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Top 3 coaches leading in NU search 9/20/22



Brew City Husker said:
Bill O’Brien is an grown-up who has been an OC in very high achieving NFL and P5 programs and who has been moderately successful as both an NFL and Big 10 head coach. How is this not a significant upgrade over the past 4 years?
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and he is currently enrolled in the very successful 'Bama coach rehab program.

watch the season of hard knocks with him and try to not love him.
read about his love for his disabled son jack (factors into hard knocks too)

plus the merchandising - I'm already looking for red t-shirts with the sihloette of his chin!


He sits at #4 for me now behind Fickell, Aranda, & Stoops - would be happy with any of them
 
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BARNUM is back said:
and he is currently enrolled in the very successful 'Bama coach rehab program.

watch the season of hard knocks with him and try to not love him.
read about his love for his disabled son jack (factors into hard knocks too)

plus the merchandising - I'm already looking for red t-shirts with the sihloette of his chin!
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This guy has coached under Belichick and now Saban. I’m interested in getting some of what those guys have as far as coaching chops is concerned.
 



Scott in NY said:
Leonhard has entered the mix.
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Absolutely not. He has only been in coaching for 7 years. We do t need another project. We were concerned that SF didn’t have enough experience and he was coaching for 16 years including 2 years head coach before we hired him. There is a huge difference between being a defensive coordinator in an established program and having to move into a rebuild program where you have to hire staff l, develope S&C programs and recruiting. He has zero experience there.
 

Brew City Husker said:
The program was not “doing okay”. When Joe Paterno was fired after the Jerry Sandusky (long-time Penn State assistant coach and defensive coordinator) child sex abuse scandal came to light in November of 2011, the team was 8-1. Under interim coach Tom Bradley the team limped to the end of the season losing 3 of their last 4 games to finish 9-4. While they had good years in 2008 and 2009, finishing 11-2 both years, they had gone 7-6 in 2010. The university, the team and the football program were rocked by scandal and under NCAA investigation.

O’Brien was hired amid the fallout from the scandal while there was an on-going NCAA investigation regarding the scandal. National media lambasted Paterno, the university and the football program at that time. Local media followed suit. During the July of 2012 before O’Brien’s first game the NCAA announced that they had sanctioned Penn State with a 4 year post-season ban along with loss of 40 scholarships over the 4 years.

In spite of this, and the intense negative scrutiny of the football program by national and local media, O’Brien managed to lead the Nittany Lions to a record of 8-4. He was named Big 10 coach of the year by both the media and the coaches and named “National Coach of the Year” by ESPN. In January of 2013 he was named the Paul “Bear” Bryant National Coach of the Year. So the national media and coaches clearly thought he did a good job under difficult circumstances. In 2013, his record slipped a bit to 7-5, after which he left the program for the NFL.

To be clear regarding O’Brien, he bailed on the Penn State program for the NFL, probably because of the NCAA sanctions, but maybe for other reasons as well ($$$). The post-season ban was ultimately lifted in 2014 and scholarships were returned to normal in 2015, but as far as O’Brien knew, he was coaching under a severe scholarship limitation through 2016 as well as the post season ban. In spite of this, he managed to guide the Nittany Lions to a record of 15-9, which was pretty similar to the program’s 16-10 record over the two seasons before he was hired. I’m not sure what you say to recruits when you are coaching in such a situation. But to be clear, the numbers (and facts) indicate that he didn’t “take a program that was doing okay and turn it into the equivalent of Iowa”. It’s just plain BS to say so. And frankly, from where we sit at Nebraska, if someone came here and turned us into Iowa it would be a major upgrade.
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I disagree. PSU was not a top tier team when they were 8-1. That was largely luck. This is a lot of justification for a very bad football coach. I feel like you are to vested in this terrible coach. I watches his teams play. I don't need anyone to explain to me why he wasn't bad when his teams played a brand of football that is not going to be producing winners.
 
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