Shatel: Hired to fix Nebraska's special teams, Mike Ekeler can handle the heat

He was the wedge buster. The Kamikaze Cat. The Flying Ek. Nobody was safe, including the wall in the back of the end zone, into which Ekeler would sometimes ram his helmet as an exclamation point.

Ekeler is still leading with his helmet.

For Matt Rhule and Nebraska, that’s a start.

Rhule’s special teams are anything but, so he called in an expert. Ekeler is a special teams guru. Nebraska is paying him $625,000 a year to come in and turn their special teams into something that wins football games.

The expectation is that Ekeler will do just that.

In four years at Tennessee, his special teams ranked in the top 10 in punt return average (13.9) and percentage of punts downed inside the 10.(19,4). His unit blocked eight punts and gave up a total of 138 punt return yards. They were in the top 20 in several categories.

When he was coaching at Kansas, his punter averaged 44.5 yards a punt. At Georgia, his unit had six punt returns for touchdowns in two seasons.

On and on. Where Ekeler goes, good special teams happen. High expectations followed him back to his home state. So, too, does pressure.

Pressure?

“There’s no pressure,” Ekeler said on Tuesday. “Zero. If people expect us to be the best, that’s what I expect. That’s what we expect.

“The first player I recruited here was Will Compton. His dad, Bill, asked me the exact same question: Ek, you guys must be under a lot of pressure coming in here and trying to restore Nebraska football. I said we have zero pressure. We expect to do it.”

There is pressure on Ekeler to produce this season. Expectations are up there.

That’s the point.

That’s what you want.

For too long, Nebraska’s special teams have had low expectations, if any. The spotlight was always on the offense or defense, depending on the background of the head coach.

Nebraska became known for fair catches, on both punts and kickoffs. Blocked punts were something that happened to Nebraska, not for.

That’s not the Nebraska that Ekeler knows, the one that was ahead of most schools in special teams. The Nebraska he watched while playing at Blair High in the late 1980’s, and again while at Kansas State from 1991-94.

“It’s Nebraska, isn’t it?” Ekeler said. “There’s a bunch of banners hanging up there. It should be the expectation.”

The spotlight is back on special teams at NU. Ekeler commands the attention. His press conferences are riveting. His confidence is unabashed.

On Tuesday, freshman punter Archie Wilson was the big story, his booming range and ability to use either right or left foot. Ekeler doesn’t douse the hype, he adds to it, saying, Wilson “will be a damn weapon.”

Recently Jacory Barney turned heads by saying he was going to lead the nation in punt returns. Bold talk for a Husker returner?

Barney’s coach has his back.

“That’s why I don’t go to Vegas,” Ekeler said. “If I played blackjack, I’d push all the chips to the middle.

“I respect (Barney). We don’t go out there and mess around. For him to come up and say I’m going to lead the country, that’s the mentality we want. That’s my mentality. That’s our head coach’s mentality.”

Ekeler is the head coach of special teams. That’s an interesting place for him to be. When he got into coaching — back at Skutt High in 1999 — his place was on defense. Then in 2003 he went to work for Bob Stoops (his defensive coordinator at KSU) as a graduate assistant at Oklahoma, Stoops remembered Ekeler’s reputation on special teams.

“We had nine assistant coaches and two GA’s,” Ekeler said. “Josh Heupel was the offensive GA, I was the defensive GA. (Heupel) didn’t want to do anything except offense so I had every single scout special team on top of the defensive part of it.

“From that point on, wherever I went, I would always add special teams, punt return, kickoff. I think it was in 2017 when they went to the 10th coach and a lot of people started having special teams coordinators.”

Ekeler's passion for the important phase began when he got his start on special teams as a freshman at Kansas State: “That’s how I got on the field.” Expect him to use the same carrot for Nebraska’s freshmen and scout teamers. Sometimes the best special team players are the ones with the most to prove.

Including the new special teams coordinator.

“They can’t make a mistake,” Ekeler said. “The only mistake they can make is not making a full-speed decision. That’s it. We’re going to go out and play with our hair on fire. It’s about executing every time you’re on the field. We break each meeting by saying, 'One shot, one kill.' You have one shot to do it.”

And if they don’t, the man says, “You can say “Ek stinks.”

He can handle it.