OT: Omaha World Columnist on Nebraska Football
This is a pretty remarkable summation of essentially two decases of wishful thinking, coaches and ADs full of hubris and a state collectively lying to itself every spring:
Full disclosure: I started writing this column in August 2013, just after the East Stadium expansion.
I’ve been thinking its thesis off and on ever since. Truth was, I was waiting for an epiphany. The moment where I didn’t just recognize the problem, but the solution.
I still don’t have it. I hate that.
But I know this: 16 years after The Fall, Nebraska football carries the expectations of a powerhouse and the limitations of an underdog. Worst of both worlds.
October 20th, 2017 at 7:14 PM ^
October 20th, 2017 at 9:23 PM ^
October 20th, 2017 at 7:25 PM ^
I despised Nebraska after 1997. That kicked ball, and then Scott Frost's campaigning after the bowl game . . . ugh. I'm still irritated by that.
But I feel bad for their fans now. Nebraska football is the only game in town and their fanbase seems to be very loyal and (from what I've heard) generally pretty nice to opposing schools. It's got to kill them to see this, and I don't know if they can turn it around. I find myself rooting for them to do so.
October 20th, 2017 at 7:40 PM ^
I feel the same way. You will not encounter a friendlier fan base.
There does not seem to be a way out of irrelevance for them.
October 20th, 2017 at 7:48 PM ^
I think they should go back to their roots and hire a triple-option coach. Maybe they won't win a national title again but they can be like Georgia Tech, competitive annually and occasionally even make a big bowl. Trying to run a West Coast offense makes no sense given their lack of a recruiting base.
October 20th, 2017 at 9:22 PM ^
October 21st, 2017 at 10:53 AM ^
It would be our loss, but for their sake they really should.
I would not blame them. The B1G is not working for them.
October 20th, 2017 at 8:13 PM ^
No joke...He has peaked at MSU - Yes, of course he will always have his Super Bowl game against UM every year, but the writing is on the wall that he won't be winning national titles at MSU.
Maybe the combo of him being a great coach and the Nebrask mystique can create some sort of magic.
October 20th, 2017 at 9:34 PM ^
He's too old. Frost might end up being their best bet.
October 21st, 2017 at 10:54 AM ^
He's a great fit for them and their last big hope.
October 20th, 2017 at 10:31 PM ^
Neither school really understood the choice they were making when they both decided to blow up their programs because "the status quo wasn't good enough."
Look at Michigan, they decided to blow up their established identity to hire Rich Rod. There's an alternate reality where that worked, but it didn't work out on this reality we live in. Then Michigan compounded those problems by hiring a total dingleberry. Neither hire worked out, but it didn't kill the program forever. Michigan had the wiggle room to survive totally screwing up a series of hires that bottomed the program out.
Nebraska and Tennessee didn't realize before they fired Solich/Fulmer to hired Callahan/Kiffin that they didn't have that kind of wiggle room. They didn't realize that the only thing sustaining their programs at the top of college football was "well they've always been top programs" and that the moment that ended they'd never really be able to get it back without a miracle. If they had realized it, they might not have made the firing decisions so flippantly, and they might have worked harder to pick lower risk options.
October 20th, 2017 at 10:52 PM ^
I think Tennessee, with the right coach, can get back to being a powerhouse. They are not all that far away from a lot of recruiting talent and the SEC East remains pretty weak.
Nebraska's trickier. The Big Ten West is favorable enough, but there just isn't that much talent nearby. The option was their great equalizer for a long time and I think they should go back to that.
October 20th, 2017 at 11:18 PM ^
Is that the ACC got its act together as a conference. Tennessee back in the day made their hay by convincing some Memphis kids to come East to Knoxville (which not enough people talk about how hard a deal that can be. Memphis kids don't even look at East Tennessee as being the same state), and then raiding the top kids in NC, VA and Georgia.
Well Clemson's a powerhouse doing that right now, so you've got to play make up on them. UNC and NC State are both pretty consistent 8-10 win programs, so NC is pretty picked over. SC seems to be carving a 7 win niche for themselves. Va Tech looks like a perennial 8-10 win team. UVA has a pulse again. So where is Tennessee's talent supposed to come from?
They need Clemson to collapse again, and they need multiple ACC programs in neighboring states to go down too. I don't really see that happening. The growth of those ACC programs has left Tennessee as a team that has a 9-10 win ceiling, but has expectations of contending for the SEC.
Nebraska has worse demographics but an easier road to competitiveness in their division. They both just can't seem to realize as fanbases that their expectations are too high considering just how dependent they are on out of state recruiting.
October 21st, 2017 at 9:56 AM ^
October 21st, 2017 at 12:36 PM ^
October 21st, 2017 at 1:02 PM ^
There's also this guy:
October 21st, 2017 at 12:41 AM ^
was never a powerhouse. They had a nice run under Fulmer and Johnny Majors had a few good teams but powerhouse? Not really
October 21st, 2017 at 12:37 AM ^
For most of its history Nebraska played in and mostly dominated a conference of 7 other football schools. For most of Big 8 history Kansas, Kansas State and Iowa State were 3 of the worst programs in the land. And before Bill McCartney Colorado was right there with them.
Nebraska had a one game season with Oklahama. Occasionally they'd step out of conference and challenge themselves but most often it was 4 hand picked non-conference games, (go back and look they hardly ever played a good non-conference opponent, and when they did, loss) 6 terrible conference games and Oklahoma.
When the Big 12 formed Nebraska was now forced to play only 3 hand picked non-conference games and it meant going on the road to places like Austin and College Station more regularly. Scholarship limitations imposed in the late 80's meant programs like Colorado, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Missouri now occassionally had a pulse and could compete with the Huskers on the field, and gasp occassionally win.
After getting sick of Texas's shit and 20 years of mediocre succes in the Big 12, Nebraska bolted for the BIG with the hope and belief they'd dominate. *Spoiler* they haven't, because the Big Ten actually has a dozen schools that take football relatively seriously.
They can grouse about their terrible hires and blah blah blah but you know what, if the Big 8 still existed when Nebraska hired Bill Callahan, he might be in his 14th season and on his way to being a fricking legend.
That's the reality Husker fans don't want to face.
October 21st, 2017 at 8:47 AM ^
I'd like to see Nebraska run the Georgia Tech Triple Option.
It's unique, it's consistent with their DNA, and they can get the players to run it.
Right now, they are currently looking up at not just Wisconsin, but also at Iowa, NW, and Minn as well.
What do they have to lose?