corn train
Have some of it
Night fellers. Morning Corn! Wooo!
Night fellers. Morning Corn! Wooo!
Director of football operations Jeff Jamrog is the master of ceremonies, so to speak. He lays out the schedule. First stop is a morning workout of Nebraska's newcomers inside Memorial Stadium, a new addition to the Football 202 event that's easily one of the day's highlights. The freshman Huskers are in the midst of "quarters" — a combination of 55-yard sprints and intense shuttle runs. It's one of the many grueling conditioning drills NU runs in July to prepare for preseason practice.
Strength guru James Dobson is rarely in the media spotlight like Boyd Epley used to be, but he's the Huskers' primary coach in the summer, a man of perpetual motion on the turf, weaving in and out of the traffic of runners, stalking down guys for exhortation and encouragement while one of his assistants barks out times from his stopwatch.
Jamrog says Dobson halfway lost his voice earlier in the week. Really? It's hard to tell.
Fans search the faces and frames for quarterback Bubba Starling, but he's not here. He ran earlier in the morning because of a class conflict. So did running back Braylon Heard. But the rest of the freshmen are separated in three groups. They all show a burst as the drill begins, but as the runs multiply, it becomes a test of sheer endurance. Yet not one of them falls out.
In the second group, a kid with a ponytail bolts ahead. Who is that?
"Derek Slaughter," Jamrog says. A walk-on linebacker from Alabama who grew up in David City until the fifth grade. Linebacker recruit Max Pirman, tall and lean with a large tattoo on one shoulder, keeps up with him.
I just rolled out of bed and am making coffee