My People,
Since I am now resigned to a coaching change at season's end, and growing more comfortable with it as each week passes, I thought I'd enlighten some of the fairweather folks as to what lies ahead of us. Many people magically jumped back on the bandwagon when T.O. came back into the fold. We must all realize, however, that even T.O. will have much work ahead of him before we are even back to "average but competitive." T.O. even talks about it being a situation that requires patience (see Saturday OWH). Folks, this is going to be a difficult journey with more bumps ahead as we go forward beyond 2007. In order for our fanbase and general support for the student athletes to remain steadfast, we will need to commit ourselves to the following:
1. ACCEPTANCE: We need to accept that this year's recruiting class will have many casualties. This has been talked about tons, but I consider this a "neccessary evil" that must be dealt with in the impending coaching switch. First of all, I do not want to see any crap about fans having animosity towards these kids for rethinking their pledge or decommitting. This is not even close to the circumstances surrounding the JF situation, so lets not go there.
2. UNDERSTANDING: It must be understood that this is going to be another huge undertaking that will take an undeterminate amount of time to sort out. There will be losses, even after this year, that will shake us a bit, but we need to understand that it may take the better part of 3-5 YEARS to get this thing back to respectable.
3. PATIENCE: I am having real trouble with this one, personally. Every single day I ask, "Why doesn't T.O. just hurry up and cut these guys loose. Why not today? Why not last week or next week?" If T.O. says, "after the season," then that is what this man means. It's tough not to question his motives, but this is why T.O. is an A.D., coach and a legend, and I am one fan.
4. TRUST: Tell yourself this out loud, "Well, we asked for it, and we got it." The majority of folks want change, and they shall have it. However, we have got to completely trust T.O. and the decisions he makes for the benefit of the program. Specifically, I'm talking about the coaching search. According to IBR, everything is in order. While I refuse to doubt his information until it is proven incorrect, I am also going to trust T.O. if his ideas turn out not to be those mentioned by IBR. But there's always somebody who will take their ball and go home if the next coach hire isn't what they expect. Always. It will happen here, but it shouldn't.
5. HOPE: At the center of it all, there is the concept of hope. We've got to have hope for the future of Husker Nation. Realistically, we should hope that the decisions and investments made in the coming weeks will pay dividends in the YEARS (plural) down the road. It's pivotal, because if hope for better times is abandoned, then we are right back where Coach Devaney had to start from in the early 1960's.
. . . . And we will keep returning to that point over and over again if we don't commit ourselves to these
tenants right now. It's time to hunker down for the long haul. Please add your thoughts
