Do you want Achilles or Hector?

[The Dude]

Osborne was probably always more Achilles than most would want to admit. I doubt he was oblivious to all the steroids and things that went on. He's not an idiot.

He wasn't as bad as a lot of guys, but he wasn't a saint neither.

But if he wasn't doing nearly the amount of rule bending as many of the other guys, then it still makes him Hector and them Achilles. Right?

I thought of this too. I'd also say there's probably been a lot of guys that bent the rules more than Tom, and swept more stuff under the rug, but weren't nearly as successful. Not a perfect analogy, but they never are.

 

[knapplc]

The Hector/Achilles argument is way too black-and-white for college football. Osborne was neither one nor the other, but a combination of both. So is Nick Saban, so is Urban Meyer, so are most coaches. Heck, so was Pelini.

You want the same mix in a team as well. Ameer Abdullah - that's your Hector. But there are very few players who can both excel at the epitome of the game and maintain the kind of demeanor Ameer held throughout his career. He was unique & special, and there weren't a dozen Ameer Abdullahs on our roster in the past 15 years. Combine Ameer's Hector with Ndamukong Suh's Achilles, and you've got something going. Or Tommie Frazier's Achilles, or Scott Frost's Achilles. Or the Achilleses all across those old defenses of the 1990s. We had Brook Berringer for our Hector, Tommie as the Achilles, and Tom Osborne an admixture of two, mostly Hector, but embracing some of the tenets of Achilles.

It isn't a choice of one or the other. It's being both, and managing to balance that into a cohesive whole.

 

[TGHusker]

Would Hector make changes to his scheme and come up with a different gameplan to defeat Achilles the next time they met? Or would he say, "I don't need to change anything, my sword just needs to execute better"?

But to answer your question, I would rather win the right way. I would rather win a couple championship and having them mean something, than winning multiple championships and getting some (or all) of them vacated (or even just the knowledge of shady things that happened during that time).

In other words you'd rather be NU and not OU. Seems like every time OU won a nat'l championship there was scandal or NCAA penalties

 

[TGHusker]

The Hector/Achilles argument is way too black-and-white for college football. Osborne was neither one nor the other, but a combination of both. So is Nick Saban, so is Urban Meyer, so are most coaches. Heck, so was Pelini.

You want the same mix in a team as well. Ameer Abdullah - that's your Hector. But there are very few players who can both excel at the epitome of the game and maintain the kind of demeanor Ameer held throughout his career. He was unique & special, and there weren't a dozen Ameer Abdullahs on our roster in the past 15 years. Combine Ameer's Hector with Ndamukong Suh's Achilles, and you've got something going. Or Tommie Frazier's Achilles, or Scott Frost's Achilles. Or the Achilleses all across those old defenses of the 1990s. We had Brook Berringer for our Hector, Tommie as the Achilles, and Tom Osborne an admixture of two, mostly Hector, but embracing some of the tenets of Achilles.

It isn't a choice of one or the other. It's being both, and managing to balance that into a cohesive whole.

I was thinking of something similar - the 1995 team was full of Achiles - esp on D and Tommie on O. Those guys had the 'take no prisoner' mindset. Tom had to control that aggressiveness in a way that allowed them to maintain discipline and focus. You end up wt a team that allowed NO QB sacks all year (unheard of), low penalties, and disciplined (the Hector factor) enough to not be threatened in any game.

 

[Landlord]

The Hector/Achilles argument is way too black-and-white for college football. Osborne was neither one nor the other, but a combination of both. So is Nick Saban, so is Urban Meyer, so are most coaches. Heck, so was Pelini.

You want the same mix in a team as well. Ameer Abdullah - that's your Hector. But there are very few players who can both excel at the epitome of the game and maintain the kind of demeanor Ameer held throughout his career. He was unique & special, and there weren't a dozen Ameer Abdullahs on our roster in the past 15 years. Combine Ameer's Hector with Ndamukong Suh's Achilles, and you've got something going. Or Tommie Frazier's Achilles, or Scott Frost's Achilles. Or the Achilleses all across those old defenses of the 1990s. We had Brook Berringer for our Hector, Tommie as the Achilles, and Tom Osborne an admixture of two, mostly Hector, but embracing some of the tenets of Achilles.

It isn't a choice of one or the other. It's being both, and managing to balance that into a cohesive whole.

Obviously everyone falls somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, it's all shades of grey.

You seem to want the ferocity of Achilles in some of your players. Which we all do. But do you mind the inhumanity of Achilles? Are you okay with mixing your roster with both if that means the Achilles' on the roster get in trouble with the law, don't know respect for opponents, are only in it for themselves, embarass our school/state (imagine if Suh acted up the way he has in the league while he was here), etc.? Tommy, Suh, and Frost were all mostly good, exemplary citizens while also being exemplary football players in their time here, which would put them closer to Hector in my eyes.

I guess, what is the acceptable cost of embracing Achilles on your team? Kathy Redmond, Melissa DeMuth and Natalie Kuijvenhoven likely never get sexually assaulted in school without Christian Peter being recruited to the football team, for example. Now I guarantee that Tom Osborne or any of us would never in our lifetimes say that it is acceptable collateral damage that a few girls get raped in our quest for championships, that's entirely unconscionable, but where is the line that you have to draw where you say that the risk and possibilities of embracing the ruthless and berzerk Achilles aren't worth the potential payoff?

 

[knapplc]

There is zero "acceptable cost" of those kinds of outrages. Not one school or fan base is OK with X-number of rapes per National Championship. But that's taking the Achilles persona to an extreme, and it's not a reality. Not every team to win a National Championship has a rapist in their midst, nor do teams without rapists eternally lose, all the time.

There isn't a team in college football without a kid going through some legal process. That doesn't mean he's an Achilles or the team has an Achilles mindset. Good people do bad things - that's the duality of man.

 

[Guy Chamberlin]

Was Osborne Hector?

I think the argument can be made that he didn't win it all until he abandoned the Hector identity. Not entirely, but just enough.

That's bullsh#t. I'm getting real tired of this revisionist history that wants to claim that Osborne went a little dirty to make it over the hump. And primarily because of the Lawrence Phillips thing. Read some of Tom's book on the subject and find out why he really gave LP too many chances. Spoiler alert- it wasn't to win a natty, it was to do all he could (yes, probably too much in hindsight) to help a young man who just couldn't be helped.

It was by no means Phillips alone. Terrell Farley was a serial drunk driver who couldn't stop f'ing up. Christian Peter was arrested 8 times at UNL, including 4 assaults on women. Jason Peter became addicted to crack, heroin and hookers. There were others. It was noted at the time that some of the faster, better players Osborne was recruiting, particularly on defense, were coming from rougher neighborhoods, and didn't even pretend to want an education from the University of Nebraska.

So what's your point? I don't think anyone is claiming Tom didn't want good players or didn't want to win games. Yeah, some of the players from that time had some issues....the same issues found everywhere throughout college football at the time. I would say a lot of college football players are at schools such as Nebraska primarily to play football and not necessarily for an education. Tom played the game within the rules and he won, a lot. Does that make him a bad guy? Does that mean he did things for the wrong reasons? I sure don't think so.

I was just offering perspective within the context you offered. Every college football program will have a few bad eggs. Lawrence Phillips was one. But your claim of revisionist history is a bit revisionist itself.

After a six year stretch of bowl blowouts and rumblings of dissatisfaction with Tom Osborne, TO took a long hard look at his coaching and recruiting philosophy in 1990. He realized that the college game had moved from strength to speed, especially on defense. He made a conscious and aggressive effort to recruit for defensive speed, and in general to get the same level of athletes who were now thwarting Nebraska. The staffed dialed up efforts in football hotbeds like New Jersey. There wasn't a lot of vetting for character -- and to the point of this thread, maybe Nebraska fans wanted a little more swagger. Maybe it was our turn to dish out some punishment. Didn't we love the Peter Brothers and the roid rage they brought to the team?

There were more big city kids with attitude coming to Lincoln, Nebraska. There was a lot of looking the other way once they got here.

Was it a conscious effort by Tom Osborne to trade some of the cornfed character of Nebraska for the cold-blooded skillset it took to compete at college football's highest level?

It's a fair question. It doesn't mean Tom Osborne is a bad guy. But there's still a paradox. Hence this thread.

We can certainly move from Achilles and Hector to Faust and Milton as needed.

 

[StPaulHusker]

Was Osborne Hector?

I think the argument can be made that he didn't win it all until he abandoned the Hector identity. Not entirely, but just enough.

That's bullsh#t. I'm getting real tired of this revisionist history that wants to claim that Osborne went a little dirty to make it over the hump. And primarily because of the Lawrence Phillips thing. Read some of Tom's book on the subject and find out why he really gave LP too many chances. Spoiler alert- it wasn't to win a natty, it was to do all he could (yes, probably too much in hindsight) to help a young man who just couldn't be helped.

It was by no means Phillips alone. Terrell Farley was a serial drunk driver who couldn't stop f'ing up. Christian Peter was arrested 8 times at UNL, including 4 assaults on women. Jason Peter became addicted to crack, heroin and hookers. There were others. It was noted at the time that some of the faster, better players Osborne was recruiting, particularly on defense, were coming from rougher neighborhoods, and didn't even pretend to want an education from the University of Nebraska.

So what's your point? I don't think anyone is claiming Tom didn't want good players or didn't want to win games. Yeah, some of the players from that time had some issues....the same issues found everywhere throughout college football at the time. I would say a lot of college football players are at schools such as Nebraska primarily to play football and not necessarily for an education. Tom played the game within the rules and he won, a lot. Does that make him a bad guy? Does that mean he did things for the wrong reasons? I sure don't think so.

Coaches today are being vilified by handling these issues TO faced in the same way.

 

[Elf]

I take Ragnar.

Ragnar is dying.

 

[Saunders]

I'd rather have Hodor.

 

[JJ Husker]

Was Osborne Hector?

I think the argument can be made that he didn't win it all until he abandoned the Hector identity. Not entirely, but just enough.

That's bullsh#t. I'm getting real tired of this revisionist history that wants to claim that Osborne went a little dirty to make it over the hump. And primarily because of the Lawrence Phillips thing. Read some of Tom's book on the subject and find out why he really gave LP too many chances. Spoiler alert- it wasn't to win a natty, it was to do all he could (yes, probably too much in hindsight) to help a young man who just couldn't be helped.

It was by no means Phillips alone. Terrell Farley was a serial drunk driver who couldn't stop f'ing up. Christian Peter was arrested 8 times at UNL, including 4 assaults on women. Jason Peter became addicted to crack, heroin and hookers. There were others. It was noted at the time that some of the faster, better players Osborne was recruiting, particularly on defense, were coming from rougher neighborhoods, and didn't even pretend to want an education from the University of Nebraska.

So what's your point? I don't think anyone is claiming Tom didn't want good players or didn't want to win games. Yeah, some of the players from that time had some issues....the same issues found everywhere throughout college football at the time. I would say a lot of college football players are at schools such as Nebraska primarily to play football and not necessarily for an education. Tom played the game within the rules and he won, a lot. Does that make him a bad guy? Does that mean he did things for the wrong reasons? I sure don't think so.

I was just offering perspective within the context you offered. Every college football program will have a few bad eggs. Lawrence Phillips was one. But your claim of revisionist history is a bit revisionist itself.

After a six year stretch of bowl blowouts and rumblings of dissatisfaction with Tom Osborne, TO took a long hard look at his coaching and recruiting philosophy in 1990. He realized that the college game had moved from strength to speed, especially on defense. He made a conscious and aggressive effort to recruit for defensive speed, and in general to get the same level of athletes who were now thwarting Nebraska. The staffed dialed up efforts in football hotbeds like New Jersey. There wasn't a lot of vetting for character -- and to the point of this thread, maybe Nebraska fans wanted a little more swagger. Maybe it was our turn to dish out some punishment. Didn't we love the Peter Brothers and the roid rage they brought to the team?

There were more big city kids with attitude coming to Lincoln, Nebraska. There was a lot of looking the other way once they got here.

Was it a conscious effort by Tom Osborne to trade some of the cornfed character of Nebraska for the cold-blooded skillset it took to compete at college football's highest level?

It's a fair question. It doesn't mean Tom Osborne is a bad guy. But there's still a paradox. Hence this thread.

We can certainly move from Achilles and Hector to Faust and Milton as needed.

I realize that a conscious effort was made to recruit a different style of player. The decision to move to the same type of speed players that had recently plagued us was just that, a decision to build the team with players of a different skill set. However, where I take issue is with the way some people now want to portray this shift in player philosophy. I do not believe Tom thought to himself "hey, we're going to have to get lower character guys that come with low morals and legal problems". Rather, they decided to go after better, speedier, more highly sought after recruits and, as a result they needed to go after some players who were just generally, inherently a little more troublesome in the character area. Much of the reason for that are the areas and backgrounds those types of players tend to come from. More inner city, more troubled youth, etc. More the "Achilles" type of this discussion.

I just happen to feel there are large and distinguishable difference between saying we need speedier or meaner players and then also getting the problems that come with them as opposed to portraying it as Tom decided to throw character out the window to win at all costs. I'm not saying you were doing this but there are people on this board who tend to lean in that direction. I just don't think it is right or accurate. My "revisionist history" accusations are largely based on the simple difference in times and the tendency for people to not use their 20/20 hindsight. It is way too easy today to say Tom shouldn't have done this or that. Back at the time of the action, it was nowhere near that clear cut or obvious. As StPaul pointed out, coaches today are vilified if they do some of the same things TO did back in the day. But, we have to be cognizant enough to realize that it was a different time and some standards were different. In my book, intent means everything and, while TO decided to go after faster and nastier to help win games, that does not mean he made the conscious decision to throw character out the window, It just happened to be an unfortunate side effect.

 

[Guy Chamberlin]

Couple things:

1) It's not hindsight. It was very much in the conversation at the time, not just in the national press, but among Nebraska fans willing to admit they were conflicted.

2) Nobody, certainly not Tom Osborne, decides to throw character out the window in order to win at all costs. You convince yourself that you can have both. But sometimes the wheels you set in motion don't go the way you want. The intent to get faster and nastier did indeed have an unfortunate — some might say predictable — side effect. But that's the nature of Fasutian bargains.

We wouldn't trade 1993 - 1997 for anything. Which is what makes this thread interesting.

 

[Landlord]

We wouldn't trade 1993 - 1997 for anything. Which is what makes this thread interesting.

WE wouldn't. But unfortunately, there are people that would. Like Melissa Demuth.

 

[Guy Chamberlin]

This just aired last night. As devastating satire goes, it's pretty brilliant:

 

[JJ Husker]

We wouldn't trade 1993 - 1997 for anything. Which is what makes this thread interesting.

WE wouldn't. But unfortunately, there are people that would. Like Melissa Demuth.

Thank you Captain Obvious.