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» » Bryan Applewhite preaches toughness to restore Huskers' 'original RBU' brand - Omaha World Herald

Bryan Applewhite preaches toughness to restore Huskers' 'original RBU' brand - Omaha World Herald

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LINCOLN – Bryan Applewhite heard the two phrases years ago, married them together, and decided to build part of his coaching philosophy off of them.

The pressure of college football practices and games is often doing one of two things to a player.

“Building diamonds or breaking pipes,” Nebraska’s new running backs coach said Friday. Applewhite said the line is part of his talks with the group of running backs he just inherited.

Hired to transform a room that hasn’t produced a 1,000-yard back in six of the last seven years, Applewhite likes his guys. He sees a passion and “want-to” during offseason conditioning drills – which, as it happens, may be slightly more oriented around the assistant coaches than the strength coaches this winter – and appreciates the texts and questions he’s already getting.

Aside from the two players he recruited to NU – New Mexico Military Institute’s Anthony Grant and summer freshman arrival Ajay Allen- he named no names and didn’t break down any of their games. He told players they had a clean slate and he wants to see who emerges in spring.

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He’s told them a few other things, too. That he’ll coach them like “defensive players,” the way NU defensive assistants Barrett Ruud or Travis Fisher might coach their linebackers or safeties. That he knows and respects former Nebraska running backs coach Ryan Held – but Applewhite’s not him. That he doesn’t like it when someone says they’re as fair and honest “as they can be.” No. Lop off the qualifier. Fair and honest. That’s it.

“These kids like to say ‘keep it 100’ and I’m going to ‘keep it 100’ with you,” Applewhite said. “I’m going to tell you when you’re doing something I don’t approve of. I’m going to tell you if your work ethic isn’t where I expect it to be. And then I’m going to tell you if your work ethic is what I expect it to be. And when you get to that level where I want you to be, I’m going to hold you to it.

“Once I see you have what I want, you’ve got to uphold that standard. That’s when things get hard, but that’s when I can tell who will be the one to handle the pressure. I apply pressure every day.”

Building diamonds. Breaking pipes.

“Competition’s going to do one of two things for you: You’re going to get better or you’re going to quit,” Applewhite said.

So, when asked for traits he values most in running backs, Applewhite starts with mental toughness. Physical toughness is mental, Applewhite said, and speaks to how hard and far you’ll push yourself to be great.

He wants players who are students of the game in the “finer details” like hand placement, pad level and body lean, he prefers to recruit multi-sport athletes who ran track in high school, and he uses class attendance as a litmus test for how a player will practice. There aren’t any 300-pound nose tackle plugging the doors to Oldfather Hall like they do the A gap.

“If I can’t trust you when it’s that easy, what are you going to do when it’s hard?” Applewhite said.

He comes from a two-year stint at TCU, where Applewhite worked for Gary Patterson, whose emphasis on development helped transform the Horned Frogs from a boutique private school in Conference USA to, eventually, Rose Bowl champs and a Big 12 contender.

Bryan Applewhite, running backs

First season on staff: 2022

2022 Salary: $325,000

Alma mater: Northern Colorado

Other coaching stops: TCU (2020-21), Colorado State (2015-19), Louisiana-Monroe (2010-14), Montana State (2009), Wyoming (2003-08), Northern Colorado (1999-02)

Prior to that, Applewhite worked at Colorado State and Louisiana-Monroe. His first extended assistant coaching stint came at Wyoming under Lincoln native Joe Glenn, who also coached Applewhite at Northern Colorado when the Bears won two national titles in the 1990s.

“Should have been three,” Applewhite said.

Before college, Applewhite grew up in Brighton, Colorado. His high school coach, Jim McMillin, was a former NFL defensive back with the Broncos and Raiders in the 1960s. The Raiders long had a reputation for toughness, and McMillin preached it. The coach also attended his share of football clinics at Nebraska.

“He had that whole Oakland Raider mentality – and he was a huge Nebraska fan,” Applewhite said. “He ran a lot of plays Coach (Tom) Osborne would run. He’d always tell us ‘I came back from Nebraska with this.’ That’s where it started for me. ‘I came back to Nebraska with this.’”

Applewhite can rattle off the Husker backs from the 1980s and 90s – Roger Craig, Mike Rozier, Calvin Jones – and sees NU as the “original RBU.” Running Backs University. There’s a case to be made NU’s designation remained true until 2014, when Ameer Abdullah logged his third 1,000-yard season and became a Doak Walker finalist. The Detroit Lions drafted Abdullah in the second round.

Since then, only fullback Andy Janovich – underutilized for most of his NU career – has been drafted by a NFL team and, in many seasons, Husker quarterback Adrian Martinez became the most dangerous ball carrier as Nebraska cycled through backs for various reasons. One was removed from the team. One was never the same after suffering two torn ACLs in high school. One got COVID during his first year and never found his niche. One positive story, the emergence of Rahmir Johnson in 2021, was cut short in part because Johnson suffered multiple injuries down the stretch of the season.

Held couldn’t find one firm starter, much less two.

“I thought we did a good job at that position last year but we needed to get better,” NU coach Scott Frost said.

Applewhite’s track record suggests he likes to balance the rushing load, with no one guy getting more than 15-to-17 carries per game.

“I’ve always tried create competition going into a season where, if I have one bellcow and he’s the only bellcow I have, then I didn’t do a good job of acquiring talent and developing it, because I’ve only got one kid in the room that we can count on,” Applewhite said. “If I’ve done a good job, we’ve got two or three who can go in and help Nebraska. That’s what I tell them.”

He won’t lack for numbers – six scholarship backs will be in spring camp with a seventh, Allen, arriving this summer – and he won’t lack for media and fan attention, given the position he coaches and the school where he coaches it. One of his daughters created a funny Instagram account for Moose, one of the family’s golden retrievers. The account has Husker fans following it.

Still, when Applewhite got the call from Scott Frost, he and his wife, Rachelle, had the same thought.

“She texted me ‘Go Big Red,’” Applewhite said. He had several other coaching options, including at programs winning more consistently than NU has recently. But Nebraska’s ceiling is higher, Applewhite said.

“Schools with tradition – who have history – tend to come back to that tradition and history,” Applewhite said. “It might take a little massaging, a little tweak here, a little tweak there, but it comes back.”

Pressure has busted Husker pipes in recent years, but NU has many more diamonds to count.

“It just takes one break here, one change of a system, one player not getting hurt and Nebraska can be what Nebraska was in the 80s and 90s,” Applewhite said. “It’s Nebraska.”

sam.mckewon@owh.com, 402-540-4222, twitter.com/swmckewonOWH

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