Callahan's practices give NU no time to spare

 No comments  
 E-mail Story
 Print Story
  Share

 digg it!
 Facebook
 del.icio.us
Seed Newsvine
Fark It
Reddit

Text Size: 

Tools Sponsor

BY BRIAN ROSENTHAL

The Memorial Stadium scoreboard clocks wind down to triple zeroes. Quickly, five minutes are put back on, and time again starts ticking.

Nebraska football coach BillCallahan waves his arms, motions to a student manager and tells him to hit the horn.

It's an air horn, and the blaring noise sends more than one hundred football players scurrying across the FieldTurf to the site of their next drill.

"As soon as that horn honks, you've got to be in tune the whole five minutes," Nebraska offensive lineman Richie Incognito said. "You really can't sputter out. You've got to stay into it mentally, and definitely physically."

There are 25 five-minute drills -beginning at 4:08 p.m., ending at 6:13, with no lollygagging time worked into the tight schedule.

So don't be late.

"If we're into a station 30 seconds and we're not doing something, they're on us," Incognito said. "Very upbeat. Not a second is wasted, really. Practice is extremely upbeat."

Moreso than last season?

"I don't want to make any comparisons to last year," he said, "but it's up-tempo."

That was among Callahan's goals when his first spring practice as Nebraska's head coach began last week -to have his team practice faster and smarter.

"We're looking for guys that move between drills and give us full-speed effort on every snap and have the ability and effort to hustle back to the huddle, get realigned, refocused, reconcentrate on the next play," Callahan said. "That's the tempo we're looking for, day in and day out."

You can understand Callahan's sense of urgency, especially this spring. Football coaches across the country will argue the NCAA-mandated 15 spring practices aren't enough - and they aren't installing the West Coast offense using a group of players recruited to run an option-based ground game.

Square peg, round hole. It takes patience, concentration and, above all, efficiency.

"They give us four hours in one day," said Tim Cassidy, associate athletic director for football. "We can't afford lazy steps. You've got to look at every opportunity we get, every snap, and make sure we're not taking any false steps, that we're not making any bad plays, or guys are jumping offsides."

Carolina Panthers safety Mike Minter, who played at Nebraska from 1993-96 under Tom Osborne, visited one of Nebraska's practices last week. He noted the similarity of Callahan's practice to those in the NFL.

"Right there, they're doing a pro-style, where they break up offense and defense initially, and everybody will go into their individual period, and then they'll come together and do a nine-on-seven and do a one-on-one with the (defensive backs)," Minter said.

Minter then smiled as he reminded those around him that he hadn't seen a Nebraska practice since he was a Husker - seven years ago.

Yes, things have changed.

"We're picking it up,"Incognito said. "We're not real sure where we're going yet, but we're moving. We're definitely moving."

Linebacker Barrett Ruud described the practices as "more in-and-out," with Callahan putting an emphasis on playing as hard as possible, but as safe as possible, too.

"Obviously, coming from the NFL, he's a firm believer in you can't have anybody getting hurt," Ruud said. "He wants you to hit high and hard - don't be falling down a lot, you've got to stay on your feet to be a good player, don't be pulling people's jerseys, stuff like that.

"He definitely emphasizes it. People always say it, but he made it a point by taking a lot of time to go through it."

That doesn't mean players are asked to take it easy on each other. Even when the team was practicing in only sweats and helmets earlier this week, coaches were expecting a full-speed effort.

"We don't really back off in terms of how physical the practices are," Callahan said. "There are some parameters we put on the players, in terms of peeling off on the quarterback, tagging off on the running back. We're being smart about the skill positions, but overall, the physicality up front, we let them keep going."

Running back Cory Ross said practices are so up-tempo, so intense, that it's almost like another conditioning session.

"We're running around, running around," Ross said. "You run the ball 40 yards out and turn around, and you've got to come and take that next play.

"You're getting a lot out of them five minutes, I'll tell you that. Sometimes you look up, and you're like, 'Gol, we've still got three minutes left.' "

And now, 11 more spring dates.

"Right now, it's fun," Ross said, "and I think it's going to get better, also."

Reach Brian Rosenthal at 473-7436 or brosenthal@;journalstar.com.