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00:00 I'm joined today by former Husker Mr. Amon Green.
00:18 How you doing my friend?
00:19 I'm good Adam, how you doing?
00:22 I'm good, I appreciate you joining me and I know one of the questions the fans are going
00:27 to want me to ask is this one so I'm just going to lead right out the gate with it.
00:31 Nebraska is bringing back the fullback.
00:34 What do you think about that?
00:35 Beautiful, it's a beautiful thing.
00:39 I think fullback on the college level and the pro level, I mean some colleges do still
00:43 run it but obviously we haven't in a while because we've had more RPO action and shotgun
00:48 so now with them going back to bringing the fullback, like I said NFL teams, a few teams,
00:54 Ravens come to mind, 49ers as well and I think it's a lost tool.
01:00 I mean that person, that fullback is a jack of many trades.
01:03 They're a run blocker, they pick up the buzz, they can catch the ball off the backfield
01:08 and when a player can do all those things and be a little heavier guy, he's like an
01:13 extended branch of the offensive line and obviously as a running back myself, I enjoyed
01:18 that since little league so I'm very happy to hear that.
01:23 Now they're going to be using more tight ends as well, alright.
01:26 I'm curious, to you, what's the biggest difference between a spread running attack, you mentioned
01:32 RPO, but a spread running attack and having more tight ends and a fullback and some of
01:37 those bigger bodies closer to the box if you will.
01:41 What's the difference in the run game between running out of the spread and running with
01:44 more tight ends and a fullback?
01:45 I'd say running with more tight ends and a fullback, it brings the, I'd say one, the
01:51 mentality of defining who the offense is because the offense that has doubles tight
01:57 ends set which is a 12 personnel and they're running the ball downhill right at you.
02:02 There's no sugar coating it, there's no hiding it and so you know what the Ravens, what the
02:07 49ers or obviously us come in the fall and what we did back when, during our playing
02:12 days when we had fullbacks, you know we were running the ball 90% of the time and play
02:16 action off of that run set or that offensive formation set.
02:20 So it brings a type of identity to that offense.
02:23 It says hey, we run first and you got to stop us and if you don't you're going to have problems
02:29 and that problem is picking up first downs in 3-4 plays and the clock is getting drained
02:35 all at the same time.
02:36 So it's those type of characteristics of having double tight ends set to bring an aggressive
02:42 and a grinding mentality to the offense and to the team.
02:46 So let's take the scheme out of it for a minute, disregard the scheme.
02:50 What's the biggest key to Nebraska just being able to run the ball better, period?
02:54 How do they just run the ball better than they have the past few years?
02:57 It's a couple of things.
02:59 One, from the player's point of view, you got to want to get the yardage.
03:04 You got to have the one inside of you as a player.
03:06 Offense aligned, all the offense alignment, tight ends, wide receivers, running back,
03:11 quarterback, they got to know when we run this play or when we run these plays we're
03:16 going to pick up yardage.
03:17 And if we run a few plays out of the play list, this play is going to go to the house.
03:23 This play is going to go to the end zone.
03:24 So you got to have that mentality first as a player and then from a coaching staff, obviously
03:30 you got to make sure you give the players the right play to be successful.
03:36 Offensively blocking, going against certain defensive fronts, so make sure they make the
03:40 call that if it's a four down lineman or if they're in a bare front, that they have the
03:45 offense alignment in the right positions, the wide receivers, the tight ends, in the
03:49 right positions to make their blocks and have a successful play.
03:53 So those are the two elements right there where they can be successful and get what
03:58 that mentality was and what that characteristic was about Nebraska offenses.
04:04 Now prior to Anthony Grant kind of becoming the main workhorse at running back for Nebraska's
04:09 offense, at least the majority of last season, prior to that, more often than not in the
04:15 previous seasons, it kind of felt like Nebraska had gone by more of a running back by committee
04:20 approach.
04:21 Now, they had a bunch of talented running backs, a bunch of guys who could do a lot
04:24 of things, but my question is this, how hard is it to get into a rhythm of a game as a
04:30 running back if you're only getting in sporadically?
04:33 And is that frustrating at all to a running back or is it nice to be fresh?
04:37 What's your approach to all that?
04:39 You know, it depends.
04:40 I know for me, it was, I would rather get in my rhythm right away so I could get frustrated
04:46 if I didn't.
04:47 And it depends on like the years for the running back.
04:51 You know, we're talking about a freshman or we're talking about a sophomore that's been
04:54 playing a lot or a junior that's been playing a lot and a senior also that has a lot of
04:58 play time.
04:59 So if you look at a freshman, like my freshman year, I didn't mind it.
05:02 You know, when I got the carries, when I got them, because I was just getting in fresh
05:06 and I didn't have no, you know, I wasn't the starter.
05:09 I was a backup.
05:10 I was rotating with Lawrence and Clinton and Damon and Jay Sims.
05:14 And so whenever, if I get two carries, three carries, all that was okay.
05:18 But then for sophomores, juniors, or seniors, they want to get in their rhythm.
05:22 They want to make sure, you know, if I'm the lead horse, I'm the lead dog, then obviously
05:27 you got to put yourself in training camp.
05:29 So make sure you are the lead dog because then, you know, at the end of the day, you
05:32 don't even have to think about, oh man, I got to, you know, split carries between, you
05:36 know, my teammates.
05:37 You guys, you'll just know, you'll get the lion's share of carries.
05:40 And I think that's where some coaches, they make it easier on the player when they divide,
05:46 when they make the decision, all right, you know, this running back A is the lead horse
05:50 and you, you know, A and then B, C and D, they're just backing him up.
05:53 So when he comes out to rest, you know, B is up next and then B gets hurt or gets tired,
05:58 C goes in.
05:59 And then if A is fresh again, A goes back in.
06:01 So then that takes the pressure off the players saying, oh man, we got to split carries.
06:05 I don't know, that's the, I say that's the way I've done it in the past.
06:08 At the high school level when I coached running backs and I've seen other teams do that as
06:12 well.
06:13 You got to have that lead horse, then there's no discrepancy and no pressure or anxiety
06:17 between the other running backs that's in that rotation.
06:21 Do you think, talking about the younger players and going back and talking about freshmen
06:25 and sophomores and how they might mentally approach the carries they get or don't get
06:30 versus an older player or someone who's the lead dog, so to speak, do you think it's different
06:34 than it used to be with the transfer portal, with NIL, with guys wanting to come in and
06:40 wanting to play right away?
06:41 You don't even hear of many guys redshirting anymore.
06:44 Do you think that attitude's a little bit different for young guys, freshmen coming
06:48 into college now than it once was?
06:50 100 percent.
06:51 100 percent different because it's a different landscape.
06:54 Like you just mentioned, you have transfer portal, you have NIL, you have all, you have
06:59 two things that were not a part of our even mindset as players during our time, your time
07:05 and my time.
07:06 So, it wasn't even something that was a thought like, "Oh man, I could get a NIL bill just
07:11 because of my playing time or whatever, how they hand them out to players."
07:15 Or I could go into transfer portal after my freshman year if it's not working out here
07:19 and go get another opportunity somewhere else.
07:22 That didn't cross our mind.
07:23 It was either you redshirt or you sit your time on the bench or you become the starter.
07:27 One of those three options, that was our options.
07:30 And so, yes, 100 percent of my mindset is different because you have options.
07:34 And when you give, I say having options sometimes is good and sometimes it's kind of that gray
07:39 area for college athletes because they don't really know where to go because some of them
07:45 are really young.
07:46 They're coming straight out of high school and they don't understand the thought process
07:49 that goes into.
07:50 I mean, they only understand, "Okay, I just got a scholarship from Nebraska or LSU or
07:56 wherever and now I'm set."
07:59 But then they get there and then something doesn't work out and now it's like, "Okay,
08:04 year two, I've got options to go transfer portal or I've got this NIL deal that might
08:09 keep me here because I can make 100 grand doing this now."
08:12 So we didn't have those things and I think sometimes a player that doesn't have the education
08:16 and doesn't quite understand the thought process, they could get lost in the shuffle and end
08:20 up making a wrong decision or just a decision that might go their path to graduating or
08:25 their path to the league off a little bit.
08:28 Yeah, for sure.
08:29 Sometimes having options, like you said, is good.
08:31 Sometimes it's a double-edged sword.
08:33 So it goes a little bit both ways.
08:35 Another question for you, and we kind of have an idea, Matt Ruhl's kind of alluded to what
08:38 they're going to do on offense a little bit.
08:40 We know more tight ends, more fullbacks, he wants to win at the line of scrimmage, he
08:43 wants to be physical, he wants to run the ball.
08:45 All things that are like Christmas frickin' day to Husker fans' ears.
08:50 But here's my question to you.
08:52 Do you think, if you had a say in this, hypothetically, should Nebraska bring back a little bit more
08:58 of an option style of football as well?
09:01 I'd say it's already there and yeah, I would love to see the I-formation come out of there
09:07 in the speed option or triple option or even a wing T. But I've seen offenses, I haven't
09:13 really seen, I gotta look back and see if Matt Ruhl has done this with the RPO, because
09:17 I know he ran it at Baylor, but with the RPO you can still have a read option offense that
09:24 then gives a problem to defensive ends.
09:28 Outside linebackers, they gotta make a decision.
09:31 Are we gonna hit the quarterback or are we gonna hit the runback that just did an orbit
09:35 motion behind the quarterback and now he's coming around and it's basically an option
09:39 set, it's an option situation.
09:41 So if you can at least set it up that way, it doesn't have to be, for me it doesn't even
09:44 have to be the traditional sense of I-formation, but if you give, I just wanna see it to where
09:49 eventually you have a quarterback that has the ball and you got a runner back that's
09:53 to his left, that he can pitch it on a decision on what the linebacker does on that, that
09:58 end man on the line of, not the linebacker, but whoever that end man on the line of scrimmage
10:02 is, then you got a problem and then you can create success off that.
10:08 Alright, we're going back to 1997.
10:11 America gets the chance to play Michigan, who wins the game and what's the score?
10:15 Ah, that's easy, we do.
10:18 We destroy them.
10:19 We're gonna beat them up pretty bad, kinda like we beat up Tennessee, cause not one,
10:23 I'm not even, I mean we don't put on points, that's the offense, but our defense would
10:27 have been in that backfield with they had Brian Greasy, great guy, I met him a few times,
10:32 I know Charles Wilson was on the defensive side and a teammate of mine, we've had several
10:37 conversations, that's why I say one will win.
10:40 We'll probably put up 400 yards on the ground like we usually do, cause Michigan, even though
10:44 they had a really good defense with Charles Wilson and a few other guys that went to the
10:48 league and actually were all Americans, but we were built to run for four quarters and
10:54 they wouldn't, they would not have stayed, I say they didn't have the manpower to do
10:58 that cause our rotations of running backs and myself and all linemen, you know, we would
11:02 have just, you know, wore people out like we usually did, cause that's what we did in
11:06 Tennessee, even though they were the SEC champs and we were able to go down there, bludgeon
11:10 them with the run and eventually, you know, it's a pass, cause in the first half we didn't
11:14 have a whole lot of yards, but second half, myself, Joe McEvick, the career ball coach,
11:19 Scott Frost did our job to run the ball like we usually did and, you know, I came out with
11:24 200 to 6 and I think Scottie had a little bit over, maybe he had probably anywhere from
11:28 50 to 100 yards and I know career ball coach, as a freshman he had, you know, 50, 60 yards
11:34 rushing, I think a touchdown as well. So a combination of us three guys running the ball,
11:38 a few passes here and there, we would have dominated, I would say the score would have
11:41 been, I say, let's keep it moderate around, I say 35, I say 35-10 for Michigan.
11:47 My favorite part of that is you're keeping it moderate, I love that. Alright, looking
11:53 ahead quickly to next year, alright, what is your record prediction, like what's the
11:58 win-loss record going to be for Nebraska?
12:00 Oh man, I'm going to roughly say, I'm going to give them, I say 8-4, 8-5. So one or two
12:11 games above 500.
12:13 Last question I got for you, you got any behind the scenes stories from your playing days
12:18 at Nebraska that you'd be comfortable sharing with the fine folks at home?
12:22 Yeah, oh actually I just told this one so it's fresh on my brain, just talking about
12:27 the running back room, kind of like how goofball we were when we were in that room together
12:32 with Coach Solich, we would mess around like little kids before he walked in the room.
12:36 But I remember one instance, this was actually during practice my freshman year, and it was
12:40 Oklahoma week. And so it was the first Oklahoma experience week of my career, and so it was
12:46 intense week, it was a lot of hard hitting in that practice, and I remember it was Wednesday
12:52 or Tuesday, it was Tuesday's practice, Wednesday's practice, and I got a hit pointer right halfway
12:57 through my middle part of practice. I got a hit pointer, so they dope took me out and
13:02 said hey just put some ice on it, you're done for today, we got to get you ready for Saturday's
13:06 game. And so I did, I'm sitting there in the back and it's me, Lawrence, Clinton, Damon,
13:12 Jay, Steve Raymond and a few other guys, Michael Bickle, Brian Schuster, we're just sitting
13:17 back watching 9-on-7 happen.
13:19 And then Damon, all of a sudden this comes out of nowhere, nobody was talking for at
13:23 least two to three minutes, we didn't say a word, we were just watching the plays, getting
13:26 a mental rep, and he comes out of the blue and says to all the running backs, says, "I
13:32 got to be the best looking running back in my pads." And I'm like, I kind of just turned
13:38 my head and looked at him, I'm like, did he just say what I thought he said? And Lawrence,
13:43 he's like, basically shut up, he said some other words, but basically shut up Damon,
13:47 please don't talk, that was the dumbest thing I've ever heard. And then we went back to
13:52 watching 9-on-7, getting our mental reps in, but we were just shaking our heads, I'd say
13:58 for the rest of practice and then into watching film.
14:01 That's awesome. The most random things that happen, just little stuff like that can be
14:06 so amusing. Alright man, that's awesome, I appreciate your time.
14:10 Hey, thank you Adam, thanks for having me, I'll catch you next time.
14:13 Alright, until next time, Husker Nation, Go Big Red, and always remember, Throw the Bones!
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