When Wisconsin–River Falls head coach Matt Walker led his team to a 52-14 statement win over Wisconsin Whitewater, it wasn’t just another Saturday victory. The performance embodied everything his Palm Up culture stands for—gratitude, toughness, and an unshakable belief in how football should be played and lived.
Walker calls it “Palm Up.”
It’s not a slogan. It’s a way of life that defines the River Falls football program.
Palm Up — A Culture of Relentless Giving
When Walker arrived at River Falls football, the program sat in disarray—just 44 players and only a handful of wins over the previous decade. To rebuild, he didn’t start with playbooks or recruiting slogans. Instead, he began with a mindset—the foundation of what would become the Palm Up culture.
“We use this term Palm Up,” Walker said. “It’s the idea that we’re all relentless givers to the program—that we’re never going to be palm-down people.”
Palm Up is literal. Players raise their hands palm up when breaking the huddle as a reminder to give, not take. In contrast, Palm Down represents selfishness—grabbing attention, losing composure, or draining energy from the team.
This simple gesture embodies humility, composure, and contribution. It shows up everywhere—from helping a teammate off the turf to how players react to mistakes.
“It’s as small as reacting the right way when things don’t go well,” Walker said. “Are you going to throw your helmet and scream, or are you going to get your ass up and get ready to go?”
At Wisconsin–River Falls, the Palm Up culture acts as a living standard. It defines effort, energy, and attitude. The mindset influences how the Falcon football team practices, how it responds, and ultimately, how it wins.
Real Tough vs. Fake Tough
Every coach preaches toughness, but Walker defines it differently. He draws a clear line between real tough and fake tough. Fake tough is easy—it’s the flexing, the trash talk, the highlight pose. Real tough, on the other hand, stays quiet, steady, and accountable.
“When a guy pushes you, walking away is tough,” Walker said. “When a scout-team kid does something wrong, instead of cussing him out, putting your arm around him and helping him is tough. We talk about real tough and fake tough all the time.”
Within the River Falls football culture, toughness doesn’t shout—it shows up. Moreover, it’s not about acting hard; it’s about doing hard things the right way, especially when no one’s watching.
That distinction—real tough vs. fake tough—continues to mold the Falcons into one of the nation’s most disciplined and connected programs. The Palm Up culture makes sure that every act of toughness serves the team, not the ego.
From Pregame Speeches to the I Am a Falcon Creed
There was a time when Walker poured everything into his pregame speeches. However, he eventually realized they didn’t matter as much as he thought.
“I gave the best speeches you’d ever heard and we’d get beat 42-0,” he said. “Then I’d give the worst speech ever and we’d upset a top-10 team. They didn’t matter.”
So, he replaced the speeches with something lasting: a one-page creed he wrote with his players and alumni during COVID. They call it I Am a Falcon.
Each verse ends with the players responding, I am a Falcon.
The creed connects generations and reinforces shared values—Palm Up, Falcon Toughness, and relentless giving.
“Here are grown men in tears before a game because of a creed, not a speech,” Walker said. “It’s written in our language—Palm Up, Falcon Toughness—and it means something.”
Now, the creed defines their identity. Before every kickoff, players recite it to remind themselves who they are and what they represent in the River Falls football program.
Five Minutes in the Clouds
Walker’s growth as a leader also shows in how he communicates. In a world where players see every ranking, stat, and playoff scenario on their phones, he knows he can’t spin the message. Therefore, he’s embraced honesty.
Each Monday, the Falcons spend “five minutes in the clouds.”
During this time, Walker lays out the truth—where they stand, what’s at stake, and what’s next.
“I can’t lie to them anymore,” he said. “They know everything before I do. So instead of avoiding it, we just throw it in their face for five minutes, then get back to the mud.”
After the discussion, he always switches the slide to an image of an old football player covered in mud—a reminder that dreams live in the clouds, but championships grow in the mud.
The message stays simple: face the truth, then get back to work. In the Palm Up culture, honesty and accountability drive performance as much as toughness.
Culture Is Lived
At Wisconsin–River Falls, culture doesn’t hang on a wall—it walks, breathes, and competes every day.
Palm Up means giving instead of taking.
Real Tough means doing the right thing when it’s hardest.
The Creed captures shared words that matter more than speeches.
And Five Minutes in the Clouds represents honesty, accountability, and focus.
All together, these ideas form the Palm Up culture River Falls football is now known for.
“At River Falls,” Walker said, “toughness isn’t something you fake—it’s something you live, together, palm up.”
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Podcast transcript
Matt Walker (00:00)
I finally feel older than these guys. They convinced me that we should do our walkthrough day on Thursday instead of Friday. And I’m like, why would we not walk through the day before the damn game? I don’t get it. And they’re like, oh, it’s the science and it’s the right thing. And I said, it’s one of these, when you’re winning.
all your ideas are good, If you’re getting your ass kicked, they’re all terrible. So I’m like, this will be one if we win and everyone will think this is the coolest thing ever.
John Snell (00:25)
Finally, we head to Wisconsin River Falls where head coach Matt Walker and his team earned one of the biggest wins of the year, a 52 to 14 statement victory over Wisconsin Whitewater. It was a total team effort, physical, efficient and full of confidence and a firmly established River Falls is one of the nation’s most complete programs. Coach, congratulations on a great win. We’re excited to have you on. Before we get into the details,
we give you an opportunity to kind of shed some ⁓ gratitude towards your coaching staff.
Matt Walker (01:02)
Yeah, thanks. appreciate it. Yeah, what a special day and I appreciate the opportunity to do that. I tell my team all the time and anytime I’m talking out in the public and have a chance with any media that I don’t think my staff enough. I in and I say this all the time in no disrespect to anybody else’s staff. I just truly believe I have the two best coordinators in America. Jake Wissing what he’s done with this defense is absolutely incredible. Again, this offensive units gotten a lot of publicity over the last four or five years.
Again, we’re leading the country in total offense again this year and very deserved accolades, but it’s like, it’s this defense over the last few years that really deserves so much of the credit. People ask me all the time about this tempo offense and all these video game numbers and I say, you know what’s funny is the most important guide to making this offense go is the buy-in of our defensive coordinator. He has himself bought in, the staff bought in, the defensive kids are bought in.
When we made this decision to do this, we said, this is a program decision. This is not an offensive decision to truly grab all the benefits of being what we claim to be the fastest team in the world that plays American football. To do it right, you got to have a program by it. We train different, we think different, we obviously practice different, we play games differently. I’ve led the country, think, in fourth down opportunities the last three years. It’s just, I say it’s not your uncle’s football.
But his buy-in is important and then what he’s done with this defense. Hard to find the words again that game we just had you put 50, you know, plus points on Whitewater. It’s never happens. No one saw that score coming, not even us. But it’s like the defense really is the one that dominated the most on Saturday. They were going to come in and try to run the football and they do it so well and try to bleed the clock. And, you know, we hold them to 46 yards rushing. They had 12 first downs to our 30. I just…
There aren’t the words to describe the job that Jake Wissing has done with this offense and the impact. He’s been with me the whole time. He played offensive line for me at DePaul. He was my O-line coach when I was the head coach there. When I went to Butler and he left to be an assistant at Swaney in Tennessee to be the OC for his first OC job. And when I got the job here, he was my first phone call and was my offensive coordinator. And then we moved him to defense over COVID and I just can’t say enough about him. And then…
Joe Mathis, a my offensive guy again, I think he’s the best young mind in all of college football and him and I have kind of anchored each other and gone hand in hand and we’re stuck at the hip with this tempo offense and he gets so much credit for the success of this thing and all the publicity he gets is well, well deserved.
John Snell (03:47)
Well, we commend you and your staff, Matt. Obviously, you guys have done a great job and offensively, as you said, you’re leading the country and there’s a lot to that. And I agree with you that the defense has to be bought into what you’re doing offensively. So ⁓ again, great stuff in terms of what you guys are doing. You’re playing with great confidence and poise. As we mentioned, we like our
our recipients to talk about a coaching idea you had mentioned, and I love this, as much as we change, we stay the same and having, you know, your non-negotiables. How about you share a little bit of that with our listeners?
Matt Walker (04:30)
Yeah, it’s this idea that I think I reflect on my career and I can fully appreciate these wins now and the success now because I I went to football hell and back and I had zero win seasons and I joke but probably serious I should have been fired from here three times and it was such a hard road to rebuild a program in the best league in the country. We had 40
four kids on the team when I got here and had won a couple games in the entire decade of the 2000s. And we came in here and we put our vision to work and those non-negotiables haven’t changed. And I think that is important, like you mentioned. And so I’ve jotted some stuff down, things like, you were to ask players that played with me in my first year here or players now, it’s just the words they would all describe our program the same. We use this term palm up. It’s this idea that we’re all.
relentless givers to the program that we’re never gonna be palm down people. We say it’s as big as being a great teammate and working hard in the weight room when no one’s looking and all these things, giving great energy to practice. It’s as small as reacting the right way when things don’t go well. Like are you gonna throw your helmet and scream the F word and distract practice and take our energy? Are you gonna get your ass up and get ready to go? Everything falls into this category of being a palm up teammate or a palm down one. It’s just,
When we break our huddles, we all put our hands like this instead of this. It’s this constant reinforcement that we’re all relentless givers and great teammates to our program. The toughness piece, very simple to use that cliche like everybody does, but we double down on it. like tough people do tough things. And if you’re really gonna succeed in this world of college football, you gotta be super tough. And… ⁓
We talk a lot about the distinction between real tough and fake tough. It’s one of the things my guys, hear me talk about a lot. Like, I think in our society it can be easy with all these clicks and pictures and images and videos these kids see in their algorithms as they, you know, brain-runt through their phones. It’s like guys talking crap and playing dirty and guys think that stuff’s tough and flexing on guys. I’m like, that’s the easy stuff. That ain’t tough. I say, what’s tough is not doing.
When a guy pushes you walking away is tough. When a scout team kid does the right, wrong thing instead of, know, cussing him and him out and, you know, being a jerk to him, it’s putting your arm around him and helping him out is the tough thing to do. we distinguish between real tough and fake tough a lot, but we say all the time, you got to be real tough in this game. You can’t fake the toughness to be successful in college football. ⁓
John Snell (06:55)
you
Matt Walker (07:20)
The game day non-negotiables effort and physicality is just what our, that’s just our brand we say. Our Saturday brand, it’s like we better lead the game in effort and we better lead the game in physicality. it’s, I said, especially with this tempo approach, there’s certain things that people are going to assume about your program when you’re going fast. It’s that, you’re soft and it’s basketball on grass and you can’t earn tough. It’s the opposite. It’s like.
We do this to get more chances to be tough and dominate the line of scrimmage. You gotta flip the script on people and play extra tough and extra nasty in a legal manner and be violent in a legal way. If you’re gonna do this, in my opinion, do this tempo piece right, because you’re gonna surprise people. If they think they’re getting one thing, but they’re really getting the other thing, it’s just 100 snaps instead of 65 snaps of it. ⁓ So effort and physicality.
We’ve doubled down our strength program. You know, I think again, easy to say in a world of college football that, oh, you think the weight room is important. Of course, everybody does. The COVID time was important for me to reflect a little bit. one of the, felt like it was the first chance in my career to sit back and you were forced to take a breath. And then it’s like, I got done playing. I went right to coaching football and baseball. I was the head baseball coach for 10 years to Paul while I was in assistant football.
I was the head coach of both for three. I’m running around, I start a family, I’m recruiting every day. And then you come here and get this job. You’re having to work 24 seven for 365 to try to turn this around. And then COVID hits. And it’s like, again, it was terrible. And we all, know, the negative things from COVID, no one liked and were horrible. But boy, there was some good that came out of it for me. was like, I have time to breathe and think. And I did a deep dive and reflection. And I think…
I tried to find some common themes in these annual powerhouses at all levels from NFL to college to high school. What are these, what are these, the Patriots and Alabama’s and the Whitewaters and what are these annual powerhouse teams have? I want their ingredients. I want to do that. And I found some themes and one of them was they all had unique weight room culture. And again, I think it’s all of us want to think we have great weight room culture in our sport. It’s a fabric of who we are.
but it was extra special. They all had unique, unique weight room culture. And I said, as good as we think our strength program is, and we had a good one, Carmen Pada was here before, and Jake Anderson’s here, now my strength guys, there’s two of the best I’ve ever been able to work with. I was like, we gotta double down even more. These great programs double down. And it doesn’t mean to do more bench press or to do more squat. It means the tenacity in this, ⁓
core toughness that can be built and instilled into your program, it really starts in the weight room. And so we’ve doubled down on strength. those are some of the things I would never change. Then I got some of the things that I have changed. think it became important for me to be willing to change and listen to some other people. so things like, some of these are big, some are small. The tempo thing was the big one, right? We were dabbling in it in 19.
The COVID time was the time we said, what are we doing? Let’s do it. I don’t want to dabble anymore. I want every advantage. It’s okay to be different. Again, let’s not be sort of tempo. Let’s be the fastest team in the world that snaps the football. Let’s grab every ounce of every advantage that you can from being a tempo team. And we did it. That’s a big, you again, I already talked about you play different, you practice different, you approach the game different, willing to change.
John Snell (11:05)
Thank
Matt Walker (11:07)
I think running the quarterback is something everybody loves to talk about doing. You’re seeing more and more of it, even at the highest level now in the NFL. But there’s still some hesitation at all times with doing that. And people all the time get on me about the health of the quarterback. And I’m like, listen, I think in this league and the try to win it all, in my opinion, for us, I could not run him. Because Caleb Law is the best player in the country. I believe that. I think our kid’s the best player in America. And it’s like, it’d be easy to say, I’m not going to ever run him.
I don’t know if we could beat Whitewater and LaCrosse and some of these teams without running him. So I could, in my opinion, maybe try to not win the league and not run him or run his ass off and he gets hurt and not win the league anyway. So this willingness to say, I think this is how we can win football games and roll the dice a little bit, I was willing to change and do that. The aggressiveness on fourth down, I was willing to hear people out and.
go with this idea of the aggressive approach that in the end, if you do the math and you’re willing to roll the dice, you can gain some big advantage. Not maybe in that game, maybe not in the second one, but over the course of a 10 game season, there’s big advantage. Not just at that moment, but the way you can approach third and long and what other teams have to do to you knowing that you’re gonna probably go for it on fourth down. There’s some ripple effect that I was willing to invest in and it’s given us some return for sure.
This small one I jotted down, it was a change. These young assistants, now I’m finally old enough to say these young assistants. I finally feel older than these guys. They convinced me that we should do our walkthrough day on Thursday instead of Friday. And I’m like, this sounds ridiculous. Like, why would we not walk through the day before the damn game? I don’t get it. And they’re like, oh, it’s the science and it’s the right thing. And I said, it’s one of these, it’s when you’re winning.
John Snell (12:39)
Yeah.
Matt Walker (12:59)
all your ideas are good, right? And they’re all great. If you’re getting your ass kicked, they’re all terrible. So I’m like, this will be one if we win and everyone will think this is the coolest thing ever. And it just happened in 21, we started in one nine games and I said, damn, maybe this is, but there is something to it, kind of more of a midweek reset for our kids and the recovery piece and listening to some of the science. now, I just believe in it so much. And then we kind of ramp it up on Friday now, but there was something to,
getting legs back on Thursday instead of Friday that I really love about how we handle our week. But that was a change. I’ve invested hard in the GPS piece, ⁓ something I’d never done. And I was getting told from others that you really, because they knew I was starting to listen to the science and they heard me talk about the recovery piece and they’re like, this is really an important thing if you can do it. we did it for the first time. ⁓
Boy, I swear by it now, but it is a change. It’s hard for a guy who’s just set in his ways and have done things for the same time, or the same thing a long time, and the same weekly schedule and daily schedule to make decisions on a practice day on a kid as extremists sit him completely. And on a Tuesday practice, like Vince Lombardi would roll over in his grave to say, I’m not gonna practice my best kid on Tuesday because the science and data is telling me not to.
John Snell (14:17)
Yeah.
Matt Walker (14:24)
It sounds ridiculous, but we said, listen, I was willing to go down this road of, all right, if you were all to ask me what’s the most important thing for us to win football games, it’s to have all our dogs healthy. That’s the most important thing. And if that really is true, we better listen to this science. we make adjustments every day based on the science and feedback and data that we’re getting. It’s still a hard change for me.
grit my teeth and bite my tongue when we’re like, hey, the quarterback needs today off. I’m like, it’s goddamn Wednesday, bro. It’s situation day. We’re putting in third down in scoring zone. do you, my coach, I’m like, okay, okay, we’re gonna. So that was a change for me, but I really believe in it now. I think it’s been great. This is a funny one. ⁓ I don’t believe in pregame speeches anymore. I was like.
I gave the best speeches you’d ever heard in your life and bringing myself to tears and we just go get beat 42 to nothing. And I give the worst speech you’ve ever heard and we just go upset a top 10 team. These mean nothing. These mean it. So I stopped doing it. It’s hard to come up with the right material and you feel kind of goofy at times doing them. And I was okay at them, but I’m like, I want something more meaningful. we wrote a creed, we call it. We kind of wrote this thing.
John Snell (15:31)
You
Matt Walker (15:52)
I use some players from our past and some current players myself and over COVID, we just wrote this one page creed that means it’s written in kind of our language and uses words like palm up and Falcon toughness. And boy, I think it’s one of the coolest things we’ve done. And now it’s a very meaningful, powerful piece that just our players kind of know and hear. And it’s only on Saturday game day. And again, you look around the locker room and here’s.
know, grown man at 22 years old in tears before a game because of a creed, not because of a pregame speech. And I think it’s been a cool, again, a small thing, but a cool thing and some advice for people. If you suck at pregame speeches or you’re, you know, you’re getting stale with it, don’t do it. Write a creed, have some players help you. And I’m willing to share mine too if coaches want to reach out to me, but it’s become a cool thing. So yeah, as much as I’d say the same, I’ve sure been willing to change.
John Snell (16:45)
Do you read, actually?
you actually read that before the game is essentially your pregame speech, Matt.
Matt Walker (16:52)
Yeah, that is
the pregame speech. We read the creed. Yep.
John Snell (16:56)
Does the whole team read it or just you read it?
Matt Walker (16:59)
We wrote ours,
it’s four different verses and it sort of ends, I read it and then each little verse ends with them kind of saying, I am a Falcon. We call it, I am a Falcon. And so it’s them repeating to me, I am a Falcon to end each little phrase. But yeah, it’s pretty powerful stuff. It’s pretty cool.
John Snell (17:19)
Yeah, Matt, I absolutely love that. I remember distinctly as a head coach, I was struggling and straining to figure out what am I going to say before the game to the team that puts them in the right frame of mind. And I would struggle to come up with things. And I think that’s an awesome idea.
Matt Walker (17:41)
I know I was the same
way and what I was learning was it didn’t matter. They were already gonna be in there. You know, I think they matter so little now. That’s why I stopped doing them. Yeah.
John Snell (17:55)
Yep.
I
think you’re absolutely right. And I love also what you have gone from to what you are now and the changes that you’ve made and recognized. And you’re right. Some of these science things make it difficult for our old time thinking, the old time football. you got to do it this way. And science tends to change our frame of thinking.
And I commend you for allowing that to happen within you and your staff and program. So really great stuff, Matt. Yeah. Well, we…
Matt Walker (18:34)
Thank you. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. And thank you, guys,
and Keith on here, too, in the background. just, what you guys do, this is the best level of college football, and Division III is where it’s at, and I think the issues that we’re seeing at Division I and the scholarships, I hope we fix our games. We’re going to lose it as we know it if we aren’t careful at the highest level. And I know there’s some trickle-down happening with some of the negative pieces of NIL in the portal.
I’m careful to trash it all completely because I think there’s some positives of it and at the core I believe in some of what it was created for but this negative spin that’s created in college football is a mess and this is the best level of ball and it’s the most pure and not enough people in our country know about how great college football is in Division III so I always want to give a shout out to anybody that’s pushing this and any platforms that support Division III football so I appreciate you guys a lot.
John Snell (19:28)
Well, we appreciate it as well. And Keith with his podcast and Logan Hansen, I think have really done a really good thing with promoting a head coach or an offense and defensive coordinator. And again, we appreciate your time. Appreciate your willingness to share. ⁓ We wish you the best. I know that this weekend is a huge weekend for you. If I’m not mistaken, it’s a conference championship that’s on the line. ⁓
Matt Walker (19:53)
Yeah,
it could be another historical day. It’s funny too, another thing I’ve done, I could add this to the list, I just thought about it, but you’re bringing it up. And I tell our team the truth and I say, not that long ago when I was head coach, I could create my own narrative for the week and you could lie to them and make up stuff and whatever bull crap you wanted to. And it was all the information they had. You were their source of information. And I say, I can’t lie to you guys anymore.
everything’s at your fingertips. You know all this stuff before I do about the math and the scenarios. So we call it the five minutes each day. I struggle with goal systems, like smart goals and all. I don’t understand them and they never make sense to me. And so I have the most dumbest, we call it the clouds and the mud. It’s like the clouds are where we want to live with championships and titles and the mud is where we got to live the process to get there.
We call it the five minutes of the clouds every Monday in our team meeting I’ll do here later today. it’s, I just lay out the truth so they hear it from me before digging and hearing it on a chat board or finding it on social media. And so we just talk openly about it. It’s called our five minutes in the clouds. And it’s gonna be a fun one. Like who isn’t excited to say, you know, got a chance to, if you win, you lock up a piece of the conference title.
If you win and get a little help, you got to be a chance to be an outright champion when you walk off the field on Saturday. And the best league in the country for the first time here since 85 outright, you know, we shared it in 98, haven’t been to playoff since 96. I’m like, that’s okay to, cause right after the game, I’m like, how am going to spend this? I, they knew before we had showered, you know, like what it was. So I, we just talk about it. And then we say, okay, the next slide is always this.
John Snell (21:37)
you
Matt Walker (21:42)
this slide of some muddy old 1930s football player. like, let’s get back to the grind, let’s get back in the mud, and that means the process and scout teams and video. But it’s funny, I’ve changed where I’m just totally honest now. I feel like, my God, I can’t believe you talk about the math. I’m like, dude, they know more than I do. So instead of not talking about it, we just throw it in their face for five minutes, and then the clouds, we don’t talk about it again until Saturday.
That’s another change I’ve made. But yeah, it’s an exciting opportunity and I say we’ve earned the right to get to talk about this kind of day and it’s been a long time coming with the rebuild here to get this chance.
John Snell (22:14)
Well.
Well, it’s one of the biggest games in Division III football this coming weekend, and I’m anxious to see how it goes. And obviously, we wish both programs the best. You guys both do great jobs with your programs, so.
Matt Walker (22:38)
Yeah, I wish Janis was a terrible coach and they sucked, but they’re just maybe the best team in the country. I’m not sure other than North Central and a couple of other, they’re so freaking good. I’m good friends with Matt and they do, I have a ton of respect for them. They have this aura about them or this expectation to win. It’s hard to get over the hump with them. And yeah, I got a ton of respect for them. So this will not be easy for sure.
John Snell (23:02)
Well, again, we respect both programs as well. Good luck. Thanks again for your time. We don’t want to keep you too long. Appreciate you being on and congrats for the recognition and good luck the rest of the way, Matt.
Matt Walker (23:16)
Thank you, appreciate it, take care.