A Man and A Team: Maurice Garrett and the Nebraska State Rams

[dgarrett92]

In 2014 a young barely unproven offensive coordinator from Texas gets the chance of a lifetime (if you want to look at it that way);The chance of turning around a bad football team. Only being a division 1 offensive coordinator for just one year many did not believe he had the wherewithal to be a head coach and he was fine with that. He was content with staying with Army and building upon a pretty decent season where Army was able to throw the ball quite a bit.

2013
Rushing. Passing
2609/14th 1572/116TH
16TD/ T-48th 15TD/T-45th
5-7, beat Navy and Air Force

Then he gets a call from Nebraska State University, asking him to take over their offense and also as their recruiting coordinator. Without any hesitancy he takes the job, embarking on a new challenge with a new( second year playing Division 1 FBS football) unproven (finished 0-12 in 2013), football team, in one of the hardest places to recruit (Western Nebraska). The entire coaching staff is fired. The new coach sales him on the goals he have for this team:

Within 5 years play and compete with Nebraska
Within 7 years have a 10-win season

It is the sense of urgency and purpose that draws coach Garrett to North Platte, Nebraska, in the middle of winter, ready to make these goals a reality.
This is the story of a man and a team: Maurice Garrett and Nebraska State Rams.

[dgarrett92]

Transcript of the Introductory press conference for Offensive Coordinator/Recruiting Director Maurice Garrett

Athletic Director Sam Kerry: Good afternoon, everybody. And we appreciate your taking time to be with us this afternoon to conduct some very important business as it relates to our football program.
Today's press conference represents an exciting start for the Nebraska State University football program.
It is with great pleasure that I introduce this young, fiery, intelligent man, Our newest Offensive Coordinator and Director of Recruiting, Maurice Garrett.

Garrett: Thank you. This is is an honor and one that I will hope to make the very best of it. With that being said, I do not want to spend too much of your time so I would like to yield the floor to any questions or comments.

Reporter from North Platte: Coach Garrett first off welcome to North Platte and I hope the weather wasn't too too cold for you. The head coach, Coach Shankweiler has mentioned earlier that he's giving you full range of whatever offensive system you're going you going to run. With that being said is it possible that you'll be running a similar system that you ran at West Point?

Garrett: Thank you for your question and don't worry I may be from Texas but we still know how to wear a coat. As of right now we've got a lot of video scouting done and any good coach will tell you that you don't make your players learn and offense you make your offense learn your players. Obviously I think we do have the pieces necessary to run a similar offense as Army ,however we'll probably try to do a few more or less things just depending on what we're good at knowing how and where able to attack defenses. I can tell you however that I am going to try to use a little less flexbone with this group I think that this is a team that can probably play little bit more out of the gun and the pistol so we'll see.

Reporter From Omaha: Coach Garrett, as recruiting coordinator you as well as the offense of coordinator you have a very unique positions where you can go out and actually and pick the players that you want without a middleman. What would be the areas of focus for you as far as where to recruiting who are you going to recruit.

Garrett: That's a good question and thank you for asking it. As far as where we're going to recruit on we're going to cast a pretty broad net. Obviously, recruiting in Nebraska and the surrounding states are priority so I'll be probably hitting the road with the next 3 or 4 days going around the state making my face known with Head Coach Shakweiler and just developing those relationships with high school coaches , principals, and AD's in the state and in neighboring states like Colorado and Kansas. I also would like to try to go back home to Texas and see if I can steal a couple of guys to play football out here on the plains but for the most part my focus will be Nebraska and neighboring states around the Plains and and in the Midwest.

Reporter from Lincoln: Coach Garrett first off welcome to Nebraska. Secondly what is the goals for this team this year into the off-season? Obviously with the coaching turnovers and with the brand new staff what are the goals for this season as it pertains to wins losses and your other quantitative measures?

Garrett: Firstly thank you I'm glad to be here. Secondly we are going to try to win ballgames and I think you know in the first season from what I've seen so far, it was just based on you know how okay we have a football team but as far as ,you know ,offensive direction and things of that matter, and a little bit on the defensive side, although I think the defense was a bit more consistent, but as far as the offense is concerned, it didn't seem to have an identity. It seemed to just have a bunch of everything and didn't establish an identity and I think that's one thing that we really want to do is establish an identity in which we are to build this team around. We know we're going to be playing some teams that are pretty good. We however expect to compete, we expect to to go into every game with the mentality that if we play our game, we have chance to win each and every game. Basically at least from what we have been discussing , building an identity around our team and going into each game knowing that we have a chance to win if we execute and if we do the right things.

Reporter from Scottsbluff: Coach Garrett first off welcome to Western Nebraska, the folks out here I really looking forward to this season. What are you going to be looking for as far as the starting quarterback position in just other starting jobs that you're going to be having up this year?

Garrett: Thank you for having me sir. I think the number one thing I'm probably going to be looking for is how fast can they grasp offense and how well can they make changes within the game,aking those adjustments that are critical whenever we're playing teams. I think that those are the two things that I'm going to try to build the offense around because we have to be able to execute effectively. I don't care how fast you are,how big you are, how strong you are, if you cannot execute the offense you cannot execute your job then we're not going to score points and you have to score points to win this game so thats probably the two things I'm going to be looking for.

Garrett: Are there any other questions? In case I thank you for meeting with me today. I thank you for the hospitality and kindness that you all have shown me I almost feel like I'm back home in in Texas ,during a snowstorm, of course. It is my wish and my sworn duty to make sure that I help in building a football team that not only North Platte but also the rest of Western Nebraska can be proud of. Thank you for having me. Go State, Go Rams.

[dgarrett92]

Nebraska State Recruiting Class of 2013]

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End of Off-Season/Fall Camp Press Conference

Garrett: Well it's nice to see a lot of familiar faces here today going to try to answer as many questions as time permits and see where it goes so I'm at this time I yield the floor for any questions or comments.

Reporter from Omaha: Coach Garrett how about you / 8 how the offense is looking for the season.

Garrett: I think going into the season we have a pretty decent offense, especially with the recruits that we were able to bring in I think that we are poised to have a decent season but again it's all based on how we execute.

Reporter from North Platte: coach Garrett how do these guys feel getting ready to open up the season against a solid Colorado State team?

Garrett: well I think anytime you can open up the season against a rival from the other state it's a great feeling. It's one in which we know emotions are going to be running high but we can't play off of soley emotion but we have to play off of technique and skill and our ability to know that we can compete.

Reporter from Omaha: coach Garrett how confident are you that this team can win more than three games going into this season?

Garrett: I believe three games is more than a tangible for this squad obviously you know we feel like we have a ways to go as far as becoming Bowl eligible and achieving some of our other goals however I think three wins is in an achievable goal for this team all things considered.

Reporter from Lincoln: Coach Garrett we've heard you speak of the offense maybe once in the introductory press conference can you expound a bit as far as what this team is going to do on that side of the ball?

Garrett: I guess the best way to describe it is that we are a option base team will mainly play out the flexbone maybe 40% of the time while the rest of the staff will probably be based off of other formations depending on what the defense gives us. We want to be able to run and pass the ball effectively so we kind of have in our Playbook a type of two separate books if you will. The first book would be more so your base 3 back formations like the flexbone and stuff of that nature where we can pressure teams and surprise them with the short and intermediate passing as well as beating them on the run and the second book would probably more of a spread type of option system witch is our spread flexbone sets with two and our shotgun sets which allows us to spread teams out and make it even more unpredictable when coupled with the type of pace and will try to run with ,which is also unpredictable because one minute you know if we see that they're handling our no huddle stuff well we'll go back to drain the clock and if they are doing a good job of stopping us when we're trying to drain the clock it will put pressure on them when we start to go up tempo, that's probably the main premise of our offensive attack.

Reporter from Lincoln: with such a run-heavy system do you think you guys will be able to use this in order to equalize the level of talent that other teams have that you're playing against such as TCU and Alabama and Tennessee?

Garrett: Obviously when you're playing against those type of teams with that level of players you have to have much more than just a scheme you have to have that your players and you have to have a coaching staff who is committed to working hard in order to study and to plan for such an attacking at the end of the day I think that's all we can do is come into each of those games to each and every game and be prepared to compete.

Garrett: thank you all for the questions and I'm looking forward to a great season and to what we can accomplish. Go State, Go Rams.

[dgarrett92]

2014 Nebraska State University Rams Preview

Schedule


Nebraska State Preseason Honors

1st Team All-Independents
Kent Flanagan, RE
Sean Walker, ROLB

2nd Team All- Independents
B.J. Bensen, HB
Nathan Flowers, K

Projected Finish: 3-9, Last in Independents


Key Players: Tim Brown QB , B.J. Jensen HB, Kody Merrick FB, Kory Roland WR, Ellis Gatewood DE, Kent Flanagan DE, Sean Walker ROLB

Offense: Multiple Spread Veer
Defense: 3-4

Notable Games:
Colorado State ( Ram Bowl)
Army
@ Alabama

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Nebraska State Rams (1-0) 38 vs Colorado State Rams (0-1) 21
Platte Stadium, North Platte, NE
Estimated Attendance: 17,853
12:30pm
75°, Light Rain

Team Preview


Scoring Summary



Team Stats




Individual Stats Nebraska State











Individual Stats Colorado State











Players of the Game