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Which 'What If' Would Have Caused the Biggest Change?


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56 minutes ago, Guy Chamberlin said:

If Bo Pelini's 2014 team had rebounded from the Wisconsin embarrassment and beaten an unranked Minnesota team at Memorial Stadium the next week, Eichorst could not have fired him.

This is incorrect.

 

Perlman bypassed any possible BOR interference by simply keeping them out of the loop the "second go 'round".

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A much more interesting conversation might start with the question:   What if Tom Osborne continued to coach another 5 years instead of 'retire' to become a Congressman and Governor wannabee?    My answer:   we'd have won atleast 3 more national titles and maybe wouild have then hired a truly great coach to replace him instead of Frank.  

 

The Nebraska job, following TO, would have been a daunting one for almost any rising young star type as it would have been almost impossible to continue at that highest level possible.   But, a great coach would have done extremely well.   Frank did 'OK' until he ran out of great players and then fired a bunch of excellent coaches and replaced them with guys like Craig Bohl, etal.    Bo Pelini was a darn good hire but would never had stayed as Frank's Def Coordinator long and was not a Head Coach in too many ways, personality wise.   He may have known more than enough about defense and some offense, but he was not CEO enough to run such a high profile program.  

 

Recruiting was Frank's glaring failure and it is well known by most who watched the program closely.  Many casual fans were simply unaware of the serious lapses in this area.  Without talent, you are not going to win championships (conference playoffs, bowls, or national titles).   

 

The biggest mystery to me is simply Why did Tom retire and name Frank his successor?    They were close friends certainly but Tom was close with many of his assistants, quite a few of which would have been superior choices over Frank.

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1 hour ago, 84HuskerLaw said:

A much more interesting conversation might start with the question:   What if Tom Osborne continued to coach another 5 years instead of 'retire' to become a Congressman and Governor wannabee?    My answer:   we'd have won atleast 3 more national titles and maybe wouild have then hired a truly great coach to replace him instead of Frank.  

 

The Nebraska job, following TO, would have been a daunting one for almost any rising young star type as it would have been almost impossible to continue at that highest level possible.   But, a great coach would have done extremely well.   Frank did 'OK' until he ran out of great players and then fired a bunch of excellent coaches and replaced them with guys like Craig Bohl, etal.    Bo Pelini was a darn good hire but would never had stayed as Frank's Def Coordinator long and was not a Head Coach in too many ways, personality wise.   He may have known more than enough about defense and some offense, but he was not CEO enough to run such a high profile program.  

 

Recruiting was Frank's glaring failure and it is well known by most who watched the program closely.  Many casual fans were simply unaware of the serious lapses in this area.  Without talent, you are not going to win championships (conference playoffs, bowls, or national titles).   

 

The biggest mystery to me is simply Why did Tom retire and name Frank his successor?    They were close friends certainly but Tom was close with many of his assistants, quite a few of which would have been superior choices over Frank.

I can't recall the particulars, but if memory serves me correct TO was set to retire after the 1996 season and turn the reins over to Frank, but came back with Frank's "blessing", "permission" whatever you'd call it.  

 

Had TO stayed, I agree that he would've won more NC's.  Recruiting, development etc would have continued.  Staff continuity would have stayed and I think the offense would have continued to evolve.

 

Following TO was a losing task no matter who it was.  A  still hard (22 years later) act to follow.  It would be the same for anyone coming in after Dabo or Nick.  The best transition I can think of has been Tressel to Urban.....Although  little known OC did ok after some guy named Bob:D

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6 hours ago, hskrfan4life said:

I still think we have to of gotten rid of pederson before anything could've stayed.

 

5 hours ago, BigRedBuster said:

 

Maybe the real question should be, What if Pederson had never been hired.  He's really one the one that screwed the pooch.  He came in with one goal, get rid of Frank.  It didn't matter what Frank did that final year, he was going to be fired.  He comes out cleans house with his staff and his team wins 10 games (9 before firing) and idiot Pederson still fires him.  The guy was simply an idiot and couldn't handle the position....ps.....this firing wasn't the only really bad thing he did in the AD department.

 

I agree that Pederson was the primary cause of our downturn. If that had been an option in the OP question then he moves to numero uno on this list.

 

I also think people's ages may be influencing how they feel in this discussion. Maybe it's just me but I would guess the older folks generally lean towards the events that started our decline. Whereas  some younger folks who maybe didn't have as much firsthand experience with our glory years may be inclined to blame something that happened within the last 15 years. I don't happen to think much was going to help improve our situation significantly while any of Callahan, Pelini or Riley were running the show. I suppose we can posit that Pelini doing something of importance prevents the Riley years but I'm more inclined to go back to patient zero and prevent all the suck.

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2 hours ago, 84HuskerLaw said:

A much more interesting conversation might start with the question:   What if Tom Osborne continued to coach another 5 years instead of 'retire' to become a Congressman and Governor wannabee?    My answer:   we'd have won atleast 3 more national titles and maybe wouild have then hired a truly great coach to replace him instead of Frank.  

 

The Nebraska job, following TO, would have been a daunting one for almost any rising young star type as it would have been almost impossible to continue at that highest level possible.   But, a great coach would have done extremely well.   Frank did 'OK' until he ran out of great players and then fired a bunch of excellent coaches and replaced them with guys like Craig Bohl, etal.    Bo Pelini was a darn good hire but would never had stayed as Frank's Def Coordinator long and was not a Head Coach in too many ways, personality wise.   He may have known more than enough about defense and some offense, but he was not CEO enough to run such a high profile program.  

 

Recruiting was Frank's glaring failure and it is well known by most who watched the program closely.  Many casual fans were simply unaware of the serious lapses in this area.  Without talent, you are not going to win championships (conference playoffs, bowls, or national titles).   

 

The biggest mystery to me is simply Why did Tom retire and name Frank his successor?    They were close friends certainly but Tom was close with many of his assistants, quite a few of which would have been superior choices over Frank.

I thought I remember reading somewhere that Tom promised Frank he'd retire after the 1997 season and Osborne stayed true to his word although if I remember correctly Tom didn't necessarily want to retire quite yet.

 

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8 minutes ago, Xmas32 said:

I thought I remember reading somewhere that Tom promised Frank he'd retire after the 1997 season and Osborne stayed true to his word although if I remember correctly Tom didn't necessarily want to retire quite yet.

 

 

That doesn't answer why he picked Solich, though.

 

But I'm not sure who these coaches were that would have been superior.

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8 hours ago, Red Five said:

Also, Bubba was never going to be a QB here.  He couldn't throw the ball at all (47% completion as a HS senior).  He would have ended up as a TE after a couple of years.

True, true. 

 

I played for for the same high school coach he did. His HS coach was not a coach that developed players for college and had a scheme that met demands for college. He was an awesome coach and is in the KS hall of fame and won a crap ton of games. But the hype surrounding Bubba always made me cringe, as a QB, because I knew point blank,  he wasn’t groomed as a college QB in ANY sense of the word. He was just a good athlete in a small town in Kansas with a coach that got every single ounce of performance out his players. 

 

Im actually glad he didn’t come here and I don’t think he belongs on this list at all. 

 

I think firing Frank set in motion a bigger chain of events that divided fans, brought in a TERRIBLE coach etc etc. 

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14 minutes ago, Xmas32 said:

I thought I remember reading somewhere that Tom promised Frank he'd retire after the 1997 season and Osborne stayed true to his word although if I remember correctly Tom didn't necessarily want to retire quite yet.

 

 

That is what happened. Tom had been preparing for his retirement and wanted a smooth transition. He seemed to feel that Frank was the best choice to succeed him. He had promised it to Frank by a certain time and even though, when the time came, he wanted to stay a bit longer he honored his word to Frank. After the tenure he had, he was pretty free to name his successor. If he had not been, he likely would've stayed longer.

 

 

4 minutes ago, Moiraine said:

 

 

That doesn't answer why he picked Solich, though.

 

But I'm not sure who these coaches were that would have been superior.

 

IIRC, McBride and/or Tenopir kind of wanted the job and weren't completely happy with it being Solich. It didn't really seem like a bad decsion until the debacle in Boulder and that 7-7 season. I think most people felt Frank needed to go after going 7-7. Unfortunately Pederson waited one more year when he had won 9 games and it looked much worse considering he fired a coach who just won 9 games.

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22 minutes ago, Moiraine said:

 

 

That doesn't answer why he picked Solich, though.

 

But I'm not sure who these coaches were that would have been superior.

I don’t know exactly why he picked Solich other than he was a well respected coach on the staff. 

 

The bigger issue was requiring him to keep the rest of the staff. 

 

Peddy just totally screwed the pooch with how he handled his entire job....including the firing. 

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56 minutes ago, Moiraine said:

 

 

That doesn't answer why he picked Solich, though.

 

But I'm not sure who these coaches were that would have been superior.

This isn't aimed at you or anyone specifically, but in 1997 Nebraska basically did what every great team that loses its head coach does.

 

You promote a senior assistant and hope to keep lightning captured in a bottle. Almost every Group of Five team tries this when its head coach gets a Power Five job. Sometimes, but not often, it works. 

 

But, hiring a new coach from elsewhere who is going to want to bring in his own staff (that is going to be seen as a less successful staff because they haven't won three titles on four years like 1997 Nebraska) and probably make changes isn't going to work either.

 

Nebraska was due for a fall from grace once Osborne retired. It just depended on how far and how long. 

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12 hours ago, Moiraine said:

another one to add is if Taylor Martinez was born a year earlier or possibly if Pelini had burned his redshirt.

If he had also been gifted with super perfect DNA and super-exposed to gamma base radiation in an experiment that sometimes turns you green...

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51 minutes ago, JJ Husker said:

That is what happened. Tom had been preparing for his retirement and wanted a smooth transition. He seemed to feel that Frank was the best choice to succeed him. He had promised it to Frank by a certain time and even though, when the time came, he wanted to stay a bit longer he honored his word to Frank. After the tenure he had, he was pretty free to name his successor. If he had not been, he likely would've stayed longer.

 

Also, I believe the reason Tom had promised Frank the head job was Frank had an offer to be a head coach somewhere else a few years (4-5?) earlier.  Tom told him something to the effect of "if you stay until after the 96 season, I'll retire and you can be head coach" so Frank stayed.  After the way the 96 went, Tom asked for one more year and Frank agreed.  So that's a lot of why Tom retired when he did.

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8 hours ago, JJ Husker said:

 

I pretty much agree with this but I think you're way low with only one to two more conference titles in the last 15 years. Frank may not have ever returned things to the excellence of the TO era but surely we would have remained well above average, found a much better replacement than Callahan and eeked out quite a few more CC's than any of the 3 bozos managed.

I agree, Something like 3-4 conf titles. Maybe 5

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45 minutes ago, Mavric said:

 

Also, I believe the reason Tom had promised Frank the head job was Frank had an offer to be a head coach somewhere else a few years (4-5?) earlier.  Tom told him something to the effect of "if you stay until after the 96 season, I'll retire and you can be head coach" so Frank stayed.  After the way the 96 went, Tom asked for one more year and Frank agreed.  So that's a lot of why Tom retired when he did.

 

Yeah, that all sounds familiar.

As far as why he selected Frank instead of another long time asst., IDK but at the time Frank seemed the most qualified for HC. Sure we had quite a few excellent assistants on staff but I think Frank probably had the best aptitude and personality for a HC. What we failed to consider at the time was just how superior Tom was as a play caller. Nobody was going to replace his abilities. I think Frank may have adapted and got it back on track but he didn't get the chance. TBH I wanted him or Bohl fired after the 2001 game in Boulder and for sure after going 7-7. Little did we realize how much worse things could get. I guess that's what happens after 25 years of 9 wins being the floor.

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