F Grade

Ric Flair said:
Did you ever meet Solich? Did you ever hear about how he ran his practices and the lack of respect the players had for him? I knew people who played for Osborne and Solich and heard all the stories. Solich was not the caliber of coach or person to be head coach at Nebraska. He got the job because he whined about how he was owed it and Osborne got tired of his incessant whining and finally promised it to him. After the 97 season, Osborne continued to have reservations about whether turning things over to Solich was the right move. So Solich sent his wife to guilt trip Osborne about how he couldn’t go back on his promise. 

So rather than having a national coaching search to find the best candidate available to take over a team that’s won 3 titles in 4 years, we get Frankie Solich, a tiny man, weak leader, mediocre coach, and very flawed human being, who quickly turned greatness into mediocrity.

i get that you like Frankie. He was a tough little back as a player and a long time coach and coordinator. But he was a terrible fit to be the head coach of a program like this. Osborne shouldn’t have been in a position to name his successor and he made a horrible decision handing the reins over to Frankie.

in terms of the people who wanted to come here and replace Solich, I think a lot of those  limitations were because Steve Pedersen was running the search. 
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the whole history is hind sight now.........lots of different "takes" on how it was.......makes for good bar room BS.

 
Ric Flair said:
That was a big part of it. He (and his wife) guilt tripped Osborne and convinced him Solich was owed it for his loyal service. When Osborne was having second thoughts about retiring after the 1997 season, they put a full court press on him to force him out so Solich could have his turn. Osborne was only around 60 years old at the time and was giving increasing thought to continuing to coach.
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100% absolute, grade A bull $hit

 
Did you ever meet Solich? Did you ever hear about how he ran his practices and the lack of respect the players had for him? I knew people who played for Osborne and Solich and heard all the stories. Solich was not the caliber of coach or person to be head coach at Nebraska. He got the job because he whined about how he was owed it and Osborne got tired of his incessant whining and finally promised it to him. After the 97 season, Osborne continued to have reservations about whether turning things over to Solich was the right move. So Solich sent his wife to guilt trip Osborne about how he couldn’t go back on his promise. 

Not just "met him".........know him well.

1000% total revisionist history !!

Ask Benning about how much respect he STILL has for Coach Solich.

 
secretasianman said:
100% absolute, grade A bull $hit
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I spent some time with both Osborne and Solich during that time. I know a number of people who were on the team at the time. I heard numerous accounts of how practices were run under Osborne and then under Solich. I heard numerous accounts of the way the team respected Osborne and didn’t respect Solich. 

If you know Frankie so well, ask him about the multiple occasions where upperclassman were attacking and seriously injuring younger players who were showing them up during practice. Ask him about the time a freshman offensive lineman was pinned to the ground after a play so one of the seniors could smash his helmet into his face, shattering his cheekbone. Solich and other coaches were there and watching, and none of them said a word. Ask about the multiple assaults upperclassmen were carrying out against younger players off the field...leaving some of them unable to practice or play. That kind of crap didn’t happen under Osborne, it became commonplace under Solich. And it had a terrible effect on team morale. 

And if you know Frankie so well, ask him why he never got a whiff of another bigtime job after leaving Nebraska. If he was such an amazing coach, so responsible for our success, and unfairly fired when he was on the cusp of leading us back to glory, why hasn’t another big program snapped him up? And why hasn’t he done anything of note at Ohio? 

The revisionist history is that Solich was anything more than a competent offensive coordinator under Osborne and a mediocre head coach who was in over his head here. 

 
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Coach Solich was not fired for on field problems.  Coach Osborne loves Frank Solich.  Tiny man, whiney.  The man was toughest son of b!^@h on the team at 185 pound full back when he played for Nebraska.  People make mistakes, and Nebraska took a bit hit for firing Coach Solich, but more so out of respect for Coach Osborne and the program. They protected their interests and some what Coach Solich.   Not everything was known instantly like today.

The bull s#!t line that Urban took the Florida job because Nebraska fired a 9 win coach is just that.  He interviewed for his life time dream job, Notre Dame, then saw the talent at Florida, quickly turned down his dream job.  Urban was never coming to Nebraska, he knew the value of talent and where he could recruit it quickly.  Had nothing to do with firing Coach Solich.

 
I do agree he was not the greatest coach, but his past kept him from getting interviews/bigger jobs.  I think the last 5 years he has decided that Ohio is where he belongs.  Good man, made some mistakes, but does not deserve to drug thru the dirt.  You had several other coaches that thought they should have been head coach when Coach Osborne retired.  It was not a happy work place.

 
skersfan said:
I do agree he was not the greatest coach, but his past kept him from getting interviews/bigger jobs.  I think the last 5 years he has decided that Ohio is where he belongs.  Good man, made some mistakes, but does not deserve to drug thru the dirt.  You had several other coaches that thought they should have been head coach when Coach Osborne retired.  It was not a happy work place.
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Solich is 73 years old. He was fired here in 2003, when he was 59 years old. That was 14-15 years ago. So where is the success at Ohio? If he’s such a wonderful head coach, why has no other bigtime program come calling? The answers to these questions are self-evident. For everything else Pederson got wrong, he was spot on about Solich. Keeping Frank around was a recipe for a descent into mediocrity.

No doubt he was a tough little guy when he played. But the story of how he and his wife whined, needled, and badgered TO into retiring and giving him the job is well-known.

 
Frank has gotten them to a lot of bowl games, the first ones since 1968.  Missed 2014.  

As stated Frank is not the greatest coach, but he was not fired for his on field performance.  

He was actually quite lucky the first year to keep his job at Ohio.

 
Ric Flair said:
Solich is 73 years old. He was fired here in 2003, when he was 59 years old. That was 14-15 years ago. So where is the success at Ohio? If he’s such a wonderful head coach, why has no other bigtime program come calling? The answers to these questions are self-evident. For everything else Pederson got wrong, he was spot on about Solich. Keeping Frank around was a recipe for a descent into mediocrity.

No doubt he was a tough little guy when he played. But the story of how he and his wife whined, needled, and badgered TO into retiring and giving him the job is well-known.
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Wow.

Nice on double-down on fake news.

I understand the parameters of this board seek to keep the discussions tolerant, cohesive and coherent, so I'll respond just one last time.

If you really understood the situation, you would never insinuate that T.O. could be "badgered" into anything like handing his legacy over to anyone he didn't want to hand it to.

Also, if you really knew Frank and his family, you would never accuse his wife of being the whining type.

Actually, T.O. did Frank a bit of disservice by strongly suggesting he keep the current assistants, thus putting Frank in the untenable situation of going from a member of a peer group to a leader of former peers. Not to mention that age, some physical disabilities on the staff, and some envy contributed to a very fragile and limited recruiting team that saw Frank having to shoulder much more of the recruiting burden  than normally necessary.

I believe that is a much more accurate description of the narrative.

But, it's Christmas and the great thing about this country is that we can feel free to disagree.

Happy Holidays!

 
Comish said:
Wow.

Nice on double-down on fake news.

I understand the parameters of this board seek to keep the discussions tolerant, cohesive and coherent, so I'll respond just one last time.

If you really understood the situation, you would never insinuate that T.O. could be "badgered" into anything like handing his legacy over to anyone he didn't want to hand it to.

Also, if you really knew Frank and his family, you would never accuse his wife of being the whining type.

Actually, T.O. did Frank a bit of disservice by strongly suggesting he keep the current assistants, thus putting Frank in the untenable situation of going from a member of a peer group to a leader of former peers. Not to mention that age, some physical disabilities on the staff, and some envy contributed to a very fragile and limited recruiting team that saw Frank having to shoulder much more of the recruiting burden  than normally necessary.

I believe that is a much more accurate description of the narrative.

But, it's Christmas and the great thing about this country is that we can feel free to disagree.

Happy Holidays!
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I agree that it’s best if we just agree to disagree. Merry Christmas!

 
Before Frank, Ohio Bobcats was a laughing stock year after year ..... equal or worst than Rutgers.

2017 Bahamas Bowl ..... Ohio (9W-4L) 41, UAB 6

 
Mavric said:
Solich is such a great coach that he can't even win the MAC.
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No, but he did win the Big 12 in year two.  TO couldn't even win the Big 8 until year nine.  Both inherited NC caliber teams.  I'm not saying Solich is the greatest coach of all time.  I'm simply pointing out that he wasn't nearly as bad as some try to portray.  He had one bad season here.  He overhauled his staff.  He was given just one year with this overhauled staff.  This is all fact.  Speculating the direction we were headed is just that, speculation. 

Of all the players I knew, there wasn't a single one of them that had a bad thing to say about Solich.  In fact, a few of them claimed Solich was a better X's and O's coach than TO.  People can dismiss what he's accomplished at Ohio.  I mean Ohio had only been to two bowl games in their history before Solich.  He's only taken them to nine.  The last coach to have a higher winning percentage at Ohio than Solich was nearly a century ago.  Yeah, anybody should be able to win conference titles at Ohio.  

 
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