Stewart Mandel is not a Boliever

The 9 win argument bodes well when looking at Bo Pelini's body of work as a HC. If championships were awarded once every 6 years, he'd be right up there. Not many other teams have done it. But, we judge the success/failure based on a singular season. In that case, as the rankings prove - he's fallen short of expectations (which he himself clearly stated is championships) each year. So while only a few have won 9 for 6 years in a row, you can't deny the fact that 30 or so do it each season. And at the end of the day, it's the season that matters, not the last 6 years.

 
kchusker_chris said:
The 9 win argument bodes well when looking at Bo Pelini's body of work as a HC. If championships were awarded once every 6 years, he'd be right up there. Not many other teams have done it. But, we judge the success/failure based on a singular season. In that case, as the rankings prove - he's fallen short of expectations (which he himself clearly stated is championships) each year. So while only a few have won 9 for 6 years in a row, you can't deny the fact that 30 or so do it each season. And at the end of the day, it's the season that matters, not the last 6 years.
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Yep. Would anyone actually be happy with a coach who won 9-10 and lost 4 each and every year in perpetuity?

The consistency is admirable. Impressive even. That said, if that's his ceiling it isn't good enough.

 
carlfense said:
kchusker_chris said:
The 9 win argument bodes well when looking at Bo Pelini's body of work as a HC. If championships were awarded once every 6 years, he'd be right up there. Not many other teams have done it. But, we judge the success/failure based on a singular season. In that case, as the rankings prove - he's fallen short of expectations (which he himself clearly stated is championships) each year. So while only a few have won 9 for 6 years in a row, you can't deny the fact that 30 or so do it each season. And at the end of the day, it's the season that matters, not the last 6 years.
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Yep. Would anyone actually be happy with a coach who won 9-10 and lost 4 each and every year in perpetuity?

The consistency is admirable. Impressive even. That said, if that's his ceiling it isn't good enough.
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The difficult part is knowing if it is or not. It's the what if that is maddening.

 
StPaulHusker said:
The difficult part is knowing if it is or not. It's the what if that is maddening.
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Agreed. I've drawn a conclusion already (but could still be proven very wrong).

Each additional season with a similar outcome will result in more joining that conclusion.

 
knapplc said:
Also, because we've danced this dance before and we know what's expected here's the obligatory "If winning nine games a year is so easy, more coaches would do it."
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Mr. Accountability said:
But if it was so irrelevant, why dont more programs and/or coaches do it?
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It's not that it's irrelevant as much as it is just that whatever weight it does hold isn't necessarily all that impressive.

He's won 9+ games six years straight? So what? That's my honest answer... so what? What does that tell us? It doesn't tell us much of anything outside of being consistent (read: not consistently good) and being a bit of an anomaly.

I'm not saying they're entirely equal, but if an opposing fan came over here spouting an arbitrary statistic that paints their program in a positive light, that would be the general reaction. So what? Oh you've had a player selected in 10 straight drafts? Oh your team had three 1,000 yard rushers? Oh nobody in the country beat Team X by as many points as you did last year?

So what?

So why don't more teams accomplish it? I don't know the answer, but that doesn't equate to us being good. LSU, Florida, Texas, Florida State, Clemson, Oklahoma, USC, Auburn, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Stanford, etc.

None of them have the 9-wins streak over the last six seasons. Does anyone honestly want to argue that we have been a better program than any of them?

All this stat tells me is that we are grasping for straws, and since there aren't any national championship, conference championship, or BCS bowl game straws to grab hold of, and since the winning percentage straw (much more important than quantity of wins) is shorter and much less impressive, we lunge for this one.

 
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Landlord of Memorial Stadium said:
All this stat tells me is that we are grasping for straws, and since there aren't any national championship, conference championship, or BCS bowl game straws to grab hold of, and since the winning percentage straw (much more important than quantity of wins) is shorter and much less impressive, we lunge for this one.
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THIS.

 
If it was only Husker fans that were saying that, then it would be grasping for straws. The problem comes from the stuff Saunders quoted - when you have guys like Nick Saban and Urban Meyer saying that firing a 9-win coach sends danger flags to other coaches, that makes that stat relevant.

It's all well and good to talk about firing Pelini for only winning nine games, and to support that with stats and convince yourself that we can do better, should do better. That's fantastic.

But you don't need to convince Joe on the Street here in Lincoln.

You need to convince the next coach.

 
knapplc said:
If it was only Husker fans that were saying that, then it would be grasping for straws. The problem comes from the stuff Saunders quoted - when you have guys like Nick Saban and Urban Meyer saying that firing a 9-win coach sends danger flags to other coaches, that makes that stat relevant.

It's all well and good to talk about firing Pelini for only winning nine games, and to support that with stats and convince yourself that we can do better, should do better. That's fantastic.

But you don't need to convince Joe on the Street here in Lincoln.

You need to convince the next coach.
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Very true, very true

 
knapplc said:
If it was only Husker fans that were saying that, then it would be grasping for straws. The problem comes from the stuff Saunders quoted - when you have guys like Nick Saban and Urban Meyer saying that firing a 9-win coach sends danger flags to other coaches, that makes that stat relevant.

It's all well and good to talk about firing Pelini for only winning nine games, and to support that with stats and convince yourself that we can do better, should do better. That's fantastic.

But you don't need to convince Joe on the Street here in Lincoln.

You need to convince the next coach.
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This is a good point but I think that most good coaches look at the resources available to them and our results over the past six seasons and conclude that they could do better.

That and $$$.

 
carlfense said:
This is a good point but I think that most good coaches look at the resources available to them and our results over the past six seasons and conclude that they could do better.

That and $$$.
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If there was evidence to support that I'd be more comfortable with canning Pelini and jettisoning all the baggage that comes with him. There's evidence to support the idea that this isn't true, and that's what scares the hell out of me.

Well, that and Minnesota circa 1965-ish.

 
knapplc said:
If there was evidence to support that I'd be more comfortable with canning Pelini and jettisoning all the baggage that comes with him. There's evidence to support the idea that this isn't true, and that's what scares the hell out of me.
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Not really . . . there's a coach who wasn't particularly interested in Nebraska and another who made vague allusions to "maybe some people are skeptical."

Not to mention that wins and losses are hardly the reason why Solich was canned.

Anyways. Maybe the Bolievers are right. Maybe this is as good as we can hope for. If that's true it's pretty sad . . . but it doesn't mean that it's wrong.

 
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