'Desire to Excel And No Fear of Failure'

Greg Austin is firmly convinced players on the Nebraska football team are ready for a new beginning.

Austin, a former Husker lineman beginning his first season as offensive line coach, sees student-athletes who are open, eager and ready to dive in head first.

That’s not exactly what Austin and the rest of head coach Scott Frost’s coaching staff encountered two years ago, when they inherited a Central Florida program that had just endured an 0-12 season.

“They were kind of dipping their toes in,” Austin said Wednesday. “ ‘Are these guys really about what they say they’re about?’ It was a mutual coming together between players and coaches.

“Here, these guys welcomed us with open arms, like, ‘What do you need us to do?’ ”

That tells Austin he should expect a team hungry to learn when Nebraska’s first spring football practice unfolds on Friday.

“These guys have done everything we’ve asked of them. Everything. They’ve been awesome,” Austin said. “I’m excited about what that looks like on the field.

“There’s this term I like called ‘spillover.’ You do things the right way in this area of your life, they tend to create habits and affect other areas of your life, spill over to other areas. Doing small things the right way, it translates to doing it the right way on the field, too.”

Frost, addressing the media in a pre-spring news conference, said players have adjusted well in offseason workouts and conditioning. Like Austin, he’s seen buy-in from the players, along with effort and excitement.

“I don’t want to see guys dip their toe in the water,” Frost said. “I want to see them dive in head first. Do everything they can possibly do full speed.”

Yes, Frost expects some sloppiness at the outset. Players will make mistakes. That’s a given. It’s understood, especially given the transition in systems and culture.

It’s why Frost is implementing a slogan he once learned from Mike Tomlin – have a desire to excel and no fear of failure.

“Part of that is the coaches’ responsibility,” Frost said. “I mentioned that we are not going to yell and scream at kids. We’re not going to cuss at kids. I don’t think that’s the right thing to do, and I also don’t want kids afraid to go make a great play. If someone misses a tackle, drops a ball, they don’t need to be yelled at – they need to be taught the right way to do it so it doesn’t happen again.

“Once you take away that fear of what might happen if you make a bad play, it really frees you up to go make great plays. So I want our team to always play with the desire to excel and no fear of failure.”

It’s a philosophy players seem more than happy to adopt as Frost and his staff work to change Nebraska’s culture.

Players, senior defensive lineman Mick Stoltenberg said, want to compete, and want to win, and can’t be afraid to fail.

“But give it all your heart,” Stoltenberg said. “You’re a young guy, and you have never done it before and you don’t really know what to expect, just go 100 miles an hour and do your thing and try to excel, try to make plays.

“If you mess up something simple, it will get fixed. But that mentality, that competition mentality is something we are trying to get.”

Linebacker Mohamed Barry said players need to bring an aggressive, attacking mentality to practice.

“You have to attack Friday with the mentality that you are the best in your position and every individual,” Barry said. “That’s how we are going to become a better team. If you are striving to become the best player not only on the team, but in the nation, then it creates competition. Competition brings the best out in us.”

Stoltenberg said the biggest changes he’s seen in the offseason, heading into spring practices, is more accountability from players.

“Obviously, with what happened, we know last season didn’t work,” Stoltenberg said of the Huskers’ 4-8 record. “We had to change, otherwise, we would see the same results. The buy-in has been pretty great. It needs to be in order for us to get this thing rolling.

“I think guys are realizing how hard we do have to work. It is great we have new coaches and all that stuff is changing, but at the end of the day, we still have to work really hard to be successful. It is not an easy process. It doesn’t just happen by being there and showing up. You have to put in the work yourself, and I think guys are starting to realize that.”

Nebraska will have its initial practice Friday, then have a week off for spring break before beginning the spring season in earnest. It’s a significant change from recent years, when the team has practiced for two weeks, taken a week off, then resumed with the remainder of practices, another 2-3 weeks.

Frost said he wasn’t certain he would get the most out of players under the old format.

“By practicing on Friday, we’ve been able to meet with the guys all week, which gave us a whole week of meetings to try to get them as familiar with our schemes,” Frost said. “I think it’s going to also be beneficial to have them get a taste of what it’s like and then be able to go on spring break and come back with a little bit of an idea of what they have in front of them, and I think we’ll be able to accomplish more in spring because of that.”

Reach Brian at brosenthal@huskers.com or follow him on Twitter @GBRosenthal.