Solich Invited Back to Receive Tom Osborne Award

Had this little mini-hallucination today after listening to part of the Bah show on 1620.  

Franks gets invited back to be recognized on field before the start of the Colorado game.  The crowd erupts in deafening, earth shaking, history healing shouts of "Go Big Red" and we proceed to destroy the Buffaloes on our way to an 8+ win season!!!

I know, he'll be coaching that day, so yeah, won't happen.  I did say it was an hallucination.  But maybe a year or two down the road when he retires?

 
Mavric said:
If he was going to be fired, what would like like to have seen done differently that would have been "with dignity"?

I think six years is a pretty fair chance.
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Ok he was 7-7 then 9-3 the very next year. I would’ve liked to have seen what he would have done the following season. If he would’ve lost big again then there would be greater grounds to dismiss him. 

7-7 was his only bad year. The rest of the time he had respectable seasons.  

I guess if he would have refused to make any changes in staff it would’ve been easier for me to swallow his departure but the guy did everything that was asked of him. Fired men who were long time coaches but also good friends. He was loyal to Nebraska football for so long. I think there could’ve been a more dignified way of dismissing him than what was done.  

 
ladyhawke said:
I think that many people thought it was time for a change but the way Frank was kicked to the curb was just cold, especially since he did what the administration had asked him to do. That’s no way to treat someone who had given so much to the program. Frank was one of us. He deserved to at least go with some dignity. 

Do you think he got a fair shake? Maybe he wasn’t going to be a great coach but I would have liked to have seen him given a fair chance.  
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I hope you are referring to the fact that he cherished NU football like us.   Because there are a couple things that Frank is know for and US doesn't include me and 99% of the rest of us.

 
Guy Chamberlin said:
Kinda seems like everyone is saying that. 

We've been blaming four coaches and two ADs for not sustaining the run, but that's a wicked expectation level to maintain.

Mike Riley's greatest contribution may be providing a palate cleanser for the next run.
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Literally no one is doing that.  There is no one saying a coach HAS to win one national title, let alone several in short succession.  This is a complete fabrication.

 
Mavric said:
Literally no one is doing that.  There is no one saying a coach HAS to win one national title, let alone several in short succession.  This is a complete fabrication.
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Literally everyone is saying that the level of excellence we established from 1962 - 2001 should have continued. The only question is who screwed the whole thing up.

 
Guy Chamberlin said:
Literally everyone is saying that the level of excellence we established from 1962 - 2001 should have continued. The only question is who screwed the whole thing up.
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OK.  The first time I read it as 1992-2001.  So I guess it depends on which part you want to focus on. 

It's unrealistic to think that the 90s run could continue or anything close to that.  But if you're going to say 1962-2001 there is a lot of variation in there.  I still don't think it's terribly unrealistic to expect 9-ish wins most years and competing for conference championships.  It won't happen every year but there's no reason it can't be the norm.  That's basically what we had from 1972-1992, albeit without any big drops.  But a lot has changed since then anyway.

I don't think a coach should be fired for one bad year.  I think Nebraska has enough advantages that a lot of things have to be going wrong for seasons like Frank and Riley turned in.

 
Mavric said:
I have no problem with this.  Frank did a lot for the football program over a lot of years.  It's too bad that it ended like it did but if this is a way to bury the hatchet then it's a good thing.  It's nice for the Athletic Dept or whoever to offer something like this.

But Frank deserved to be fired.  He just isn't that great of a head coach.  He was a loyal assistant and was probably pretty good at that.  But he was in over his head as head coach of the Huskers and particularly should never have tried to be both HC and OC.  He just didn't have a feel for that part of it.  When Tom's recruits ran out, so did Frank's success.  It was time to do something different.  The direction we tried was a colossal failure but that doesn't make the original change wrong.
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I agree. But if we were gunna do it 2002 should have been when. Not 2003 off a 9 win season.

Timing and appearance are everything and we failed hard at all of it when we fired both 9 win coaches.

 
Just imagine if Solich never left and Frost came in to replace him, no air raids, no sideline meltdowns, no super nice guys.  

 
Tom ought to be able to give his award, for whatever purpose?, to the people of his choosing. 

Frank ought to be able to come back and visit Nebraska and even NU now and then and feel welcomed.   As far as we know, he was not 'escorted off the premises' after having comitted some serious violations of the law or breaches of trust and didn't leave with a scorched earth approach ALA Pelini.   Of course, not all Husker fans will be so welcoming as many blame him for a considerable share of the problems we still suffer from today.  

It is very sad for Frank to have left after so many deidcated years of service to Nebraska football with such a lasting negative legacy but it is really undeniable.   He took over the best program in history with a cargo tanker load of talent, 4 deep across all the positions, and left very little.   Not to defend Callahan but the team by then was barely a remnant of what it was just 5 years before.  He didn't recruit.   Whether he could call plays or coach otherwise, he didn't recruit.   

 
i seem to recall frankie showing up on the big screen at memorial stadium and the crowd gave a very nice cheer to him a few years back.  if anyone can help my old time memory and either prove or disprove that thought i would appreciate it  

 
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