A few thoughts...

[speedtoburn]

Interesting two weeks to say the least in our world, no? What looked like a surefire top 20 class is now teetering on recruiting oblivion. Guess that's what goes down when you lose almost an entire coaching staff and come off a horrendous season.

 

Here are a few random thoughts...

 

1) The formula for having a successful program is really quite simple and it goes something like this: good recruiting + good coaching = consistent 9+ win seasons. You show me a team that has both of the above and I'll show you a team that often finds itself in the top 10. Look no further than USC, LSU or Oklahoma for examples of this in play. Those teams have been elite for so long because they combine great coaching with great recruiting. Having one without the other may get you an occasional 10+ win season, but you won't find yourself there for too long. Even in the above programs, we saw that when Oklahoma had recruiting holes in their QB position and within the secondary, they became good, but not great in 2005 and 2006. They still had great coaching, but lacked the chess pieces to contend for the national title. Insert some timely recruiting and all of a sudden they're back among the elite. Don't kid yourselves folks, you need both coaching and recruiting to succeed in the long term and if we don't keep that up, we won't see much progress.

 

2) Anyone suggesting that Tom Osborne's classes weren't very talented and well thought of should take their head out of the sand and do a little research. Tom was a very good recruiter and while he rarely landed a top 5 class, they were constantly filled with skilled playmakers and ranked in the top 15. Steve Taylor, Broderick Thomas and LeRoy Ettienne were all ranked in the top 100 when they came here, Mickey Joseph was the #2 rated player in the country, Leodis Flowers was #12, Derek Brown was the #1 speed back in his class, Shevin Wiggins was the Florida Player of the Year, and Tony Ortiz was the #1 defensive player in the country his senior year. The list during Osborne's time goes on and on with SuperPrep All-Americans and Players of the Year for their respective states. The 1985 class was ranked #1 in the nation, and the 1987 class was ranked #6 by Max Emfinger. What Osborne did was recruit premier skill position players and linemen, and supplement them with "free labor" from the walk-on program. The end result was that we had a roster full of blue chip athletes and we were able to take advantage of two or three walk-ons each year who had developed into two-deep players. Also, don't buy the idea that TO took unranked Nebraska kids on scholarship and developed them into great stars; every single Nebraska kid we took on scholarship from 1985 on was at least 2nd team All-State and many of them were All-Americans. This idea that Tom won with a bunch of nobodies is a romanticized way of revising history to make us feel better about the current recruiting situation and it does us no good to continue mythologizing Osborne's legacy. You win when you couple great coaching with premier athletes and to say Tom didn't do that is simply false.

 

3) With regards to the current staff, I would strongly caution against indicting them based on 3 weeks of work. They were put in a tough spot and nothing about this recruiting cycle can be considered normal. One, the original core of our class had formed a deep and unusual bond as a group, and once the first one defected, we had peer momentum naturally pulling them other directions. Two, despite the swiftness of our coaching search, the previous staff had been on death row in the court of public opinion since October 15th when Pederson was canned and our recruits were left blowing in the wind for almost a month and a half as a result. Many started looking around way before the public reports surfaced and it's a lot to expect 100% retention from a group of coaches who are chasing another staff's recruits. Are there problems right now? Sure, I think it's fair to say that, but I think it's far too early and we're without enough evidence to put this staff on a trend. Yet. Recruits often commit to coaches and rarely commit to schools. A lot of what we're seeing now is the natural turnover from a jagged fracture of relationships and was bound to happen. The proof of success or failure will come with the class of 2009. Until then, as tough as it may be, let's try to refrain from throwing the staff out before they even coach a game.

 

4) Speaking of staffs, I think it's about time we start moving on from the old one. How about we just admit that the last staff was pretty damn good at recruiting and very average at coaching? It's almost as if we have to cover our asses for supporting them by tearing down everything they did and saying it was all a sham. I'll say it again, you reach the elite level by not only recruiting premier athletes, but also giving them great coaching. It's become en vogue to bash on the talented guys we have because we didn't get the results we expected, but that error of logic fails to recognize the very basic formula for success I put above. The 5-star recruits are not the problem; it was how those 5-star recruits were misused and not put into a position to succeed that killed us. But how about we give the past staff credit for bringing some talented athletes into the fold via recruiting and move on towards the future?

 

5) The moment I listened to Bo's press conference and heard we didn't have a signed contract I knew we were in trouble. In reality, it's probably nothing. Symbolically, it means everything. Recruiting is truly a world where perception is reality, and if I was an opposing coach, I'd be hammering Nebraska based on the ridiculous notion that our head coach of three weeks has yet to sign his contract. And no, "I'm busy recruiting" is not a good enough excuse. In a virtual world, contract issues can and often are hammered out over the course of a 48-72 hour period. Even more, it's more than likely that Bo's agent is handling many of the remaining details and that takes Bo off the hook for most of the time spent negotiating. The golden rule is get it in writing and get a signature on it. If it truly is a done deal, then slam the door on any perception of a problem and get this thing rolling, even if it means signing a temporary agreement until a permanent one can be reached. Until then, you've opened yourself up for other coaches and programs to fill in the blanks for you.

 

Now is not the time to invent excuses and proffer false evidence for our current recruiting problems, nor to discount our past recruiting successes both under Osborne and Callahan. Let's realize that turnover in these situations is a naturally occurring phenomenon and much of what we're experiencing is the byproduct of a coaching change that came on the heels of a 5-7 season. Also, remember that while winning helps, there's no easier way to get recruiting results than to have great people doing the recruiting. But it's just as wise to remember that those recruits still need people to coach them once they get to campus. If you've only got one side of the coin, you have nothing but counterfeit money.