This is an excerpt from an interview with Dr. Tom recently. I thought it was interesting what he had to say about Urbans' Utah teams. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HP: What do you remember about your first game as the Head Coach at Nebraska? Tom: We had lost to UCLA the year before – that was David Humm’s first game – I think we lost 17-14 and I think maybe Mark Harmon, the guy that’s the actor, was the quarterback for UCLA and they ran the wishbone and we just didn’t do a very good job of stopping it and so they beat us 17-14 and the next year they came back here and we beat them pretty solidly. I can’t remember the exact score – it was like 42-13, something like that, and I remember Tony Davis was our I-back, had a couple of big runs and I think David Humm played pretty well that day. HP: You changed your offense and defense from time to time during your coaching career – do you think you would be using a version of the West Coast offense if you were still coaching? Tom: No, I don’t think so – I might do some of the things that Urban Meyer did at Utah. We started in that direction. We ran multiple sets but we also ran out of a shotgun some and we ran some option football out of it. Urban began putting people in motion and getting almost a three-back option offense out of the spread formation, out of the shotgun. I think some of those things would be attractive but I would always want to run some option. I always felt that the option gives you the best possible passing situation because in order to stop the option, you have to involve the safeties so much and somebody has to come up and take the quarterback, somebody has to take the pitch so you can start down that line and immediately isolate the secondary because they have to commit and you’ve got one on one out there. I was talking to Bear Bryant one time and he said he liked the wishbone because it gave him the best possible throwing situation, that was one receiver out there being covered by one guy, a cornerback with no help in middle because the safeties were involved in stopping the option. That’s very true and I’ve always been very partial to option football. Of course, we moved the ball very well that way throughout the time that I was the coach. HP: So you prefer that versus the passing attacks that you utilized with quarterbacks like Humm and Ferragamo? Tom: Well, we ran some options with those guys too. We probably got better running the option when we went to players with a little more speed. Jeff Quinn was certainly a guy that ran the option well, and of course, Turner Gill was where we really began to hit our stride. Tommie Frazier, Scott Frost, those kinds of people were truly outstanding at it, but we always ran some option when I was the coach. HP: What do you miss most about coaching? Tom: I miss the players and I miss the strategy. To me, coaching was a little bit like a chess game and so I always enjoyed that strategy and trying to counteract what the opposition was doing, and I really enjoyed the players. HP: During your 25 seasons as the Huskers head coach, do you have any particular moments that you’re the most proud of? Tom: I felt reasonably good about what we did – I don’t think the things that are important are necessarily the championships or the rings or the bowl games. It’s more the relationships – I guess since I’ve been out of coaching for eight years I have felt that most of the players that played here felt that there was something special that happened, a very strong bond among the players, they are very supportive, they come back a lot and that’s been really gratifying to see and see so many players who maybe came from difficult circumstances have made a better life for themselves — players who probably would never have gone to college if it wouldn’t have been for a football scholarship. That's been very good to see also. I guess in terms of memorable games, maybe the game with Miami where we went for two points and didn’t make it during the 1984 Orange Bowl, the game against Miami in the 1995 Orange Bowl where we finally beat them 24-17 to win a national championship, the game with Florida for the national championship in the Fiesta Bowl the next year and then certainly the last game I coached against Tennessee and Peyton Manning and we won that game rather handily. And probably one other would be the Oklahoma game in 1978 – we had not done well with Oklahoma and they came up here with a great team and we beat them 17-14, and so those games will always be very memorable to me.
Nice to see that if the King of Nebraska would do anything differently, it would be to include more stuff that Meyer does. Course his comment of "I’ve always been very partial to option football. Of course, we moved the ball very well that way throughout the time that I was the coach" is probably the understatement of the century. And thanks, it's always good to get reminded of that UF-Neb NC game. :cry: Do you think the interviewer who asked if Dr. Tom would be including the West Coast offense was trying to get support for the current coach? or undermine him?
Wendy, The interviewer is the guy who runs the Huskerpedia website. I can tell you as a Nebraska fan, the question was more of a "Please help us get over our loss" question, than it was to be critical. Anybody over the age of 35 in Nebraska will never fully embrace this Offense. Even if BC brings a NC back to Lincoln, they will always say the 94-97 package was the best.