They say hindsight is 20/20

[CowboyBob]

Was the firing of Frank Solich the right move or the wrong move?

 

I hate to bring it up after all these years, but I'm curious what percentage of the Husker nation feels one way or the other after these years.

[hack]

you ain't from around here, are ya?

[junior4949]

On what basis are we to make this vote?

 

If you strictly look at it from a football point of view, then no he should not have been fired. He was asked to make changes after the 02' season, and he did. He went from 7-7 to 10-3 which is quite an improvement. He was Big 12 coach of the year I believe 3 of his 6 years. He played for a NC.

 

Now if you look at it from the rumor mill point of view, then yes he probably should have been dismissed. According to my sources, he was engaged in an extramarital affair with a woman in the administration. Supposedly, Pud told him to stop or he would be dismissed. He did not stop the affair, and was fired. If you go on this basis, yeah it was proper to fire him. He'd been warned and did not heed the warnings, so he was fired.

 

A lot of people get on Solich for his recruiting. If the 3 mentioned in another thread do in fact go in the first round, I think it's easy to see that we had talent. There are quite a few Solich recruits playing on Sunday. In fact, he may have just as many or more than came off the NC years. I don't have the time to looke, but he has quite a few (Bullocks, Shanle, Washington, Pork Chop, Ruud, etc., etc.). The biggest problem he had was at QB. Jamal Lord was one hell of an athlete, but he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. He wasn't a very good QB. Joe Dailey didn't pan out. However, TO had a lot of QB's that weren't good either. Does Mickey Joseph, Mike Grant, Keithen McCants ring a bell. In order to run the option, you have to have a smart, tough, and athletic QB. We never became dominant until we had big, fast, tough QB's like Frazier, Frost, and Berringer. The receivers never really mattered because their main job was to block. The biggest waist of talent I ever saw was with a receiver from Omaha named Wilson Thomas (sp?). I always thought he waisted his college career coming to NU. I felt like he could have been a big time impact player at a passing school. A lot of our linemen were in state kids that were developed into linemen here (Zatecha's, Adam Treu, Joel Wilks). The defense was similar to this years. We typically had a good front 4. We typically had good linebackers. We usually had decent to good DB's. The reason for the meltdown year of 2002 stemmed from our offense being very ineffective. The defense pretty much played 3 of the 4 quarters. In 2003, the year was better with Lord having a year under his belt and a different Defensive Coordinator. 2004 would have been a down year I think, but I do believe we would have had a better record and went to a bowl game. Whether or not Dailey would have ever panned out or not as a good QB is hard to know. One thing we do know; he was not a drop back passer.

[u_da_man_pelini]

I was all for Frank being let go, but it's no secret as to whom I was hoping would succeed Solich. At the very least I was hoping we would've hired a defensive minded HC.

 

Back in 2004, I told myself that the jury will be out on Callahan until at least 2008...the year in which all the players in the program are all Callahan-era recruits. We saw what happened in 2002, the first year that the team was completley made up of Solich players, a disaster happened..7-7.

 

The Cotton Bowl was the final straw for me though. I think Callahan is a heck of a recruiter, but not much of an ingame coach. I think there are things he could to do help this..ie; delegating the play calling duties elsewhere. I feel that NU needs a better blend of recruiter and coach to be successful, not just a HC who can recruit well. There's no denying Callahan is knowledgable, but that doesn't always translate into being a good teacher/coach. In school, there were always teachers I had that I knew were brilliant but just didnt' make for a good teacher. I think Callahan is better suited for a coordinator position, but I'll admit that I'm not the biggest fan of the WCO system as I feel it's often times "soft."

[Hunter94]

his game planning and management after the 1st quarter was really suspect all last year, assuming he was making the calls and not the offensive coordinator.

[Silent Commit]

Was firing Frank Solich the right move or the wrong move?

Firing Solich was the right move

Firing Solich was the wrong move

 

Am I the only one that is tired of this debate?

 

We should have a different poll that answers this question: "Are you tired of debating whether the Frank Solich firing was a good decision?"

 

Let's move on - for Pete's sake! These are the type of threads that permeate this board when there is no football. Aaaaaargh! Please speed up the calendar so that we have more interesting topics.

 

[huskers1]

Wasnt Bill Callahan the offensive coordinator for the Oakland Raiders when they went to the AFC title game, and called the plays for them when they were in the super bowl? I think he was, so what makes you guys think that he cant call the plays in college. This guy is an offensive genious and I trust what he is seeing justifies what he does on the field. Now is he perfect? No he does make some mistakes and he has even admitted to doing so. However the majority of the time I think he knows exactly what he is doing. I personally voted for solich to be gone. I didnt think he was a good coach or recruiter. I think callahan is both, and only time will tell if my opinion is the correct one.

[BigRedfxtoy]

Wow, is this what our off season discussions have come to? LOL

 

Solich's last couple years were really bad. Much worse than his record. As much as I think Poneyelle is a scub bag, he made a good defense and that was the reason for the "good record" I keep coming back to that game, I think it was Texas, then again im prob wrong, but anyway Solich went for it on 4th down (in feild goal range) THREE times. We lost by six points. That is when I started saying "he's gotta go". It looked to me like he was almost going "rogue". He didn't seem to conform to the whole athletic organization. Hell he didn't even talk to Peterson but a copule times all year, his last year. The bottom line is, Solich lived on TO's shirt tales. The NC game was with TO's team, he SHOULD have played for the NC. Even though it was by no means a TO season. I like the direction of the team now and have high hopes and that is more than I can say about Solich's last two years.

 

Just my two cents, and that is about all it is worth.

[DaveH]

Am I the only one that is tired of this debate?

No.

[KansasHusker]

I thought this debate would finally die...guess not, which sucks!

[LAHusker]

I always saw Solich as a little troll pacing up and down the sidelines. He didn't have much personality and was terrible with the media and on-camera interviews. That's where I think Callahan is much better. He still projects the Nebraska 'straight-shooter' image, but has the means and skill to keep the team competitive in a sports that is dramatically different, even from when TO retired.

 

The 2003 season was an improvement over the previous, but we still had embarassing losses to Missouri, Texas, and a total debacle against Kstate at home. Texas is usually tougher, but as far as I'm concerned, we should beat missouri and kstate every year.

 

And this is all aside from him putting out fires of passion.

 

Good move to fire Solich, move on.

[Hawkeyehusker]

It was the right move. Just look at Coach Solich's record against ranked teams once Coach Osborne's players graduated. Solich was a great running backs coach. Once of the absolute best. But he just couldn't recruit. Talent declined.

[Hunter94]

Wasnt Bill Callahan the offensive coordinator for the Oakland Raiders when they went to the AFC title game, and called the plays for them when they were in the super bowl? I think he was, so what makes you guys think that he cant call the plays in college. This guy is an offensive genious and I trust what he is seeing justifies what he does on the field. Now is he perfect? No he does make some mistakes and he has even admitted to doing so. However the majority of the time I think he knows exactly what he is doing. I personally voted for solich to be gone. I didnt think he was a good coach or recruiter. I think callahan is both, and only time will tell if my opinion is the correct one.

 

 

solich was terrible, no doubt. but cally has shown (for whatever reason) a definitive weakness in his ability to playcall/coach beyond the 1st half. i still can't figure out his strategy for making adjustments, it is just frustrating to watch him struggle, he looks so lost.

[coyeote]

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[Drowning_in_the_Sea_of_Red]

I was all for Frank being let go, but it's no secret as to whom I was hoping would succeed Solich. At the very least I was hoping we would've hired a defensive minded HC.

 

IS THAT YOU, BO????