Biggest winners and losers from the college football coaching carousel

[suh_fan93]

 

Was just watching ESPN since I have the day off and on their college football recruiting show they basically said while Riley is the complete opposite of Pelini they didn't see him taking the program to a national championship level. Ouch.

Well, theyre puttin the cart way ahead of the horse. We need to get us a BigTen championship first and foremost. While we all want to say we're still Nebraska, the hard truth is that there's simply no room for national championship talk at this point.

 

 

Well that's kind of obvious but playing for national championships is and should still be the ultimate goal.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Pat Forde is a tool. This article is nothing more than one idiots opinion. Mississippi State listed as big winner for keeping Mullen, Colorado State listed as loser for not getting their first choice of Narduzzi but rather getting 2nd choice, Bobo the OC from Georgia, with the reason being he won't stick around long. I guess their screwed no matter who they get. Oregon State listed as winner for RIley leaving and Anderson replacing him........I guess it's not just Huskerboard posters that can't differentiate between a brand and the ability of a coach. Did I mention Pat Forde is a tool?

How dare he question the hire of a coach without a winning history. What a tool indeed.

 

Really, every guy who questions Nebraska isn't a tool or out to bait us for clicks or anything else. Reality is this hire was a bit of a gamble. Pat Forde is free to point that out.

[Guy Chamberlin]

 

 

Was just watching ESPN since I have the day off and on their college football recruiting show they basically said while Riley is the complete opposite of Pelini they didn't necessarily see him taking the program to a national championship level. Ouch.

They didn't see Ohio State winning the National Championship either.

 

They didn't see fewer than 3 teams from the SEC making the playoffs, too.

 

They have told us constantly for years that the SEC is going to dominate for ever because nobody can even come close to competing with them.

 

 

Some ESPN analysts are SEC enablers and say this sort of thing. Some ESPN analysts say the exact opposite.

 

ESPN is made up of guys who are hired to argue about sports. They don't speak with one voice. It's actually bad for business. As others have amusingly chronicled, there are plenty of Alabama fans who think ESPN has it in for them.

 

For that matter, the Big 10 Network spent most of the season arguing that the conference wasn't THAT far behind the SEC (and the Pac 12. And the Big 12), but rarely if ever suggested the BIG was equal or superior to the SEC. Just that the conference deserved a slot in the first NC final four, based mostly on tradition.

 

Forget ESPN altogether: there was hardly a sports journalist anywhere who didn't portray this as dark times for the venerable Big 10 and good times for a deep, deep SEC.

 

Then the games were played and the proof was on the field. No matter what an idiot or two said otherwise, ESPN had no trouble reporting the story.

[Count 'Bility]

 

 

 

Was just watching ESPN since I have the day off and on their college football recruiting show they basically said while Riley is the complete opposite of Pelini they didn't necessarily see him taking the program to a national championship level. Ouch.

They didn't see Ohio State winning the National Championship either.

 

They didn't see fewer than 3 teams from the SEC making the playoffs, too.

 

They have told us constantly for years that the SEC is going to dominate for ever because nobody can even come close to competing with them.

 

 

Some ESPN analysts are SEC enablers and say this sort of thing. Some ESPN analysts say the exact opposite.

 

ESPN is made up of guys who are hired to argue about sports. They don't speak with one voice. It's actually bad for business. As others have amusingly chronicled, there are plenty of Alabama fans who think ESPN has it in for them.

 

For that matter, the Big 10 Network spent most of the season arguing that the conference wasn't THAT far behind the SEC (and the Pac 12. And the Big 12), but rarely if ever suggested the BIG was equal or superior to the SEC. Just that the conference deserved a slot in the first NC final four, based mostly on tradition.

 

Forget ESPN altogether: there was hardly a sports journalist anywhere who didn't portray this as dark times for the venerable Big 10 and good times for a deep, deep SEC.

 

Then the games were played and the proof was on the field. No matter what an idiot or two said otherwise, ESPN had no trouble reporting the story.

 

 

So you chinese or japanese?

[FrankWheeler]

Winners and losers determined already? So none of the schools have to play games anymore?

[TatdatN]

Winners and losers determined already? So none of the schools have to play games anymore?

nope, he'll be announcing the 2015 National Champion in a column next week........ opens up my saturdays for more yardwork now

[JJ Husker]

 

Pat Forde is a tool. This article is nothing more than one idiots opinion. Mississippi State listed as big winner for keeping Mullen, Colorado State listed as loser for not getting their first choice of Narduzzi but rather getting 2nd choice, Bobo the OC from Georgia, with the reason being he won't stick around long. I guess their screwed no matter who they get. Oregon State listed as winner for RIley leaving and Anderson replacing him........I guess it's not just Huskerboard posters that can't differentiate between a brand and the ability of a coach. Did I mention Pat Forde is a tool?

How dare he question the hire of a coach without a winning history. What a tool indeed.

 

Really, every guy who questions Nebraska isn't a tool or out to bait us for clicks or anything else. Reality is this hire was a bit of a gamble. Pat Forde is free to point that out.

 

A couple things.

 

1- I called him a tool based on the examples I listed, not simply because he didn't get down on all fours and blow Riley.

2- I called him a tool because he is one. The comment was based on a body of work condemning virtually anything Nebraska does, gloating over anything SEC related, and the fact that he is a Mizzou grad.

[Blackshirt39]

Winners and losers determined already? So none of the schools have to play games anymore?

 

Style beats substance I guess. I wouldn't put any stock into that article.

[Guy Chamberlin]

 

 

Pat Forde is a tool. This article is nothing more than one idiots opinion. Mississippi State listed as big winner for keeping Mullen, Colorado State listed as loser for not getting their first choice of Narduzzi but rather getting 2nd choice, Bobo the OC from Georgia, with the reason being he won't stick around long. I guess their screwed no matter who they get. Oregon State listed as winner for RIley leaving and Anderson replacing him........I guess it's not just Huskerboard posters that can't differentiate between a brand and the ability of a coach. Did I mention Pat Forde is a tool?

How dare he question the hire of a coach without a winning history. What a tool indeed.

 

Really, every guy who questions Nebraska isn't a tool or out to bait us for clicks or anything else. Reality is this hire was a bit of a gamble. Pat Forde is free to point that out.

 

A couple things.

 

1- I called him a tool based on the examples I listed, not simply because he didn't get down on all fours and blow Riley.

2- I called him a tool because he is one. The comment was based on a body of work condemning virtually anything Nebraska does, gloating over anything SEC related, and the fact that he is a Mizzou grad.

 

 

Pat Forde doesn't condemn virtually anything Nebraska does. Your example is neither condemning nor unusual among CFB analysts. Forde may be a tool. I don't know him personally. But he often writes articles like the one below, and is rarely worse than the slightly more skeptical Husker fan here on HuskerBoard.

 

 

Why Nebraska's surprise firing of Bo Pelini is good for the Big Ten

 

By Pat FordeNovember 30, 2014 2:10 PMYahoo Sports

If I’m Jim Delany, I like the move Nebraska made Sunday to fire Bo Pelini.

Not because a man losing his job is something to celebrate. Not because Pelini deserves any piling on. Those are not reasons for the Big Ten commissioner to approve of Nebraska’s somewhat surprising move.

The reason to like it is because it signals that one of the most traditionally successful schools in the conference is serious about getting back to winning championships and being a top-10 football program.

And the Big Ten needs all the help it can get in that area.

This is a league that has gotten comfortable being mediocre while raking in piles of Big Ten Network loot. It has allowed its facilities and coaching talent to fall behind other conferences. And that has translated to the athletic talent as well

Those things show up in the recruiting rankings, where Ohio State was the only Big Ten program to have a Rivals.com Top 20 signing class last February, and only three Big Ten schools were in the Top 30 (the Buckeyes, Michigan State and Penn State).

And the Big Ten needs all the help it can get in that area.

The league has fallen behind, which is why there is a very real chance it will be the one Power Five conference left out of the first College Football Playoff. It needs more than just one or two programs daring to be great; it needs an SEC-like glut of them.

In Delany’s grand expansion plan, Nebraska was to be part of that glut. Whereas Rutgers and Maryland were added to the conference this year for demographics and profiteering, the addition of the Cornhuskers in 2011 was designed to specifically boost the Big Ten’s football power.

It hasn’t happened.

Pelini had a pretty good seven-year run at Nebraska – good enough to keep his job in perpetuity at many schools. He’s won nine or 10 games every season and had a winning record in conference play every season. He kept the Cornhuskers a slight cut above the Big Ten’s sprawling and uninspiring middle class.

 

But this is Nebraska, a place that basically lived in the national top 10 from the early 1960s to the early part of the 21st century. Nebraska was the most consistent winner going, humming along forever under Bob Devaney and then Tom Osborne.

And then things got rocky, and the search for greatness has been on ever since. It’s been on long enough, in fact, that some Cornhuskers fans almost forgot what it looked like. Which is why Pelini’s pretty goodness was good enough for several years – it was better than the Bill Callahan Era, and nobody wanted to go back to those days.

But since arriving in the Big Ten, the Bo Plateau – nine or 10 wins and four losses – began to get old. The program that took up residence in the top 10 and was a regular in major bowl games hasn’t finished ranked higher than 14th under Pelini and hasn’t played in a brand-name bowl.

Despite being positioned in a division opposite league heavy Ohio State, Nebraska couldn’t win a Big Ten title. And now it has been shuffled down further in what is not exactly a murderer’s row of competition.

Pelini was 1-3 against Wisconsin, with all three losses of the humiliating variety: a 31-point beating in 2011; the emasculation in the 2012 Big Ten championship game, where the favored Cornhuskers gave up 70 points; and Melvin Gordon’s 408-yard performance this month in a 59-24 pounding. Nebraska isn’t just a step behind the Badgers at this point in the Big Ten West; it is a giant leap behind.

 

 

Then there is Minnesota. The Gophers don’t recruit on the same level as the Cornhuskers, don’t have the same facilities and don’t have the same fan support – but they have Nebraska’s number. Minnesota beat Nebraska in Minneapolis last year and in Lincoln this year, eliminating the Huskers from Big Ten West title contention Nov. 22.

Failing to keep pace with Ohio State and Michigan State is one thing. But failing to be competitive with Wisconsin and being bypassed by Minnesota are not what Nebraska football aspires to be.

Of course, the aspirations must be realistic – and this is where it could get tricky. Because there are plenty of people out there who doubt whether the old Nebraska model for success can still work in the modern recruiting landscape.

Plucking select skill players from the coasts or the South to build around in-state linemen and an armada of walk-ons worked splendidly for Osborne. It’s less feasible today. Which means athletic director Shawn Eichorst must make a home-run hire capable of recruiting outside Nebraska’s local area and coaching up the talent to a championship level.

That person may not be easy to find – but the belief here is that if Eichorst is making the difficult decision to fire a nine-win coach, it’s because he’s confident he can get an 11-win successor. If he whiffs and ends up with a seven-win guy, well, the school can shop for a new AD in a few years, too.

But the good news for the Big Ten is that the Pelini firing shows that Nebraska wants to get back into the championship business. That’s why the school was poached from the Big 12 to begin with. And if a rich-but-underachieving league is going to progress from good to great, it needs the Cornhuskers to be part of that movement.

[Dr. Strangelove]

 

 

Pat Forde is a tool. This article is nothing more than one idiots opinion. Mississippi State listed as big winner for keeping Mullen, Colorado State listed as loser for not getting their first choice of Narduzzi but rather getting 2nd choice, Bobo the OC from Georgia, with the reason being he won't stick around long. I guess their screwed no matter who they get. Oregon State listed as winner for RIley leaving and Anderson replacing him........I guess it's not just Huskerboard posters that can't differentiate between a brand and the ability of a coach. Did I mention Pat Forde is a tool?

How dare he question the hire of a coach without a winning history. What a tool indeed.

 

Really, every guy who questions Nebraska isn't a tool or out to bait us for clicks or anything else. Reality is this hire was a bit of a gamble. Pat Forde is free to point that out.

 

A couple things.

 

1- I called him a tool based on the examples I listed, not simply because he didn't get down on all fours and blow Riley.

2- I called him a tool because he is one. The comment was based on a body of work condemning virtually anything Nebraska does, gloating over anything SEC related, and the fact that he is a Mizzou grad.

 

Point #2 is exactly what I criticized you for. Forde normally writes okay stuff, but just because he's a Mizzou grad or doesn't pump sunshine into anything related to Nebraska doesn't make him a tool. What have we accomplished in the last 15 seasons that he should lavish us with praise for?

 

Too often fans, not just Nebraska fans, have a complex that makes them that the national media is out to get them. Sports writers and analysts have every right to criticize as they see fit. And, if I were in their shoes, there's plenty to criticize at Nebraska. We're a program that wants to be proud but hasn't backed it up anytime this century.

 

Forde's opinion of the Mike Riley hire aren't far off from most publications. Maybe, *gasp*, the consensus isn't overwhelmingly positive.

[Dr. Strangelove]

 

 

 

Pat Forde is a tool. This article is nothing more than one idiots opinion. Mississippi State listed as big winner for keeping Mullen, Colorado State listed as loser for not getting their first choice of Narduzzi but rather getting 2nd choice, Bobo the OC from Georgia, with the reason being he won't stick around long. I guess their screwed no matter who they get. Oregon State listed as winner for RIley leaving and Anderson replacing him........I guess it's not just Huskerboard posters that can't differentiate between a brand and the ability of a coach. Did I mention Pat Forde is a tool?

How dare he question the hire of a coach without a winning history. What a tool indeed.

 

Really, every guy who questions Nebraska isn't a tool or out to bait us for clicks or anything else. Reality is this hire was a bit of a gamble. Pat Forde is free to point that out.

 

A couple things.

 

1- I called him a tool based on the examples I listed, not simply because he didn't get down on all fours and blow Riley.

2- I called him a tool because he is one. The comment was based on a body of work condemning virtually anything Nebraska does, gloating over anything SEC related, and the fact that he is a Mizzou grad.

 

 

Pat Forde doesn't condemn virtually anything Nebraska does. Your example is neither condemning nor unusual among CFB analysts. Forde may be a tool. I don't know him personally. But he often writes articles like the one below, and is rarely worse than the slightly more skeptical Husker fan here on HuskerBoard.

 

 

That person may not be easy to find – but the belief here is that if Eichorst is making the difficult decision to fire a nine-win coach, it’s because he’s confident he can get an 11-win successor. If he whiffs and ends up with a seven-win guy, well, the school can shop for a new AD in a few years, too.

But the good news for the Big Ten is that the Pelini firing shows that Nebraska wants to get back into the championship business. That’s why the school was poached from the Big 12 to begin with. And if a rich-but-underachieving league is going to progress from good to great, it needs the Cornhuskers to be part of that movement.

 

+1. I think Forde believed Nebraska wanted to get back into championship business, as the above states, but didn't make the necessary hire to do so.

 

I hope he's wrong, as we all do, but he can and should think the hire doesn't fit the mold he described.

[JJ Husker]

Sorry. IMO Pat Ford is a tool. Is that better? My opinion is as valid as any of his. I've seen the guy on TV and read enough of his articles that I am entitled to that opinion. Not a fan. And I'm sure his comments didn't rub some of the posters around here the wrong way because, as was pointed out, some are not happy with the Riley hire, I am. Was it the absolute best we could do? We'll never know the answer to that, but it was unquestionably better than 5 more minutes with Bo, Paps, and Beck....imo.

[Guy Chamberlin]

Was it the absolute best we could do? We'll never know the answer to that, but it was unquestionably better than 5 more minutes with Bo, Paps, and Beck....imo.

 

So you agree with Pat Forde.

[True2tRA]

Winners and losers determined already? So none of the schools have to play games anymore?

That's kind of the sad ass vibe you get from sports media anymore. It's all a big hype machine. If hype was all that matters, then Riley has already failed, Ohio State isn't the current national champion, and the Big Ten West cant compete with the SEC. All three are bullsh#t. I'm glad it's all settled on the field between the coaches and the players and not on message boards or by cocky bastards in suits on tv sets.

[Guy Chamberlin]

 

Winners and losers determined already? So none of the schools have to play games anymore?

That's kind of the sad ass vibe you get from sports media anymore. It's all a big hype machine. If hype was all that matters, then Riley has already failed, Ohio State isn't the current national champion, and the Big Ten West cant compete with the SEC. All three are bullsh#t. I'm glad it's all settled on the field between the coaches and the players and not on message boards or by cocky bastards in suits on tv sets.

 

 

Eh, it's just the vibe of guys talking about sports in the off-season. If speculation, name-calling and cocky bastards are off the table, we better shut this board down.

 

I don't see anyone in the national sports media suggesting Riley has already failed. Most are pretty upbeat about the hire, which was unexpected in all quarters.

 

I see the national sports media heaping praise on Ohio State, elevating Urban Meyer above even Nick Saban, and generally admitting that the prognosticators -- including themselves -- had the season wrong. Paul Finebaum himself told the SEC nation they'd been whipped fair and square. By a third string quarterback. The "myth" of SEC dominance was based on a pretty good run and a pretty deep conference. No one is denying it ultimately gets settled on the field. That's why they play the games, and why Pat Forde ends his piece with "we'll see."

 

Did anyone suggest Ohio State wasn't the current national champion? Honestly don't know what media you guys are consuming.

 

I think it's a sadder-ass vibe when Nebraska fans go to extreme lengths to find perceived slights from some monolithic national entity.

 

And sports without hype? What would that even look like?