The blowouts definitely needed to get fixed. No doubt. They were unacceptable mainly because I think they ended up beating the team twice on occasion (e.g., losing to Minnesota after the wisky game).
I just didn't see them as inevitable if we'd stayed the course with the last staff.
Just like there's nothing inevitable about this staff, good or bad.
Wait....
Haven't you proclaimed that this staff will never be successful here?
No, I've never said that, but I have my doubts that they will ever win a championship with their current system and definitely have doubts that they will ever get back to a consistent level of .700+ seasons.
But it's not necessarily inevitable. They could hire a new OC for example. Or there could be a rush of elitely talented players born in Nebraska around 1998. All sorts of variables out there.
OK....understand.
In your first post, you implied that if we would have stayed the course with the old staff, the blow outs were not inevitable to continue.
In this post, you imply that changes in the staff very well could be needed to reach the success we want.
Now, I could have you mixed up with someone else so correct me if I'm wrong.
But, aren't you one that has said you don't like this staff because they have always been a pass happy offensive staff and coaches don't change over night what they like and understand to do?
cm can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe his personal belief is that the style of offense these coaches want to run, and relied on at times this year, is not a recipe for sustained success at Nebraska.
That's correct.
I'll expand a little more on my thoughts/philosophy on "being a fan."
I try not to get too wrapped up in the wins and losses, and especially not the types of wins and losses. I think this is mainly because, being in my 30s now, my formative years were in the 80s and early 90s, just before "The Run." I grew up reading the "voices from the grandstands" and getting frustrated when people would attack Osborne for his losses and the quality (or supposed lack thereof) of his wins. When I look at what NU was doing relative to other teams with similar resources, I recognized he was squeezing more results out of his circumstances than I thought any other coach would. I also started to really believe in the "Nebraska Way," which was (to me) based on loyalty, continuity and camaraderie. I thought TO really instilled a culture of "Program, Teammate, Self" and I think it was reflected in the systems we ran on the field and the notion that "once a Husker, always a Husker" whether you were a star All American or a walkon scout team contributor. Later, playing on an OL and serving in the military, the valuing selflessness and always having your buddy's back, even over your own interest (unless it jeopardized the team or the mission), was really reinforced.
I truly always felt that I cheered for Nebraska because they had my favorite football staff, not just because I was born and raised there.
Today, I try to take the same perspective. I don't cheer for jerseys, team colors or the land where a university is situated. I cheer for the people who I want to see succeed, even if they come up short. It's why I have other "favorite" teams besides my alma mater and Nebraska.
I seek two main qualities in a staff
I.
Football style and their approach/perspective on coaching. First, and foremost, a staff that I'm a fan of will
always put the student-athlete's interests above winning (and everything else). Second, I love watching hard-nosed, run oriented football that employs a mobile QB, preferably with the option as a foundational component of the offense. I find this to be easily the most exciting (and difficult to defend) type of offense. Defensively, I'm less specific in what I'd like to see, but I do want to see a coordinator who has the ability to leverage his best athletes by putting them in position to be playmakers. College football, on both sides of the ball, is really about big plays. Offenses that attempt to "dink and dunk" their way down the field are going to struggle because 9+ play drive execution is tough for many college teams to perform consistently. You need to have a system that picks up yards in chunks, which is why I like the idea of running, getting a head of the sticks and then taking shots down field in the play action passing game. Defensively, I like a system that makes teams work horizontally, in the pass or run game, in order to move the ball because that often extends their drives, leading to more opportunities for miscues.
II.
Overall Persona. This is far less important to me than the first point, but I always like Osborne's, Solich's and guys like Turner Gill's persona. I like to root for coaches I perceive to be good people (honest, driven, high integrity guys). Often,if you're meeting my expectations with respect to treating your players, you're one of these guys, but I did like TO's unflappable persona, while not losing that fierce competitive fire that he had (see, staring down that dumb buffalo at CU). I wanted TO to win and achieve vindication.
As it applies to the last three NU coaches, I'll be brief:
1. I never liked Callahan. I thought it was a terrible, desperation hire but another guy I didn't like. My initial dislike/distrust was based on the many stories about his treatment and relationship with his players at Oakland and previously. When he basically said "I'm going to install my system, regardless of the players on hand" and then later "just one game, one season," I realized he didn't remotely "get" college football and what it's about for kids with a limited amount of career and opportunities left. Guys like Pilkington leaving with a year of eligibility and stories about transfers not even getting a chance to talk to the HC were very disturbing to me. Obviously, I thought his offensive system was atrocious in general and not at all suited for Nebraska specifically. I was very skeptical of his recruiting tactics (and employment of guys like John Blake). I'm thankful he was fired and thought NU was lucky to get out of his tenure with only a poor on the field record.
2. I liked Bo mainly because he had TO's endorsement. I'm not big on hiring defensive coordinators as HC's at the college level, but I was good with it because I truly believe that Pelini is among the top defensive minds in CFB today. I also thought he was smart in his transition, maybe in coordination/under direction from Osborne. I think Bo personifies a "players first" mentality. Some people saw that as foster an "us against the world mentality" but I always thought that was way overblown. By many accounts, one could have said the same thing about the '95 Huskers when they felt they were under unfair fire by the media. I thought Bo had some real promise as an HC, I thought we were learning and improving/developing relationships in recruiting and that we were on the right track with changes to the offense. I think NU should have stayed the course with him. I was never ever offended by his on the field behavior (because I always understood his interest was in his players, who have almost uniformly expressed love for him as an assistant coach and HC), and definitely was not offended by, and actually agreed with, his sentiments on Tape Gate #1. I really wish TO had stayed on as AD to protect Bo like Bob protected him before, because similarly, I think Bo had more upside than downside going forward (and strategically, even if he failed, he could have been fired in year 9 or 10 and Frost or another guy could have been effectively identified and brought. I could go into more detail, but I'll leave it at that.
3. I was not a fan of firing Bo, but I'm trying to give Riley a fair chance to prove himself. I'll admit that my dislike of Perlman, who continues to fumble in his dealings with Nebraska football and improperly overstepping his areas of expertise, has made that a little tougher, but I still want what is best for these players. I really like Riley's overall perspective on coaching and player relationships. I think he gets an A+ in that regard, based on what I've seen and heard so far. I'm not at all a fan of the system he's used throughout his career and I'm skeptical about whether he has the ability to organize, motivate and execute a championship level season, but I'll give him some time to prove it one way or the other (if for no other reason than NU has no viable alternatives at this point and I don't want Perlman/Eichorst making another coaching decision). I generally like his on field and media persona, though for all the comparisons to TO, I don't know that I see that hardened competitive streak in Riley (but that's hard to observe from TV). I will say, looking at some of his early years, he had clips where he got into players and refs (throwing headsets, for example), but that seems to be gone. I don't know if the competitiveness is still there, but he's tempered the outward expressions, or if he's lost some of that fire over the years (hard to maintain that championship mentality when you consistently register .500 or worse seasons). I also have concerns that he's never really been a part of meaningful championships at the college or NFL level, even as an assistant.
My overarching concern for NU at this point is that we don't really have a good plan over the next 10 years (unlike what I thought we had under Solich and Pelini). If Riley does great, he probably still retires in 8 to 10 years. If he does terribly, he probably is fired by 2018. In either event, NU is left scrambling/rebuilding, and a program like NU can't afford that level of discontinuity. That's why I really did not like the Perlman/Eichorst move, which I think was mainly over personal issues that professionals should have been able to sort out without hurting the Program.
