I think people romanticize McBride's defenses a bit. Craig Bohl could have a dominating defense with Farley, Tomich, and Booker. I'm too young to know but wasn't the weakness of the 83 team the defense? Even the year we got blown out by Georgia Tech in the bowl game our D was pedestrian wasn't it?
There is definitely a disconnect between today's legend of Charlie McBride and the entirety of his career. McBride was largely considered a goat during his time at Nebraska. There was a LONG time when McBride was hated in Nebraska. People wanted him fired in the worst way.
Had Algore invented the internet a decade earlier we'd have had to create a whole new forum just for griping about Charlie McBride. Charlie was relatively new to the job in 1983, so the fact that we were strong but slow on D back then really wasn't McBride's fault.
It's also hard to know who had more influence in our focus on strength rather than speed after that 1983 game, Osborne or McBride. Certainly we continued to have strong, slower defenses through the rest of the decade, and into the early 90s. The tide finally turned sometime in the middle of Osborne's 7-game bowl losing streak from 1987 through 1993 where we gave up an average of 30 points per game to southern schools. In that span we lost to FSU, Miami, FSU, GA Tech, Miami, FSU and again to FSU. However, you could tell that by that 1993 loss we had recruited the athletes necessary to compete with the speedy Florida States and Miamis thanks to a fundamental philosophical change in recruiting speed and switching from the 5-2 to the 4-3. The fast linebackers we recruited (and that McBride coached) paved the way for the title run from 1994-1997, and cemented McBride's status as a Husker legend.
But before that run.... he wasn't so well-liked. Tarred-and-feathered was what most people wanted to do with him.
