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Alabama, Bear Bryant, Nebraska, Tom Osborne, Nick Saban, ?

SLOHusker

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Aug 7, 2001
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I look at Alabama as the template for the type of hiring decision that should be made. In the mid-2000s Alabama was a mess. They had bumbled around with bad hires, many of which had ties to the past glory years with Bear Bryant. There were ocassional moments of success like Gene Stalling NC in 1992, but Doug DuBose, etc ended up damaging the program badly. It wasn't until Alabama made the full and complete break from the Bear Bryant era and went out and hired the best coach available, regardless of the price, that everything changed.
Much thesame was true for Oklahoma before Stoops. Oklahoma had a bunch of mostly Oklahoma guys that were either moderately good or horrendous. Then they went out and got the best coach available, even if he had no ties to OU.
The bottom line here is NU is at a crossroads. It's time to look back at the Osborne years as a past era and STOP using it as a template for future success. We don't need Osborne coached staff or players. We don't need the Osborne system. We don't need Osborne's blessing or even his opinions beyond those of a fan of the program. We need to fully and completely MOVE ON.
To me, you start with Urban Meyer, and you also look at a couple other ex-Buckeyes. They are in my opinion the best available. You then go from there. You stop fantasizing about the past glory years and the Nebraska way or holding onto ideas that are a hindrance to a new staff and tradition.
 
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I look at Alabama as the template for the type of hiring decision that should be made. In the mid-2000s Alabama was a mess. They had bumbled around with bad hires, many of which had ties to the past glory years with Bear Bryant. There were ocassional moments of success like Gene Stalling NC in 1992, but Doug DuBose, etc ended up damaging the program badly. It wasn't until Alabama made the full and complete break from the Bear Bryant era and went out and hired the best coach available, regardless of the price, that everything changed.
Much thesame was true for Oklahoma before Stoops. Oklahoma had a bunch of mostly Oklahoma guys that were either moderately good or horrendous. Then they went out and got the best coach available, even if he had no ties to OU.
The bottom line here is NU is at a crossroads. It's time to look back at the Osborne years as a past era and STOP using it as a template for future success. We don't need Osborne coached staff or players. We don't need the Osborne system. We don't need Osborne's blessing or even his opinions beyond those of a fan of the program. We need to fully and completely MOVE ON.
To me, you start with Urban Meyer, and you also look at a couple other ex-Buckeyes. They are in my opinion the best available. You then go from there. You stop fantasizing about the past glory years and the Nebraska way or holding onto ideas that are a hindrance to a new staff and tradition.
Gary Gibbs in a lot of ways was like Frank Solich. Good coach, but not great like their predecessors.
 
I look at Alabama as the template for the type of hiring decision that should be made. In the mid-2000s Alabama was a mess. They had bumbled around with bad hires, many of which had ties to the past glory years with Bear Bryant. There were ocassional moments of success like Gene Stalling NC in 1992, but Doug DuBose, etc ended up damaging the program badly. It wasn't until Alabama made the full and complete break from the Bear Bryant era and went out and hired the best coach available, regardless of the price, that everything changed.
Much thesame was true for Oklahoma before Stoops. Oklahoma had a bunch of mostly Oklahoma guys that were either moderately good or horrendous. Then they went out and got the best coach available, even if he had no ties to OU.
The bottom line here is NU is at a crossroads. It's time to look back at the Osborne years as a past era and STOP using it as a template for future success. We don't need Osborne coached staff or players. We don't need the Osborne system. We don't need Osborne's blessing or even his opinions beyond those of a fan of the program. We need to fully and completely MOVE ON.
To me, you start with Urban Meyer, and you also look at a couple other ex-Buckeyes. They are in my opinion the best available. You then go from there. You stop fantasizing about the past glory years and the Nebraska way or holding onto ideas that are a hindrance to a new staff and tradition.
My thought when Frost was hired was that either he would be the guy to keep it "in the family" or he would be the last try to do so. The former is obviously not happening hopefully we make a legitimate attempt to hire the best possible coach. I guess the question now is whether Alberts is up to the task and if he and the boosters are willing to go all in on a top hire.
 
My thought when Frost was hired was that either he would be the guy to keep it "in the family" or he would be the last try to do so. The former is obviously not happening hopefully we make a legitimate attempt to hire the best possible coach. I guess the question now is whether Alberts is up to the task.
To be honest, we should be happy if we get a good but not great coach like Frank Solich or Bo Pelini who can win 9-10 games a year.
 
To be honest, we should be happy if we get a good but not great coach like Frank Solich or Bo Pelini who can win 9-10 games a year.
At this point everything seems better. Both had somewhat inflated records due to Solich inheriting all the pieces of the Osborne program intact and Pelini getting the Callahan recruits his first years. But yeah, they were better than Frost and I never would have predicted that. Bottom line is we need to go out and get the best coach we can and forget the Nebraska ties.
 
Start with Urban Meyer then on to Hugh Freeze. These are the two best head coaches with extensive positive W/L records that are not in a major conference currently.
 
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Start with Urban Meyer then on to Hugh Freeze. These are the two best head coaches with extensive positive W/L records that are not in a major conference currently.

I don’t really agree on Hugh Freeze. He won 61% of his games at Ole Miss and 66% overall. While that is solid, that isn’t any better than a lot of other available guys.

Chris Peersen won 68% of his games at Washington 80% overall. Tom Herman won 64% at Texas and 71% overall. And if we are just going to hire any dirtbag regardless of baggage. won 67% at Arkansas and 68% overall.
 
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Waiting for @jaundixon to confirm old sweater vest himself. Let’s go for it
 
I look at Alabama as the template for the type of hiring decision that should be made. In the mid-2000s Alabama was a mess. They had bumbled around with bad hires, many of which had ties to the past glory years with Bear Bryant. There were ocassional moments of success like Gene Stalling NC in 1992, but Doug DuBose, etc ended up damaging the program badly. It wasn't until Alabama made the full and complete break from the Bear Bryant era and went out and hired the best coach available, regardless of the price, that everything changed.
Much thesame was true for Oklahoma before Stoops. Oklahoma had a bunch of mostly Oklahoma guys that were either moderately good or horrendous. Then they went out and got the best coach available, even if he had no ties to OU.
The bottom line here is NU is at a crossroads. It's time to look back at the Osborne years as a past era and STOP using it as a template for future success. We don't need Osborne coached staff or players. We don't need the Osborne system. We don't need Osborne's blessing or even his opinions beyond those of a fan of the program. We need to fully and completely MOVE ON.
To me, you start with Urban Meyer, and you also look at a couple other ex-Buckeyes. They are in my opinion the best available. You then go from there. You stop fantasizing about the past glory years and the Nebraska way or holding onto ideas that are a hindrance to a new staff and tradition.
Neither Callahan, Pelini or Riley had any ties to the Osborne era. Those hires were not made with the only metric being there need to be ties to Osborne. And Osborne himself hired Pelini over Turner Gill who many at the time were in favor of hiring. Yes, Pelini has been our DC for one year in 2003. But that hardly constituted a tie to our gloried past. We hired Frost because of his success at UCF and his ties to Huskerville. He would not have been hired had he been a flop at UCF. Lots of schools wanted Frost and he was the flavor of the month that year.

I get the point of the OP but I just don’t think it is true that our problem has been trying to hire coaches with ties to our past. The problem has been we have hired flawed coaches no matter their past connection to NU football.

Which is why THIS time around we need to hire a coach with a proven track record over several years of being a winning has coach at a D1 school, preferably a P5 school
 
I'd be ok with zack taylor, or if mickey gets us to a bowl (he has a chance to prove himself)
otherwise I good with the proven head coach approach
 
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I don’t really agree on Hugh Freeze. He won 61% of his games at Ole Miss and 66% overall. While that is solid, that isn’t any better than a lot of other available guys.

Chris Peersen won 68% of his games at Washington 80% overall. Tom Herman won 64% at Texas and 71% overall. And if we are just going to hire any dirtbag regardless of baggage. won 67% at Arkansas and 68% overall.
Freeze's win % is 69.01 counting all wins of course. Paying players doesn't bother me. He's young, he's got plenty of gas in the tank.

I suppose what impresses me about Hugh Freeze is he was able to do exceptional things at Ole Miss. Ole Miss being a perennial doormat in the toughest conference not in the PAC10, nor with all the resources one could drown in like at Texas. Having Ole Miss's recruiting at top 5 in the country at a place where they have just sucked forever is impressive.

And to put a cherry on top of it all his bowl record is fantastic at 6 - 2 overall. If Hugh Freeze get's Nebraska or any team to a bowl game, he's winning 75% of the time.
 
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Freeze's win % is 69.01 counting all wins of course. Paying players doesn't bother me. He's young, he's got plenty of gas in the tank.

I suppose what impresses me about Hugh Freeze is he was able to do exceptional things at Ole Miss. Ole Miss being a perennial doormat in the toughest conference not in the PAC10, nor with all the resources one could drown in like at Texas. Having Ole Miss's recruiting at top 5 in the country at a place where they have just sucked forever is impressive.

And to put a cherry on top of it all his bowl record is fantastic at 6 - 2 overall. If Hugh Freeze get's Nebraska or any team to a bowl game, he's winning 75% of the time.

Good points, Ole Miss can definitely be a tough place to win. Here is where I got the 66% overall.

 
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