What Happened...Coach changes?

[Middle-aged_Ball_Coach]

Someone with better knowledge needs to clarify why he had it out for not only Solich but Pelini. I get Pelini had some anger issues people didn't like, but that wasn't Solich at all. I think it was just how pivotal the football team was to funding and how much clout they had on campus.

It's all rumors (from my perspective), but others here have alluded to it at times in both public and private messages: there may have been some "extracurricular" relationships involved with both coaching staffs near the end of both staffs' tenures. I'll leave it at that and allow anyone else with more info to fill in the details.

 

[ShortSideOption]

It's all rumors (from my perspective), but others here have alluded to it at times in both public and private messages: there may have been some "extracurricular" relationships involved with both coaching staffs near the end of both staffs' tenures. I'll leave it at that and allow anyone else with more info to fill in the details.

But does that really mean that because of Carl or Marvin or whoever we need to just torpedo the entire staff? Feel like hiring an AD to fire the coach is just as cruddy of an offense. But that's subjective I suppose.

 

[Kwajsker]

But does that really mean that because of Carl or Marvin or whoever we need to just torpedo the entire staff? Feel like hiring an AD to fire the coach is just as cruddy of an offense. But that's subjective I suppose.

Agreed. It is so short sighted. It is like hiring a painter who can re-paint my front door, then opening the door and watching them try to paint every surface in the house.

 

[Middle-aged_Ball_Coach]

But does that really mean that because of Carl or Marvin or whoever we need to just torpedo the entire staff? Feel like hiring an AD to fire the coach is just as cruddy of an offense. But that's subjective I suppose.

There are a lot of rumors out there, and some have better sources than others, and I don't know which are more credible to you, so I just picked one of the first posts that showed up on a Google search for me. The third paragraph (beginning with "Now if you look at it ...") is a quick summary of what has popped up elsewhere regarding FS:

They say hindsight is 20/20

Was the firing of Frank Solich the right move or the wrong move? I hate to bring it up after all these years, but I'm curious what percentage of the Husker nation feels one way or the other after these years.

www.huskerboard.com

 

[izzycohen]

What happened? Harvey Perlman is what happened. The Chancellor decided Frank Solich wasn't his man. He hired Steve Pederson as A.D. for the express purpose of firing Solich. Nearly all of the Nebraska football demise can be laid at the feet of Perlman.

 

[CrabHusker]

I guess my expectation was a bowl by year 2. The "we just need to get to 6 wins" by Moos was a complete joke and low bar setting. I'm fine with whatever happens year 1 for a coach, you have to see your team in live bullet situations and even though I think "we weren't lifting" "things were optional" "bad culture" were overblown, there's elements of truth there. But year 2 (especially after how we finished 2018) is inexcusable to lose to Colorado who had a coach in his first year, lose to Minnesota who you beat 53-28 the year prior, never beat Purdue despite their team not having a winning record since our new coach arrived, and lose to Indiana. We regressed in a lot of ways year 2.

My expectation was a winning record and a bowl year one, 'Relevant' and competing for the West by year two. I thought the same thing with Moos' '6 win' goal, but understood after the horrific year one that it was actually possible. Man. Really was possible.

Yeah, the CU loss was just bad. Top to bottom. I've said it before, but they close that game out and NU is bowling and I'd guess has 7 or 8 wins.

Other than defensively from a 'big picture' standpoint, we regressed almost everywhere.

 

[huskrthill]

I guess my expectation was a bowl by year 2. The "we just need to get to 6 wins" by Moos was a complete joke and low bar setting. I'm fine with whatever happens year 1 for a coach, you have to see your team in live bullet situations and even though I think "we weren't lifting" "things were optional" "bad culture" were overblown, there's elements of truth there. But year 2 (especially after how we finished 2018) is inexcusable to lose to Colorado who had a coach in his first year, lose to Minnesota who you beat 53-28 the year prior, never beat Purdue despite their team not having a winning record since our new coach arrived, and lose to Indiana. We regressed in a lot of ways year 2.

I think there were areas of regression, but I don't think it was overall regression as a team. More than anything, it was a season of missed opportunities. Slow starts and comebacks that came up short. Fast starts and blown leads. Special teams head scratchers. And after all of that, a bowl slipped through their fingers at literally the last second of the season.

It sucks that it came down to that. You mentioned some of the frustrating losses. CU by 3 in OT. Indiana by 7. Purdue by 4. Iowa by 3.

If we had managed to pull off wins in two of those games to finish 7-5, are we a dramatically better football team? The record would say yes, but the actual performance (not the victory but the action?) would have been about the same.

I've been reflecting a bit about last season, and I have been thinking that maybe we're not far off from being a reasonably good team. I keep thinking about giving up kickoff returns for TDs. Or how a generally nondescript guy like Kade Warner could have made a difference. Or how Mo Washington pissed away his career, leading to Robinson needing to carry more of the load than planned. Or Martinez missing a couple games and playing hurt much of the season.

Lots of things didn't go our way, but you also have to make your own luck sometimes. Hopefully some of the stupid stuff gets cleaned up, because we're not good enough to overcome it. One play can make a difference in a game.

 

[Kwajsker]

I think there were areas of regression, but I don't think it was overall regression as a team. More than anything, it was a season of missed opportunities. Slow starts and comebacks that came up short. Fast starts and blown leads. Special teams head scratchers. And after all of that, a bowl slipped through their fingers at literally the last second of the season.

It sucks that it came down to that. You mentioned some of the frustrating losses. CU by 3 in OT. Indiana by 7. Purdue by 4. Iowa by 3.

If we had managed to pull off wins in two of those games to finish 7-5, are we a dramatically better football team? The record would say yes, but the actual performance (not the victory but the action?) would have been about the same.

I've been reflecting a bit about last season, and I have been thinking that maybe we're not far off from being a reasonably good team. I keep thinking about giving up kickoff returns for TDs. Or how a generally nondescript guy like Kade Warner could have made a difference. Or how Mo Washington pissed away his career, leading to Robinson needing to carry more of the load than planned. Or Martinez missing a couple games and playing hurt much of the season.

Lots of things didn't go our way, but you also have to make your own luck sometimes. Hopefully some of the stupid stuff gets cleaned up, because we're not good enough to overcome it. One play can make a difference in a game.

I definitely appreciate much of the wisdom in your post. When you are a team in the situation we were in last year, a few plays makes a huge difference in W/L, but not a huge difference in terms of how good we actually are.

And I think it is worth saying that these coaches are trying to be a drastically better football team. If we had finished 7-5 I think they still would have been frustrated about how inefficient we looked offensively. They have coached and played winning football. They are absolutely committed to drastically better football. They would have preferred 7-5, but until our Offense is truly flying around and our defense is crushing the turnover margin as well as making people dread our next scheduled contest, the rest is a lot less of a conversation. I think that was true for Pelini as a coach, but I don't think Riley and Callahan had that mindset to nearly the same extent.

 

[OKC Trap]

I admit I wanted FS gone after KState. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I even talked myself into liking the Callahan hire after sp was turned down by several. I was done after the throat slash and it shouldn’t have taken that long. The curse of FS is real.

 

[Middle-aged_Ball_Coach]

I was done after the throat slash and it shouldn’t have taken that long.

Not to make you dredge up more bad memories, but why did the the throat slash do it for you? I never liked the Callahan hire from the start, and I was skeptical throughout, but I never understood why they made such a big deal out of it since I didn't think it looked like he was intending to do a throat-slash.

 

[OKC Trap]

I live down here & was at the game with several friends....so i think it was really the Constant ribbing I took after that game. It also seems like after that game sooners began to just feel sorry for our program and that sarcastic pitty party continues....

 

[ShortSideOption]

There are a lot of rumors out there, and some have better sources than others, and I don't know which are more credible to you, so I just picked one of the first posts that showed up on a Google search for me. The third paragraph (beginning with "Now if you look at it ...") is a quick summary of what has popped up elsewhere regarding FS:

They say hindsight is 20/20

Was the firing of Frank Solich the right move or the wrong move? I hate to bring it up after all these years, but I'm curious what percentage of the Husker nation feels one way or the other after these years.

www.huskerboard.com

For me, I guess if that rumor is true, you don't need to hire a different AD to fire him, and you don't make it a 12 month plan. Hell, fire him for the DUI he got. But I think there's a lot of stuff out there that could be true, I just don't know what smoke is coming from an actual fire. Or if it's like we were doing in 2018 trying to rationalize why we are so bad and what happened happened and you end up with a lot of false-truths.

 

[ShortSideOption]

I think there were areas of regression, but I don't think it was overall regression as a team. More than anything, it was a season of missed opportunities. Slow starts and comebacks that came up short. Fast starts and blown leads. Special teams head scratchers. And after all of that, a bowl slipped through their fingers at literally the last second of the season.

It sucks that it came down to that. You mentioned some of the frustrating losses. CU by 3 in OT. Indiana by 7. Purdue by 4. Iowa by 3.

If we had managed to pull off wins in two of those games to finish 7-5, are we a dramatically better football team? The record would say yes, but the actual performance (not the victory but the action?) would have been about the same.

I've been reflecting a bit about last season, and I have been thinking that maybe we're not far off from being a reasonably good team. I keep thinking about giving up kickoff returns for TDs. Or how a generally nondescript guy like Kade Warner could have made a difference. Or how Mo Washington pissed away his career, leading to Robinson needing to carry more of the load than planned. Or Martinez missing a couple games and playing hurt much of the season.

Lots of things didn't go our way, but you also have to make your own luck sometimes. Hopefully some of the stupid stuff gets cleaned up, because we're not good enough to overcome it. One play can make a difference in a game.

Good post, I would say I think I saw a lot of regression in a lot of areas. Adrian Martinez, wide receiver, OL, etc. But I saw things like the OL get better thru the year, so there's some hope for me.

For me, I do want to be 7-5 and think we could at least say it was dramatically better. But to the point I think you are making (sorry if i'm misreading), HOW we lost is what concerns me. Heck, even the wins we had like South Alabama felt dirty. But what if we don't lose to Colorado and Purdue (our closest losses) and we are 7-5. I feel much better, and that still lets us lose to Indiana and others.

 

[ShortSideOption]

I admit I wanted FS gone after KState. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I even talked myself into liking the Callahan hire after sp was turned down by several. I was done after the throat slash and it shouldn’t have taken that long. The curse of FS is real.

I think hindsight makes you wrong, but a lot of people were wanting that. We were so used to dominance we didn't know why we couldn't get back there.

I'll go back to Solich what I always say about Pelini, our AD needed to be the one to say "what's keeping us from getting over the hump, what do you need from me?" Not "this isn't working, fire everyone."

 

[Middle-aged_Ball_Coach]

For me, I guess if that rumor is true, you don't need to hire a different AD to fire him, and you don't make it a 12 month plan. Hell, fire him for the DUI he got. But I think there's a lot of stuff out there that could be true, I just don't know what smoke is coming from an actual fire. Or if it's like we were doing in 2018 trying to rationalize why we are so bad and what happened happened and you end up with a lot of false-truths.

Yeah, I agree. I think it's possible that it all added up to different reasons at different levels for why the change was made. There were prominent boosters who wanted FS gone, and I have no reason to believe that Pederson wasn't convinced that he could find a better coach, then plug and play. It does answer why someone above Pederson would want the change to occur.