Well, that's certainly the way folks who want to diminish the miracle of Bob Devaney see it. Jennings gets credit for Devaney's wins, something Jennings himself could never do...and then, Devaney gets credit for the 2 "bad" seasons, then TO gets credit for Devaney's national championships. To top it all off, they name everything football related after TO and his wife and give Devaney a sculpture so small that he looks like a munchkin. It's sickening to see how poorly many have treated Devaney and his legacy. Without Devaney, we'd have been Kansas for the last 57 years. Let's hope SF is capable of carrying Bob's jockstrap. If he is, we'll win a lot of games.
Who doesn't give Devaney credit for getting things going? I sure give Devaney credit. I think many think more of TO than Devaney is a simple math problem. Devaney was the HC at Nebraska for 11 years. TO was the HC for 25 years. Devaney retired at a relatively young age. He was only 57 when he stepped down, he could have coached another 5-10 years easily if he wanted to but didn't.
Devaney was a great coach that turned things around at Nebraska and made a lot of great decisions as the AD. But TO's legacy is much longer.