Sipple: Osborne says society's increasing vitriol impacts coaches

[Red Stripe]

Osborne almost left for Colorado in the late 70's because the seat was getting warm and he couldn't beat Oklahoma. Revisionist history and folks thinking the good 'ol days were better. I don't buy it.

 

What I don't appreciate is Bo and Tom constantly coming down on the fans for what ails their football program. The fans are not the problem. Bo's sideline antics, belittling his players, lack of recruiting, buddy hires and poor coaching are the problem. This is yet another smokescreen. Why you people continue to defend Bo is beyond me. The mentality seems to be that Tom can never be questioned for his decisions, and if you do question them you are a bad fan. I refuse to accept mediocrity.

When the hell did this happen?

Oh boy, youre one of them arent you?

 

One of who? Care to elaborate?

[Count 'Bility]

Osborne almost left for Colorado in the late 70's because the seat was getting warm and he couldn't beat Oklahoma. Revisionist history and folks thinking the good 'ol days were better. I don't buy it.

 

What I don't appreciate is Bo and Tom constantly coming down on the fans for what ails their football program. The fans are not the problem. Bo's sideline antics, belittling his players, lack of recruiting, buddy hires and poor coaching are the problem. This is yet another smokescreen. Why you people continue to defend Bo is beyond me. The mentality seems to be that Tom can never be questioned for his decisions, and if you do question them you are a bad fan. I refuse to accept mediocrity.

When the hell did this happen?

Oh boy, youre one of them arent you?

 

One of who? Care to elaborate?

One of them that is for some reason thinking that Bo and Tom are antagonizing-or "coming down on"-the fans. I just dont understand where this comes from. Providing a perspective like this article does is not "coming down on". I dont get it. Yes, it has been said before. It's ludicrous.

[knapplc]

A coach succeeds or fails on his own merits. Can't blame it on the fans, of all things. Callahan rightly gets the blame for the team quitting on him in 2007 - can't dismiss it as a team collapsing under the weight of some of the most horrific and vicious negativity that I've ever seen surround this program.

 

But you can't ignore that ingredient, either. Fans do play a role, and the players read these boards. When people on a message board rip a player apart for a bad game, they see it, it impacts them, and it will stay with them moving forward. Lots of the criticism on this board is justified. Players drop TD passes and that affects the outcome of the game, and fans have a legitimate right to gripe about that. A player misses a tackle (or twelve) and that miss results in a TD, that's a legit thing to gripe about.

 

The schism between fans and the team happens when we take our criticism off the field. And that happens here far too often. People heaped vitriol on Callahan for not wearing the right shirt to a presser, or for some personal habit like licking his lips the wrong way (or whatever that particular gripe was). People heaped scorn on Corey McKeon for his emotional display in front of cameras. Martinez is frequently the butt of criticism for his presser performances. Personally, I don't think any of that has a place in conversations about football. Play on the field, coaching during the game, decisions that directly affect the program, those are legit areas for criticism from the fans.

 

If I'm a high school player and I'm being recruited by Nebraska, even basic due diligence tells me I should check in on the fan sites, especially for a school like Nebraska whose fans have a better-than-average reputation. But if I'm looking at message boards, and HuskerBoard is the first one to pop up, and I read where this or that player is eviscerated for his play, it's going to make me think again about that microscope I'll be playing under at Lincoln. The coaches are selling these kids on some version of "through these doors pass the greatest fans" nonsense, and frankly, we don't live up to that here. It's a royal bitchfest around here (and other Husker message boards, to be fair) even when we win.

 

There has to be some kind of happy medium where we discuss football, analyze the games, but don't tear down our team more than our opponents. More often than not Nebraska Fan is the program's harshest critic, blowing anything we hear from Missouri Fan, Colorado Fan, Kansas State Fan, or fans of any Big Ten team out of the water.

[The Dude]