With his program’s third straight national title in the books, Appalachian State football coach Jerry Moore turned to far more meaningful tasks, like hanging a Christmas wreath for his wife Thursday morning.

“I got him outside doing ‘honey-dos,’” Margaret Moore said from Boone, N.C. (population 15,000).

Jerry Moore, 67, a former Husker assistant coach (1973-78), fielded a few calls from reporters in Nebraska this week in the wake of the Mountaineers’ latest NCAA championship subdivision (formerly Division I-AA) title, captured last Friday night. And those reporters’ calls elicited fond memories of hard, and sometimes tedious, work under Tom Osborne.

Not that Moore was complaining.

“We would put every single play and every single offensive formation on the (chalk) board that we were going to run that week,” Moore said. “Coach Osborne would get up there in front of the assistants, and every day we would review the scheme we were going to run against the defenses — every single day, every single play.

“You know, I’m just a dumb Texas guy. So I learned an awful lot doing that stuff over and over and over again. I mean, taking care of those little things.“

Somewhat lost in the firing-hiring hubbub and ridiculous recruiting hysteria at Nebraska is an interesting football fact: The NCAA sponsors four football championships, and head coaches with deep roots in Nebraska have led their teams to two titles this season.

Former Husker administrative aide Lance Leipold, in his first year as head coach at Division III Wisconsin-Whitewater, led the Warhawks to an upset over Mount Union (Ohio) this past Saturday.

Of course, new Nebraska head coach Bo Pelini gets a crack at the BCS national crown Jan. 7 as Louisiana State’s outgoing defensive coordinator.

Three-for-four, anyone?

“You have to make sure you never lose sight of the people who really helped you. I mean, you get a lot of credit as a head coach, but there’s a lot of credit that needs to be spread around — to the players first,” said Leipold, 43, who handled on-campus recruiting and assisted on NCAA compliance issues at Nebraska from 2001-03.

He’s coached at a slew of schools in various capacities, including associate head coach and offensive coordinator at Nebraska-Omaha (2004-06). His friends will tell you he’s a “big-picture guy,” always brimming with intriguing ideas.

“Lance has a real good understanding of all the working parts of a football program — from the administrative level to being an assistant coach to being a coordinator — and that’s what makes him a good head coach,” said Nebraska secondary coach Marvin Sanders.

Moore, a native of Bonham, Texas, coached receivers at Nebraska. He jogged with Osborne during noon hours. Most important, Moore soaked up knowledge from Oz.

One can see why Moore and Osborne might get along — both are plain-spoken and humble, not to mention legends in their professions.

Moore is royalty in Boone, yet still lists his phone number. His home is situated near the top of a mountain (“If you lived on the very top, your house would be gone because of the wind,” he says).

“You know, I’ve been around some of the great, great men in the whole world, who just happened to be coaches,” Moore said, referring, for instance, to Osborne.

“I started to call Tom (last month) and tell him he didn’t need to be looking past the end of his nose for his next coach — he was the guy for that spot,” Moore said. “He would love to do what we’re doing here with our spread offense. Well, he’s a genius anyway. If you had him doing what we’re doing, he’d be unbelievable.“

Someday, Moore said, his close-knit staff might just advise him to go fishing more often and forget the coaching grind. Maybe there will come a day when the game’s not so fun anymore for him. But Moore doesn’t see that day coming any time soon.

“I’ve really been blessed healthwise, energywise,” he said. “I don’t feel any different coaching now than I did at Nebraska, and that was 30 years ago.“

Meanwhile, Leipold is basically just getting started at Whitewater. What a whirlwind year. He took over a program that was 28-2 the previous two seasons, so there were huge expectations. The Warhawks responded with their first national crown after losing to Mount Union in the title game the previous two seasons.

“I would much rather have huge expectations than a program that was 2-28 and nobody was even aware you play on Saturday afternoons,” he said.

Teams in lower NCAA divisions often must fight for recognition outside their regions. So it’s nice to recognize a couple of fine coaches that accumulated ample wisdom in our neck of the woods.

So many stories to tell. … For instance, Moore remembers when Osborne wanted to switch from the power-I to a veer offense similar to what Houston used to run. It was either 1973 or 1974 — Moore was uncertain exactly which year — when the Huskers worked all spring trying to install the veer.

“We worked on it right up until the last week of spring drills, and Tom came in one Monday and said it would take us two years to get to where we could be efficient at it,” Moore said. “So we stayed with the I-formation. Tom always liked that option stuff, obviously.“

Moore listened well, obviously.

Reach Steven M. Sipple at 473-7440 or ssipple@journalstar.com.