How would things have gone if we had retained Solich as coach?

U

undefeatednebfan

Walk-on
If they were going to fire him the time was after the 2002 season. During the 03 season he was correcting some of the errors he made as coach in '02 and had hired a great DC (although not great head coach) in Bo Pelini. I'm sure So[SIZE=12pt]lich [/SIZE]would have done better than Callahan did over the next 4 years. From 08-14 I have no idea if he would have done better than Pelini did in rea[SIZE=12pt]l [/SIZE][SIZE=12pt]life.[/SIZE]

 
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Probably wouldn't have won a national title and who knows about a conference championship. Probably would've won 7-9 games every year imo

 
Rivals has recruit data available to 2003 which was FS's last full class.

NU ranked 42nd (on "teams by rank" page but 45th on NU's recruits page).

4 4*, 12 3*, plus 3 others.

4*s were Bo Ruud, Mueller and Teamer from NE and Schuler from SD.

2 6th round and one 7th round draft picks came from that class.

NU's decline would have continued under Frank IMO.

 
Those 4 years he was riding Osborne's coattails he had a .824 winning percentage. He's been .572 ever since.

 
badly; frank never figured out how to recruit. and he wouldn't fire the problem assistants who were his friends. he fired the coaches who told him he was screwing up! Frank's true colors were displayed where no other power five program even looked at him as a viable candidate for any openings. Frank is in his element where he's at now.

 
Frank's ability to recruit was just awful. It would have been interesting to see where he could take NU if he could at least recruit into the top 15-20.

I think the offense and how it was evolving under Frank was going the right direction, unfortunately he just couldn't get it done getting recruits into Lincoln

 
Sargon said:
Rivals has recruit data available to 2003 which was FS's last full class.

NU ranked 42nd (on "teams by rank" page but 45th on NU's recruits page).

4 4*, 12 3*, plus 3 others.

4*s were Bo Ruud, Mueller and Teamer from NE and Schuler from SD.

2 6th round and one 7th round draft picks came from that class.

NU's decline would have continued under Frank IMO.
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Frank's class was ranked 14th on Rivals when he was fired.

 
Coach Power'T said:
Frank's ability to recruit was just awful. It would have been interesting to see where he could take NU if he could at least recruit into the top 15-20.

I think the offense and how it was evolving under Frank was going the right direction, unfortunately he just couldn't get it done getting recruits into Lincoln
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Frank was considered one of the best recruiters on Osborne's staff. He had 3 or 4 top 15 classes and his class was 14th when fired.

 
Probably FS biggest deficiency was his inability to recruit a great QB. Actually Jamal Lord deserves a ton of thanks for carrying the team on his shoulders for a couple of years and sacrificing his career as a safety.

 
I think things would have gone better. Frank knew and understood a tested system for success in Lincoln. Yes, he struggled recruiting and yes he failed to make staff adjustments in a timely manner but, I think he probably would've come around albeit a little slowly. Expectations at that time were much higher than they are now. We were fresh off that dominate 90's run. Heck, I was for getting rid of him the year before they did. I was not for getting rid of him when or how they did though.

There would've been great benefit for the program to not experience the culture change and dismantling it experienced under Callahan and Pederson. Huge really. So I do believe things would've been better. Just not sure if better would've been enough though. Anything less than natty's and conference championships wouldn't have been enough in that time period. Unfortunately now they seem like a pipe dream.

I forgot to mention, Frank was not nearly the offensive mastermind TO was. That may have been his biggest deficiency IMO. But that too I think he would've come around and fixed....eventually.

 
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When Frank went 7-7 in 2002 I thought for sure he was done as our head coach then. I was very surprised he was given another year.

That said, recruiting under Frank wasn't exactly stellar and if you want to win championships then you need top shelf athletes and Frank didn't pull many of those in. Frank wouldn't have gotten Callahan's 4 years anyway, he would have faltered again and lost his job. He just didn't recruit the level of players he needed to keep his job at NU.

 
Just searched Wikipedia:

His record at Ohio is 80-61(.567). He's 71 years old. Not sure how many years he has left?

 
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