Solich Invited Back to Receive Tom Osborne Award

The Pelini era may not have been ultimately satisfying, but I still have good Nebraska Football memories of Taylor Martinez, Rex Burkhead, Ameer Abdullah, Jordan Westerkamp, Randy Gregory, Nate Gerry, Demornay Pierson-El, Tommy Armstrong, Ron Kellogg II, Quincy Enunwa, Cethan Carter, Imani Cross, Vincent Valentine and others

 
RedDenver said:
Depends on whether you consider keeping the players on the team as part of recruiting. Bo seemed to lose half his recruits before they ever contributed.
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But was he worse at this than other coaches? There doesn't seem to be much tracking on this sort of thing.

 
Moiraine said:
But was he worse at this than other coaches? There doesn't seem to be much tracking on this sort of thing.
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Considering the numbers I posted on chances to make the NFL by star rating - not the same thing but along the same lines - I'd say it's pretty standard.  

"Only" about 50% of five-stars make the NFL.  "Only" about 25% of four-stars make the NFL.  There are a lot of "busts" to go around.

Just on a quick look, Callahan had two four-stars in the 2004 class - Grixby and Murtha.  Both were contributors but neither were exactly game-changers.  The 2005 class - where Callahan gets most of the love from, and not entirely undeserved - definitely had some studs.  Suh and Lucky were studs; Dillard, Potter and Bowman were really good; but Beck, Picou and Brooks (the other four-stars) were busts.  Plus several of the high-three-stars in that class were busts.  The 2006 class was pretty mixed as well with Thenarse, Purify and Nicks being solid contributors but Andre Jones and Kenny Wilson not as much.  Basically the same in 2007 with Paul, Zac Lee and Asante having nice careers but Jaivorio Burkes, Armando Murillo and William Yancy being forgettable.

Riley had much the same story - though they are obviously not final grades yet.  In the 2016 class, POB is already gone, Dismuke and Jackson have been on the field but not been great and Raridon and Farniok working to get in the rotation.  The 2017 class say Elijah Blades never make it to campus and KJJ barely better than that.  Lindsey should be a stud and McQuitty will probably be good as well but Roberts and Gebbia are going to have to hurry to avoid getting lost in the shuffle.

So I don't think there would be much of a difference between our last three coaches.  And likely not a huge difference between us and most other Power 5 schools.

 
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Moiraine said:
But was he worse at this than other coaches? There doesn't seem to be much tracking on this sort of thing.
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Mavric said:
Considering the numbers I posted on chances to make the NFL by star rating - not the same thing but along the same lines - I'd say it's pretty standard.  

"Only" about 50% of five-stars make the NFL.  "Only" about 25% of four-stars make the NFL.  There are a lot of "busts" to go around.

Just on a quick look, Callahan had two four-stars in the 2004 class - Grixby and Murtha.  Both were contributors but neither were exactly game-changers.  The 2005 class - where Callahan gets most of the love from, and not entirely undeserved - definitely had some studs.  Suh and Lucky were studs; Dillard, Potter and Bowman were really good; but Beck, Picou and Brooks (the other four-stars) were busts.  Plus several of the high-three-stars in that class were busts.  The 2006 class was pretty mixed as well with Thenarse, Purify and Nicks being solid contributors but Andre Jones and Kenny Wilson not as much.  Basically the same in 2007 with Paul, Zac Lee and Asante having nice careers but Jaivorio Burkes, Armando Murillo and William Yancy being forgettable.

Riley had much the same story - though they are obviously not final grades yet.  In the 2016 class, POB is already gone, Dismuke and Jackson have been on the field but not been great and Raridon and Farniok working to get in the rotation.  The 2017 class say Elijah Blades never make it to campus and KJJ barely better than that.  Lindsey should be a stud and McQuitty will probably be good as well but Roberts and Gebbia are going to have to hurry to avoid getting lost in the shuffle.

So I don't think there would be much of a difference between our last three coaches.  And likely not a huge difference between us and most other Power 5 schools.
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There were a bunch of articles and discussions about how a lot of players were leaving the program under Pelini, but I'm too lazy to look them up. A quick search and I didn't find the thread about it that I seem to remember.

 
Landlord said:
What did he have?
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Mavric said:
I have no problem with this.  Frank did a lot for the football program over a lot of years.  It's too bad that it ended like it did but if this is a way to bury the hatchet then it's a good thing.  It's nice for the Athletic Dept or whoever to offer something like this.

But Frank deserved to be fired.  He just isn't that great of a head coach.  He was a loyal assistant and was probably pretty good at that.  But he was in over his head as head coach of the Huskers and particularly should never have tried to be both HC and OC.  He just didn't have a feel for that part of it.  When Tom's recruits ran out, so did Frank's success.  It was time to do something different.  The direction we tried was a colossal failure but that doesn't make the original change wrong.
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Mavric said:
It seems to me - from bits and piece pieced together over the years plus my own observations being a student from 1997-2001 - that we were going to get bogged down without major changes.  As you said, had Bo stuck around perhaps the defense could have made strides.  But I also get the feeling that the same thing that made Nebraska great for a lot of years - assistants staying around - was starting to make the recruiting side harder.  As some of those guys got older, the energy they had to put into recruiting was starting to wane.  Plus the effects of the scholarship limitations were really starting to take hold.  The Huskers couldn't stockpile talent like they could at one time and the playing field was starting to level significantly.

To be honest, at this point the last two years of Franks tenure look to me to be almost exactly like the first two years of Riley's.  We finished .500 for the first time in quite awhile then got back to 9 wins the next year.  But the nine wins were largely built on a weak schedule and we got drilled by the good teams we played.  I'm not saying Frank would have crashed like Riley did but I don't think his last season was nearly as much of a rebound as many like to think.

And that's before you include anything away from the Stadium.
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Husker_Bohunk said:
Solich's recruiting was going downhill, you can blame it on aging assistants if you'd like but at the end of the day Frank was the one responsible.
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and the public outcry from the fans and boosters would have condemned him had he fired them without 7-7. so yes, he was responsible but his hands were also tied.

 
FTW said:
He's 73. How much more time do we need?
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Just had a teacher retire at age 77. 

Everyone is going "Awwww"

Everyone in my department is going "YESSSS, about time"

(He kept teaching so his ex-wife wouldn't get any of his retirement money)

 
Landlord said:
That's a lot of conjecture, but the tangible results were all bordering elite except for, wait for it, one bad season.
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Borderline elite?  You have quite a definition of that.

Frank was 16-12 in his last 28 games with losses by 26, 23, 33, 22, 36, 24 and 29 points in there.  If that's "borderline elite" to you, you're welcome to it.  You must have been plum tickled with Riley.

 
Husker_Bohunk said:
Frank had 5 years as the assistant head coach under one of the greatest minds ever in collegiate football and in the end, he couldn't keep the Ferrari running.
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The other argument here is that there are only so many coaches that are like Osborne. It would have been incredibly lucky and unlikely if Solich was also one of them. Him not keeping things going doesn't mean he was bad. It just means he wasn't a once in a lifetime great coach. (On top of that he started around the time where some of the rules that hurt Nebraska were taking effect). Hopefully we do get lucky and Frost is another one.

 
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