I have been around football my entire life, and have dreamed of being a coach for as long as I can remember, picking up every trick of the trade I've ever heard along the way and putting it in my back pocket for future use.
However, this one Bret Bielema casually mentions during his presser has apparently evaded me all these years.
Fresh off their NCAA record 9-overtime win over 7th ranked Penn State on Saturday, representatives of the College Football Hall of Fame got in touch and wanted to get their hands on some memorabilia, so while Bielema wasn't willing to give up his hat, he did send out a pair of white gloves from a receiver.
As Bielema explains to open the presser, those white gloves have an interesting story behind them that he talks about when talking about the previously mentioned coaching trade secret.
For starters, Bielema doesn't want guys who carry the football to wear sleeves during cold weather games because it tends to give the ball a surface to slip off of. That one is pretty well known in coaching circles.
The second one though? Bielema prefers, whenever possible, his guys wear gloves that are the same color as their opponents jersey. So home games they wear white gloves, and on the road they're trying to match the color of their opponent as close as possible. Why? The logical answer would be that it makes it more difficult for officials to spot holding penalties.
So moments before kickoff on Saturday, with everyone set with blue gloves, receiver Casey Washington came to Bielema wanting to wear his white gloves because he didn't have a chance to break the other ones in. After some soul searching, and double checking that Washington needed those white gloves, Bielema caved and allowed it to happen.
As luck would have it, Washington and his white gloves were the ones who caught the pass in the back of the end zone to end the game in the ninth overtime.
Now the College Football Hall of Fame has a great story to go along with those white gloves, and coaches like me have their eyes opened to a trade secret.
Hear Bielema share the full story in the clip.