Email From TO about Watson

[Mosskid84]

Just thought I would share this response I received from Tom Osborne regarding a email I sent pleading for him to fire Watson (Which I knew would not do anything but it felt good to write to him about it) Here it is:

Your e-mail is somewhat reminiscent of some that I received in the early 90’s wanting me to fire Charlie McBride and others on my staff. We then proceeded to win 60 games and lose 3 over the next 5 years and such talk subsided considerably. We have won 29 games in 3 years and may very well win 30. Very few coaching staffs have won 10 games a year in their first 3 years, and that would include some of the greats of the profession, such as Bear Bryant, Woody Hayes, Bo Schembechler, etc.

I wish you well. I thank you for caring.

Best wishes,

Tom Osborne

Tom Osborne

Athletic Director

University of Nebraska

One Memorial Stadium

Lincoln NE 68588

402-472-3011

402-472-9675 fax

So he won’t fire Watson which we all knew so lets pray everyday that Watson gets a job elsewhere this offseason otherwise it will be another close but no cigar year next season.

Go Big Red!!

 

[killer cacti]

I would think he would know how to run a program. Patience.

 

[Enhance]

It was a nice response, but I think this proves how great of a man Tom Osborne really is consider how nice he was to you. The premise of this e-mail is entirely ridiculous and I'm honestly quite surprised someone would actually send that type of e-mail to Tom Osborne...

 

[BIGREDIOWAN]

I don't agree sending an e-mail to T.O. asking for Watson to be fired, but at least he responded back to you politely and he does have a point. If Watson gets hired someplace else then so be it, if he stays here we'll have to live with it I guess.

 

[kansas husker]

It was a nice response, but I think this proves how great of a man Tom Osborne really is consider how nice he was to you. The premise of this e-mail is entirely ridiculous and I'm honestly quite surprised someone would actually send that type of e-mail to Tom Osborne...

:yeah on a side note how ridiculos is it, that you (the op) think that you have evaluated Shawn Watson better/more accurately than Tom Osborne. I mean seriously?

 

[captain obvious]

This can't be real.

 

[Mosskid84]

I was really nice in my email to Tom, I just stated that we will never win anytype of championship with Watson controlling the offense. I was not bashing him or watson just stating the opinion of pretty much the whole state would agree with me that we will not win with him controling the offense. I am a die hard husker fan have been since birth. So I will always stick with the team no matter what but it is frustrating how many more seasons of offensive crap do we have to go through for people to see the light... 1 more season of crap? 2, 3,4,5,6, seasons of wasted defense with no help from the offense. Granted there are times he calls good games but when the pressure is on he tries to be cute and does not stick with whats working that is not who you wanted controlling the offense. So please don't think I am a bad person for emailing him I did not send death threats or anything it was just a emailing stating my opinion of the situation. I thought I lived in a free country to be able to state what I think to people whether we agree or not at least I spoke up.

 

[Mosskid84]

The email is very real I got a email from Anne Hackbart who I am assuming is his assistant. Sorry I can't provide a link to my email for you guys. If there was a way to share it without showing my email inbox I would. Thats why I copied and pasted into my post

 

[SkerMin8r]

Ummm...pretty sure it's not up to Tom who is or isn't a coordinator on Bo's staff. He can give Bo his opinion of course, but ultimately it's not his call.

 

[Enhance]

I was really nice in my email to Tom, I just stated that we will never win anytype of championship with Watson controlling the offense. I was not bashing him or watson just stating the opinion of pretty much the whole state would agree with me that we will not win with him controling the offense. I am a die hard husker fan have been since birth. So I will always stick with the team no matter what but it is frustrating how many more seasons of offensive crap do we have to go through for people to see the light... 1 more season of crap? 2, 3,4,5,6, seasons of wasted defense with no help from the offense. Granted there are times he calls good games but when the pressure is on he tries to be cute and does not stick with whats working that is not who you wanted controlling the offense. So please don't think I am a bad person for emailing him I did not send death threats or anything it was just a emailing stating my opinion of the situation. I thought I lived in a free country to be able to state what I think to people whether we agree or not at least I spoke up.

I don't think you're a bad person, nor am I saying that you were rude in your e-mail or that your opinion isn't representative of the state. More than likely, it probably is representative of the state right now.

All that said, do you really think Tom has been in a shell over the last season, that he hasn't been paying attention to the team? Do you think you're the first person to send him an e-mail or even mention to him in passing that people want Watson fired?

Furthermore, you can say whatever you want in this country, but that also means you have to take the criticism along with it.

Lastly, the main reason I'm upset about this is because of how often people do crap like this is. I'm sorry, but it's ridiculous that an A.D. should have to take the time to respond to angry fans about how the team played. He probably gets hundreds of these e-mails a week, and he is gracious enough to respond even though he really shouldn't. I have a few close friends that are involved with the athletic department in one form or another, one of which is a Scarlet (a girl on the dance team). Do you know how many e-mails they get every week with people complaining about mundane little things like "the girls wear too much black on their clothing", or "that dance was a little to riskay for my tastes", or some other variance of 'this is what I think and I'm going to make sure someone hears me' e-mails?

I don't mean to make this personal, but we should all (not just you) avoid sending e-mails like this to Tom Osborne or anybody in the athletic department. It doesn't do anybody any good and it's truly just beating a dead horse that I'm sure he's dealt with a bunch already.

 

[captain obvious]

OK folks, there you have it. Watson's not going anywhere involuntarily. TO pulled the "look what happened with Charlie McBride" card. That trumps the "look at the big dumps Watson took in the 3 biggest games of the year" card and the "look at the historically awful offense we had last year" card.

 

[Mosskid84]

I know its not Tom's choice to make. But he provide guidance to Bo as what he should do and I am sure as AD he could fire Watson if he really wanted to. He hired them I am sure he can fire them. Maybe not. Either way my point is if we want him gone we will have to pray for him to leave not being fired. unless we lose the bowl game then maybe he would be fired. who knows??

 

[Mosskid84]

I was really nice in my email to Tom, I just stated that we will never win anytype of championship with Watson controlling the offense. I was not bashing him or watson just stating the opinion of pretty much the whole state would agree with me that we will not win with him controling the offense. I am a die hard husker fan have been since birth. So I will always stick with the team no matter what but it is frustrating how many more seasons of offensive crap do we have to go through for people to see the light... 1 more season of crap? 2, 3,4,5,6, seasons of wasted defense with no help from the offense. Granted there are times he calls good games but when the pressure is on he tries to be cute and does not stick with whats working that is not who you wanted controlling the offense. So please don't think I am a bad person for emailing him I did not send death threats or anything it was just a emailing stating my opinion of the situation. I thought I lived in a free country to be able to state what I think to people whether we agree or not at least I spoke up.

I don't think you're a bad person, nor am I saying that you were rude in your e-mail or that your opinion isn't representative of the state. More than likely, it probably is representative of the state right now.

All that said, do you really think Tom has been in a shell over the last season, that he hasn't been paying attention to the team? Do you think you're the first person to send him an e-mail or even mention to him in passing that people want Watson fired?

Furthermore, you can say whatever you want in this country, but that also means you have to take the criticism along with it.

Lastly, the main reason I'm upset about this is because of how often people do crap like this is. I'm sorry, but it's ridiculous that an A.D. should have to take the time to respond to angry fans about how the team played. He probably gets hundreds of these e-mails a week, and he is gracious enough to respond even though he really shouldn't. I have a few close friends that are involved with the athletic department in one form or another, one of which is a Scarlet (a girl on the dance team). Do you know how many e-mails they get every week with people complaining about mundane little things like "the girls wear too much black on their clothing", or "that dance was a little to riskay for my tastes", or some other variance of 'this is what I think and I'm going to make sure someone hears me' e-mails?

I don't mean to make this personal, but we should all (not just you) avoid sending e-mails like this to Tom Osborne or anybody in the athletic department. It doesn't do anybody any good and it's truly just beating a dead horse that I'm sure he's dealt with a bunch already.

I agree I was very upset when sending email and honestly did not expect a response so I am glad he at least takes time to respond to peoples concern. Looking back I probably should not have emailed but I just hope either Watson finally gets it or we get someone new and fast. GO BIG RED!

 

[SkerMin8r]

I know its not Tom's choice to make. But he provide guidance to Bo as what he should do and I am sure as AD he could fire Watson if he really wanted to. He hired them I am sure he can fire them. Maybe not. Either way my point is if we want him gone we will have to pray for him to leave not being fired. unless we lose the bowl game then maybe he would be fired. who knows??

Not necessarily true. TO was simply pointing out that during his tenure many fans called for the firing of his cooridnators...as well as himself. TO isn't going to fire someone off of Bo's staff. Don't you think Bo might be a little offended by that?! Ultimately, this is Bo's decision...and he may yet decide to fire SW whether TO thinks he should/will or not.

 

[knapplc]

Hah! This is exactly the kind of answer that several of us have already given to the "Fire Watson" people. Check it out:

I guarantee you the same guys around here who want to blame Shawn Watson for everything would have been calling for Tom Osborne's head after TO's third consective three-loss season in '78 (including back to back losses to Iowa State).

Lest ye spawns forget, the carping at Watson and Bo is probably less than what Osborne faced from the fanbase for the first twenty (yes 20) years of his career.

My response to Guy:

This is most certainly true.

Also, I don't think the heat Watson is catching now is anything compared to what Charlie McBride faced in the late 80s / early 90s. This state wanted McBride ran out of town on a rail after seven straight bowl losses where McBride's defenses gave up an average of 30 points per game and we lost by an average of more than two touchdowns.

If there had been an internet back then the hailstorm of criticism we'd have seen toward McBride would have made the dissatisfaction shown to Watson look like nothing.

McBride learned from his mistakes and ended up all right, I suppose - if you like crazy-good unstoppable dominating defenses.

Yet another reply to Guy, same thread:

Ding Ding Ding this is a winner!!

One can only wonder what would of been had the internet been around in the 70s. There was a lot of heat on Osborne in that decade. People said he would never be another Devaney. After he went to Colorado and interviewed for the job there, he was almost run out of town. He would of had no problem finding people to help him move.

Watson isn't a lost cause, and he most certainly can get the job done, and he most certainly should not be fired. There are legitimate, stats-based reasons to gripe at Watson, but there are stats to back up the argument to keep him, too.

What would this season have been without that rolled ankle? We'll never know, but likely we wouldn't have lost to A&M and Oklahoma. Bummer.