Tim Brown's comments about BC

BigRedBuster said:
My dislike of BC has nothing really to do with his coaching ability or his loyalty to Cosgrove. It has to do with his disdain for anything Husker that came before him and how he treated the program while here. Much of that came from his boss however.
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My dislike of BC stems from the fact he took a storied program, and drove that sh*t into the ground like a f*ckin' meteor because he a big a$$ ego...

 
SI.com's top NFL writer Peter King offered his thoughts on this thing:

As for the claim that Tampa Bay knew what plays were coming because the Raiders didn't change their playcalls, and Gruden passed along the lingo to his Bucs' defensive players: Do you think Rich Gannon, a smart, cagey veteran quarterback, is going to shout out plays or signals if he gets a sense Tampa knows exactly what he's calling? I asked a source not on the Raiders but who knew the Raiders offense under Callahan and then-offensive coordinator Marc Trestman if it were possible the Bucs knew what plays were coming.
"No way,'' the source said. The Raiders, he said, most often would call two plays in the huddle, and Gannon, at the line of scrimmage, would indicate which play was the real play by using a code word for either the first or second play he'd called in the huddle. Say the code for the first play was "Fresno'' and the code for the second play was "Sadie." Gannon wouldn't be giving the play away by saying, "Fresno;'' the only people in the stadium who would know what play was coming would be the 11 men on the field for Oakland. Now, as for audibles beyond the two playcalls in the huddles, who knows? Could there have been four or five times in the game the Bucs knew the play? Could be. Was that the difference in a 48-21 loss? Stop it.

• Though Callahan did call some running plays that season, Trestman called the majority of the plays. I'm told it was Trestman who called the plays in the Super Bowl. So he'd have had to be in on the sabotage. [...]

Callahan lost the team in 2003, which wasn't surprising given the grumbling of an undisciplined group after the Super Bowl. He tried to suspend running back Charlie Garner for an unspecified violation during the 2003 season, but Al Davis wouldn't let him, and so you knew Callahan was a dead man walking then. I remember that year when Callahan got fired, hearing how detached and depressed he seemed during the season.

This sabotage fiction never passed the smell test to me. I think Brown and teammate Jerry Rice, who backed Brown, owe Callahan an apology.
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Link

 
Tim Brown is just butthurt because that was his chance at a Super Bowl ring, and he didnt get it. Jerry Rice is just trying to be a shoulder for him to cry because he's got like 12 of em, or something like that.

 
skersfan said:
I won't go with stupid. I go with loyal and stubborn. Being a bad coach is a question, being a bad head coach is confirmed. But he has impressed a lot of people with his Oline coaching and OC relations. I forget the players name, but he left Nebraska the same year that BC did and ended up being coached by him at the Jets. Said he loved him as an Oline coach, never learned so much and thought he was in his nitch.

I think he was in over his head, the college game is different, other skills have to be learned. I am glad he is gone, only because of his loyalty to Cosgrove. But we ran Bohl out of town to and he is doing a pretty good job.

These guys are gone, both were our coaches, time to let the hate die down. I think both did the best job they could, just was not good enough.
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Just out of curiosity - you and 99% of Husker nation talk about this loyalty to Cosgrove. I used to throw it around quite a bit too. Where does it come from? Should he have fired him mid-season in 2007? At 4-2 after getting beat down on the road to a #4 team? Maybe a couple games later when you're sitting at .500 - but only have 4 games left? You just don't see a lot of coordinators getting canned mid-season. Or at least it doesn't appear to happen too often. He was 100% gone after the last game of the season - he didn't even have a chance to be "loyal" to Cosgrove after 2007...so I can't really see where it comes from. I'm wondering if people don't just want to pass the blame of the defense onto Callahan so they portray it as "loyalty"? Just curious what you're thoughts are.

 
kchusker_chris said:
skersfan said:
I won't go with stupid. I go with loyal and stubborn. Being a bad coach is a question, being a bad head coach is confirmed. But he has impressed a lot of people with his Oline coaching and OC relations. I forget the players name, but he left Nebraska the same year that BC did and ended up being coached by him at the Jets. Said he loved him as an Oline coach, never learned so much and thought he was in his nitch.

I think he was in over his head, the college game is different, other skills have to be learned. I am glad he is gone, only because of his loyalty to Cosgrove. But we ran Bohl out of town to and he is doing a pretty good job.

These guys are gone, both were our coaches, time to let the hate die down. I think both did the best job they could, just was not good enough.
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Just out of curiosity - you and 99% of Husker nation talk about this loyalty to Cosgrove. I used to throw it around quite a bit too. Where does it come from? Should he have fired him mid-season in 2007? At 4-2 after getting beat down on the road to a #4 team? Maybe a couple games later when you're sitting at .500 - but only have 4 games left? You just don't see a lot of coordinators getting canned mid-season. Or at least it doesn't appear to happen too often. He was 100% gone after the last game of the season - he didn't even have a chance to be "loyal" to Cosgrove after 2007...so I can't really see where it comes from. I'm wondering if people don't just want to pass the blame of the defense onto Callahan so they portray it as "loyalty"? Just curious what you're thoughts are.
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And if you dont mind me adding, this can be seen as supporting my point that there was damn near zero reason to get rid of Cosgrove prior to '07. The defense played at a championship level at the end of '06. It was the offense that sh#t their pants against OU and Auburn.

 
Why are people looking at Cosgrove only from 2006-2007? Are we forgetting he was DC here for four years?

2004

We gave up 70 points to an 8-4 Texas Tech team.

45 points to a 4-7 Kansas team.

34 points to a 7-5 Iowa State team

And we folded, at home with a bowl game on the line, against Colorado. Cosgrove's defense had us down 26-7 after three quarters, and they basically stopped trying.

2005

20 points to a 7-5 ISU team

34 points to Texas Tech

41 points to Missouri

30 to Oklahoma

40 to a 7-5 Kansas team.

2005 is best known for what turned out to be a pretty entertaining Alamo Bowl against Michigan, but overall, the defense was mediocre.

2006

This is Cosgrove's good year, but we still gave up 41 points to 7-5 Oklahoma State. Chalk it up to one bad game, and give him a pass for this year. No problem with that.

2007

49 points to USC - a good USC team, though. But then the wheels fell off.

40 points to Ball State

41 points to Missouri

45 points to 7-5 Oklahoma State

36 points to 7-6 Texas Tech

76 points to Kansas, who went to a BCS bowl (suck it, Mizzou), but it's still KANSAS.

65 points to 6-7 Colorado.

It wasn't just one bad year - 2007. It was three bad years, with one decently mediocre year sandwiched in there. And that atrocious defense of 2007 turned into a pretty decent group the next year under Pelini, so it's not like there was crap talent on that team.

 
knapplc said:
Why are people looking at Cosgrove only from 2006-2007? Are we forgetting he was DC here for four years?

2004

We gave up 70 points to an 8-4 Texas Tech team.

45 points to a 4-7 Kansas team Kansas St. (held Kansas to 9)

34 points to a 7-5 Iowa State team

And we folded, at home with a bowl game on the line, against Colorado. Cosgrove's defense had us down 26-7 after three quarters, and they basically stopped trying. Defense also stepped up in the 4th to allow us to get back in the game late.

2005

20 points to a 7-5 ISU team In double overtime. Won the game. (held them to 13 in regulation)

34 points to Texas Tech

41 points to Missouri

30 to Oklahoma

40 to a 7-5 Kansas team.

2005 is best known for what turned out to be a pretty entertaining Alamo Bowl against Michigan, but overall, the defense was mediocre.

2006

This is Cosgrove's good year, but we still gave up 41 points to 7-5 Oklahoma State. Chalk it up to one bad game, and give him a pass for this year. No problem with that.

2007

49 points to USC - a good USC team, though. But then the wheels fell off.

40 points to Ball State

41 points to Missouri

45 points to 7-5 Oklahoma State

36 points to 7-6 Texas Tech

76 points to Kansas, who went to a BCS bowl (suck it, Mizzou), but it's still KANSAS.

65 points to 6-7 Colorado.

It wasn't just one bad year - 2007. It was three bad years, with one decently mediocre year sandwiched in there. And that atrocious defense of 2007 turned into a pretty decent group the next year under Pelini, so it's not like there was crap talent on that team.
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Just puttin on a couple spins there Knapp. Also, the defense in 2005 held Pitt to 6 points and scored 2 td's against Wake Forrest and saved a total embarrasment against Maine with a pick 6. And they held Colorado to 3 points and complete dominated them.

I guess all in all I didnt really have too much problem with the defense's performance from an overall standpoint until 2007.

 
I was at that 2004 Colorado game. The defense didn't step up anything. The whole team, the entire sideline, was checked out of that game in the second half. We got 13 garbage-time points to make it seem remotely respectable, but Colorado had that game won and was coasting throughout the second half. I remember it very clearly because it was very apparent to the fans around us that the team had given up. I think Joe Dailey was the only one who didn't get the memo.

 
knapplc said:
I was at that 2004 Colorado game. The defense didn't step up anything. The whole team, the entire sideline, was checked out of that game in the second half. We got 13 garbage-time points to make it seem remotely respectable, but Colorado had that game won and was coasting throughout the second half. I remember it very clearly because it was very apparent to the fans around us that the team had given up. I think Joe Dailey was the only one who didn't get the memo.
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Well if you wanna talk check out or give up, that probably realistically happened about that Kansas St game that year. That team was 4-2 at one point, 5-3 at another and couldnt make a bowl game. Whether it was garbage time points or not, we were an onside kick away from a chance at winning the game.

 
Not sure you could call the 2008 group pretty decent if the 2005 group is deserving of a skewering. 2004 was just a lost cause from the start. A rebuilding season. Some critics say that Callahan should have instituted a more gradual transition, and we wouldn't have lost a season that way. I think I agree with that. But accountability is also right that Cosgrove wasn't really the target of ire until the collapse of 2007. Our DL was pretty awesome in 2006, those group of seniors - Carriker, Moore, Dagunduro, Cryer. We had a lot of players to feel good about coming through the ranks, including the hopeful return of Zack Bowman that year, and Armando was hyped by the coach to have been even better (the coach would later say the same thing about our next JUCO corner from that school. I forget who it was, was it Gomes? Or Seisay?)

McKeon had come onto the scene in 2005 as a rock solid MLB and I don't think it was really until 2007 that his play fell apart.

 
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KC, most on here did not want Cosgrove from day one. He never really impressed me, but I think talent and the ability to adapt that talent to what you want to do is a problem for most coaches. Bo did a great job in 2003, where some claim he really had no talent due to Solich's recruiting. I think possibly that affected Cosgrove. But the natives were restless, did not like Cosgrove to start and wanted him gone most of his tenure. Had Bill kept Polini as DC, who knows what might have happened. But he stood by Cosgrove and I think that is what killed him. I think most of BC's problems came from above and he just tried to deal with them the best that he could.

If you listen to Gannon, Slauson and a few others he was a great guy. I wish he had not been given the job, but I do believe he did the best he could do, in a terrible situation that he did not understand, nor was really able to figure out.

I just think it is silly to carry all this hate around over a football game/team. Many people fail at their jobs, fact of life. The threats and the things he and his staff went through was sad. He is gone, he did his best and really nothing more can be added. Did he hurt Nebraska, of course, but he do it intentionally, or was trying anything and everything he knew to turn it around. I have to believe the latter.

 
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