Mickey Joseph opens up on memories this season, what he's learned about himself

Nebraska‘s season will come to a close on Saturday with a road trip to Iowa, mercifully ending a campaign that saw head coach Scott Frost canned just three games in. But the memories Mickey Joseph made along the way as the team’s interim coach are ones he’ll never forget.

After Joseph took over the Cornhuskers won two of their next three games, offering a hint of hope that Nebraska might turn things around. Alas, it wasn’t to be.

“I think the toughest thing is that we haven’t been able to get it done and finished the way I wanted with wins,” Joseph said. “That’s been the toughest thing. But I wouldn’t trade these memories for anything right now, and I’m sure the kids feel the same way because we really connected.”

Nebraska had chances to break through and potentially even become bowl eligible.

However, close games against Purdue (43-37 loss), Minnesota (20-13 loss) and Wisconsin (15-14 loss) all left Nebraska wanting for a more favorable result.

Still, Joseph found the positives.

“Just the most enjoyable thing is the kids and the coaches and just the joy of coming back to Lincoln, coming back to the University of Nebraska and having the opportunity to lead this program,” he said.

Mickey Joseph’s memories include useful social media advice

Of all the memories Mickey Joseph could have shared from his stint as the program’s interim coach it was some very early advice he got from his brother, former Denver Broncos coach Vance Joseph, and others around the Nebraska program when he first took over.

“I learned to stay off of Twitter. That’s the first thing you learn,” Joseph said. “Second thing I learned, that you have to adapt to the conference and your team’s got to kind of look like the team that you play every week. And you have to surround yourself with people that understand or see it from your eyes and see it from the balcony, not the basement. It’s not hard, but just learning things like that and learning the ups and downs of a head coach.

Why the stay-off-Twitter advice?

“Because some of these dudes on Twitter, they should worry about their own jobs, not my job,” Joseph said, breaking into a big grin as reporters in the room also laughed. “Not my job, because they’re not going to make any decisions. But it’s funny, some of the things they say. It was best, though, when I took over, everybody said, ‘Stay off of Twitter.’ My brother Vance said, ‘Hey, shut social media down, stay off it.’ I don’t think he ever had it. It was cool.”

One thing Joseph doesn’t sound like he’ll walk away from Nebraska with, should his future take him away from the program, is regret.

He reiterated multiple times this week how enjoyable the experience was.

“Everybody say when you’re a head coach it’s lonely,” Joseph said. “Well, I really don’t get lonely because everybody’s tugging at you. So you really don’t get lonely. You’re lonely because you want to be lonely, and I’m not that type of person. And I was able to do it my way. I was able to keep it real.”