TheMeWho

6 hours ago, runningblind said:

 

Me counting on my fingers, “Two zeroes, two ones, two twos…two eights, two nines, two…ohhhh.”

Well I’ll be darned! Does this mean we don’t have to fire Hoiberg 1/4 of the way into the season then?

Time to put in another 2 cents and do my part to get this to 800.

A few weeks ago I had a short list of coaches I would rather see hired over Mickey. Well, after going 0-4 since then my list has definitely expanded. I will always respect MJ for the work he’s done for the program this season, and I wish him the best in his future endeavors, whatever that may be. I still think he’s an excellent position coach and want him to be retained on staff, unless of course the new HC thinks of someone even better to coach WR. (To be honest, since MJ was made interim the receivers haven’t played that great, have they? They need him back in the WR room full time, imo). I think there are several candidates out there who have the needed head coaching experience to try and right this ship. There are definitely “tiers” to the list as some may have a better chance of success than others.

Tier 1 (Would be extremely excited and would make me quite giddy).

1. Luke Fickell

2. Mike Gundy

3. Matt Rhule

4. Chris Petersen

5. Lane Kiffin

Tier 2 (Would be cautiously optimistic).

6. Chris Klieman

7. Lance Leipold

8. Bill O’Brien

9. Dave Aranda

10. Dave Clawson

Tier 3 (Well, at least I won’t be saying, “coach who?”).

11. Jamey Chadwell

12. Gus Malzahn

13. Mark Stoops

14. Dave Doeren

15. Jeff Monken

If all these guys say no, you keep Mickey on as HC and pray he can put together a championship staff in the offseason (I do think one of my “top 15” will say yes, though).

Last but not least…

Tier 0.

#0. Urban Meyer (Would be even more excited than I would be for Tier 1, but there’s just a little trepidation about his character, or lack thereof).

I’m wondering if all these Matt Rhule contract rumors are just a red herring. The scuttlebutt I heard at my family’s Thanksgiving gathering is that Urban Meyer was definitively at Eppley this week (according to a family member’s trusted source who’s “connected”). Who knows what that means? Has Urban been the guy all along or is he just a liaison for Fickell?

I’d take Rhule in a heartbeat but there’s almost too many rumors/leaks about Rhule’s “contract” to be true. I’m wondering if it actually is going to be a home run hire, either Meyer or Fickell. Do I dare drink the kool-aid? Trev has kept a pretty tight lip throughout this search. I’m trusting he’ll make the right decision and I’ll support the new HC whoever it may be.

Either way it’s going to be an exciting, anxiety inducing next 24-48 hours.

GBR!!!

Okay, one more guess. Grant Wistrom.

7 minutes ago, ColoradoHusk said:

Last update for the night on the trivia question. Nobody has said the correct answer yet, but someone was very close when they said Ahman Green.

My third and final guess will be Correll Buckhalter

1 minute ago, skers83 said:

Buckhalter

Beat me to it!

5 minutes ago, ColoradoHusk said:

No, but close. 

Bobby Newcombe

Warmer or colder?

1 hour ago, ColoradoHusk said:

This is some odd trivia, but I thought it would be fun to do, while in the midst of a coaching search.

 

In the fall of 1997, other than the coaching staff, AD, families, etc. who was the first person to know that Tom Osborne was going to retire and Frank Solich was going to be named the head coach?

Ahman Green

So instead of “Row, row, row the boat!” We can have “The wheels on the bus…!”

And turn the “Broken Chair” trophy into the “Bus & Boat” trophy! 

2 hours ago, UniversalMartin said:

Ummm...actually like this.

It’s funny, I may have said it jokingly because we have a bad history with coaches from Oregon State, but his team doesn’t seem to be too sucky this year. We could probably do worse. 

Jonathan Smith

8 hours ago, Loebarth said:

 

Agree with your above post and the bold text is why I've felt all along that Trev (whom I believe is a very intelligent strategist) has always felt that MJ is the guy. Think about it, without any risk in damaging the season any further Trev is getting first hand knowledge on how MJ would lead. How athletes, media, administration personnel, B1G officials, etc.. etc... react and truth is, MJ is "ok" with a slightly lesser contract that is incentive driven, heck he's come out and said he wants his coaching staff taken care of. (First the athletes, then the coaches, then administrators and he'll take whats left).. Is this not an AD's perfect scenario? Personally, I'm a Dan Lanning fan (Oregon's HC) and not far behind him is Kalen DeBoer (Washington's HC). After that I really don't think any other mentioned coaches (maybe Lane, Rhule) bring anymore calm to Trev's decision. Lance, Aranda, Doeren all have Head Coaching experience but also haven't really won anything. Monken (Army HC) imo has as much upside as Liepold, Aranda, Doeren and also runs an offense much like Bo did... We don't know what offense MJ would implement if he's hired but there's someone that does, Trev.. 

 

I honestly think, when the dust settles, regardless of whom is hired, in the end MJ will be able to say "I did my best" and yes, imo, I hope he says that in 2040 after winning 3 naty's 

5 hours ago, admo said:

"You ask me to cook you a meal, but you don't let me pick the groceries"

- Bill Parcells

 

This is just me, but I would give Mickey Joseph the job.  Keep the unity together (in house/players/commits) and give a 4-year deal around 18-19 mil, with motivation to renegotiate / offer / extend contract handsomely should there be noticeable success trending upward.  Like we do and everybody does.  

 

I would let MJ retain who he want to retain (Busch, Applewhite, Beckton, Fischer for examples) and recruit assistant coaches he would want to be surrounded by that he thinks would be good for his team's success in the B1G (OC/OL/DL/LB/DC?).

 

Mickey is not coaching the football team for his job.  But, if he gets a contract to coach for his job/livelihood, he will definitely bring in his people to be successful at Nebraska.  I mean, one week in and he fired Chins - if that means anything at all.

 

Unless you have been coaching successfully in this conference, you don't have any more experience than what we currently have.  I don't care what divisions you are at right now (P5/G5/FCS)..... this conference (B1G) is just a different beast that wants you to play by their football rules.  Even Lincoln Riley would probably be frustrated and angry here and win just 7-8 games a year at best.  

 

IMHO Mickey is the guy.  Even if he doesn't get the job by end of season.  He will though, if upset Illinois, Minnesota and Iowa.  No question.  

4 hours ago, admo said:

Stop making things so complicated when it really isn't so difficult to see.  We need a leader (Mickey), with a CEO "hands off approach with assistants" (Mickey), a super awesome recruiter for talent and coaches (Mickey), a leader of young men (Mickey), a coach who has been around a lot of winning (Micky) and an ex-Husker who loves Nebraska football (Mickey) and a person who will put his best effort into the program (Mickey) and a coach that players love to play for (Mickey). 

 

Mickey might have amazing thoughts about how he wants his offense and defense to play in 2023 and beyond, and I can only hope Trev will be wise enough to listen.

 

 

I’ll drink the cool aid with you!

I’m curious to see what MJ would do with this team with a full off-season under his belt. Does he have what it takes to be the permanent HC? I’m not 100% convinced yet but there’s still games to be played.

Right now there are definitely a few coaches I would take over MJ.

#1. Luke Fickell. He’s proven he can lead a team to the playoffs, even though they got walloped by ‘Bama. Now, “Does he want to come here?”, is a legitimate question. Make him say no to us (which is probably more than likely as I’ve gathered he doesn’t seem to want to leave the state of Ohio).

#2. Mike Gundy. Gundy has proven he can consistently get his teams to play at a high level while being at the “second fiddle” program in Oklahoma. He only has 1 losing season (his first) and 7 ten win seasons in 18 so far with the Cowboys. I’d be intrigued to see what he could do in Lincoln with our resources. Legitimate concerns would be can he recruit elite level talent to Lincoln? Are our resources really that much better than Okie State’s? Also, he hasn’t yet proven he can crack through to the playoffs, but he’s been “close”. Lastly, would he consider leaving his alma mater for NU? I don’t know, but I think it could be more likely than Fickell leaving Cincy for NU (no source, just my gut).

#3. Chris Petersen. I like what he did at Boise State and he certainly seemed to have things rolling smoothly in Washington before burning out in 2019. If the rumors are true and there’s actually mutual interest this would be a hire that would make me happy. My concerns would be does he suffer from burnout again after a few seasons and would what he accomplished on the west coast translate to the B1G? It may be valuable to have a coach who knows how to beat USC & UCLA.

#4/5. Matt Rhule or Mickey Joseph? If the top three say no I would really have to debate between offering Rhule or just keeping Joseph. I like Rhule’s approach to building a roster and think he could probably build a competent program here at Nebraska. The thing is he hasn’t stayed anywhere long enough for me to feel 100% confident in the hire. I’m putting Rhule ahead of MJ for now, but if Joseph gets us to six wins I say roll with Joseph (unless one of the top three say yes).

There’s plenty of decent coaches with varying degrees of success in the rest of the field. There’s probably a few who would be interested and could build decent teams and get us those 9 win seasons like Pelini did. A lot of those coaches are only in their first or second season at their current school and haven’t proven sustained success at the P5 level yet (Aranda/Kiffin/Klieman/Leipold/DeBoer/Lanning) or have plateaued and may be slowly falling (Campbell?). Others have had good seasons but I don’t think they would bring anything particularly special to the table as far as recruiting goes (Clawson/Doeren/Malzahn/Stoops). Would any of these coaches fare any better in our current situation than Mickey Joseph has? If any of them were thrust into the HC position before the Oklahoma game how would they perform with our roster? I really don’t know. That’s why I’m willing to give MJ a shot next year ahead of most of these guys (at least right now I am). Of course if the rest of the season goes to complete crap I can easily change my mind.

I want MJ and the Huskers to succeed but understand it’s a daunting task. It would be a daunting task for anyone, it seems. I’m legitimately curious to see what MJ could do next season as the HC. If it appears it’s not going to work next season, and we have to go through this again, some of those other coaches will have another year of data to go on so Alberts can make an even more informed evaluation. Do we risk that and give the less experienced Mickey Joseph the reigns? Right now, I’m willing to drink a couple cool-aids and see what happens.

Time will tell. Go Big Red!!!

Day by day.

2 hours ago, ColoradoHusk said:

When has a coach-in-waiting situation ever worked? Was Jimbo Fisher the CIW at Florida State the last couple of years for Bowden at FSU? Other than that, I can’t think of any of those actually panning out. 

Umm…Tom Osborne? Or was he not a “coach-in-waiting”. Or were you just not thinking that far back in history?

3 hours ago, admo said:

Campbell, Chadwell, Fickell, Leipold....   

 

What if they all say "Thank you, I'm kind of interested, but no thank you"

 

What if the following coaches get contacted, and each one says "I appreciate Nebraska, it is amazing, but no thanks"....

 

From:  Kiffin, Urban Meyer, Heupel, Whittingham, Aranda, Shaw, Gundy, Leach, and Monken.

 

 

It's like Husker fans that love to say "but we have resources and facilities and NIL" -  as if no one else does.  And then they say, "But we are Nebraska..."

 

I am sorry... but the Huskers won't be getting their top 2 or 3 choices... or top 10-15.  

 

Without Mickey coming to the rescue, we are going to be screwed again.  

 

It might as well be the Chiefs OC Eric Bienemy (nice!) getting his 1st time gig as head coach (uggghhhh, here we go again).

 

But that will because everybody else said "nope" to Nebraska.

 

 

Patrick Kabongo!

10 minutes ago, Hedley Lamarr said:

But he's a Nebraskan, he needs time to build his program. It hasn't gone how we all thought it would at first. Not to mention covid not even counting for a year. We are practically in year 1 at this point. 

Alberts may have to restructure Hoiberg’s contract for next season and Hoiberg will end up having to fire some of his staff, let’s say, in February.

Did I do it right?

I don’t know if this has been discussed before but it occurred to me that apparently the media had a set time they were to announce Scott Frost had accepted the NU job. According to the Lars Anderson tweet it was 4 o’clock/3 central. This would have given him plenty of time to tell his players (I think).  Unfortunately the game went into Double Overtime and messed up the timing, and ESPN had to do the ESPN thing and leak the information with complete disregard for both parties. Oh, well. What’s done is done and we’ve moved on.

On another note, didn’t nice guy Riley steal a couple of recruits from Oregon State when he took the NU job? Wasn’t Tyrin Ferguson committed to the Beavers? Matt Snyder?

AAAAAAAH!!! HOW DID I FIND THE POLITICS SECTION!!! NOOOO!!! 

Seeing as it’s been 8 hours since the last post, the dear old Megathread just might be locked soon, so here’s my final goodbye to this magnificent Megathread.

Seeing the videos of Scott Frost and all those former players and all this talk of “Scott Frost and the boys” reminds me of something.

GIVE US A SHOUTOUT, LINCOLN!!!...

The Boys are back in town. All is well. 

It was all so surreal last night. I don't think it'll actually hit me until he's at the podium today.

While I completely understand the concerns of the naysayers out there, and agree we need to give our next coach (Scott Frost) ample time to actually start winning again, there hasn’t been much to hope for this season and Scott Frost gives us that hope.

So...in case this Megathread gets locked this weekend, “May the Horn of Helm Hammerhand Sound in the deep...one last time.”

Gandalf=Scott Frost 

Orcs=The B1G (We’re coming for you).