For me it's less about defending Pelini and more about recognizing the Perlman led drama surrounding the football program through multiple coaches and athletic directors.
Worst CFB Hires of the Past Decade
- Thread starter Mavric
- Start date
That's fascinating because most of the people I know, most of the online polls I saw at the time, and most of the conversations I had with university officials (off the record and on the record) and the public when I covered his firing as a reporter suggested the opposite. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Regardless, no, his firing wasn't "idiotic." There was, as there is now, plenty of evidence to support his firing. Of course, that doesn't mean BP was a total failure or that he can't be given credit for anything as you have tried to suggest in the not-so-distant past in your ongoing quest to defend BP from criticism.
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Guy Chamberlin
Heisman Trophy Winner
They aren't that closely connected.
Devaney, Osborne and Solich represent 40 years of coaching, the last two being internal hires. The Solich firing was not entirely about the won/loss record, but many fans and big donors thought Frank was trending in the wrong direction. So Nebraska goes on the open market for HC for the first time in four decades and realizes it's not simple, and not every coaching candidate considers Lincoln the football or career mecca that we do. We hire 3 coaches we can afford and who are willing to come here, and none of them meet the lofty standards of Nebraska Football. That's not Perlman-led drama as much as a wake-up call. We are not the first storied football program to go through a 10 year rough patch, just one of the more recent.
It's entirely likely that Perlman resented Tom Osborne's influence, and that his own career leading a multi-faceted university was mostly judged by the football team's record. If Perlman wanted Bo Pelini out, it may because those two Bo Pelini tapes were normal behavior for the guy.
Because freed from Perlman and Eichorst and dropped safely into his hometown school and the protective arms of Jim Tressell, Bo Pelini proved he was still an a$$h@!e and a mediocre head coach.
Bo brings his own drama to every party.
Not sorry Perlman's gone, either.
Moving on....
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Landlord
Banned
Ok but how many have gone through 18 year rough patches and come back out of them?
USC from 1980-2001 - a couple higher highs but more mediocrity as well
Notre Dame from 1994-2011
Georgia from 1984-1996 (not quite as long)
Texas from 1984-2000 is pretty close (but with a couple conference championships)
Washington from 2001-2015
LSU went from 1974 to 2000 without much more success
Notre Dame from 1994-2011
Georgia from 1984-1996 (not quite as long)
Texas from 1984-2000 is pretty close (but with a couple conference championships)
Washington from 2001-2015
LSU went from 1974 to 2000 without much more success
MNBigRedNorth
Banned
I don't think that would have been a good idea. If Scott didn't want to come back (thank god he did) why have someone here that didn't want to be here? Playing chicken (ie:Black Mail) usually doesn't turn out too well!
Landlord
Banned
Maybe we define those rough patches differently. Texas and Georgia are pretty pertinent comparisons, and idk enough about Washington's history but have never thought of them very near the top class of programs, but USC/ND/LSU seem to be not nearly as apt. Admittedly, Nebraska has always been somewhat of a weird outlier as far as consistency.
USC finished #12, #13, #15, NR, #9 (Pac-10 and Rose Bowl champs), NR, NR, #17, #9, #9, #22, NR, NR, #25 (Pac-10 champ), #15, #11 (Pac-10 and Rose Bowl champ), NR, NR, NR, NR, NR, NR
Notre Dame finished NR, #13 (Orange Bowl appearance), #21, NR, #22, NR, #16 (Fiesta Bowl appearance), NR, #17, NR, NR, #11 (Fiesta Bowl appearance), #19 (Sugar Bowl appearance), NR, NR, NR, NR, NR (they're fairly close but they're also weird to compare because they have no conference affiliation .
LSU had a nice run starting in 1984 going #16 (SEC champs, Sugar Bowl appearance), #20, #11 (SEC champs, Sugar Bowl appearance), #5, #19 (SEC champs), and then they pretty much sucked during the 90's.
Guy Chamberlin
Heisman Trophy Winner
Lots of them, depending on what you call rough patches.
Since Frank Solich went 9 - 3 only two years after playing for the National Championships, let's say the rough patch starts in 2004 with Bill Callahan and runs through three different coaches until 2017 (letting young Scott Frost off the hook for last year)
In those 15 seasons, Nebraska went 122-69 and played in 11 bowl games, with one division title and two division title ties
In those same 15 seasons, Michigan went 121-70, played in 12 bowl games, with zero division titles and two division ties
Alabama had an 11 season stretch where they went 73 - 61, and even adding some Nick Saban years to get up to 15 seasons, Alabama went 117 -69 from 1995 - 2009
Texas from 1984 - 1999 was even worse, and hit another bad patch 2010 till 2017.
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Hooked on Huskers
All-Conference
4skers89
All-Conference
I don’t think it would get that far. If Scott didn’t want to come here, Moos would’ve chickened out, terminated the Riley experiment and replaced him with somebody....anybody.
Like I said, they had a couple years that were better than we've had. But they also had more years that were worse. In our "rough patch" we finished pretty similar to how often they did. Their conference championships are better. But both teams won right at 60% of their games. They get an edge but that's a pretty similar run.
Not sure what conference affiliation has to do with having a "rough patch". They won 59% of their games over that stretch, lower than Nebraska.
Similar to USC in that they had a couple higher highs - but they only "won" the SEC in 1984 because Florida got put on probation and tied Auburn for the SEC title in 1988 despite an 8-4 record. But even if you move their "rough patch" to 1989 to 2000 that's still a long stretch where they won less than half their games. They also won less than half their games from 84-00.
Landlord
Banned
I guess that's the argument some people make is if it's better to be consistently good not great or to be more of a roller coaster that reaches higher heights.
But if both teams are winning 60% of their games over respective stretches, then 8 top 15 finishes (compared to 1), 3 conference championships (compared to 0) and 2 major bowl wins (compared to 0) seems very significantly better imo.
BigRedBuster
International Man of Mystery
The fact is, there are a number of top programs who have had similar stretches as us and have then had success when they got the right coach.
Regarding the Solich firing as it happened...in retrospect, after how everything has played out: probly over 20 fired coaches, an entire program of championship football knowledge lost to the wind, multi-million dollar buyouts, an entire generation of Husker fans coming of age and really never knowing what it was like to be relevant...
It seems to me that the Solich firing, as it happened, when it happened was probably not the right thing to have happened. One wonders if things had been done differently, where our program would be now: would it have fallen so far, or become so wayward.