Tom Osborne's longtime friendship with Penn State football coach Joe Paterno isn't the only reason Nebraska's athletic director has followed the PSU child sexual abuse case closely.

In 1991, Osborne and his wife, Nancy, founded TeamMates, a school-based mentoring program for adult volunteers to build relationships with students "so as to help them reach their full potential."

In a creepy coincidence, the words "help young people achieve their potential" are prominent on the website of The Second Mile - the youth organization that former Penn State assistant Jerry Sandusky used as a grooming area for victims for his abuse.

Osborne, in an interview, didn't talk about The Second Mile. But he has strong feelings on how a mentoring program should be run.

"We have always prioritized safety as our No. 1 issue," he said. "Any time you are dealing with kids, you have to be very conscious of potential abuse. This is why we have a school-based program.