Frank Solich

[SandhillshuskerW]

You guys do know that the firing of Frank Solich was largely non-football related, right?

What was his firing based on then?

 

[Hingle McCringleberry]

As football coach? No. As life of the party? Sure, why not.

Frank and I used to drink at the same adult beverage place... He loved him the hooch... Nce guy, although the relationshp wth that place was ruined because the old owner was a huge a$$...

Craig Bohls hung out there as well...

You guys do know that the firing of Frank Solich was largely non-football related, right?

What was his firing base on then?

Depends who you want to believe... Some say a relationship with a co-ed ..

 

[SandhillshuskerW]

I don't really think that his firing was just based on something that trivial. The evil AD that was in charge at the time wanted his own man in the position and he found a great "yes" man in Callahan. That's just my honest opinion, but that's why they call them opinions, it's just how I feel.

 

[Guy Chamberlin]

I'm pretty sure it's established beyond internet speculation, but Frank enjoyed the drink and quickly picked up a DUI in Ohio. Of equal concern was that Frank's fondess for the drink and young ladies would inevitably combine themselves into a scandal. Who knows if the admins would have overlooked it had Frank not overseen the first non-winning season in 40 years, and it's hard to parse how classy or classless the dismisal was in these circumstances, but I'm reminded of Carl Pelini's "promotion" to an out-of-state coaching position.

 

[zoogs]

As head man Frank simply did not have the program headed in the right direction. Recruiting was a huge issue with him. I would say that way more than the offense was the focal point in his dismissal. We're Nebraska, which is no excuse for poor recruiting, but it means we can't just sit on our thumbs and pull in scores of high caliber talent, and take on the attitude of "hey, we can coach just anybody."

Every staff in the country has able coaches. We needed to expand our recruiting efforts in a big way, and really put out the effort to change the game.

I hold no real animosity towards Frank as he did the best he could, but the state of the program was in fairly dangerous shape even in 2003. We did pull in a star DC that year, but that isn't a long-term solution. And Bo, that year, was just not ready to be a head coach.

I think the right calls were made in each case. Even Callahan, much as you might hate him for his ultimate spectacular fireball of a failure in 2007, he addressed Nebraska's recruiting issues in a big way. He took a program that had fallen off the recruiting map and laid the groundwork for the kind of effort we could do, for what "pulling out all the stops" can mean. Ultimately, he could be no more than a transition coach, but he deserves credit for turning the program into a situation where a competent coach could come in and build on that, and take us places.

 

[OH HSKR FAN]

Frank Solich was the guy that had to replace "the guy." How have other blue blood programs fared when it happened to them.

 

[bshirt]

As head man Frank simply did not have the program headed in the right direction. Recruiting was a huge issue with him. I would say that way more than the offense was the focal point in his dismissal. We're Nebraska, which is no excuse for poor recruiting, but it means we can't just sit on our thumbs and pull in scores of high caliber talent, and take on the attitude of "hey, we can coach just anybody."

Every staff in the country has able coaches. We needed to expand our recruiting efforts in a big way, and really put out the effort to change the game.

I hold no real animosity towards Frank as he did the best he could, but the state of the program was in fairly dangerous shape even in 2003. We did pull in a star DC that year, but that isn't a long-term solution. And Bo, that year, was just not ready to be a head coach.

I think the right calls were made in each case. Even Callahan, much as you might hate him for his ultimate spectacular fireball of a failure in 2007, he addressed Nebraska's recruiting issues in a big way. He took a program that had fallen off the recruiting map and laid the groundwork for the kind of effort we could do, for what "pulling out all the stops" can mean. Ultimately, he could be no more than a transition coach, but he deserves credit for turning the program into a situation where a competent coach could come in and build on that, and take us places.

Yeah riiiiiiiight.

How about his spectacular failure in 2004 also? Even his two "good" years were worse than what Frank got fired for. There was zero need to go down that disastrous path. Just an ego-crazed & amazingly stupid AD. Lastly, Bo in 2003 would have been worse than Clownahan? Once again I completely disagree.

 

[zoogs]

In 2004? meh, he tore the carcass of the program and made the best with what he could, putting in an entirely new system. You take your lumps when that happens. I'm not a Pederson fan, and yes, we are freakin' Nebraska, man so we shouldn't waste years hiring go-between head coaches to transition us. We should have expected better from the hire and gotten better. But given that we didn't hit a home run with the hire, he did some useful things for a program that was pretty out of shape in an important area.

And (so far, I'd say fairly luckily) we got someone in to captain the ship he plugged up and repaired. Bo was given enough to sail right away and install the upgrades, and now he is able to use his own abilities to take us to the next level.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not taking anything away from Bo here. No matter what Callahan did to salvage the state of NU recruiting, the next hire still needed to be a hit in order to salvage the poisonous state of a team that collapsed on itself. He gets a TON of credit there, that is no small feat.

Look, Bo in 2008 was a green head coach barely ready to handle the responsibilities of being the face of the program. He has come so far in learning on the job. He needed very badly back then to take those six or so years he did DCing in other schools. And Bo, would definitely not have turned around recruiting back then. It was not a very viable situation he, as an unready young gun, would have walked into. No matter how good Bo is, you still need to cultivate him and put him in a position to succeed. Hiring him then would not have.

 

[SandhillshuskerW]

In 2004? meh, he tore the carcass of the program and made the best with what he could, putting in an entirely new system. You take your lumps when that happens. I'm not a Pederson fan, and yes, we are freakin' Nebraska, man so we shouldn't waste years hiring go-between head coaches to transition us. We should have expected better from the hire and gotten better. But given that we didn't hit a home run with the hire, he did some useful things for a program that was pretty out of shape in an important area.

And (so far, I'd say fairly luckily) we got someone in to captain the ship he plugged up and repaired. Bo was given enough to sail right away and install the upgrades, and now he is able to use his own abilities to take us to the next level.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not taking anything away from Bo here. No matter what Callahan did to salvage the state of NU recruiting, the next hire still needed to be a hit in order to salvage the poisonous state of a team that collapsed on itself. He gets a TON of credit there, that is no small feat.

Look, Bo in 2008 was a green head coach barely ready to handle the responsibilities of being the face of the program. He has come so far in learning on the job. He needed very badly back then to take those six or so years he did DCing in other schools. And Bo, would definitely not have turned around recruiting back then. It was not a very viable situation he, as an unready young gun, would have walked into. No matter how good Bo is, you still need to cultivate him and put him in a position to succeed. Hiring him then would not have.

Callahan could recruit, that's no doubt. But, he did so little with so much talent that I would have taken Solich over Callahan any day. Frank may not have been the best recruiter in the nation, but he was a much better coach than Callahan ever was. I would still take Bo over either one though, don't get me wrong.

 

[zoogs]

I guess my point overall is, things worked out well for us in the end. That ship was going to fall apart sooner or later under Frank. No amount of quality coaching overcomes an empty cupboard. At least he did one thing right and put us in a position to go and get a real head coach to take the program places, rather than saddle him with every conceivable problem and a program in shambles in very facet.

Bad mojo can be fixed - a change in voice, a change in leadership. Bo did a wonderful job there. Empty talent, that's the kind of thing that you are stuck with long term and spend several seasons overcoming, no matter how well you recruit.

 

[knapplc]

As head man Frank simply did not have the program headed in the right direction. Recruiting was a huge issue with him. I would say that way more than the offense was the focal point in his dismissal. We're Nebraska, which is no excuse for poor recruiting, but it means we can't just sit on our thumbs and pull in scores of high caliber talent, and take on the attitude of "hey, we can coach just anybody."

Every staff in the country has able coaches. We needed to expand our recruiting efforts in a big way, and really put out the effort to change the game.

I hold no real animosity towards Frank as he did the best he could, but the state of the program was in fairly dangerous shape even in 2003. We did pull in a star DC that year, but that isn't a long-term solution. And Bo, that year, was just not ready to be a head coach.

I think the right calls were made in each case. Even Callahan, much as you might hate him for his ultimate spectacular fireball of a failure in 2007, he addressed Nebraska's recruiting issues in a big way. He took a program that had fallen off the recruiting map and laid the groundwork for the kind of effort we could do, for what "pulling out all the stops" can mean. Ultimately, he could be no more than a transition coach, but he deserves credit for turning the program into a situation where a competent coach could come in and build on that, and take us places.

I agree with the first three paragraphs.

The Callahan Era - I think you and I are just always going to see that differently. Callahan was never in the mix when Frank was fired. Callahan was a desperation hire after we were already rejected by Dave Wannstedt, Al Saunders, Houston Nutt, Mike Zimmer, and others. Callahan was hired on 1/9/04, 41 days after Solich was fired on 11/29/03. He wasn't in our top ten. He wasn't a blip on the radar when Frank was fired.

Sure, Callahan had some highly-rated classes, but that comes with a caveat as one of the more prominent recruitniks at Rivals or Scout (I forget which) was his good buddy. I remember interviews on local sports radio with the guy asking if his #1 ranking of Callahan's class was biased, which he obviously said no to.

It's undeniable that Callahan brought talent here, though. But talent alone wasn't what we needed, and 2007 may have been the year that I dropped off the bandwagon, but many, many people were off his bandwagon years prior. And I don't think anyone was ever on the Cosgrove bandwagon.

 

[SandhillshuskerW]

As head man Frank simply did not have the program headed in the right direction. Recruiting was a huge issue with him. I would say that way more than the offense was the focal point in his dismissal. We're Nebraska, which is no excuse for poor recruiting, but it means we can't just sit on our thumbs and pull in scores of high caliber talent, and take on the attitude of "hey, we can coach just anybody."

Every staff in the country has able coaches. We needed to expand our recruiting efforts in a big way, and really put out the effort to change the game.

I hold no real animosity towards Frank as he did the best he could, but the state of the program was in fairly dangerous shape even in 2003. We did pull in a star DC that year, but that isn't a long-term solution. And Bo, that year, was just not ready to be a head coach.

I think the right calls were made in each case. Even Callahan, much as you might hate him for his ultimate spectacular fireball of a failure in 2007, he addressed Nebraska's recruiting issues in a big way. He took a program that had fallen off the recruiting map and laid the groundwork for the kind of effort we could do, for what "pulling out all the stops" can mean. Ultimately, he could be no more than a transition coach, but he deserves credit for turning the program into a situation where a competent coach could come in and build on that, and take us places.

I agree with the first three paragraphs.

The Callahan Era - I think you and I are just always going to see that differently. Callahan was never in the mix when Frank was fired. Callahan was a desperation hire after we were already rejected by Dave Wannstedt, Al Saunders, Houston Nutt, Mike Zimmer, and others. Callahan was hired on 1/9/04, 41 days after Solich was fired on 11/29/03. He wasn't in our top ten. He wasn't a blip on the radar when Frank was fired.

Sure, Callahan had some highly-rated classes, but that comes with a caveat as one of the more prominent recruitniks at Rivals or Scout (I forget which) was his good buddy. I remember interviews on local sports radio with the guy asking if his #1 ranking of Callahan's class was biased, which he obviously said no to.

It's undeniable that Callahan brought talent here, though. But talent alone wasn't what we needed, and 2007 may have been the year that I dropped off the bandwagon, but many, many people were off his bandwagon years prior. And I don't think anyone was ever on the Cosgrove bandwagon.

I can honestly say that I was never on Callahan's bandwagon. I didn't like him from the get go. I disagreed with the decision to hire him and thought that we could have done a lot better. Callahan could recruit and couldn't coach, Solich couldn't recruit but could coach. I think Bo can do both.

 

[knapplc]

I suppose I should have qualified my "dropped off the bandwagon" line for people who haven't read the past 100 conversations zoogies and I have had about Callahan. I was never "on the bandwagon" per se. 2007 was just the year I became openly hostile toward his continued presence. I knew from the get-go that he wasn't a permanent part of the Husker scene. He was the antithesis of what this program has always stood for.