Input fields are coming up empty

[eluser]jrock2004[/eluser]
Ok so I thought I would kinda start this over. So with reading the form validation helper I came up with this

autoload

Code:

$autoload['libraries'] = array('database', 'session');
$autoload['helper'] = array('url', 'html', 'form');

view

Code:

<div id="login_form">
<h1>Login</h1>
    &lt;?php
  echo form_open('admin/validate_credentials');
  echo form_input('username', 'Username');
  echo form_password('password', 'Password');
  echo form_submit('submit', 'Login');
  echo form_close();
  echo validation_errors();
?&gt;
</div>&lt;!-- end login_form--&gt;

controller

Code:

function __construct() {
        parent::__construct();
    }

    function index() {
     $data['content'] = 'admin/login';
     $this->load->view('admin/template.php', $data);
    }

    function validate_credentials() {
     $this->load->library('form_validation');

     $this->form_validation->set_rules('username', 'Username', 'trim|required');
     $this->form_validation->set_rules('password', 'Password', 'trim|required');

     if($this->form_validation->run() == FALSE) {
       print_r($_POST);
       $this->load->view('admin/login');
     } else {
      redirect('home', 'refresh');
     }
    }

With this code, when I hit submit it is reloading the login page. I do not see any errors. And POST is empty.