Rise of Pelini

[Husker_Power]

By BRIAN CHRISTOPHERSON / Lincoln Journal Star

Monday, Jan 07, 2008 - 12:05:32 am CST

 

He's been Nebraska's football coach for barely a month but already the name Bo Pelini is all around — on billboards, on menus, on cotton tees.

 

"Got Bo?" hot-selling T-shirts ask, more boastful than an actual question.

 

It is a name that swoops in to rescue awkward dinner conversations across the state. Bo here. Bo there. Bo everywhere.

 

Everyone has a take on Bo, good ol' Bo, often spoken about like a childhood friend.

 

And yet it was just five years ago when most people around here just realized that Bo Pelini existed.

 

Frank Solich was heading the Huskers and needed a defensive coordinator. News began to circulate that he might hire some guy from Green Bay.

 

Give Solich credit here. The T-shirt slogans and adoration from Herbstreit types only came later.

 

First, there was Solich's bold move, the one that brought Pelini to Nebraska in the first place, that pointed us to where we are today.

 

It was a decision aided by the opinions of two other men. One of them is named Pete Carroll.

 

It's a hire that sure looks brainy now. During the past five football seasons, Pelini has become one of those defensive coordinators that TV cameras seek out often during games, the color analysts armed with complimentary talking points when his mug hits the screen.

 

He's easy to find. Even while changing allegiances from Nebraska to Oklahoma to LSU, he's remained the intense gum-chewing fellow in the gray sweatshirt and titled ballcap.

 

Tonight, Pelini gets more air time, serving one last time as defensive coordinator for LSU in the national championship game against Ohio State.

 

Nebraskans will be trying out their new gumbo recipe and watching their new head football coach's every move.

 

So goes it in the beginning of stages of romance, a honeymoon that will surely last at least as far as September and the first blown defensive assignment.

 

But how did this all begin? How did Pelini go from a Green Bay Packers linebackers coach to the toast of Nebraska?

 

The short version: Solich called Monte Kiffin of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Kiffin called Pete Carroll of the USC Trojans. Carroll told Kiffin: "Monte, you could not find a better guy than Bo. He's enthusiastic and he'll get players to play for him."

 

The longer version: Solich was coming off a 7-7 season in 2002. His defense had been the 55th best in the country that year. A coaching shakeup was needed. The biggest decision facing Solich was who he should hire at defensive coordinator.

 

Solich said he wasn't necessarily looking for a guy from the pros to replace Craig Bohl, but figured a call to Kiffin, former Husker assistant and longtime pain-in-the-behind to NFL offenses, sure couldn't hurt.

 

"I just felt I could maybe get an angle on a guy or two from going that route," Solich said Saturday.

 

"One thing I didn't want was going down a road of interviewing four or five different guys for the position, then get to where things complicate themselves a little bit. I thought I'd identify two or three really good guys, get them interviewed, make a decision. And if I didn't like any of them, start the process over again."

 

Kiffin had met Pelini in passing and had never coached with him. But Kiffin knew Carroll was a person of good information, especially on the topic of suggesting up-and-coming coaches.

 

At one time the head coach of North Carolina State, Kiffin had employed a young Carroll as his defensive coordinator from 1980-82.

 

And so Kiffin quickly called Carroll for assistance and Carroll just as quickly blurted out the name Bo Pelini.

 

Carroll had coached with Pelini as an assistant at San Francisco, and liked him so much he took him when he got a head coaching job at New England.

 

There were other candidates that interested Solich — Bud Foster of Virginia Tech was one — but ultimately he set his sights on two Ohio natives: Jon Tenuta and Bo Pelini.

 

"Both of them, I thought were guys who had excellent knowledge of the game, and really would have the ability to take over a defense and get the most out of guys … They were guys that had some energy and fire to them," Solich said.

 

"You look at Charlie McBride, the great job Charlie has done at Nebraska for so many years, he has a fiery personality, the energy level to get players to play their best. And that's how I saw those two guys."

 

Tenuta was a hot name in coaching circles then and that hasn't changed. There is even speculation that LSU coach Les Miles might hire Tenuta to replace Pelini as the Tigers' defensive coordinator.

 

Five years ago, Tenuta was the defensive coordinator of Georgia Tech. He had ten years of age on Pelini and college experience — having coached at the likes of Ohio State, Oklahoma, Kansas State and Marshall.

 

Tenuta even spent a December day in Lincoln, visiting the campus, checking out the stadium, liking the place quite a bit.

 

Tenuta departed. Pelini arrived. It was a Friday. Solich had conducted several interviews with him, but this meeting sealed the deal.

 

Carroll watched approvingly from afar.

 

Before the 2003 season began, a season that would catapult both Carroll's and Pelini's status in the college football world (Carroll's to a higher place, obviously), the USC coach offered a bold prediction on what Pelini was about to do at Nebraska.

 

"They'll be so much better than they were before, you won't believe it," Carroll said. "He'll do all the right things."

 

Three games into that season, after holding a high-flying Oklahoma State offense to seven points and Penn State to 10 points, Pelini was already starting to become something of a cult hero in Nebraska.

 

Les Miles, now the coach at LSU, was the head guy at Okie State that year. He admitted to Yahoo! Sports that he thought he had the right game plan to take apart Nebraska's defense in the 2003 season opener.

 

"But then when we played them," Miles said, "they ended up using a totally different scheme. They beat us, and after that I started watching more and more of their film. He was coming up with different plans every week. Each game, it evolved."

 

Miles realized during that season that if he ever got the chance, he wanted to hire Pelini on his staff.

 

"Tremendous" is how Pelini described his feeling three games into that 2003 season.

 

"I think Lincoln's a unique place, because of the identity the university has here. I'm a little bit more under the microscope than I was in Green Bay. But I guess it is what it is," he said. "It's a good place for me, for now."

 

Even then at age 35, just a few games into his college coaching career, Pelini was thinking about the steps he'd need to become a head coach somewhere.

 

Of course, no one could have ever guessed how matters would unfold — the firing of Solich despite a 9-3 season, the "We want Bo!" chants after Pelini was NU's interim coach for one game, the hiring of Bill Callahan, four years of growing older.

 

And here we are, in a situation both unlikely and true, Pelini about to fully take the reins of Nebraska's head coaching job.

 

He is a wearer of purple for this final night, then it is back to Nebraska, back to the place where he came as a virtual unknown five years before.

 

Before Pelini was hired by Nebraska the first time, Kiffin had a conversation with him. There was a bit of selling going on.

 

Kiffin understood that a guy doesn't leave a job at Green Bay for just anywhere. So Kiffin told Pelini about the Husker fans. He spoke of their passion.

 

"You win there," Kiffin told Pelini, "and they'll love you forever."

 

LINK

[np_husker]

I love the "Boffense" billboard on 9th Street in Lincoln.

[hskrpwr13]

Great article!

 

So if LSU gives up 35 pts tonight, do we all overreact and jump off the Bo bandwagon?

[BIGREDFAN_in_OMAHA]

Nice article. It's always good to learn more Husker history.

[REDSTEEL]

Great article!

 

So if LSU gives up 35 pts tonight, do we all overreact and jump off the Bo bandwagon?

 

 

It's not like this is Nebraska BOwl game but it will anger LSU fans. I look for a low scoring game something like the the Michigan and Ohio St game. Watching LSU offense hasn't been pretty this year and they tend to leave the defense to stay out in the field a little to much, so don't be surprised if Ohio St does win.

[Dundermifflinite]

By the way...maybe mods or admins can address this, but I'm guessing it's a fairly unique issue...will there be a game discussion thread for tonight? and if so, is it in this thread or More Sports?

[Huskerballz]

By the way...maybe mods or admins can address this, but I'm guessing it's a fairly unique issue...will there be a game discussion thread for tonight? and if so, is it in this thread or More Sports?

 

Sweet Mother of Mary....the board may actually collapse in trying to make that decision.....

[Hunter94]

wow, this is our chance to be in a bowl game, vicariously through LSU and Bo.......i'll take it for now.

[BOBELIEVER]

Great article!

 

So if LSU gives up 35 pts tonight, do we all overreact and jump off the Bo bandwagon?

 

How is that sarcasm ? We all know if the LSU defense gets torn up all the Husker haters will be piling on.... whatever happens, Bo is a good coach so don't get too caught up in this game tonight

[hskrpwr13]

Great article!

 

So if LSU gives up 35 pts tonight, do we all overreact and jump off the Bo bandwagon?

 

How is that sarcasm ? We all know if the LSU defense gets torn up all the Husker haters will be piling on.... whatever happens, Bo is a good coach so don't get too caught up in this game tonight

 

LOL! Well, I was refering to some of the Husker "fans" here.

[eoltmer]

Great article!

 

So if LSU gives up 35 pts tonight, do we all overreact and jump off the Bo bandwagon?

 

How is that sarcasm ? We all know if the LSU defense gets torn up all the Husker haters will be piling on.... whatever happens, Bo is a good coach so don't get too caught up in this game tonight

 

You know they will come out of the woodwork though.