Fall Practice No. 14 – Quick Hits from TE coach Josh Martin

Fourteen fall camp practices up, 14 down.

The Huskers are 16 days away from their season-opener at Minnesota. Following today's practice, head coach Matt Rhule spoke to the media. You can read his quick hits right here.

After Rhule was finished, it was Josh Martin's turn.

Martin was elevated from special teams analyst to tight ends coach following the resignation of Bob Wager just before fall camp started. Here are Martin's quick hits.

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It's been full speed ahead for Martin, who was elevated to tight ends coach just two days before fall camp started. But thanks to his support staff, Martin feels like the transition has gone extremely well.

"I tried to hit the ground running and developed relationships with players as fast as I can and learn the scheme and what we're doing. It's been awesome," Martin said. "It's been a really easy transition because of our staff and the overwhelming support from our offensive staff, from coach Raiola to coach Satt to coach McGuire, to operations, nutrition, to Corey in the weight room. As soon as it happened, they reached out and have been awesome."

Back in 2015, Martin was on the Arizona State staff as a grad assistant working with the O-line. After an unexpected staff shakeup two weeks into training camp, Martin was promoted to running backs coach. While he was named the running backs coach, Martin coached the tight ends for the Sun Devils.

"Who would've thought eight years later something similar happens," Martin said. "Your experiences prepare you for the present moment and for the future. When this happened, it wasn't the first time it happened in my career, so I was able to take a deep breath and say, 'You've done this before and you've coached the position for a long time,' so it was natural for me to be able to step back into that role."

After the Wager news dropped, Martin wanted to let his tight ends know they’d be in good hands.

“One of the first things he said was, he stayed ready so he didn’t have to get ready,” Boerkircher said earlier this month. “He’s a tight ends coach at heart and he just really wants the best for us.”

Martin said tight end is his favorite position in football. He likes that the position gets to do everything, like catch passes and then run and pass block. Naturally, he tried to get his nose in the playbook and learn everything he could to stay prepared.

"I just tried to continue to learn the scheme as much as I can, and whatever I could do leading up to this point to help our team, I was willing to do," Martin said. "My goal was trying to learn our scheme offensively and defensively, as well as special teams."

Not much is changing for the Husker tight ends now that Martin is in control of the room. The last thing the coach wanted to do was change everything the players had learned from Wager in the spring.

"It's not like I'm coming in with a whole brand new set of like, 'I called this block this.' Whatever's been used in the past, I'm learning that," Martin said. "That's what we continued to do. The way I teach the route concepts, the way I teach everything is the same as how Garret teaches his stuff in the receiver room and the exact same way Donnie teaches stuff in the O-line room."

When Martin first saw Fidone, the coach noticed everything we have. Fidone has size at 6-6 and 250 pounds. He has great length. He can run and is a "freak athlete."

But once Martin got to working with Fidone, the coach said he found out what the tight end is made of. Fidone truly loves football.

"He's really, really hard on himself. But he's a constant seeker of knowledge, he's a perfectionist," Martin said. "Sometimes I'm like, 'Hey, you made a bad play, you gotta move on. You need that what's next mentality.' I've been really, really proud of Thomas in his progression on the field and in the film room.

"He's constantly, 'Hey coach, what do you think about this, what do you think about this?' He's just constantly trying to improve."

After Martin's time at SMU came to an end, he had other opportunities in college football. But the coach is from Dallas and wanted to stay close to family. He wound up connecting with good friend and mentor Joe Castillo, who's the head coach of Little Elm High School. Martin was the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach in 2022.

Martin took that job knowing he would eventually be back in college football. Once the coaching carousel last December came, some other college opportunities fell through.

But then Rhule called.

"I told myself, the next opportunity I'm going to get, I don't care where it is, what it is, I'm going to take it," Martin said. "When coach Rhule called, it was a no-brainer. I didn't care what it was. He said, 'Hey, this is the job,' and I said, 'I can't be more excited to be here.'"

Martin used to watch Husker football games when he was a kid. When he was in seventh grade, Martin was preparing for his first full-padded practice the next morning. He took a white cotton T-shirt and drew a couple things on the front with a black sharpie marker: "Blackshirts" and the skull and crossbones.

"We're out in practice in Allen, Texas, and I go to put the pads on the next day and I sweat all through the shirt, right? I had this black marker all through my shirt, from my neck all the way to my waist," Martin said. "That marker had rubbed off on me and what not. But I came home and my mom thought I was all bruised up from my first day of full pads. But Nebraska is a special place. It shows you that, at 12 or 13 years old, what this place meant to me."

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