Here's the last 42 years of Husker Baseball for your viewing pleasure.
Only four coaches in that span.
This shows how important the coach is to a northern team in baseball - AD will go three for three on this hire.
Erstad gone
- Thread starter unl123
- Start date
This shows how important the coach is to a northern team in baseball - AD will go three for three on this hire.
gobiggergoredder
All-American
Heard next coach is Tommy Lasorda.
Landlord
Banned
The Erstad/Miles comparison works because both had a very generous amount of time to meet pretty fair expectations and didn't. Erstad had more success than Miles on paper, but there's a good argument that how much ability it took to achieve it was comparable because the competition in baseball (in conference) is dramatically lower than it is in basketball. Also, both seem to be good guys who love Lincoln and ran programs that were easy to respect and follow.
This was certainly unexpected and I wasn't at all at the point of thinking Erstad needed to go quite yet, but I'm also not too sad for the program. Glad for him that he knows what's important in his life and kudos for making that decisions (coaching as a profession naturally attracts a certain personality that is insatiably driven to compete and succeed and climb and that can really cost you a lot), feel for the players surprised and affected by the news and optimistic about the timing of the whole thing with Moos at the helm.
This was certainly unexpected and I wasn't at all at the point of thinking Erstad needed to go quite yet, but I'm also not too sad for the program. Glad for him that he knows what's important in his life and kudos for making that decisions (coaching as a profession naturally attracts a certain personality that is insatiably driven to compete and succeed and climb and that can really cost you a lot), feel for the players surprised and affected by the news and optimistic about the timing of the whole thing with Moos at the helm.
Erstad was not losing at historic rates for a historically mediocre program.
So no.
Danny Bateman
Heisman Trophy Winner
People seem to think success just... happens at Nebraska. Like it's just generated out of thin air. It's not.
Much of our expectations are shaped by the move to the Big 10. People expected it to be such a weak baseball conference that we'd just waltz in and immediately be the big dog on the block. It turns out that doesn't just happen by default because of the big red N.
The Big 10 put 5 teams in the postseason this year. It's not a bad baseball league. We don't get to walk in and be the best team because it's a crappy conference. Nor because we're Nebraska.
The expectations of a lot of Nebraska fans have been wildly unrealistic for a while now. We got spoiled by TO in football and a few great years from Van Horn in baseball. Some people think that's the status we return to just by dint of being Nebraska. It's pretty silly and kind of smug in a way to look down on B10 baseball or football for that matter and just think we're better than them when we haven't earned it.
Landlord
Banned
But is that because of Erstad or because of Nebraska baseball's ceiling?
I agree that the expectations have been unrealistic, not just in baseball but in a lot of areas. But I'd argue Moos is showing us that the only reason those expectations have been unrealistic has because we've had B or C level coaches and commitment while expecting A level results. Moos is now giving A level commitment and resources. As far as I know this is really the first time our University has ever really done that.
Cdog923
All-American
Erstad had a worse record that the three coaches that preceded him. So while he was not "losing at historic rates", he was not better than the coaches that led the "mediocre program" before him.
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cheekygeek
Starter
Let’s hope Moos has an envelope with 3 names in his desk drawer that he’s been keeping updated for head baseball coaches. “In Moos We Trust”?
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I wasn't arguing that he was.
Although it's kind of a tough judgement to make about Anderson. Overall he did much better. But he took over on the heels of the greatest Husker teams in history. He did well for several years but kind of ran the program into the ground his last three. Erstad had to start at the bottom and build up while Anderson did the opposite. So it's kind of the Frank Solich argument all over again - was he a good coach or did he ride the coattails of the great coach that came before him.
And Erstad was much, much closer to achieving your own personal benchmarks for the program than Sanders ever was. So did he have better teams or an easier schedule to rack up wins?
SouthLincoln Husker
All-American
Cdog923
All-American
I won't disagree with much of this; Anderson certainly took a downturn, particularly when DVH's recruits tapered off, and the momentum from the CWS trips had wained. And I think had Erstad stayed, his next two teams would have been his best two teams, in no small part to his recruiting efforts the past couple of years (I have heard that he didn't have the best relationships with HS coaches in the area in the early years of his tenure; it would seem his past couple of recruiting classes would point to those fences having been mended).
Danny Bateman
Heisman Trophy Winner
Probably a little of both.
Moos has done a fantastic job but he's also gotten somewhat lucky in terms of timing on his two previous hires. Our two consensus favorite candidates for each position just happened to have worked their way up the coaching ladder in their respective sports AND in Hoiberg's case, been available (imagine if the Bulls run had worked out?) when we had openings to fill.
For example, before we hired Riley, I heard talk of just throwing whatever money it took to lure a top tier coach - i.e., a Saban or luring Jim Tressel out of retirement. Even our ideas about the right coach to fill an opening can get unrealistic.
It sucks because memories of the past and a couple decades of mostly irrelevance warps Husker fan's perception of where we are now and what's actually possible here.