“There’s a lot of unraveling that’s taken place,” a Big Ten assistant coach said. “And then try to mend that together and piece it together with an entire new offensive staff. … I don’t know.”
The same coach said he’s regularly impressed with Nebraska’s talent. “They’ve got some dudes,” he said.
But the coach questions some of the moves made this offseason — including the hire of Whipple, who coached Heisman finalist Kenny Pickett at Pitt last season. Whipple resigned days before taking the Nebraska job in December.
“If you’re a player, you’d have to think, ‘Why would Mark Whipple come to us after he just coached one of the best quarterbacks in the country?’ Just bizarre, to say the least.
“That’s how I would describe everything that’s gone on there, just bizarre. You’ve got receivers that are leaving. You’ve got (a quarterback) that’s leaving. You’ve got coaches that are leaving.”
The Huskers were perhaps not as close to a breakthrough last season as they wanted to believe, the coach said.
“They will hang their hat on the fact that they lost all those games by single digits. That’s the culture: ‘Yeah, we were 3-9. Yeah, we were 1-8 (in the Big Ten). But we lost all those games by one score, and we’re right there.’
“You can make the argument that they’re a long ways from being there, just because of the little things.”