MIAMI -- You kept waiting for some sign of real emotion late Friday night from Tom Osborne beyond his perpetually ruddy cheeks.
Never
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The Cornhuskers sent Osborne out a winner in the Orange Bowl. (Reuters)
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Not really.
As his Cornhuskers sent him off with a 42-17 thumping of Tennessee in the Orange Bowl to end 25 years as the Nebraska's coach, Osborne, as usual, was very up-front about everything.
"This has been a very difficult week," Osborne confessed.
"You could here his voice crack now and then but it wasn't like you would expect," offensive lineman Aaron Taylor said.
Osborne would have preferred to go out and recruit after the season, then tell everyone before spring practice that he was finished. "Disappear in May," was how he put it. But that would have been unfair to his recruits -- a case of deception.
Osborne isn't about deception. He was always about winning, running a solid program year in and out, riding through the bumps and pitfalls.
HE WAS THE COACH who, first, couldn't beat Oklahoma. He was then the coach who, once the Oklahoma stigma was behind him, still couldn't win the big game. In Miami, the Orange Bowl was a routine Nebraska stop.
Before Friday, Osborne reminisced about coming here four other times and falling short on three of those occasions. So it goes, he said. No regrets. Especially about the Orange Bowl that followed the 'Huskers' dominating 1983 season, in which Osborne defined himself by going for the two-point conversion to win rather than play for the tie. An open rollout pass didn't connect and the University of Miami celebrated a national title.
"A lot of people have labeled the 1984 Orange Bowl a real bummer for Nebraska," Osborne said, "since we missed that 2-point conversion... But I thought that game was one of our shining moments. I was very proud of the way we played."
The same words followed 14 years later. Typical Osborne. In presence, in stature, the man is part Clint Eastwood, part Tommy Lee Jones (who, himself, was one fine offensive lineman in college). Tough, but poised. Aggressive, but steady. But unlike a star, he is eager to step aside.
He essentially apologized for being asked to cut in on the postgame comments of his players, including outspoken quarterback Scott Frost -- who said his team "kicked the snot" out of Tennessee and was set to challenge any coach to honestly say Michigan is a better team than Nebraska if his job were on the line with that decision.
"I don't mean to butt in. They're the guys who did it," Osborne said, looking at Frost and the Orange Bowl MVP, running back Ahman Green. "I just kind of stood there."
So who, Dr. Osborne, is No. 1?
THAT WILL BE MADE known on Saturday, is his answer. You know which way he is leaning. "We've done all we can," he said. "We've won all 13."
Not a bad way to go out. And in a place ripe with so many postseason memories, including the mid-1960s, when Osborne served under another Nebraska legend named Bob Devaney.
"There have been a few bumps along the road. But I can't think of a better way to go out," Osborne said. "I don't really have much more to say. I really care for these guys. One thing that will be very difficult in leaving college coaching is the relationships. The rings, the titles -- they're all OK. But the relationships, they'll never be replaced."
AS OSBORNE'S FINAL TEAM manhandled the players under the charge of Tennessee coach Phil Fulmer, there was a passing of the torch. Fulmer very well could be another Osborne.
Consider the similarities. This week he signed a six-year contract extension. He has the best winning percentage among active coaches. He is in a position eerily similar to where Osborne was early in his Nebraska tenure. He is haunted by the shadow of failing to beat the major rival -- Florida, in Tennessee's case. Reaching the Orange Bowl with a No. 3 ranking represented new ground for Tennessee, a chance at a national championship. That chance had essentially unraveled a day earlier when Michigan won the Rose Bowl. That chance completely disintegrated during a blowout, on a night his team, as Fulmer put it, "got whipped" in the third quarter.
"He's a great gentleman. He wasn't being too kind there in the second half, at times, I think," Fulmer said. "But, you know, he's everything that college football should be about. I think he's fair and honest to the kids. And in recruiting. As I said earlier, he stands for the right things and speaks up for his faith. You like to see great people have great things happen to them. He's a had a great run as a coach. A lot of people would like to be him, I guess, in this profession."
There aren't many like Osborne. He has won, stayed, survived, prospered, tarnished only by an allegiance to one troubled player -- running back Lawrence Phillips -- that critics cited as a win-at-any-cost stab at a national title.
Characteristically, Osborne still sticks by his actions and beliefs surrounding the Phillips incident. He doesn't back off his outspoken religious beliefs, either. He just lives his life, true to his inner direction.
Now he will go fishing, follow a favorite passion. He'll probably speed on the way to some of the better trout fishing runs in the Western wilderness. One time he did that with defensive coordinator Charlie McBride. A Nebraska trooper pulled them over. The cop gave Osborne a ticket. Then he asked for an autograph.
Then Osborne and McBride pulled away, only to discover that Osborne had dropped his license on the country road after the trooper had finished with him. They turned back. In the darkness, the license was still there, still on the road.
That must be how things turn out for someone who has lived and coached with a plan and who, now, will simply live with a plan.
Mike Lurie is a CBS SportsLine staff writer.
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