Nebraska staff touts new features of ‘best football building in the world’

Sean Padden used to imagine what a functionally perfect football complex might look like while on staff with coach Matt Rhule with the NFL’s Carolina Panthers in 2021. Back then the NU general manager worked with a global architectural design firm to get a glimpse of some of the best existing training centers and made a list of the features he would include.

Nearly all of them are in the $165 million Osborne Legacy Complex, the newly named and newly operational 315,000-square foot space adjacent to the northeast corner of Memorial Stadium.

“I’ve been in a lot of other buildings and have seen a lot of designs of other places,” Padden said Thursday during a scheduled talk with media members. “This is the best football building in the world.”

By “best,” he means most player-oriented for development and recovery. A sprawling natural-light weight room is a few steps from the practice fields. There are saunas. Red-light therapy. Cold tubs, hot tubs and zero-gravity underwater treadmills. Incline resistance training. Sleep pods.

Padden recently asked former New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick — the featured speaker at NU’s coaches clinic last month — how he was able to attract and retain so many quality players at reduced costs during his career. His answer: Stand by the work you put into that individual.

Nebraska’s new space is symbolic of the detail and breadth of effort poured into Husker players, Padden said.

“I don’t think anyone’s coming just because of it,” Padden said. “But sometimes you like the sizzle with the steak.”

Football chief of staff Susan Elza said the transition of a staff of 73 from North Stadium — an area of about 200,000 square feet — to the new facility has been extensive. It’s worth it, she said, when viewing the newly open walk-through room and meeting spaces for players.

Coaches offices overlook the practice fields below. The Huskers previously couldn’t have their entire team lift weights together; now the full roster of 149 can if needed.

“What Nebraska did, what our donors did, is they put our players, our football program in a position to be very successful and to have the most elite facility in college football,” Elza said. “That’s only going to contribute to the recruiting, contribute to the retention and all the things that go with having a successful football program.”