I would be interested to know what, if anything, Pelini did to intervene and convince Moore or any of the others who left the campus to stay at Nebraska. There just has to be more to this story than we are hearing. I am not buying into the “Oh, it happens all the time” garbage. Something is drastically wrong with the gears in the machine to make it not run smoothly. Considering the quality of those who left, something is amiss. Seems to me someone (Dr. Tom) needs to do some evaluation of the goings on with the structure of the program.
Perhaps something was wrong with the gears in the machine in prior years, they did some evaluation this off season - and this is the result of getting things realigned? This is
completely hypothetical and maybe giving Bo a little too much credit (because I think he is far to stubborn to do this) - but my guess is when he was hired, there was a 6-8 year plan to turn things around. There is zero chance Tom and he thought that it could be done in a few years - and it's certainly not possible to do it all in year 1 without destroying the program. Not at Nebraska. We don't have the recruiting advantage/talent. First phase in that plan was Watson. Keep offensive continuity while improving the defense. Improve the culture. Right the ship. It's possible we are seeing the second phase. Change/restore the culture. Accountability. Create a product not seen at other institutions. While Stanford can sell their education, Nebraska can sell their culture/values. Not everyone is going to align with that. I don't think Moore would have been included in this group...but it's possible some other things he was enduring as part of these changes carried over. Phase 3 might be the youth we are seeing on the staff. Build a staff based on potential and pray it works out. BC gone after this year (a year too late IMO). Brown possibly moving on this year or next. A young, energetic staff unlike at any other school. It changes recruiting. It makes Nebraska unique. It's a huge risk, but if it works out you've got the foundation of a dynasty....similar to how Tom's was built - 8 years of no championship followed by 15 great years w/ staff continuity through the entire run.
...like I said...completely hypothetical. But it'd be nice to think this was all part of a bigger plan.