presidentjlh

The more I think about it, I think if Matt Rhule's available and interested, you gotta go with him. Won a conference title at Temple, first time Temple did that in 50 years. Came into a Baylor program in shambles from the awfulness under Art Briles. In three years took them from 1-11 to 11-3 and a Sugar Bowl spot and top 15 ranking. To distinguish from BoB, while again yes his ability to keep Penn State together was impressive, I just don't see a season that wows me.

I'm out on Bill O Brien as I've thought about it. All we have for him regarding college HC experience is two years at Penn State. Went 8-4 and 7-5. Granted, this is somewhat impressive considering it was right after the Sandusky awfulness, but I want someone proven to succeed at the college HC level.

1 minute ago, ColoradoHusk said:

I think Campbell's first year 3-9 record at Iowa State should be given a pass, and not be a reflection of his coaching abilities.  Iowa State had gone 3-9, 2-10, and 3-9 the 3 prior years before Campbell's arrival, so expecting him to have an immediate turnaround is foolish.  People just want to include those initial bad years as a reason to downplay his overall record.  Iowa State has had 5 straight winning seasons.  I don't know if that's ever been done at Iowa State, and NU hasn't had 2 straight winning seasons since Pelini left.

All that matters is the trend. If a coach suddenly wins a bunch and keeps winning, great, but as long as the trend is up, that's good.

7 minutes ago, gossamorharpy said:

Tim Tebow says urban should come to lincoln.  Its official guys, we're getting urban

Lol where is this. Or are you joking?

Just now, McBrideMafia said:

Can I be your DC...I've led my kid's flag football team to a Super Bowl Championship so therefore I'm qualified.

Sure, here's $1 million.

I should be the next HC because I'd like to make a few million and then blow out of there.

The sellout streak in the sense that everyone actually thinks of sellouts died long ago.

Just now, husker009 said:

Does it not concern you that the team folded the second OU punched back, the team folded. OU is a good team, but there is no excuse to lose that bad, especially at home. 

 

It concerns me in the sense that the team is bad, but that is something I already knew. I can assure you that with how this team looked in the other games this season, Frost was not coaching us to even a close loss in this one.

Maybe Mickey isn't HC material. That would be something that is unacceptable normally, but he's an interim head coach. He has been handed a role that requires year-round work, and one where, outside of a few wunderkinds, one week is not enough time to make a single difference in how the team plays.

12 minutes ago, husker009 said:

All week people on this board were saying that Mickey would make the team play emotional and they would beat OU. That obviously did not come close to happening. We looked worse than we did the week before.

 I saw a lot of people *hoping* that would be the outcome. But no one expected it. I am not going to throw a man under the bus for the team not looking great when he had about a week to prepare in his first ever game as head coach AT ANY LEVEL against a top 10 Oklahoma team.

EDIT: Excuse me, he was head coach of Langston in 2011-12.

I'm of the mind that outside of Trev, who has proven so far at least to be a professional, get everyone from the 90s away from the program outside of the nice little promotional stuff. Thank them for their contributions, obviously we will always appreciate what they did back then, but the program needs a hard reset and this sort of stuff is only holding the program back.

OP, I hate to tell you, but we're easily the worst team in the Big Ten and one of the worst in the FBS.

I appreciate the kind words but I can't wait for the day when other fanbases don't have to send messages like this to us anymore

Yeah I don't really like talking the personal stuff much, I don't know Scott personally and I don't feel it proper to really comment one way or the other on it. I can't speak to a man's character or things like that when all I know him from is his publicly facing side. I get why people do, but I just don't like doing it anymore. If he is having personal troubles, I hope things get better for him on that front. He hasn't s#!t on the university or the fans or anything, so for my part, I figure that's enough to say I hope things go well for him in his future endeavors, to say nothing of his still cemented legacy as one of the school's great QBs and a national champion.

I miss the Rez. RIP Rez

If anything, I'd say the statistics giving us a 14% win probability has to be taken with grain of salt. I'd give us a 1% chance of winning.

All I'm going to say is, at this point, it really doesn't matter much anymore.

13 minutes ago, Huskerfollower4life said:

This job isn't a full rebuild so don't give me this crap that its going to take that long to rebuild the team. Its like a merry go round keeps going around meaning next coach gets 3-4 years and the next coach gets 3-4 years. Thats crap there are coaches that can win now. The question is how much could they win? I believe any great coach that Nebraska hires will win between 7-9 wins his first year and not be in the negative. This is a critical time for Husker nation and the next hire has to be right otherwise we will fall further away from the Iowa State or Kansas's. Teams that in no way should be good but overall are better then Nebraska right now which pains me to say but we did this to ourselves by not hiring the best candidate possible, not going out and spending money when we should have. Nebraska got passed up.

We are coming off a 3-9 season (regardless of the statistically anomalous nature of that record) and are 1-2 in three games against opponents we were all favored by double digits over. Unless Mickey Joseph turns out to be a prodigy, I am guessing this season will result in a similarly abysmal record to last year. I would love if a coach could come in here and win 9 games the first season, but that is simply not realistic as a hard expectation for year one. If you told me I had to choose between a coach who will lead us to 7 wins the first season but plateau at 9 wins, or a coach who will have a losing season but in three years will lead us to 11-1, a conference title, and a spot in the playoffs, I will take the latter in a heartbeat. I don't just want to have winning seasons. This program has the basic structure that it should be able to regularly compete for the division and the conference, and yes, I will say it, eventually compete here and there for playoff spots.

EDIT: And I will damn well refuse to hear anyone who says "Oh Nebraska can never compete at the level of Alabama or Ohio State again." No, I do not ever expect the mid 90s again, but you can win anywhere, and certainly you can become a nationally competitive program when your program, up until 20 years ago, was the winningest program of the past 30 years. (Not that I'm accusing you of this, Huskerfollower4life. Just venting at the naysayers who think it's impossible to win at Nebraska now for some inexplicable reason, like we somehow magically became less easy to recruit to or win at instead of it being a problem that can be solved.)

3 minutes ago, Huskerfollower4life said:

I will give him credit but do you honestly want a coach that it's going to take 3 or 4 years to steadily improve? That goes for any coach.

Even for great coaches, one year turnarounds are not the rule. If we can do it, great, but no, I say the reasonable path is to give a coach 3-4 years. As long as there's improvement or we reach a level where I'd say we are again a nationally competitive and respectable program with regular conference title aspirations and even on occasion playoff aspirations, I am fine with them.

For example, with Frost's first year, I was actually quite pleased by the end. Yes, the start was horrific, but then in the last six games, we went 4-2 and were competitive with Ohio State and Iowa. I figured: "Ok, I am seeing improvement, this is good, we are on track."

Sadly that was the apex, not the nadir.

3 minutes ago, The Scarlet Pimpernel said:

 

if Rhule is let go by the Panthers he's got to be near the top of the list

I'd take him in a heartbeat, he's my #1 if he's available.

1 minute ago, The Scarlet Pimpernel said:

 

You've gotta really look at the big picture in regards to Rhule. His team's records improved every season during his tenure. The turnarounds at both of those schools were remarkable.

Fair. To be sure, I would prefer Rhule over everyone (which is why I am rooting hard against the Panthers this season)

I will grant your concerns. I just don't think Campbell is comparable to Riley, as I noted above (with an edit to be fair to you, you could not have responded) Riley had the benefit at Oregon State of Dennis Erickson setting him up for success. Campbell didn't have that.

18 hours ago, The Scarlet Pimpernel said:

 

I've heard the "better resources" spiel before. Like I said, I didn't buy it then and I don't buy it now. And no, I wouldn't want a coach that's 44-34. That record sucks. Have some high expectations, for God's sake. Some of you seem willing to accept anyone better than Frost... and that encompasses pretty much every coach in America.

Indeed, Matt Rhule? Very mediocre coach. After all his record at Temple was 28-23, and at Baylor was 19-20. 47-43, clearly a very mediocre coach.

Just to note though:

At Temple

2013: 2-10

2014: 6-6

2015: 10-4

2016: 10-3

At Baylor

2017: 1-11

2018: 7-6

2019: 11-3

Yes, Matt Campbell's record has more of a consistent position than a trend upwards. Again, I am not saying "This guy will undoubtedly win us 11 games regularly" that's impossible to predict. My point is that overall record can be misleading.

Additionally, because people think of Riley, Riley was already in his 60s when we hired him, his style was already outdated. I don't think Matt Campbell and Mike Riley are comparable at all. Especially when you consider that Mike Riley arrived in 1997, went 3-8 and then 5-6, then went to the NFL and Dennis Erickson took over.

Dennis Erickson stocked the cupboards for Mike Riley, who returned in 2003 started out well, then steadily declined.

3 minutes ago, Hagg said:

I agree with that term, "serviceable."  I worry about the O-line most. 
 

Wish the D seemed serviceable.  

Agreed, the O-line is very shaky. Due to that, I attribute much of the offense's success to the skills players being good.

We all realize the quality of competition, but the offense has done its job each time so far. Some issues to work on, sure, no one's saying its the Scoring Explosion come back to life, but there's clearly good pieces there. The skill guys look good. I think Casey Thompson is a good QB.

Will they put up similar stats on Oklahoma or the rest of the Big Ten? Doubtful. But they clearly are at least serviceable.

5 hours ago, Huskerfollower4life said:

He is 2 years removed from that. Do you honestly feel that he can draw national recruits in with his name? For me if Nebraska were to hire him then you are looking at a developmental coach imho. Nebraska doesn't need a developmental coach they need to win now. A coach that win turn it around asap and at the same time draw recruits to Nebraska. Trev wants a grinder. Also alot of you are going to say given the resources here he could make a hugh difference but that was the same argument like Mike Riley(yes I know Mike shouldn't have been considered with his record but the thought process behind it was give him more resources and he will be successful) you know how that turned out so please don't use that more resources will bring him success.

I want to give a defense of Matt Campbell. Do I think he is a surefire thing? No. There's no such thing.

But let's look at Iowa State's history, which is FAR worse than Oregon State's:

Currently, the winningest all-time coach is Dan McCarney. In 12 years he went 56-85.

That's a winning percentage of .397.

Matt Campbell has a record of 44-34 in 6 years. Campbell has a winning percentage of .560

Here's the list of guys before Campbell going back to 1973 (excluding guys who coached like 1 or 2 games):

Rhoads: .368

Chizik: .208

McCarney: .397

Walden: .335

Criner: .405

Duncan: .432

Bruce: .529

Now Bruce is Earle Bruce. Earle Bruce went on to coach Ohio State and is in the Hall of Fame.

You have to go back to Charles Mayser to find a coach of Iowa State with a better winning percentage than Campbell.

Charles Mayser coached Iowa State from 1915-1919.

EDIT: I want to clarify, I'm not saying Campbell is going to be a Hall of Fame coach. Just that I think his hiring would be very defensible considering what he's done with where he's been.

I expect nothing from Nebraska. So really either my expectations are met or they are exceeded.

This is great

3 hours ago, BIG ERN said:

Trying to have a positive spin.. Frost was competitive just could never figure out how to win close or fire his incompetent friend at DC. I think the new HC is set up decent in regards to the roster, new facilities, NIL etc. 

The Head Coach Refuses to Fire Incompetent Coordinators Due to Loyalty: The 2003 to 2022 Nebraska Cornhuskers Story, now available on Amazon.