I've already said this, but what the heck, I will again. I don't buy this.
I don't buy the idea that you need to invest even more heavily in Frost due to fear of failure from a future unknown hire.
I absolutely believe Nebraska is capable of hiring a coach along the lines of PJ Fleck, Chris Klieman, or Matt Rhule. There are always coaches like this out there waiting for a leap from a lesser program. Successful coaches. Yes, there's also the chance we land another dud. But you can't allow fear of the unknown to dictate the present. That said, it would all be easier if Frost simply succeeds and this discussion and worry dies.
The argument I made earlier and referenced again in here is if you get a championhip-caliber coach at Nebraska they'll move on to somewhere easier to recruit to when they have the opportunity. If you're championship caliber, and not originally from Nebraska, in the modern world, why would you stay? I'm not saying we might not luck into a high caliber coach, but if we do, I don't believe he would stay anyway, so you'll be back in the pool and then each time face the same low odds of getting a decent one that we've faced since 2002, well, arguably 1997.
We've already got a couple of decades of data on this. And the argument that the guys doing the hiring just screwed up is made weaker by the fact it's now a clear trend. Anyway, the agent of any quality up and comer who might consider the Nebraska job definitely made feelers to intermediaries during those other searches, so it's interesting the best coach we might have gotten if not these folks was who, Houston Nutt?
Sorry, but the examples you cited actually don't mean that much. First, none have actually won anything major yet, though as I write this Baylor is schooling OU so maybe one will. Klieman is already being eyed by other programs after less than a full year, Fleck could easily too. Baylor, so close to abundant recruiting pools, is arguably already a destination school. That is, he could easily recruit well enough there to create a program that competes for a playoff berth. So he wouldn't have to move.
And unlike those schools, the measure of success at Nebraska is almost impossibly higher. Candidates for sure know that if they go to KSU or Minny and have a decent record they can stay as long as they want, and either downsize their own career expectations but live a good life, like a Kirk Ferentz, for example, or keep their viability for promotion or lateral moves to other schools. They don't actually have to make the playoffs or - gulp - win the thing to be fully accepted, like coaches will at Nebraska for at least another 20 years, when people who saw the 90s are finally all prattling on about glory days in nursing homes and no longer listened to.
Maybe that's what happened to Minnesota with their 7 national championships by 1961. They tied for 1st in the B1G in 1967 and then played .500 ball ever since with not a single sniff of even a conference championship. Like Nebraska, they are far away from recruiting hotbeds. It used to be with a handful of strong, well coached farm boys you could b competitive, but not anymore.
So when I say Nebraska will never hire and keep a championship level coach, I don't really mean never. I just mean for about as long as it's taking Minnesota to come back, which is 52 years and counting at this point.
If we're not going to have to have a championship coach anyway in my lifetime, I'd just as soon leave it in the hands of a guy who actually WOULD stay if he gets successful, and who already has contributed a ton to Nebraska football. What's another couple of years of patience that this extension represents compared to half a century anyway.
I know this isn't going to be a popular opinion I'm stating. Everyone wants to have a "take all comers, we can compete with anyone" mentality, which isn't all bad, except when it clouds judgement about the right way to manage a program. And certainly nobody ever lost money underestimating the homer-centric views of Nebraska football fans, as you more or less point out discussing how Las Vegas is regularly lifting Nebraskans wallets.
I'm not some crackpot in this. It's being talked about by more important folks than me. Heck, even Tom Osborne mentioned it. In fact, it's not the only reason Frost will be given a lot longer than other coaches might be to succeed here by the powers that be, but I'm certain it's one of them.