Mission Accomplished, Nebraska is Back, & Solich

[husker_99]

Every coach hires their friends. Everyone. No coach hires a staff full of perfect strangers. This critique about Bo is perhaps the most foolish, and it needs to stop.

yeah - but his friends aren't very experienced as coaches - so that's where this becomes more controversial. When we went into this season with a total of 1 year of experience at the 2 coordinator levels it's going to bite us in the a$$ sometimes. i'm all for hiring your friends (or dad)...but when you're friends are basically fresh off the HS field it gets iffy. Huge risk. If you look at his history, guys like Pap, and Eckler had no experience outside of LSU. Fisher, Garrison, Stai, Beck, Marrow, etc. There just isn't much substance there.

 

One of his more experience hires reads like this: Northern Iowa, Nebraska-Omaha, Northern Iowa, Hastings College, New Mexico State, Ohio University. I mean that's great an all - but should that be one of our most experience staff members?

 

Of those two Coordinator hires only Papuchis has had a bad year. The offense is scoring points and racking up yards. It's the defense that is a disaster.

 

Fisher is looking more and more brilliant as time wears on. Stai and Garrison have done more for this line than Cotton ever did, and Marrow seems to be OK.

 

The problem is that Pap didn't get this defense playing at a high level consistently all year. And we had stupid, basic football errors far too often. Our front seven is mediocre at best, and our Special Teams is a disaster. So it's hit-or-miss regarding who was or wasn't a good hire, and we can't simply point to "Bo's friends" as the problem. Each coach, individually, needs to be judged on his own merits. Decrying the practice of hiring friends is missing the point.

I don't disagree. I'm just still a little bitter about the Pap hire. I'm curious how this season would have turned out if that decision has been reversed, and 750k went out to someone like Stoops. Seems like a lot of money, but I'd say UCLA was a win. Ohio State is a close game. Some of those others aren't comebacks and Saturday night doesn't happen.

 

And I'm not sold of this offense. I'm convinced the style of play leads to 70-30 losses. You aren't going to see Beck recognize the defensive issues, and modify the gameplan to slow the game down and keep things tight into the 4th quarter. The Ohio State game got out of control as much because of the offense as the defense. The Wisconsin game - not as much - but it still didn't give any help to a defense that was obviously flawed. They play in their own world - defense be damned.

 

Have you watched OU's defense this year? I don't watch a lot of their games, but it seemed like everytime I did OU's offense got into a trackmeet because OU's defense couldn't stop anything. I don't know what the answers are, but I don't believe we need to overhaul the staff. Our defense last year was very frustrating to watch at times as well. It might help a lot if we didn't have the player leading the FBS in fumbles the past three years running the offense.

 

OU lost 2 games this year. None of them blowouts. 24-19 to KSU and 30-13 to Notre Dame. not bad wish we could go through a season not getting blown out. sure some games were track meets but their offense kept up the pace and won those games were it became track meets.

[nillie welson]

Papuchis is simply another classic case of over-taped, under-qualified. But man can he tape some fingers.

[Bowfin]

Being average isn't a reason to fire a coach.

 

Bo has fantastic support and assets available in every conceivable way from both the university and its fans. So if superlative support and superior resources + Bo Pelini = average outcomes, then that coudl be construed as underachieving.

 

Also, if one doesn't believe average can put you on the hot seat, look at Mack Brown in Texas and Lane Kiffin at USC. Shaggybevo has myriad threads going about life after Mack Brown, and Monte Kiffin has abandoned his own kid for being a disappointment.

[holvy83]

With Tom gone, is this what our New AD will accept for his football program? Have a feeling a poor performance in the bowl game might have Bo evaluate where his team is heading.

 

Doom and gloom aside I feel these kids will do their best and give UGA a game after what they went thru Sat nite.

[The Spirit of Bob Devaney]

There have been a couple of over confident proclamations during the past decade:

 

GWB: "Mission Accomplished". We know how that turned out

 

Bo after beating Arizona 33-0 in the Holiday Bowl 4 years ago: "Nebraska is Back"

 

Well after 4 years of being back, what do we have to show for it:

 

1.No Championships (Bo said he came here to win championships)

 

2. Defense not fixed - Bo was hired to fix the D. Thank God for Suh and L. David, Prince and Dennard -

 

3. Undisciplined: Turnovers, penalties, missed assignments, have been trademarks of Bo's teams the last 3 years. Bo was thought to be a disciplinarian but fair coach when he was hired.

 

4.No big game prizes: It was expected that we would win our share of big games. We have now lost every big game but one during the past 4 years: 3 conf championship games, our first Big 10 game, the last time we played texas at home, every big national TV game - the only exceptions I can think of is the comeback last year against OSU, our win over OU at NU. Typically, the bigger the exposure the worse the performance. We hired Bo to be a motivator - our team appears to be unprepared for the national stage.

 

5. Win games: Since the KSU road win we are 8-9 on the road or something similar. We appear to be on our way to another 4 loss season.

 

6.Restore the Order: We are no closer being in the national championship conversation then what we were when BC was fired. This is Nebraska, when schools like Northern Ill are ranked ahead of NU, there is something wrong, seriously wrong - after 5 years of the Bo reign NU fans deserve a greater return on their financial and emotional investment.

 

7. Stop embarrassing NU: BC had too many embarrassing loses during his year 4 at NU. Bo said that would not happen. In the past few years we've been embarrassed 2x by Wisky, 1x by OSU, 1x by Michigan, 1x by S. Carolina, 1x by S Dak State ( a win but an embarrassing win), Washington in the Holiday Bowl (the score not so much just the loss to a team we blew out earlier). Bo's sideline demeanor while better this year has been an embarrassment (think Texas A&M esp) The media loves to focus on Bo yelling at someone - it has become the face of NU football

 

8. Competence: We got on BC because his loyalty to an incompetent DC in Cosgrove. It appears Bo has the same blinded loyalty. Cotton and others come to mind. Ron Brown is the only assistant with long term experience. As one journalist said, Bo wasn't hired to teach a graduate course in coaching - shown by his hire of relatively inexperience and lower skilled coaches. Is Bo personally threatened by guys with greater experience? NU deserves better. Perhaps we made a critical mistake: We hired a head coach with NO head coaching experience. NU deserved better 5 years ago - we put ourselves in the position to have a very long learning curve because of it.

 

,

 

Frank Solich was fired for going 9-3 because he lost to KSU 31-10 ( I believe that was the score) and not bringing us closer to the NC game. Does NU need to apologize for firing Frank? We fired Frank for lesser issues than what I note above.

 

I do not want Frank back as I don't believe he was going to get us into the NC game - NU was above his 'paid grade'. Now I'm wondering if Bo is over his head and is also above his paid grade.

 

I began to drink some kool-aid turning the 6 game win streak. Yet, in looking back, I can see that just below those comeback wins were the cracks in the foundation that have never been addressed - turnovers, lack of discipline, emotional instability (hot and cold play - reflective of the coach?), lack of team speed on the D. Saturday night proved that while comeback wins are great, they are not a guaranty that the foundation was fixed.

 

#8 is by far the most puzzling aspect of the Pelini experiment, the fact that a school like Nebraska...Nerbaska... unarguably one of the statistical and tradition rich standard bearers of the game has become what amounts to a proving ground of untested assistant coaches is absolutely mind boggling to me. For the love of god Bo, this is NEBRASKA for gods sake..we deserve better, we DEMAND better. Go out and get proven Coordinators on both sides of the ball who will challenge your thought process and open you up to possibilities you'll never find with "yes" men.

 

Stand up and make difficult decisions, start being the kind of Head Coach everyone so desperately believes you can be...make a radical change...do something, anything uncharacteristic...SHOW us that you KNOW something is wrong and that you have the stones to fix it. Stop paying us lip service, stop telling us that you point the thumb not the finger and that we didn't "execute" and that you don't know what's wrong and that nothing is wrong with the foundation of the program.

 

Bo, there is something terribly wrong with this picture and I can only hope for the sake of this program and all that support it, that you are able to see as much and more importantly have the courage do something about it...

[walksalone]

Cry me a river. Most teams would kill for 10 wins.

Sure they would - but is that the standard now? Do we accept this as all the higher NU football can get?

 

I'm sure we could go out, rehire Callahan, reignite the dumpster fire that was once this program, and maybe that will provide some perspective as to what it's like not even coming close to winning 10 games a year

[Hooked on Huskers]

8. Competence: We got on BC because his loyalty to an incompetent DC in Cosgrove. It appears Bo has the same blinded loyalty. Cotton and others come to mind.

Gosh darn right !

 

Recall Wisky's offensive line coach after Oregon State loss. FIRED right away! At the time, I thought Bielema was a panic attack and jump to conclusion guy but now, he is apparently savior because hanging +70 points, mostly rushing divided by 3 RBs.

[HuskerThor]

 

Bo after beating Arizona 33-0 in the Holiday Bowl 4 years ago: "Nebraska is Back"

 

I got a cool license plate out of that proclamation.

[HuskerThor]

I don't disagree. I'm just still a little bitter about the Pap hire. I'm curious how this season would have turned out if that decision has been reversed, and 750k went out to someone like Stoops. Seems like a lot of money, but I'd say UCLA was a win. Ohio State is a close game. Some of those others aren't comebacks and Saturday night doesn't happen.

 

And I'm not sold of this offense. I'm convinced the style of play leads to 70-30 losses. You aren't going to see Beck recognize the defensive issues, and modify the gameplan to slow the game down and keep things tight into the 4th quarter. The Ohio State game got out of control as much because of the offense as the defense. The Wisconsin game - not as much - but it still didn't give any help to a defense that was obviously flawed. They play in their own world - defense be damned.

 

The offense also helps us come back when we're way down. Bottom line is, we fix this defense, and the offense is fine. This statement sounds like that of 2007. Didn't we hire Bo for this exact reason? This defense is atrociously bad at times, though. For whatever reason, Bo seems afraid of attempting to disrupt the opponent's play before it gets started. He seems fascinated by allowing them to set up their play, diagnosing it on the fly, and preventing it from executing (to use a Bo-ism). But Wiscy exposed the major flaw with Bo's philosophy in that, if you get into your play FAST, it's too late to diagnose and defuse it.

 

That jet sweep killed us because the guys weren't attacking. A rush end blasting upfield on that play totally disrupts the flow and timing, and is the best remedy to stop the runner. We never, not once, had our end get around the tackle to get to the running lane on that play. In fact, more often than not on that play, the end was crashing down into the tackle, taking himself totally out of the play.

 

I don't know if that's on Papuchis or Bo. I have no idea whose defense this is anymore. Does Bo scheme everything during the week and let Pap make the calls in-game, or is Bo still the de facto Defensive Coordinator?IMO, its Bo calling plays, its his defense and that is why I don't think he wants a big name DC. He can give the title to Pap, pay him less, and call everything. Then Pap is the scape goat. If it's Bo, the myth of his "defensive genius" has to be completely gone by now. If it's Pap, he either needs to get better as a DC fast or get out of the position.

[bhamHusker]

I've always been curious about whether the budget was made available to go hire the big time coordinators. Regardless of the HC's desires, hiring for these positions requires the commitment to make it happen financially. How willing were TO and others to sign off on a 750k-1M salary for truly top shelf talent? Was Pelini forced to settle for what he felt were the best people he could get for 300k or less? Regardless of what's been the case in the past, is Eichorst prepared to fight for and commit the resources necessary if we find ourselves shopping for some replacement coordinators and/or position coaches?

[Duke Silver]

There have been a couple of over confident proclamations during the past decade:

 

GWB: "Mission Accomplished". We know how that turned out

 

Bo after beating Arizona 33-0 in the Holiday Bowl 4 years ago: "Nebraska is Back"

 

Well after 4 years of being back, what do we have to show for it:

 

1.No Championships (Bo said he came here to win championships)

 

2. Defense not fixed - Bo was hired to fix the D. Thank God for Suh and L. David, Prince and Dennard -

 

3. Undisciplined: Turnovers, penalties, missed assignments, have been trademarks of Bo's teams the last 3 years. Bo was thought to be a disciplinarian but fair coach when he was hired.

 

4.No big game prizes: It was expected that we would win our share of big games. We have now lost every big game but one during the past 4 years: 3 conf championship games, our first Big 10 game, the last time we played texas at home, every big national TV game - the only exceptions I can think of is the comeback last year against OSU, our win over OU at NU. Typically, the bigger the exposure the worse the performance. We hired Bo to be a motivator - our team appears to be unprepared for the national stage.

 

5. Win games: Since the KSU road win we are 8-9 on the road or something similar. We appear to be on our way to another 4 loss season.

 

6.Restore the Order: We are no closer being in the national championship conversation then what we were when BC was fired. This is Nebraska, when schools like Northern Ill are ranked ahead of NU, there is something wrong, seriously wrong - after 5 years of the Bo reign NU fans deserve a greater return on their financial and emotional investment.

 

7. Stop embarrassing NU: BC had too many embarrassing loses during his year 4 at NU. Bo said that would not happen. In the past few years we've been embarrassed 2x by Wisky, 1x by OSU, 1x by Michigan, 1x by S. Carolina, 1x by S Dak State ( a win but an embarrassing win), Washington in the Holiday Bowl (the score not so much just the loss to a team we blew out earlier). Bo's sideline demeanor while better this year has been an embarrassment (think Texas A&M esp) The media loves to focus on Bo yelling at someone - it has become the face of NU football

 

8. Competence: We got on BC because his loyalty to an incompetent DC in Cosgrove. It appears Bo has the same blinded loyalty. Cotton and others come to mind. Ron Brown is the only assistant with long term experience. As one journalist said, Bo wasn't hired to teach a graduate course in coaching - shown by his hire of relatively inexperience and lower skilled coaches. Is Bo personally threatened by guys with greater experience? NU deserves better. Perhaps we made a critical mistake: We hired a head coach with NO head coaching experience. NU deserved better 5 years ago - we put ourselves in the position to have a very long learning curve because of it.

 

,

 

Frank Solich was fired for going 9-3 because he lost to KSU 31-10 ( I believe that was the score) and not bringing us closer to the NC game. Does NU need to apologize for firing Frank? We fired Frank for lesser issues than what I note above.

 

I do not want Frank back as I don't believe he was going to get us into the NC game - NU was above his 'paid grade'. Now I'm wondering if Bo is over his head and is also above his paid grade.

 

I began to drink some kool-aid turning the 6 game win streak. Yet, in looking back, I can see that just below those comeback wins were the cracks in the foundation that have never been addressed - turnovers, lack of discipline, emotional instability (hot and cold play - reflective of the coach?), lack of team speed on the D. Saturday night proved that while comeback wins are great, they are not a guaranty that the foundation was fixed.

If you're not iN get out.

[funhusker]

2. Defense not fixed - Bo was hired to fix the D. Thank God for Suh and L. David, Prince and Dennard -

 

This always gets me. Did the "exceptional" players that played well in Bo's defense not show up for practice? Did they not take his advice? Did they stay away from the team until kickoff? How did Bo have zero effect on these players????!!!!!!

 

Granted, Bo has whiffed on some defensive recruits. He has also switched conferences that requires a change in defensive strategy and players. But to say with certainty that Suh, Prince, David (Pelini recruit BTW), and Dennard (another Pelini recruit), would be in the NFL by skipping Bo's guidance and showing up at a tryout is laughable.