Would Osborne make it today

cb1954

cb1954

Five-Star Recruit
Would T.O. make it as a head coach today? No, I don’t mean at his age right now. I don’t even mean the coach who was 60-3 over a 5 year period. I’m talking about Osborne when he first started.

In 1973 Tom took over from Bob Devaney who had been the modern day savior of Nebraska Football. Under the Bobfather, the Huskers had been National Champion 2 of the previous 3 years, won 3 of the 4 Big 8 Championships (and the 4th by forfeit). NU also had at one time had a 32 game unbeaten string. Devaney was 40-2-2 in his last 44 games. Bob won 7 Big 8 Championships in 11 years and an 8th from a forfeit.

Osborne from 1973-1976 had a good winning record of 37-10-2, which at the time was just outside the top 10 major college best records for those years. Huskers shared the Big 8 crown with OU in 1975 although they lost to the Sooners 35-10. No National Championships. Huskers rallied to beat Texas Tech in the Astro Blue Bonnet Bowl or Tom would have been fired, according to a NU Regent who told him afterward.

Add 2 more seasons and NU has the 11th best winning % in the country, there is one more Big 8 Championship shared with OU, and Nebraska won that year 17-14, but lost the rematch in the Orange Bowl.

Osborne even traveled to Boulder to interview for the Colorado head coaching job. (don’t think there wasn’t a long line of people willing to help him move). Add 2 more years and a couple more losses to Oklahoma. By then Nebraska is #9 in the country for winning %.

So in his first 8 years Tom has a good record but no NC’s, a couple shared Big 8 Championships, and a 1-9 record vs. Barry Switzer and the Sooners. Would that cut it today?

 
Of course he would make it. He never won less than nine games. He had players who played their hearts out every game. He did things "the Husker way." He's a home-grown guy. He brought in characters the fans loved. He was relevant on the national scene nearly every year. He vied for the conference title nearly every year.

Sure, there would have been times when people griped about him, but would he have been canned? Not without a really, really unscrupulous AD pushing him out the door. Give him a guy as savvy as Devaney as an AD and he'd have "made it" for sure.

 
I see what you are saying with the win or go philosophy that a lot of teams/schools seem to have. But has knapplc said 9 wins a season will pretty much keep you around no matter what.

 
kansas husker said:
I see what you are saying with the win or go philosophy that a lot of teams/schools seem to have. But has knapplc said 9 wins a season will pretty much keep you around no matter what.
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Unless you have a bowl winning 10 - 3 season and an AD with an IQ of a gerbil.

 
bshirt said:
kansas husker said:
I see what you are saying with the win or go philosophy that a lot of teams/schools seem to have. But has knapplc said 9 wins a season will pretty much keep you around no matter what.
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Unless you have a bowl winning 10 - 3 season and an AD with an IQ of a gerbil.
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Frank Solich wasn't going to continue to have those seasons, imho. If you take a look at the stats offensively, his teams relied heavily on the quarterback. If I'm not mistaken, he had Lord out-rush the running back by at least 500 yards in one season (unfortunately Huskers.com has the stats unavailable right now). His reliance on a quarterback was sickening.

Second of all, Solich's recruiting was anything but spectacular. He had a lot of home-grown talent that just couldn't compete with more athletic players from other states. Also, in 2003, we only beat one ranked team, got beat soundly by two unranked teams, and lost to the best team we faced (Texas) by 24 points.

I'm not saying his firing was warranted, but I don't think he had the right tools to take us to another championship with his own players.

 
Enhance89 said:
bshirt said:
kansas husker said:
I see what you are saying with the win or go philosophy that a lot of teams/schools seem to have. But has knapplc said 9 wins a season will pretty much keep you around no matter what.
Click to expand...
Unless you have a bowl winning 10 - 3 season and an AD with an IQ of a gerbil.
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Frank Solich wasn't going to continue to have those seasons, imho. If you take a look at the stats offensively, his teams relied heavily on the quarterback. If I'm not mistaken, he had Lord out-rush the running back by at least 500 yards in one season (unfortunately Huskers.com has the stats unavailable right now). His reliance on a quarterback was sickening.

Second of all, Solich's recruiting was anything but spectacular. He had a lot of home-grown talent that just couldn't compete with more athletic players from other states. Also, in 2003, we only beat one ranked team, got beat soundly by two unranked teams, and lost to the best team we faced (Texas) by 24 points.

I'm not saying his firing was warranted, but I don't think he had the right tools to take us to another championship with his own players.
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True but they had also supposedly only installed less than half of Barney's "new offense."

also you could look at it like it was only 2 years after having won the Game of the Century pt. 2 and played in a national championship. Also won Big 12 coach of the year in 99.

 
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lets say that Frank Solich was the coach that replaced the Bobfather, had the same success that Dr Tom had, and then named TO as his replacement.

Dr Tom comes in and has 8 years of 1 conference championship, 1 shared conference championship, no national titles, no national title games, and only a couple of bowl wins, I think the majority of Husker fans would be ready to run him out of town

 
Winning nine games a season, seemed pretty good to me back in the 70's & 80's. I never would have thought about Tom.O being on the hot seat. Looking at the climate and the $$$ now, it may have been a little tougher for Dr Tom to stay around, with that kind of start.

With that said, other than the OU games I always felt that we were going to win or should win, every time the Huskers took the field, under T O. It took a special coach to instill that kind of confidence in his players and its fans. Thank god he was given the time to build his program.

GBR!!!

 
husker rob said:
lets say that Frank Solich was the coach that replaced the Bobfather, had the same success that Dr Tom had, and then named TO as his replacement.

Dr Tom comes in and has 8 years of 1 conference championship, 1 shared conference championship, no national titles, no national title games, and only a couple of bowl wins, I think the majority of Husker fans would be ready to run him out of town
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Osborne was 5-3 in bowl games in his first 8 years. Where there are facts to consider here, let's stick to them or it becomes an impossible question to answer.

He also beat at least one ranked team every year, including 5 his first year (2 of them top 10), plus 4 other top 10 wins in the next 7 years.

OTOH, it would really depend on who the AD was. Devaney was solidly in his corner, yet it sounds like that wouldn't have been enough at the end of 1976. I had to go back and check that 1976 Astro Bluebonnet bowl. It didn't sound like much of a task to win that, but Texas Tech was ranked 4 spots ahead of us at #9.

I think the 78 OU game bought him some time. We lost to OU again in 79 and 80 but instead of getting drilled like most of the other losses, it took some fluky plays by OU. And the team was getting better, and you could tell the recruiting was too. Turner Gill really was a big name recruit to land.

 
I think in this day and age Osborne would last a few years at Nebraska and probably end his career at a school like Hastings or Wayne State. Today college football is more "I want it now" from the fans than it was in the past.

 
Yeah, Osborne did interview at CU after the 1978 season. I think he mentions it in his book, “More Than Winning.” From what I’ve heard, a lot of Nebraska fans wanted Osborne to be fired because he couldn’t win the big one.

These anti-Osborne sentiments have nearly been erased from the annals of Cornhusker history now that TO has 3 MNCs in the trophy case.

Answer to OP: Probably not.

 
I have a feeling Bo Pelini is going to end up being Mack Brown's Barry Switzer.
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It certainly appears that Bo is on the right track to becoming that. Though I would much rather see Bo becoming Mack Brown's Ron Prince.

 
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