Undone
All-American
There is not a single shred of evidence to support that view. It's the epitome of grasping at straws.
What Could Have Been....
- Thread starter Mavric
- Start date
VectorVictor
Heisman Trophy Winner
I'm talking about the final drive on offense where Crouch has two complete passes ruled incomplete when it was pretty obvious they were legit. Would have at least put us in FG range IIRC, and we had their defense on their heels.
Isle of View
Five-Star Recruit
There's plenty of evidence. I'll give you one good example. The walk-on program. It's a big part of the Husker system from 1970-2003.
In Solich's last season here, he had 162 on the roster. At Ohio, he currently has 118.
He can't field anywhere near as many players at Ohio. He's already got guys on the team that would've been turned away from the '03 squad.
Undone
All-American
I believe what I can infer from your post is that Nebraska was sprinkled with Fairy Walkon Dust that attracted walk-ons like magic. Not that Davaney & Osborne, as a great coaches, encouraged it and built it into what it was.
If Frank were a great coach and he understood that the walkon program was necessary to Ohio's success, would he not be able to foster that to some degree that brought him some amount of more measurable success?
Isle of View
Five-Star Recruit
At Ohio??? Nebraska is the only D1 game in town. Is Ohio even in the top ten list of football schools in their state?
And walkons aren't necessarily required for success, but they are a necessary part of the Nebraska blueprint that Devaney and TO developed.
If Solich was an all-time great coach, he would probably have been able to adapt a different system that would work better at Ohio. But it's not the place for the classic Nebraska blueprint.
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Isle
Frank is not a great HC and he wasn't a great HC at NU - please stop. He was given a solid program and couldn't keep it going. Did he get a fair shot? that is up for discussion, however even if we 100% agreed that he didn't get a fair shot that doesn't make it ok to declare him the 3rd GREAT HC at NU.
Frank is not a great HC and he wasn't a great HC at NU - please stop. He was given a solid program and couldn't keep it going. Did he get a fair shot? that is up for discussion, however even if we 100% agreed that he didn't get a fair shot that doesn't make it ok to declare him the 3rd GREAT HC at NU.
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jaws
Starter
I don't think the Nebraska blueprint was going to work much longer even if TO kept on coaching. College football started to change in the early 2000s and it was going to make it harder for anyone at Nebraska unless they evolved.
At Ohio it was never going to work because there is too much competition for talent. It is almost like every other town in this state has a college. Why walk on at Ohio when you can actually play at another school and a lot of the times for a better coach?
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Pornhusker
Four-Star Recruit
This thread is down right mean. Are you some kind of sadist?
Landlord
Banned
Isle of View said he was a great head coach and referenced his accomplishments at NU. While it's a bit of a semantics game, his results at Nebraska were really, really good.
He was maintaining every bit of Nebraska success for his first 4 years, had a single mediocre (not even bad except in relation to the unrealistic standard set forth from 93-97) season, brought in fresh blood and improved the next year nearly back to the historical average of Nebraska football before being fired.
He didn't get a fair shake, and his results ranked in the 90th percentile of the first six years of all coaches in college history. If that's not great, it's still really, really good (and, obviously, was impacted quite a lot by being able to take over such a dominating and well oiled machine).
JJ Husker
Assistant Coach
Agree with everything except for that 7-7 record in 2002. That did not maintain Nebraska success. We hadn’t won fewer than 9 in the preceeding 27+ years and there had been a healthy smattering of 10-11-12 and even a couple 13 win seasons in that time span. I understand that expectations were extremely (ridiculously) high coming out of the 90’s but we hadn’t experienced the travesty of a 7 win season in virtually forever. We’re old pros at it now however.
And I contend that the 2003 season wasn't really that much better than the 2002 season. The record was better. But we only beat two teams that finished with a winning record - only one Power 5 team - and were not competitive in our losses.
It's an interesting question when we look at it with variables other than wins, which can be noisy. First let's look at scoring margin, a very good indicator in an alternating possession game like football.
2003 has a much higher scoring margin, specifically because of scoring defense.
2003 scoring defense: 2nd nationally
2003 scoring margin: 10.3 ppg
2002 scoring defense: 45th nationally
2002 scoring margin: 3.5 ppg
Scoring Margin clearly is in favor of 2003
Comparatively, let's look at another good indicator, yards per play difference.
2003: +.5 YPP
2002: +.4 YPP
Why the big difference in conclusion between scoring margin and yards per play? They should correlate closer than that.
Turnover margin.
2003: +1.8
2002: -2.0
Some of you were also on the Scout boards a long time ago and may remember I used to beat the drum on the random nature of turnovers, and the reason I don't post that as much anymore is that people really didn't like this idea, and randomness or the lack thereof, is a tough thing to convince people on. I think it's generally more accepted now than say 10 or 15 years ago because statistical analysis is generally more accepted, but it's still a major dividing line.
If you're like me, and I made this same argument way back in the day, you're more likely to see 2002 and 2003 as similar, or more specifically, don't assign as much a causal relation between performance and final win total.
If you fall on the "forced turnovers" side of the fence, your more likely to see 2003 as the better season.
Those are interesting stats. I didn't realize our numbers were that good on defense.
But I still think a lot of that was because of our schedule.
In the regular season - before Frank was fired:
In 9 wins we allowed 75 points - 8.3 ppg'
In 3 losses we allowed 110 points - 36.6 ppg
So we were good enough to handle the bad teams easily. But we were getting killed in the big games. Not a huge sample size but not the bounce back he needed from a 7-7 season either.
But I still think a lot of that was because of our schedule.
In the regular season - before Frank was fired:
In 9 wins we allowed 75 points - 8.3 ppg'
In 3 losses we allowed 110 points - 36.6 ppg
So we were good enough to handle the bad teams easily. But we were getting killed in the big games. Not a huge sample size but not the bounce back he needed from a 7-7 season either.
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