I spent some time with both Osborne and Solich during that time. I know a number of people who were on the team at the time. I heard numerous accounts of how practices were run under Osborne and then under Solich. I heard numerous accounts of the way the team respected Osborne and didn’t respect Solich.
If you know Frankie so well, ask him about the multiple occasions where upperclassman were attacking and seriously injuring younger players who were showing them up during practice. Ask him about the time a freshman offensive lineman was pinned to the ground after a play so one of the seniors could smash his helmet into his face, shattering his cheekbone. Solich and other coaches were there and watching, and none of them said a word. Ask about the multiple assaults upperclassmen were carrying out against younger players off the field...leaving some of them unable to practice or play. That kind of crap didn’t happen under Osborne, it became commonplace under Solich. And it had a terrible effect on team morale.
And if you know Frankie so well, ask him why he never got a whiff of another bigtime job after leaving Nebraska. If he was such an amazing coach, so responsible for our success, and unfairly fired when he was on the cusp of leading us back to glory, why hasn’t another big program snapped him up? And why hasn’t he done anything of note at Ohio?
The revisionist history is that Solich was anything more than a competent offensive coordinator under Osborne and a mediocre head coach who was in over his head here.
