Nebraska and the Big Ten: A decade of struggle for stability

Undone said:
Yep. Minnesota, Iowa, & Northwestern are all roughly on the same level (with Iowa being maybe just a half a rung above the other two). And when one of them has that golden schedule season when their cross-divisional games contain only one or sometimes even no tough teams, they'll have one of those 10-2 seasons.

Maybe sounds like excuses but we really haven't had one of those "golden schedule" seasons. Not that having one would have allowed us to go 10-2...but still.

Basically, most if not all of the teams in the West are roughly on the same level outside of Wisconsin.
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That second year in the Big 10 Ohio State was ineligible for post-season play, and all Nebraska had to do was beat a 7-5 Wisconsin team they'd already beaten to win the Big 10 and go to the Rose Bowl as a Top 10 team. Outside of Ohio State, the only ranked team they played that year was #20 Michigan.

I think too much is made of the conference transition. The fortunes of some Big 10 teams have improved in recent years, but there are also fewer Big 12 doormats than when we played there. 

 
jaws said:
On one hand OSU has been extremely lucky, but on the other they have a really well run athletic department. 
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Without googling I can't remember, but I think the Tattoo scandal took down the AD too, right? Which means at an executive level tOSU has smart decision makers in place who made the right decision to help them recover.

In my experience defects in a company or program that are systemic issues almost always come from the top. s#!t rolls down hill, and when you don't have good decision makers at the top you'll never fix your problems.

 
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The only thing (well, big thing, not counting penalties and turnovers) holding NU back is recruiting.  There is no reason that NU can't recruit at a higher level.

If kids are fine with playing in crappy places like C-bus and Annie Arbor and freaking PSU, they would be fine with playing in Lincoln.

Kids don't care about the city/town, because all their time is spent on/near campus as it is.  NU needs salesmen, period.  

 
teachercd said:
The only thing (well, big thing, not counting penalties and turnovers) holding NU back is recruiting.  There is no reason that NU can't recruit at a higher level.
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Recruiting success *follows* on-field success.  You have to over-achieve and get some good breaks to do a little better than people think you should then the bigger-fish recruits start to show up.

 
Guy Chamberlin said:
That second year in the Big 10 Ohio State was ineligible for post-season play, and all Nebraska had to do was beat a 7-5 Wisconsin team they'd already beaten to win the Big 10 and go to the Rose Bowl as a Top 10 team. Outside of Ohio State, the only ranked team they played that year was #20 Michigan.

I think too much is made of the conference transition. The fortunes of some Big 10 teams have improved in recent years, but there are also fewer Big 12 doormats than when we played there. 
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Yeah my post is more about the three seasons Frost has coached though. In that time, Purdue, Minnesota, and somehow even Illinois have turned into team that can potentially beat any other team in the West division.

There are basically no more "doormat gimmes" in the West, and that means that unless we actually push up into the next tier we'll probably be a team that is lucky to even go 6-6 if one of our non-conference games is against a good team (like this season).

 
teachercd said:
The only thing (well, big thing, not counting penalties and turnovers) holding NU back is recruiting.  There is no reason that NU can't recruit at a higher level.
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We're recruiting at a top-20/top-30 level. We're getting top-50 results. That's a huge problem. 

We have a mental check-out game every season, and in bad seasons two or three. That's been going on for 20 years through five different regimes.

 
knapplc said:
We're recruiting at a top-20/top-30 level. We're getting top-50 results. That's a huge problem. 

We have a mental check-out game every season, and in bad seasons two or three. That's been going on for 20 years through five different regimes.
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Oh for sure the results stink.  

They still need better recruiting though.  Once you get past a certain point the rankings get really lame.

It is sort of easy to rank the top 5 QB's in a class or the top 10 WR's in a class but once you start getting into the 20's and 30's and 40's you really start to lose some of the ability to be accurate with the ranking.  NU needs better players from the start and I totally agree that they also need to get better results with the players they do get.  

 
Dr. Strangelove said:
They also play with by far the best players in the conference. It's not even close. 

Alabama and Ohio State play with an entirely different tier of talent and its been that way for most of the last decade.
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True but Michigan has all the same resources and tradition, if not more in some areas, but has made some really bad hires when it comes to their football program. They keep going back to their Michigan Man mantra even though that thought process has yielded little sucess, or at least not as much as they think they should be having. 

ZRod said:
Without googling I can't remember, but I think the Tattoo scandal took down the AD too, right? Which means at an executive level tOSU has smart decision makers in place who made the right decision to help them recover.

In my experience defects in a company or program that are systemic issues almost always come from the top. s#!t rolls down hill, and when you don't have good decision makers at the top you'll never fix your problems.
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Andy Geiger was the AD that fired Cooper and hired Tressel (which many though was out of left field at the time). Gene Smith was the one that navigated through the tattoo scandal, hired Meyer, and Day. Many thought OSU should have conducted more of a search before hiring Day, but I doubt you have any OSU fan saying that now. 

Again, some of this is having the right leadership but most of it is luck. 

 
knapplc said:
We're recruiting at a top-20/top-30 level. We're getting top-50 results. That's a huge problem. 

We have a mental check-out game every season, and in bad seasons two or three. That's been going on for 20 years through five different regimes.
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Correct. The net is most new coaches get the benefit of the doubt of selling their vision of the program to prospective players their first year or two. When some progress is seen towards that vision- momentum and better recruiting can happen- ala Iowa State and Matt Campbell and PJ Fleck at Minny. 

Unfortunately the progress towards Frosts vision haven't materialized and he's used up much of the patience- good will given towards those early teams. We're seeing too many of the same mistakes and now it's year 4. He has to make reasonable progress this year- or his recruiting advantage is going to disappear. If good progress isn't made this year, Frost will have painted himself into a corner he probably won't be able to get out of. AND Im a supporter of his. 

 
teachercd said:
Oh for sure the results stink.  

They still need better recruiting though.  Once you get past a certain point the rankings get really lame.
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While I agree, I think we're at the point where results are one of if not the most important factors in recruiting.

Nebraska needs to be able to take Top 25 level talent and perform at a Top 25 level. As knapplc said, they're currently taking top 25 talent and getting top 50 (perhaps even worse) results. The recruiting will improve if more recruits find value in what Nebraska offers.

I don't follow recruiting closely but I wager Nebraska is the best or 2nd best recruiter in the B1G west most years. But, they're getting beat by teams that, on paper at least, are not as talented. It's the great coaching/culture mystery of the last 20 years here.

 
Enhance said:
While I agree, I think we're at the point where results are one of if not the most important factors in recruiting.

Nebraska needs to be able to take Top 25 level talent and perform at a Top 25 level. As knapplc said, they're currently taking top 25 talent and getting top 50 (perhaps even worse) results. The recruiting will improve if more recruits find value in what Nebraska offers.

I don't follow recruiting closely but I wager Nebraska is the best or 2nd best recruiter in the B1G west most years. But, they're getting beat by teams that, on paper at least, are not as talented. It's the great coaching/culture mystery of the last 20 years here.
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Both of you have a point, my point is I just want them to get even better at recruiting.  

 
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