress, right,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: That's ultimately what we want to see year in and
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: year out with with a coach. So let's go back
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: a long time ago, not what I can remember, but
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: under Tom Osborne, Nebraska was two hundred and fifty five
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: forty nine to three, winning eighty four percent of our game's,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: thirteen conference titles, three national titles, twenty five straight nine
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: win seasons. That was the standard. That was the blueprint.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Really, winning a single game wasn't the goal.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Winning champions, winning conference championships, winning national championships.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: That was the goal. Then Frank Solich comes in.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Soloch goes fifty eight in nineteen wins seventy five percent
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: of his games. Here's his seasons, nine wins, twelve wins,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: ten wins, eleven wins, seven wins, ten wins played, fernaty title,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: won a conference championship. In two thousand and three, Solich
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: goes ten to three fired. Think about that in today's lens.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Why did we fire a coach with ten wins? Well,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: our standard was higher. We were spoiled at that time.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: All of the fans believed that winning seventy five percent
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: of your games wasn't enough. At that point we had
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: gone to a bowl game for thirty five consecutive seasons.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: We didn't understand how difficult sustained success was in today's
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: world because the stained success was all that Nebraska football.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: The fans, the media, the players, the culture knew ten
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: wins it wasn't special.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: And then in came well Bill Callahan from the NFL,
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: and in his first year we did not make a
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: bowl game.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: Five and six creep back the head, eight and four,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: nine and five progress, yes, and then five and seven gone.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Then in comes Bo Polini bow at sixty seven and
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: twenty seven got us maybe back to what we thought
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: our progress was winning seventy one percent of his games.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: He won at least nine games in every season that
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: he coached at Nebraska.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: Seven seasons. I think everybody knew that.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: We fired him to now we weren't winning championships under Bow.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: We did get embarrassed in big games, there were blowouts,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: there were concerns about what this progress was in the
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: direction of the program. And yes, there's people that still
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: come back and say and varying opinions of we never
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: should have fired Boat Polini, And I think if you
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: say that that it's too simplistic to look at it
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: that way. The lessons bigger than that. We did believe
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: like it's still isn't good enough. Yeah, there was all
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: the issues with how you know, he handled players, media
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: and all of that, but bottom line, winning nine games
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: ten games every year was still not good enough at
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: that time, So you know what we can do better
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: that That was the opinion, and maybe at that point
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: it wasn't unreasonable to believe that the failure wasn't necessarily
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: wanting more. The failure was outstely having no idea how
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: to get back to where we wanted to be. And
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: that's where the leadership I believe here at Nebraska failed
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: over that time because firing a nine.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: One coach it wasn't stupid, it.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Was just firing the nine one coach without a plan,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: and figuring out how are we going to get back
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: to glory and back to winning and competing for championships.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: So then after Bo in comes the higher Mike Riley,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: and we all know that went nineteen and nineteen. No
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: more needs to be said there. And then Scott Frost
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: comes home. And not one person that I can think
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: of or heard of, or anybody out there thought that
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: Scott Frost wasn't going to bring Nebraska back to glory.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: He was the guy, he was the savior. He understood Nebraska,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: he understood the culture. Sure, he understood the history. It
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: felt all perfect and sixteen and thirty one, and so
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: back to the big thing when we went to fire
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: and coaches because nine wins wasn't enough. We now go
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: seven consecutive seasons without a winning record from twenty seventeen
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: to twenty twenty three. Yes, I'll say that again, seven
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: consecutive seasons not even a winning record. Back when remember
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: the Bill Callahan first year six and seven. Remember what
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: that felt like I do as a kid, remember that. No,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: now he did it seven years in a row at Nebraska.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: This is a program that once played in thirty five
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: consecutive program or bowl games and then eventually came get
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: to a winning season and can't even make a bowl game,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: where that became the standard of progress, which is really kind.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: Of where we're at now.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: As Matt Ruhle takes over for Scott Frost and has
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: this track record of year three taking over a program
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: and everything's fixed by year three, well, you're one, Matt
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Rual goes five and seven.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: Great.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Year two, yep, we're back in a bowl game. We're
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: seven to six at.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: The end of the year. And year three, well, on
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: a schedule last year that seemed to be very favorable,
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: and we had people really talking about being the well
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: what Indiana really did, but you know, take taking a
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: big step forward being a surprise team in college football,
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: not just local media, national media thinking yes, this could
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: be the year Year three Matt rural the storyline.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Nope, the bottom falls out, Dylan Royola gets injured, and
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: we finished the year seven and six. Again after keep
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: in mind, we did start five and one and then
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: six and two, so yes, we did learn how to
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: win close football games. As far as progress goes, that's
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: was what people are and what Matt rule like that
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: is progress in his mind, was we won a couple
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: of one score games. We went five and two in
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: fact in one score games in twenty twenty five.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: That in a lot of ways progress, But.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Ultimately progress is going to have an expiration date. You
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: can't keep celebrating the same accomplishment. You can't keep making
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: up what progress is. Bottom line, winning more football games
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: year in and year out is what progress is. And
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: don't make excuses about schedules, don't make excuses about external nil,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: the transfer portal, the difficulty it is to navigate all
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: of that. Note, Ultimately, win football games. Everybody's dealing with
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: the same stuff. So you got to find a way
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: to improve on your wins right now before we can
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: even talk about championships or any of that, because we
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: know we're not even close to that. And this is
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: probably where my head is an individual is a little bit.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: I say harder on Nebraska. I am tired and hate
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: hearing people saying we're close. I'm tired of hearing about
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: the improved culture, how hard everybody works from the coaching staff.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: You know, the off season games, the off season national
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: titles that we've had. We've heard that year in year
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: out how we look different. Every year we look different.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: Here's why we look different. Well, usually it's just an
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: overcorrection for what people didn't like last year.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: Recruiting rankings.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Man, I think, you know, there are some validities to
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: recruit roots obviously, but these stars, they.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: Just don't mean anything to me, especially after watching Indiana.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they had some guys and some dudes, but like
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: the people that are given these guys stars aren't football coaches.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: They're not the ones evaluating players. So yeah, you can
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: be a five star or you can be a two star.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: I don't care unless you have a good coaching staff
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: and a good program to develop these guys and really
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: fit into your identity and your system, your culture of
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: what you're trying to get, uh. In bottom line, I really,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: you know, like we call this podcast return to Glory,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: I really just want to see progress and true progress
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: in the win column. That's that's what it is and
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: what it comes down to on the field. And I
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: don't think I'm alone and saying that. I do think
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: a lot of people, especially over the last one to
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: two years, has have gotten to that point where they're
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: kind of sick of all the excess stuff and I
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: think this offseason has been actually a lot better of
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: being quieter, of putting your head down, shut up, go
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: to work and win games. Here's a stat to just
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: as we wrap up here, our last win over an
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: ap ranked opponent. Take a guess, and some of you
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: may know this September seventeenth and twenty sixteen against Oregon.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: It's ten years ago.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Basically to this day, we've got oh to thirty against
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: strength opponents since that win. It's not bad luck, not
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: because oh we're snake bitten. It's not from one coach,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: it's multiple coaches. We've had several quarterbacks. That's an entire program. Okay,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: it's an entire program from however far back you want
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: to go that holds that stat and that consistent everybody
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: included in that in that program, players, coaches, media, fans,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: it's it's everything, leadership, probably most importantly so this year
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: for progress, Let's not get out out of our way.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Let's just finally win a game that we're not supposed
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: to win because we haven't done that. We haven't done
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: we don't we don't know what that feels like. Nebraska
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: basketball did it several times, and man, that feeling was great,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: but we still have yet to do that. In Nebraska football,
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: we're I'm not saying beat Ohio State or beat Oregon,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: but or be Indiana. But but maybe when when beat Iowa?
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: How about beat Iowa? How about go beat Illinois on
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: the road?
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: All right?
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: That those couple of games I think would be how
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: about beat Washington at home in front of a big
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: crowd on Halloween night? So what does progress mean for
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: me in twenty twenty six? I don't think it's complicated.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: If we win six this year, it's still regression. It's
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: year four. I don't care about our schedule. Seven wins,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: that's where we've been again. Schedule, put it aside. You
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: could people are gonna rationalize seven wins. People are gonna
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: look at that and go, yep, the schedule is tougher.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: You know, we won these games, and you know we
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: looked good here. We maybe won a couple of one
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: score games. Seven wins is gonna get rationalized.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: Eight wins.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: I think you can talk and maybe say progress is there,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: and that's gonna include beating somebody probably.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: That maybe we shouldn't have.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: It's a toss up game. And and I think if
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: we can obviously get to nine wins somehow. Uh you
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: know that that that's a breakthrough this year, and that's
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: that's where you're gonna get me back into this Matt
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Ruhle train and and really believe in that. Uh, him
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: and the leadership of this program has us moving in
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: right direction.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: And what's tough about this.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: The first half of the year might look all sunshine
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: and roses here, but the second half of the year
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: November football. And we've heard Rule said it. We've heard
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: Rule say a lot of things. But it's no longer
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: about saying and talking of what you think you believe in.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: It's actually showing on the field that your team, you
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: and your team believe that playing meaning meaningful football in
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: November matters to you. And getting a significant name in
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: the Big Ten back to Nebraska, playing in a bowl
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: game that has some meaning to it, and showing up
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: in that bowl game and showing this program that no
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: winning matters. So Matt Rule to close this off. His
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: contract extension goes through twenty thirty two. Back in October
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: of last year, when Troy Dan and his quote said,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: our program has seen significant progress under Matt's leadership, and there's.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: That word again, progress When we were six.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: And two in twenty twenty five, that is when this
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: contract extension happened. Then what happened one and four? The
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: final three losses last year. I'll remind you of Penn
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: State thirty seven to ten, Iowa forty to sixteen. You
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: taught forty four twenty two. We got outscored one hundred
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: and twenty one to forty eight in those three games.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: So now, Troy Dannon, I've been very high on you.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: I'm asking you the same thing, what is progress? Because
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: you said you put your cards on the table, you
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: committed the rule. Now through twenty thirty two, you talked
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: about stability, you talked about building.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: Okay, well now win.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: And I don't think that's unfair to say from any
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: of us to Matt Rulanda, Troy Dannon, he basically said
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: it himself at Big ten media days. We didn't come
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: to Nebraska to go seven and six. He said it, Well,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: that's good, and I agree, So don't do it. And lastly,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: for US fans, before we all get out the blame
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: card and just say, oh, it's this person's fault. Oh
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: all of our quarterbacks, they're the worst, most hated people
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: out here. We helped create this. Unfortunately, we've spent years
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: since the Osborne era believing that we will be back
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: to glory, back to chasing championships every single year. No
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: matter what the outlook and projections were. Every new hire
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: became the guy that was going to get us back.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: We just wanted instant gratification every year. We compared everybody
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: to the glory days. He didn't realize, as Tom Osborne
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: wasn't walking back through that door, well at least not
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: as a coach.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: He did his athletic director for a little bit.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: College football isn't ever going back and it's continuing to involve.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: It's never going back to how it used to be.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: So Nebraska, what we have to do. We have to
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: build the next great Nebraska program, not try to recreate
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: and redo everything from the last one, but find our
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: own way to be the best in this environment.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: Exactly what Indiana did.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Indiana didn't have a pass to look at, but they
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: found a way to find their own identity right, and
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: it's gonna take time, it's gonna take patients. But the
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: problem is Kurt Signetti set his own standard for college
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: football on how this can be done and found a
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: way to do it in just two years, and let's
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: see in year three how that pans out for him. So, yes,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: well we had to have a little bit of patience.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: We can't accept mediocrity forever. And that are two completely
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: different things. You can give a couch time but still
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: demand that you get results on the field, and you
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: can still acknowledge.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: Progress while raising the standard.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: And you can also love Nebraska football without pretending seven
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: and six is where this program ultimately.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: Should live at.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: Because let's be real, we're all tied to it and
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: we're never gonna stop loving it. So what is progress.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Progress isn't hype. It isn't recruiting stars. It isn't nil money,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: It isn't facilities, It isn't off season quotes and hype.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: It isn't everybody talking about how close you are week
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: in and week out. Progress is ultimately winning football games. Yes,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: we got arrogant, we thought nine wins wasn't enough, and
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: then we became desperate we celebrated by reaching six wins.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: Neither extreme is healthy. The answer is somewhere in the middle.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: You can have high expectations, but earn them demand improvement. Remember,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: the history, and maybe most importantly, stop trying to hire
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: the guy who's already a legend and find someone that's hungry.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: Find a coach with something to prove, Find players with
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: something to prove. Find people who look at Nebraska not
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: as their retirement plan and hoping that they can get
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: this place back on track, but as an opportunity to
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: build something. Then put your head down, shut up, and
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: go to work and win football games. Because Nebraska doesn't
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: need anybody to tell us what this place used to be.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: We lived and heard about it, and now for the
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: last twenty five years, that's all we continue to hear
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: about it. We want something new, fresh, and get us
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: back to that place. Yes, the trophies are still in
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: the building, the cellhouse streak for now is still here,
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: the fans are for now still here, the money is
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: for now still here, the facilities are here, the support
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: is there. We've made a ton of excuses. Now show
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: us Nebraska football this year what we're going to be
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: and how to win games.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: That is progress.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: We will be back on Monday as we continue our
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: preview for the season and we get closer one week
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: closer to the Ohio Bobcats in Week one, Go Big
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: Read