There's just a level of negativity that I can't stomach. The constant bitching about Pelini, how he's not good enough, not as good as the next guy, blah blah blah. It gets tiresome. People talk about benchmarks which are often arbitrary and based on chance as much as anything.
But you have to be able to measure him against something. Any job is benchmarked against peers. Performance is measured against productivity, goals achieved, etc. How many goals has Pelini reached? Academically the team is strong, but they were strong when he got here, and would be if he left. Off field incidents are not an issue, but they weren't really a major issue prior to him coming either. The culture has certainly been restored for the most part, which I think is a major (and often overlooked) achievement for Pelini.
However, at the end of the day I don't care what he says...it is about the trophy's. He has none. He's seconds away from having a couple though, in which case we likely wouldn't be having this discussion. But has he improved the team? Are they better today than they were 2 years ago, 1 second from taking out the #2 team in the country, winning a championship and going to a BCS bowl? I don't know. The defense has certainly fell off dramatically since then. The offense has improved...but it would be EXTREMELY difficult not to improve on that 2009 offense.
If you look at those Stanford teams...they took drastic leaps to get better. Their recruiting improved (Nebraska's hasn't), their records improved (Nebraska's hasn't). Today they are in a position to continue that winning tradition because the framework was laid down by Harbaugh. Do you think Pelini has the framework in place? I just don't see it. I believe he can win 9 games a season. We schedule 4 wins into the season every year. We can get another 3 from the bottom of the B1G. He only needs to go 2-4 the rest fo the way. He can accomplish that. But can he consistently put us in a position to win conference championships (which includes beating Michigan)? Jury is still out on that one for me. But I am getting very close to reaching a verdict.