Would Osborne make it today

[junior4949]

TO just about didn't make the cut back in the 70's. There's no way he makes the cut today given the same circumstances. Frank Solich in his first 4 years was 42-9 compared to TO's 37-10-2. Solich won a Big 12 Championship in 1999 outright and played for a NC in year 4. Solich didn't make it following TO in todays standards, so there's no way TO would have survived in todays standards. However, both of these coaches would have survived todays standards had they followed Clownahan rather than Devaney or TO. Bo's been cut some slack because he didn't replace a legend. He replaced a dud. I'm guessing he gets at least 10 years of slack.

[Spartness]

VA Husker Fan said: "OTOH, it would really depend on who the AD was. Devaney was solidly in his corner, yet it sounds like that wouldn't have been enough at the end of 1976. I had to go back and check that 1976 Astro Bluebonnet bowl. It didn't sound like much of a task to win that, but Texas Tech was ranked 4 spots ahead of us at #9."

 

I read sometime back that Osborne acknowledged (don't remember the source) that he would had been fired if he hadn't won that bowl. That surprised me because, as you said, Devaney seemed to always stand by Osborne.

[mmmtodd]

i bet some would and could even make the argument that he still is doing it today...

[carlfense]

In a word, yes.

[skersfan]

It was different back then.

 

The only game we really cared about was Oklahoma.

 

Tom was on the hot seat over his record. He did not like the preasure put on him regarding it. He shopped other places, Colorado was not the only one, the one most know about.

 

Today we do not have a rival like then.

 

Tom is moving into the current day of college football. I remmeber him saying things like 800 thousand a year is a lot of money for a head coach, now we are at 2.3 million or so. He is learning the needs.

 

A very smart man. A very dedicated man. With no rival so to speak, he could do it today as a young man. No question.

[huzkerbob]

I see what you are saying with the win or go philosophy that a lot of teams/schools seem to have. But has knapplc said 9 wins a season will pretty much keep you around no matter what.

 

Unless you have a bowl winning 10 - 3 season and an AD with an IQ of a gerbil.

Frank Solich wasn't going to continue to have those seasons, imho. If you take a look at the stats offensively, his teams relied heavily on the quarterback. If I'm not mistaken, he had Lord out-rush the running back by at least 500 yards in one season (unfortunately Huskers.com has the stats unavailable right now). His reliance on a quarterback was sickening.

 

Second of all, Solich's recruiting was anything but spectacular. He had a lot of home-grown talent that just couldn't compete with more athletic players from other states. Also, in 2003, we only beat one ranked team, got beat soundly by two unranked teams, and lost to the best team we faced (Texas) by 24 points.

 

I'm not saying his firing was warranted, but I don't think he had the right tools to take us to another championship with his own players.

dedhoarse dedhoarse dedhoarse

[cb1954]

I started this topic, mainly because its slow this time of year, and also because if you are under the age of 40 or so, you might not remember when Osborne was not as highly thought of as he was at the end of his career. Devaney was very sucessful and popular from the start, and Tom was somewhat thought of as not being as good as the Bobfather. He also was looked at as not being able to win the big game. Of course you go back to the end of the 1968 season, there was a petition to fire Devaney. (fans)

 

But just think how NU fans would feel now if Bo interviewed for the Colorado job like Tom did. Tom says in his book that he went there with the intention of probably taking the job, but decided he couldn't after thinking about the players he had recruited for NU.

 

Anyway here is a link to a page where I saved the article about Tom almost being fired.

 

Link

[junior4949]

The 7 or 8 bowl losing streak didn't help him out much either. I remember all the jokes comparing TO to Dan Reeves back in the day. Maybe a better question to ponder this offseason would be: would Solich still be our coach today had TO followed in the footsteps of Devaney and had become the AD rather than becoming a politician?

[bshirt]

The 7 or 8 bowl losing streak didn't help him out much either. I remember all the jokes comparing TO to Dan Reeves back in the day. Maybe a better question to ponder this offseason would be: would Solich still be our coach today had TO followed in the footsteps of Devaney and had become the AD rather than becoming a politician?

 

There is zero chance TO would have fired Frank/Bo & staff for a bowl winning 10 - 3 season.

 

It took.....ahem....a totally different type of AD to do that (and then bring in Clownahan).

[BIGREDFAN_in_OMAHA]

Yes. Next question?

[krc1995]

I really really really hope Mack Brown isn't Bo Pelini's Barry Switzer.

 

 

Never!! Brown doesn't have the personality that Switzer did.

[junior4949]

The 7 or 8 bowl losing streak didn't help him out much either. I remember all the jokes comparing TO to Dan Reeves back in the day. Maybe a better question to ponder this offseason would be: would Solich still be our coach today had TO followed in the footsteps of Devaney and had become the AD rather than becoming a politician?

 

There is zero chance TO would have fired Frank/Bo & staff for a bowl winning 10 - 3 season.

 

It took.....ahem....a totally different type of AD to do that (and then bring in Clownahan).

 

Exactly. It's all about timing. If young TO would have replaced legendary TO given the same set of circumstances with Byrne and Pud, young TO would have shared the same fate as Solich did. I'm still not convinced that even had Byrne got his way and hired Bob Stoops that things would have turned out any differently than they did.

[Paul in WI]

Would T.O. make it as a head coach today?

 

Yes.

[bbeerma2]

Depends who the AD is

[huskerXman]

Without a doubt TO would make it today. His abilities are not decade specific! Good is Good!