The Bo Pelini Curse

Mavric

Mavric

Yoda
Staff member
Pick your favorite target for Saturday’s loss, Husker fans. I’m pointing the finger at The Pelini Curse.

I’m kidding (mostly).

Bo took a lot of flack for Mike Riley’s failures. He surely doesn’t bear the burden for Nebraska’s second-half meltdown in Boulder. But man, sometimes I look at the Huskers’ late-game failures and wonder what kind of deal Shawn Eichorst struck with the devil five years ago.

Remember Black Friday 2014 in Iowa City. Pelini’s Huskers rallied from 17 down in the third quarter (sound familiar?), pushing the game to overtime at 31-31 (ahem), held Iowa to a field goal (ahem) and won it with a subsequent touchdown, 37-34.

Two days later, Eichorst fired Pelini.

We can argue all day about the wisdom of that decision, but that’s not the point here. I bring it up because of a head-spinning shift in the program since then. Patterns have flipped.
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OWH ($)

 
If we can load up our offensive line room with recruits like Benhart & Banks and we get guys like that into a culture of weightlifting 12 months a year...and then combine that with skill player recruiting of the likes of Martinez, Washington, and Wan'Dale, we're going to have a good program again. 

Expectations of being great in year two are really shining through. Thing is, the season's just begun.

 
Bo's teams from 2012-2014 went something like 10-2 in one score games. We were bound to revert back to a median on that but holy s#!t it's been painful.

 
Undone said:
If we can load up our offensive line room with recruits like Benhart & Banks and we get guys like that into a culture of weightlifting 12 months a year...and then combine that with skill player recruiting of the likes of Martinez, Washington, and Wan'Dale, we're going to have a good program again. 

Expectations of being great in year two are really shining through. Thing is, the season's just begun.
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I don’t disagree with you about getting our S/C program to a very high level and instilling that culture,  but I don’t think we need multiple years to build a unit considering many elite teams have true freshman and sophomores playing and contributing. 

As as an example, look at Bama. There are 19 freshmen and sophomores on the two deep, including three true freshman starters in the defense 

 
Bo got a lot of breaks.  A generational player in Suh, a Hail Mary, week schedules, opponents in transition, etc.

His tenure looks a lot different and possibly shorter otherwise.

 
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CapoValley said:
I don’t disagree with you about getting our S/C program to a very high level and instilling that culture,  but I don’t think we need multiple years to build a unit considering many elite teams have true freshman and sophomores playing and contributing. 

As as an example, look at Bama. There are 19 freshmen and sophomores on the two deep, including three true freshman starters in the defense 
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Bama gets hammered every year by early entrants to the NFL.   That may have something to do with it.

 
CapoValley said:
As as an example, look at Bama. There are 19 freshmen and sophomores on the two deep, including three true freshman starters in the defense 
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What do you mean, "look at Bama?" Ok, I'm looking at the most dominant program in the last 20 years who is lead by arguably the best coach of the last 20 years who's been there running the same system since 2007.

What could possibly be the takeaway there as it pertains to our situation of a program that just cleaned house and is in year 2 after taking over from an absolute dumpster fire?

 
Undone said:
What do you mean, "look at Bama?" Ok, I'm looking at the most dominant program in the last 20 years who is lead by arguably the best coach of the last 20 years who's been there running the same system since 2007.

What could possibly be the takeaway there as it pertains to our situation of a program that just cleaned house and is in year 2 after taking over from an absolute dumpster fire?
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That you need elite recruiting AND S/C. And that if you find the right recruits, they can contribute right away. Like Martinez last year 

 
Liked Bo and still do, hell I still follow him on twitter. 

I said it then and still stand firm to it today, you don’t fire a coach who never had a losing record.

That decision doesn’t fully fall on Eichorst but the Regents as well. Same thing can be said with Solich firing. 

 
Mavric said:
Many people go a long ways out of there way to avoid giving Pelini any credit.  As exhibited here.
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Mav, the guy mailed it in here the last half of his tenure.    He basically dared the university to fire him.   After seven seasons he finally wore out his welcome.   

Hope he is enjoying his paragraph blurb on page 10 of the Sunday sports section at his new gig.

 
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