WHAT IF?? Alternative Husker History

[TGHusker]

As a history buff, I like reading some of those alternative history books that try to answer the question: how would things have changed if history was tweaked just a bit - Such as: What if D-day was a complete failure?  What if Rosa Parks never sat on the front bus seat?  What if the Rubicon was never crossed?

 

There are many "What Ifs" in Husker Football history as well.  How would things have changed or tracked differently if our history was tweaked at important moments. I thought it would be fun in this off season to discuss/speculate/guess/argue over some of the scenarios and the outcomes if our history was tweaked.   Some answers are obvious but

even those obvious answers could have started a trend and changed the long term history of Husker Football. 

Below are a bunch of scenarios and I'm sure you all can add many more.  Pick one or more that you want to comment on or add a new one to the discussion.   We can come back to this

list again and again. 

 

Tom Osborne:

What if...... he accepted the job offer to coach at Colorado in 1977?

What if...... he went for the tie and not for 2 vs Miami?

What if..... he didn't retire after the 1997 NC year?

 

Other Coaches:

What if.... The BobFather never came to Nebraska?

What if..... Frank was never fired?

What if....Bo had beaten both OU & Texas in the 2 Big 12 CCG?  ?

What if... Bo had not been fired?

What if.... Scott Frost goes 7-6 instead of 13-0 at UCF?

What if....NU hired Bob Stoops instead of promoting Frank.

What if.... Bill Calahan had fired Cosgrove?

What if... Carolina didn't fire Matt Rhule?

What if.... Frank had beaten Texas  in 1999 (lost fumble crossing goal line on what would have been the winning TD) and won the NC, would that have prevented his firing 4 years later?

 

Game situations:

What if....Rozier wasn't hurt vs Miami in 1983?

What if.... the 4th down PSU pass was call out of bounds (correctly) in 1982?

What if.... there was no such thing as 'sooner magic' in the mid 1980s?

What if....they didn't put one second back on the clock ?

What if.... we didn't fumble going across the goal vs texas 1999 ?

What if.... the Field Goal was made vs FSU ?

What if.... the refs called a clean game vs FSU?

What if....the Alcorn State game had been played instead of canceled by weather?

What if.... the 2001 Colorado  game had been played in Lincoln?  Would we had won and also prevented the start of the curse?

 

Misc:

What if ....Tommie never came to Nebraska?

What if.... there were no Runzas ?

 

 

 

 

[TGHusker]

I'll start with this one: 

What if.... the 4th down PSU pass was call out of bounds (correctly) in 1982?

 

The 82 team was probably one of Tom's better teams - very well balanced on O and D. It was a better team in my opinion than the 83 scoring explosion team.  The 83 team's D wasn't nearly as good as the O.   Based on how the season played out in 1982,  NU would have been crowned the NC in 82 instead of PSU. Tom would have had his first NC that year.  The year previous, he played against Clemson for the NC and the year after he played Miami for the NC.  I think winning in 82 would have changed the trajectory of Husker football.  Tom was known has a good coach but even by then a coach who couldn't win the big one.  Perhaps, winning the NC in 82 would have given Tom the edge with more recruits during the 1980s - we began to fall behind OU and Miami and we started the streak of losing bowl games. Other teams simply had more of the high end talent.  

 

What say you?

 

[TonyStalloni]

Even though Tom O had one of the best coaching careers ever, it still could have been much better and would compare to Saban's now. The loss to Clemson was winnable, the PSU lost cost us a chance to play for a natty, The loss to Miami was winnable, the loss to Fla St was a robbery gift to the Fla St coach, the loss to Texas in the Big 12 championship game (when so many of our players were sick with flu all week) cost us arguably another natty.

[TGHusker]

7 minutes ago, TonyStalloni said:

Even though Tom O had one of the best coaching careers ever, it still could have been much better and would compare to Saban's now. The loss to Clemson was winnable, the PSU lost cost us a chance to play for a natty, The loss to Miami was winnable, the loss to Fla St was a robbery gift to the Fla St coach, the loss to Texas in the Big 12 championship game (when so many of our players were sick with flu all week) cost us arguably another natty.

Yes I agree  We were lucky to be in the game vs Clemson as # 2 & #3 had lost bowl games before the Orange Bowl.    - 2 for sure were referee robbery jobs (just poor refs - PSU and FSU).  I still wonder if that 96 team got Texas sponsored food poisoning.  But that is conspiratorial so I won't hang my hat on that.   And you can add the 'legacy' team of 99 - legacy as the main players were recruited by Tom or had played for Tom - that fumble at Texas stops a probable NC run.  I think we would have beaten either FSU or VaTech.   So that brings up another WHAT IF question:

If Frank had won the NC in 99 would that have prevented his firing in 2003?  The 99 team was better than his 2001 team.  

[River-runner]

What if Steve Pederson had never been AD at the University of Nebraska? 

 

[runningblind]

What if Osborne had not promised the job to Frank, and let the AD hire Bob Stoops as he was interested in doing?  I still feel like we would have continued being pretty good the last 20 years if not for that change.  Hiring Frank was the beginning of the downward trend. 

[TGHusker]

1 hour ago, runningblind said:

What if Osborne had not promised the job to Frank, and let the AD hire Bob Stoops as he was interested in doing?  I still feel like we would have continued being pretty good the last 20 years if not for that change.  Hiring Frank was the beginning of the downward trend. 

Yes, and nothing against Frank - but he didn't have the skill set to follow Tom.   I think Stoops would have been great here and if he was still around during the conference transition he would have been very familiar with the Big 10 landscape as well.  

I guess I didn't fully realize that the AD actually wanted to hire Stoops.  I know the part about Osborne promising Frank the job but that wasn't in his job responsibilities.  So how did Tom get to override his own boss (AD)?

 

[Lorewarn]

3 minutes ago, TGHusker said:

  So how did Tom get to override his own boss (AD)?

 

 

Imagine telling Tom Osborne no in 1997.

[JJ Husker]

What if ifs and buts were candy and nuts? Wouldn’t it be Christmas all year long?

[TGHusker]

28 minutes ago, JJ Husker said:

What if ifs and buts were candy and nuts? Wouldn’t it be Christmas all year long?

Yes and that would be a good thing 

55 minutes ago, Lorewarn said:

 

 

Imagine telling Tom Osborne no in 1997.

Yes, I hear you but I wished it weren't so. 

[hskrpwr13]

If TO had won titles in 82, 83 or both, I think 95 is as long as he stays. Maybe leaves earlier if 1 or 2 earlier titles resulted in more between 83 and 94. 

 

I always find the saga of Bo interesting. To me it always seemed like he was looking to better-deal Nebraska and that he always believed he was better coach than the W/L indicated. If he had won those last 2 Big12 titles I think he'd have jumped at the best offer from an SEC or southern-ACC program.

[TGHusker]

14 minutes ago, hskrpwr13 said:

If TO had won titles in 82, 83 or both, I think 95 is as long as he stays. Maybe leaves earlier if 1 or 2 earlier titles resulted in more between 83 and 94. 

 

I always find the saga of Bo interesting. To me it always seemed like he was looking to better-deal Nebraska and that he always believed he was better coach than the W/L indicated. If he had won those last 2 Big12 titles I think he'd have jumped at the best offer from an SEC or southern-ACC program.

Interesting take. I suppose the Peter Principle would have taken over at that point- if he’d jumped to the SEC- speaking of Bo.  You might be right about Tom. If he had won earlier NC, 95 might have been his last as it was a very difficult year for him even though it was his best team- he had nothing more to prove. 95 was definitely “the worst of times and the best of times “. 

[JoeHuskers!]

What if..... Bo was hired as the HC after his interim HC bowl win in 2003?

[TGHusker]

11 minutes ago, JoeHuskers! said:

What if..... Bo was hired as the HC after his interim HC bowl win in 2003?

He would have had the team behind him - after what he did as a DC and in the bowl game.  It surely would not have been as disruptive as the BC years.  I don't know if he would end up with SUH a few years later - BC did recruit some good players - would Bo have done as well on the recruiting side??  I sometimes wonder if his rant against Snider (which was the last straw against Frank) ended up being disqualifying in Peterson's eyes.  Of course,  I think Peterson thought he could land the next Osborne. 

[Fru]

1 hour ago, JoeHuskers! said:

What if..... Bo was hired as the HC after his interim HC bowl win in 2003?

This is an excellent one. I’ve often thought about how things would’ve gone if Bo had gotten it in 2003. In some ways it’s kind of amazing it didn’t happen.

 

So Steve fires Frank with allegedly an NFL head coach waiting in the wings. I believe this was alluded to by Harvey Perlman in an article a while back, he claimed it was going to be a “wow” hire. I think in a later article it was said to be Mike Sherman who was with Green Bay at the time. Obviously doesn’t happen. 
 

So Steve is getting turned down left and right. Zimmer. Houston Nutt. Etc. I believe the search took over 40 days. He clearly had no plan and was caught completely flat footed. Steve had to have known this coaching search was becoming a disaster. He had to have known he made multiple critical mistakes. And the whole time he’s got a young, hot shot, fan favorite, D Coordinator that took over as interim and led the team to an inspired bowl win. Talk about an escape route. 
 

Why wouldn’t Pederson just hire Bo? He could’ve sold it pretty easily. A young NFL defensive assistant, comes to Neb as a savior DC, takes over the head job and becomes the face of Neb’s future. 

If Bo got the job I think he probably keeps most of the staff in place. Recruiting probably doesn’t drop off much, if at all, possibly even improving a bit under the new energy from the Bo hire.

 

At worst they probably hover in that 7-5ish range with Bo never fully able to get over the hump. At best they could have very well made the 2005 or 2006 B12 Title Game, maybe even have won it in 2006 since OU was pretty pedestrian that year. Bo probably gets poached or given an extension and stays thru the B1G conference change and leaves some time around 2016, give or take.