Grading Bo Pelini??

[HuskerJen]

way too early to grade the guy. one season and some real progress and i suspect he will "morph" as time goes on into a real good head coach, but he needs at least 5 years in the league to develop and learn what head coaching is really all about...it takes time. look how long it has taken Pinkel and some other coaches to really get a handle on their programs and now they are seen as being pretty good hands afterall.

patience is something we seldom allow anymore...let's get over the "gotta have it now".

here is an outsiders take if you want it.

What he did for the confidence of the team. A

How he handled himself on the field. C- (needs to control the temper a bit)

Coaching. C (did not get any upset wins and won every game that Callahan would have won last year)

Upside. B (I think he will turn into a fine HC)

If you think that our previous head coach would've beaten Baylor, or Clemson, after trailing at half time then you are crazy.

Had the previous staff still been here in '08, Nebraska would've been lucky to win three games last year.

And Bo's "upside" is definitely an A+.

 

[sdhusker82]

You know a lot of people hate on a Callahan but to be honest the guy did a great thing for the University by converting to WCO. I'm sure a lotta people here disagree but we had to get away from an option based offense. I love watching the option just as much as the next guy but defenses are way to ready for it these days. The offense we have now is doing great anyway even when Bill Callahan was here.

As far as grading Pelini... He's a good coach so far, I'd like to see the recruiting go a little bit better then how its been but that will come with success in the program. It's pretty early to really evaluate how he's done but with one season down and the team he had to take in, he really made them play far better than what I expected of some of them especially the defense. I think Pelini could become a great coach here but you never know

 

[AR Husker Fan]

In honesty he did a descent job. Nothing remarkable in any way, other than possibly the Clemson game. His ability to coach and prepare were evident there. We were not the best team on the field that day, but we won and it was due solely to his ability to motivate and change.

***SNIP***

I am hoping he keeps moving forward like he did this year, because he turned out way better than I expected from him. I was not in favor of him coming to Nebraska, but he has changed my opinion and I am very happy he is here.

Bob, I see where you're coming from - in terms of wins and losses (meaning who we beat and to whom we lost) there was nothing remarkable. He beat the teams he should have and lost to those everyone expected to beat the Huskers.

But I think he did one remarkable thing, and you alluded to it - the change in the attitude. I think you and I both were in agreement before the season started that it was going to take a good chunk of time to change the mindset of the players - they had quit during the season (that's not to say that they weren't justified) and that changing that kind of mentality takes time. In fact, I think we both agreed that it would take more than a year to do it.

What he did in that regard was, to me, pretty remarkable. I would have bet long odds against it happening as quickly as it did - most coaches couldn't have done it, I think. In that regard, I think he actually won a game or two that would have been lost without that change in attitude.

 

[caveman99]

You know a lot of people hate on a Callahan but to be honest the guy did a great thing for the University by converting to WCO. I'm sure a lotta people here disagree but we had to get away from an option based offense. I love watching the option just as much as the next guy but defenses are way to ready for it these days. The offense we have now is doing great anyway even when Bill Callahan was here.

As far as grading Pelini... He's a good coach so far, I'd like to see the recruiting go a little bit better then how its been but that will come with success in the program. It's pretty early to really evaluate how he's done but with one season down and the team he had to take in, he really made them play far better than what I expected of some of them especially the defense. I think Pelini could become a great coach here but you never know

I don't disagree that the offense change wasn't needed or that Callahan did something good for the program, but to say that it couldn't of happened with out Callahan I think is hard to say. The pressure was on Solich to change, and he did change the O a bit in 2003. I didn't like everything Barney was doing, but who is to say that Solich wouldn't have brought in a Spread O? Bringing in Callahan forced the issue, but I am not sure that had to be the route taken. Another Offensive minded coach could have done the same thing, and still have gotten a fair amount of wins, heck he couldn't do any worse. In the end, assuming Bo is successful, I think we could look back and say those 4 painful years were a necessary evil for future wins.

In honesty he did a descent job. Nothing remarkable in any way, other than possibly the Clemson game. His ability to coach and prepare were evident there. We were not the best team on the field that day, but we won and it was due solely to his ability to motivate and change.

***SNIP***

I am hoping he keeps moving forward like he did this year, because he turned out way better than I expected from him. I was not in favor of him coming to Nebraska, but he has changed my opinion and I am very happy he is here.

Bob, I see where you're coming from - in terms of wins and losses (meaning who we beat and to whom we lost) there was nothing remarkable. He beat the teams he should have and lost to those everyone expected to beat the Huskers.

But I think he did one remarkable thing, and you alluded to it - the change in the attitude. I think you and I both were in agreement before the season started that it was going to take a good chunk of time to change the mindset of the players - they had quit during the season (that's not to say that they weren't justified) and that changing that kind of mentality takes time. In fact, I think we both agreed that it would take more than a year to do it.

What he did in that regard was, to me, pretty remarkable. I would have bet long odds against it happening as quickly as it did - most coaches couldn't have done it, I think. In that regard, I think he actually won a game or two that would have been lost without that change in attitude.

I 100% agree with this. You could look at anywhere from 2-4 games the team might not have won if the culture change didn't happen so quickly. Being behind at half to Baylor and Clemson for sure and the games that were tied at half, KU for one, would have been losses in 2007. The sentiments about NU beating everyone they should have beaten I don't agree with because we sure didn't beat those teams in 2007. How could you go into 2008 and say that those losses were now sure wins considering the mental mess the team was in? I know an awful lot of people were saying 6-6 this year.

 

[caveman99]

double

 

[huskered17]

C+

GBR!!!

 

[Hokieluv]

C+

GBR!!!

Based on a 9-4 record and a Bowl win wouldn't you be more pleased if a C+ reflected Bo's performance in his first year, i.e., if he could improve from a C+ to an A, you would probably do away with the four losses and play for a conference title and a MNC. If he's already at an A/A- there's not a whole lot of room for improvement. If BC really did bring in talent (as some of you imply) but was a terrible coach, you will have good things ahead of you if he (Bo) continues a tradition of bringing top talent to Lincoln but improves as a coach. Also, it appears as if both the team and the fan base are really inspired by this coaching change, and that in itself will probably be reflected on the field. I don't know your team well enough to give Bo a grade, but from an outsider's standpoint he is clearly above the average, and more encouraging, there's probably a lot of room for improvement. As I haven't guessed on your record yet, I probably should... I expect you will have two losses (OU, and VT), and a loss in the Big 12 championship game. That will leave you with 3 losses and a Bowl win.

 

[skersfan]

AR,

We have seen a remarkable side with the turn around. And you have to credit that to Bo, but anytime there is a change in coaching, a new start, most people put more effort forward, whether to impress or keep their jobs.

I have always loved his fire. I knew he would bring that to the program. So to me that is not something that surprised me.

I can only say that he surprised me with the Texas Tech game plan, and his ability to adapt and change with Clemson.

I expected his melt downs in the Missouri and VaTech games. That is Bo from what I have seen. In some regards good, but over the limit at times. I think Coach Osborne has it under control, but he has the ability to hurt this program with his actions.

There is a lot of room for improvement in my mind. He was not ready 4 years ago, and he would not be now if were not for Coach Osborne watching his every move. But with guidance from one of the best ever he will get it. As stated many times I did not want him as our head coach for any reason. But he has made the right steps over all, and I am happy we have him. Still see his work as a C+. With the ability to move it to the A down the road, but my guess is it will take a couple of years before he gets to that level.

 

[Pedro Guerrero]

Based on a 9-4 record and a Bowl win wouldn't you be more pleased if a C+ reflected Bo's performance in his first year, i.e., if he could improve from a C+ to an A, you would probably do away with the four losses and play for a conference title and a MNC. If he's already at an A/A- there's not a whole lot of room for improvement.

My thoughts exactly. :clap

 

[huskered17]

AR,

We have seen a remarkable side with the turn around. And you have to credit that to Bo, but anytime there is a change in coaching, a new start, most people put more effort forward, whether to impress or keep their jobs.

I have always loved his fire. I knew he would bring that to the program. So to me that is not something that surprised me.

I can only say that he surprised me with the Texas Tech game plan, and his ability to adapt and change with Clemson.

I expected his melt downs in the Missouri and VaTech games. That is Bo from what I have seen. In some regards good, but over the limit at times. I think Coach Osborne has it under control, but he has the ability to hurt this program with his actions.

There is a lot of room for improvement in my mind. He was not ready 4 years ago, and he would not be now if were not for Coach Osborne watching his every move. But with guidance from one of the best ever he will get it. As stated many times I did not want him as our head coach for any reason. But he has made the right steps over all, and I am happy we have him. Still see his work as a C+. With the ability to move it to the A down the road, but my guess is it will take a couple of years before he gets to that level.

I have to agree with most of your take on this issue. I did have Bo as my 2nd choice, and like you I am now happy with his choice to lead the Huskers, for what seems to be many, many years, if he chooses to. He may not have a better record or even as good a record as last year, but he is building this team the right way, IMHO.

2010 seems to be what everyone thinks as the big year, that would seem to be what Bo's building this team towards. Once he gets this team back on even ground with the rest of the elite programs again, I think he will have no problem keeping it there.

GBR!!!

 

[huskertim]

I don't know about the rest of you guys, but when I was in school, they graded us every semester, not every 3-5 years. I may have gotten a C one year and an A the next. Grading is an evaluation of a given body of work, and I don't think anyone's handing out lifetime acheivement awards here.

That said, I would give Bo a B- for this year. I thought he did an outstanding job repairing the teams phyche, assembling a cohesive staff and formulating a winning game plan. Especially given that it was his first attempt at the job. I didn't like the meltdowns but I seem to recall a less than timid red head coach stomping up and down the sidelines of memorial stadium back in the 70s and, as I recall he turned out okay. The future for Bo will be determined by how well he learns from his mistakes and, to that end, I think he has a good mentor available and good people around him.

 

[caveman99]

Based on a 9-4 record and a Bowl win wouldn't you be more pleased if a C+ reflected Bo's performance in his first year, i.e., if he could improve from a C+ to an A, you would probably do away with the four losses and play for a conference title and a MNC. If he's already at an A/A- there's not a whole lot of room for improvement.

My thoughts exactly. :clap

I don't know about the rest of you guys, but when I was in school, they graded us every semester, not every 3-5 years. I may have gotten a C one year and an A the next. Grading is an evaluation of a given body of work, and I don't think anyone's handing out lifetime acheivement awards here.

That said, I would give Bo a B- for this year. I thought he did an outstanding job repairing the teams phyche, assembling a cohesive staff and formulating a winning game plan. Especially given that it was his first attempt at the job. I didn't like the meltdowns but I seem to recall a less than timid red head coach stomping up and down the sidelines of memorial stadium back in the 70s and, as I recall he turned out okay. The future for Bo will be determined by how well he learns from his mistakes and, to that end, I think he has a good mentor available and good people around him.

My thoughts exactly tim, which is why I don't agree with the quoted portion from Hokieluv. Just because you give someone an A now doesn't mean that person doesn't have to work to improve so that in the next session or evaluation period he/she can still get an A. In my experience once you reach a certain level, the bar is raised and you have to improve to try and reach a high grade on the next level. If you want to make the evaluation criteria the same for all of the years, i.e. we expect a Big XII title and BCS game every year or something like that, then ok I would agree on the C level grade. However I think everyone is grading Bo on their expectations and in their minds Bo did a much better than average or a great job, a B or an A. Next year if Bo did the same job, I am sure they would all grade him lower because they all raised their standards.

 

[Hokieluv]

Based on a 9-4 record and a Bowl win wouldn't you be more pleased if a C+ reflected Bo's performance in his first year, i.e., if he could improve from a C+ to an A, you would probably do away with the four losses and play for a conference title and a MNC. If he's already at an A/A- there's not a whole lot of room for improvement.

My thoughts exactly. :clap

I don't know about the rest of you guys, but when I was in school, they graded us every semester, not every 3-5 years. I may have gotten a C one year and an A the next. Grading is an evaluation of a given body of work, and I don't think anyone's handing out lifetime acheivement awards here.

That said, I would give Bo a B- for this year. I thought he did an outstanding job repairing the teams phyche, assembling a cohesive staff and formulating a winning game plan. Especially given that it was his first attempt at the job. I didn't like the meltdowns but I seem to recall a less than timid red head coach stomping up and down the sidelines of memorial stadium back in the 70s and, as I recall he turned out okay. The future for Bo will be determined by how well he learns from his mistakes and, to that end, I think he has a good mentor available and good people around him.

My thoughts exactly tim, which is why I don't agree with the quoted portion from Hokieluv. Just because you give someone an A now doesn't mean that person doesn't have to work to improve so that in the next session or evaluation period he/she can still get an A. In my experience once you reach a certain level, the bar is raised and you have to improve to try and reach a high grade on the next level. If you want to make the evaluation criteria the same for all of the years, i.e. we expect a Big XII title and BCS game every year or something like that, then ok I would agree on the C level grade. However I think everyone is grading Bo on their expectations and in their minds Bo did a much better than average or a great job, a B or an A. Next year if Bo did the same job, I am sure they would all grade him lower because they all raised their standards.

I know exactly what you are saying, and believe me I do not want to say that Bo is a C-level coach. First, I do not know your team well enough, and second, I do not think Bo is an average coach at all. In fact, I'm sure that NU does not want to make the same mistakes as during the BC era, and he would not have been selected unless he could lead your team back to the top of college football. If you use a relative grading criteria (i.e., you will adjust the criteria as the coaches get more experience) I can agree that Bo is probably in the B+/A- range based on his first year. My point was that if an absolute grading scale was used, he is hopefully far off his potential. I teach in college and I would never let my students get away with showing potential and adjust their grades accordingly. From what I understand from reading interviews with Bo, I am fairly certain he holds himself and his team to very high standards. I would not even give him grief over what some of you called "meltdowns" (e.g., Virginia Tech incident when he felt Tyrod Taylor was out of balance). I think that passion will go a long way to help the Huskers become the team they want to be. It may have hurt them there, but in the long-run it is hopefully a good thing to have that passion. Just my thoughts...

 

[skersfan]

At this point it would be giving him an A.

He has not done what he was hired to do. He is working towards it, and at a good pace, but not there yet.

He has failed in winning against a rated team. He has no major road wins. I do not count Bowl games as road as both normally are. Clemson somewhat of an exception.

He nearly lost to our closest thing to a rival. Only luck won that game.

But nowdays we have kindergarten graduations with cap and gown. Maybe todays youth sees things differently than us old codgers.

Let him grow into his job, he knows the fans and the administration like what he is doing, but he has to keep working hard to get where I am sure he wants to be and where we want this program to be.

The carrot so to speak.

Not that this thread means squat to him, just us.

 

[caveman99]

Based on a 9-4 record and a Bowl win wouldn't you be more pleased if a C+ reflected Bo's performance in his first year, i.e., if he could improve from a C+ to an A, you would probably do away with the four losses and play for a conference title and a MNC. If he's already at an A/A- there's not a whole lot of room for improvement.

My thoughts exactly. :clap

I don't know about the rest of you guys, but when I was in school, they graded us every semester, not every 3-5 years. I may have gotten a C one year and an A the next. Grading is an evaluation of a given body of work, and I don't think anyone's handing out lifetime acheivement awards here.

That said, I would give Bo a B- for this year. I thought he did an outstanding job repairing the teams phyche, assembling a cohesive staff and formulating a winning game plan. Especially given that it was his first attempt at the job. I didn't like the meltdowns but I seem to recall a less than timid red head coach stomping up and down the sidelines of memorial stadium back in the 70s and, as I recall he turned out okay. The future for Bo will be determined by how well he learns from his mistakes and, to that end, I think he has a good mentor available and good people around him.

My thoughts exactly tim, which is why I don't agree with the quoted portion from Hokieluv. Just because you give someone an A now doesn't mean that person doesn't have to work to improve so that in the next session or evaluation period he/she can still get an A. In my experience once you reach a certain level, the bar is raised and you have to improve to try and reach a high grade on the next level. If you want to make the evaluation criteria the same for all of the years, i.e. we expect a Big XII title and BCS game every year or something like that, then ok I would agree on the C level grade. However I think everyone is grading Bo on their expectations and in their minds Bo did a much better than average or a great job, a B or an A. Next year if Bo did the same job, I am sure they would all grade him lower because they all raised their standards.

I know exactly what you are saying, and believe me I do not want to say that Bo is a C-level coach. First, I do not know your team well enough, and second, I do not think Bo is an average coach at all. In fact, I'm sure that NU does not want to make the same mistakes as during the BC era, and he would not have been selected unless he could lead your team back to the top of college football. If you use a relative grading criteria (i.e., you will adjust the criteria as the coaches get more experience) I can agree that Bo is probably in the B+/A- range based on his first year. My point was that if an absolute grading scale was used, he is hopefully far off his potential. I teach in college and I would never let my students get away with showing potential and adjust their grades accordingly. From what I understand from reading interviews with Bo, I am fairly certain he holds himself and his team to very high standards. I would not even give him grief over what some of you called "meltdowns" (e.g., Virginia Tech incident when he felt Tyrod Taylor was out of balance). I think that passion will go a long way to help the Huskers become the team they want to be. It may have hurt them there, but in the long-run it is hopefully a good thing to have that passion. Just my thoughts...

Gotta love grading on a curve!