T.O. was probably pushimg Pedie do to him hiring a young Pedie years earlier to be his in-house recruiting director before most people realized there was such a position. I think Pedie's biggest mistake was listening totally to Dave Wannstedt who instructed Pedie to go to Fayetteville, Arkansas and not leave until he hired Houston Nutt. Then Frank Broyles made Pedie look like a fool to the national media.
Would have won at least one more Natty. '01 Miami would have been interesting. TO was a master play caller.
A LOT of fans including myself made the very same mistake.
Disagree, moving to the B1G was not a mistake and it was Barry Alvarez was the one that lobbied for Nebraska to get in. (I’ve have mentioned that before)
Frost wasn’t coming back to Nebraska without Tom’s intervention. Frost had his eyes set on Florida or warm climate jobs.
Okay and then he decided to run for political office a short time later, because that's such a stress free position? You pull a lot of unverified crap out of the blue just to try to win an argument.
Dude. It’s pretty widely known that Tom spent multiple days in the hospital before the bowl game. I have lots of contacts in the Lincoln medical community. That’s all I will say.
Solich has the 5th highest winning percentage in Nebraska football history.
Solich winning pct isn't the problem. When the job would have opened in 1997, Bill Byrne could have had his pick of coaches to take over the job. Osborne took it upon himself to get the BOR to hire Solich and took Byrne completely out of the process. Osborne was a believer in consistency, but unfortunately Solich didn't have the respect of the other assistant coaches that Osborne did. Osborne either ignored that or didn't see it, either is a huge error. Anything that happened after that hire is irrelevant in that those decisions won't ever be made. Perhaps Byrne screws up the hire in 1997 and he gets fired, but it more than likely wouldn't have been Pedey that gets the job, so different scenarios are in play and it doesn't play out the same regardless.
I agree with this. BC came in after NU won 82% of its games in the 70's, 84% in the 80's, 87% in the 90's. Solich struggled but still won 75% of his games. But Bill wanted to make a bunch of changes and brought in a hodge podge staff. Bill only took the job becaue he assumed he would win because Nebraska always won. Then he would bolt back to the NFL. Instead Callahan went 27-22 and 15-17 in the Big 12. Nebraska football was now going down a different path and hasn't been the same since.
He was an awful head coach. Im tired of the revisionist history.
Osborne announced his replacement when our AD was out of town. That is a fact. Bill Byrne might have went ahead and hired Frank, but only with the stipulation that a couple assistants must follow Osborne into retirement. We'll never know.
I will admit that I wanted Callahan to succeed at Nebraska. I don't disagree with much of what you wrote here. My point is and will always be that everyone wants to erroneously blame Pedey for the downfall of Nebraska. I contend that if the AD and not the outgoing coach named the replacement in 1997, Pedey never gets hired at Nebraska.
The CB with size is Donovan Jones. I doubt there is anyone in the portal who can match him physically and athletically. And if there is then I would want to look real closely at why they are even in the portal to begin with.
The reactionary dipshittery and piss poor leadership of Nebraska administration (No, TO is not included) is responsible for most of the mess we've seen the past two decades. We just made braindead transitions with some of our coaching hires. Going from option offense to WCO Bill Callahan required a multiple year transition. Going from mean "**** the fans" Pelini to ice cream with sprinkles Mike Riley as our only option. Keeping Frost for 5 years because he's OOU, even though he's a narcissistic, lazy **** who only thinks of himself. And that was very obvious within his first 2 years here.
Said he was putting family first but then he ran for Congress three years later and went to D.C.
Jones showed a lot of potential as a true freshman in the bowl game, believe he is going to be a good one.
The move was not honorable, not in the least. Hiring the next football coach was the responsibility of the AD, period. To arrange a press conference while the athletic director was on vacation and announce Solich was going to be the next coach is a classic example of dishonor.
He would be foolish to pick Iowa over a Northwestern post graduate degree.
It was a power grabbing move. Not sure I would characterize it as dishonorable. Can you imagine what a food fight it would have been to have Byrne bring in somebody from outside? Not saying I agree with what Tom did but….
How many people actually wanted frank as head coach? I venture to say not to many fans
If Byrne bought in Mack Brown (HC North Carolina) or Bob Stoops (assistant HC at Florida) and one of them had success, I expect people would eventually be OK with the hire.
It was honorable and blindly loyal for him. Not necessarily to the rest of us.
His recruiting is over rated. He had the benefit of recruiting kids who had watched us win and/or play for national titles. We were still thought of as a destination program when he took over. That perception had changed by the time he left.
Wasn’t his last recruiting class top 10 until it became apparent he was going to get fired? I feel like he was putting together a solid class for awhile before it all fell apart… but I could be misremembering.
Yeah, it had Gabbert or Freeman. Can't remember which. My point is Callahan inherited an NFL factory. Not hard to recruit to a place that was putting a bunch of guys in the NFL. Look at the 2003 roster. Bullocks, Bullocks, Fabian, Demorio, Ruud... He came in less than 3 years after a title game appearance and a Heisman winner.
Agreed, but he was definitely getting higher quality recruits than Solich was bringing in… he just was better at capitalizing on the brand at that time.
It's just too bad Solich was ever hired.. sad face
Gronowski is also considering declaring for the draft.
