Barthel gone???? Hearing Texas
- Thread starter Tuco Salamanca
- Start date
Coaches associated with NU football that have been a HC or are one (off the top of my head and Wikipedia, going back to Solich). Probably didn’t get them all. A little less than 25% have experience coaching RBs. Fun fact - before Switzer went to OU, he coached RBs at Arkansas.
Rhule - LB/DL
Mickey - several psns including RBs
Frost - WR/QB
Dana - QB/WR
Held - RBs
Riley - DBs
Bray - LBS
Diaco - LBs
Cotton - OL
Els - LBs
Beck - QBs but also RBs at NU
Carl - DL/DB/LB
Bo - DB/LB
Callahan - OL
Norvell - TE/WR
Blake - DL
Wagner - OL
Watson - QB
Downing - various incl RBs
Turner - QB
Bohl - LB
Frank - RB
Including Mickey and Held as HCs…goodness.
I guess I needed to put some obvious caveats in there.
TBD is the answer. Hope so but he hasn’t shown good talent eval yet (not by what our standards should be).
Was kinda hoping Dana had someone better waiting in the wings but oh well. Maybe he’ll be great with Dana’s help.
Three of the more prominent coaches I mentioned, Frank, Switzer and Beck have RB coaching experience.
it isn't rocket science. Dana is the key. The RB coach no doubt has gotten specific instructions from Dana to execute. Apparently Dana was okay with what he saw in those last few months.
I guess I wasn't very clear with my LoL. I don't think Frank was a good HC.
Luckily rb is a position that young men can play at early. Hopefully we have one of those.
So the last coach at NU to win a conference title and appear in a national championship game was not very good at NU. Dude won almost 75 percent of his games at NU and is a member of the College football HOF.
Not sure if you are old enough to remember but there were a lot of knowledgeable people who thought Frank was the wrong guy. I recall shortly after Frank’s firing Charlie McBride in an interview on the subject said Frank’s firing may have justified solely for the sin of letting The Pipeline show major cracks. (Ironically, it has remained a huge issue ever since Frank departed. We used to proudly count the many pancake blocks. Now we probably could better count “upside down” pancake blocks.)
But after 25 years I think most of us who weren’t sad to see Frank canned realize Frank was indeed a very good coach and surely the best coach we have had since TO. Unfortunately following Devaney and TO was almost as tough as the several coaches who tried to succeed John Wooden.
I’m old enough to remember that Charlie McBride left the program during the Internet era and when you Google “Charlie McBride Nebraska” fired you get his Wikipedia page. It says he retired.
It’s kind of the general consensus that he was the wrong choice at the time and began the slide.
I like him and thought he should have been retained with a staff overhaul.
All many of us asked at the time was the AD (Byrne) do a national search for the most qualified candidate. If that had happened and he had picked Solich, the perception may have been different as Solich went along. Namely, if things weren't going so well, it wasn't due to a Good Ole Boy hire. As the program and especially recruiting began to slide under Solich I was like wow, Mack Brown was at North Carolina in 1997 looking for a bigger gig and Bob Stoops was assistant HC at Florida looking for a HC gig. What could have been.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Loyalty to be a bugger.
Hopefully vb isn't a repeat. I doubt it because DBK is considered one of the nation's best but there really wasn't a search.
Hopefully vb isn't a repeat. I doubt it because DBK is considered one of the nation's best but there really wasn't a search.
I don’t recall very many complaining that Solich was hand picked by Osborne at the time of his retirement..
The questioning that Byrne should have made the hire instead of Osborne didn’t get fuel until Solich’s 2002 season..
News didn't spread as quickly back then either. No one had a computer attached to their hip 24/7. You basically had a couple of rudimentary message boards and the voice from the grandstand in OWH. When Osborne made the announcement, it was assumed that Byrne was on board. It wasn't until Byrne stepped down to take over at aTm that it really came out that he wasn't on board. Of course at that point, people saw the decline in the recruiting and there was a 7-7 record, plus there was some exodus from the staff.
I wasn't living in NE at the time, but it seemed common knowledge that when discussions of TOs departure were had, Solich was the name of the next head coach. Solich did very well with TO's players and the team in 99 (Charlie's last year) would have won a playoff had there been one. My beef with this issue is all of the critiques are very 2020 hindsight. Also, Frank followed the 7-7 year with a 9 win season plus the bowl win credited to Bo, and a top 20 ranking at the end of the season. The hiring of Pelini brought a defense in tune with offenses featured in the Big 12. There was no reason not to think the defensive performance would drop, given that Bo achieved this largely with players from the 7-7 year. And so canning Frank after he made coaching adjustments and improved the play on the field was rash to say the least.
In dipshit discussions of college football magic coaches for NU, the name Urban Meyer has routinely been thrown out. This is what he said re Frank: at the time of Solich’s firing, a young coach named Urban Meyer said he would be “very leery” of coaching at a school that fired a nine-win coach. Meyer went on to go 12-0 at Utah the next year before going to Florida. I don't doubt a lot of promising young coaches thought the same. And so Steve P made a rash firing, then absolutely bungled the subsequent search. Nutt turned NU down (I'd say history shows he would have won fewer games than Frank would have) and it seems Nutt was a one-note candidate in the search. And so we ended up with Callahan after he got canned from the Raiders.
It is likely that Solich would have ended up failing at NU. OTOH, Callahan got a 9-win season using a lot of kids that were on the roster when Frank was fired. And wow, I just looked at the 2003 coaching staff. Frank made a substantial turnover of the staff. Pelini, Cotton, Albin, Sanders and Jimmy Williams were all first-year guys. All of the old guard exited. It's just inescapable to me that Pederson thought Frank was a bit of a bumpkin as a coach who Steve thought he could replace with better. And his decision-making process showed that.
Yeah, that’s nonsense. I don’t know why Charlie commented on the justification for Frank’s firing. Perhaps he and Frank weren’t pals, but it surely wasn’t because Charlie was fired. He retired down here in the AZ desert and was a semi-regular commentator on one of our radio stations. I heard the interview and he didn’t say it was great that Frank was fired but he did say the decline of The Pipeline was a rationale for a coaching change. Was he wrong? It’s still debatable after all of these years.
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I don't know what Charlie thinks, but I would have liked to see what Pelini could have done with the returning kids on defense in 2024. I doubt NU loses to Southern Miss at home, doesn't get boat raced by TX Tech, and doesn't lose to either Iowa State or Colorado. The likely outcome was another 9-3 season.
I don't necessarily disagree, but I was talking about the initial hiring of Solich and how it became more known that Byrne was not involved in the decision to make that hire, and that Osborne made the announcement when Byrne was out of town.
Things were a bit more buttoned down in terms of knowing what the inner workings of the program back then. If we had known, I think a strong majority of the fan base would have been with TO and would have seen Byrne as kind of an interloper, even though he had been AD for five years. As in, the dude who won titles in 3 of 4 years knows more about coaching than the AD. Frank obviously had issues in the recruiting game. But it is possible that he would have settled into a Frank Beamer-like existence - very good coach, solid play on the field with good players, consistent winning seasons. And every few years or so, the right mix of players would be on the roster to make a real run. But Frank didn't get that chance.
Ohio got better after he retired. Albin is a better head coach than Frank was. Frank made Ohio respectable based in part on his credibility from his Nebraska tenure but….
Frank’s years at NU wasn’t enough to get him into the HOF. It was his work at Ohio, a univ where football was not even an afterthought when he arrived. And I wonder if his relative quick inclusion after retirement wasn’t at little bit of a middle finger from football people to Stevie P and others who look down their nose at the guy.
If true, then should we expect Albin to be headed to the Hall of Fame eventually?
I try to stay out of things like this, it is an endless disagreement. But...
For all the "run the ball like TO did" folks who are still bringing that battle cry up, isn't that what Frank did? I'm not sure if he didn't recruit as well as Tom did or if the program didn't develop players as well, or both could be true. But when I hear that we need to get back to the TO days and run the ball, that the fullback and option FB will work again like it did then, I think, didn't we really try that? Solich was handed the keys, he was as close to the guru as one could be. Tom obviously had confidence in Frank's ability to not only spot talent, but recruit, build a program and keep coaches together - whether that happened and to what degree is up for debate nearly daily on this site.
I truly don't know nor do I care how that all shook out with Byrne. I have been involved in lots of major decisions over the years and later was amazed how little some who were directly involved remembered the facts or maybe it was me - the mind has a way of playing self defense in some of these cases. I do have a hard time believing that Tom made the decision completely on his own without any input or blessing from others - does that even sound like something he would do? We are talking about a person who is true to his ethical conduct. That comment should bring some blather alone.
There were some dark years at Nebraska with coaches and AD's for sure. History would likely not have been as kind to Devaney had he not hit the jackpot in hiring a young Tom Osborne as his OC. I am of the opinion that Bob's one decision changed the face of Nebraska football forever. We flounder before and after him in just about every area to the point where Bo looks like a hall of fame coach. (tongue in cheek)
Whatever, I just want to see Nebraska truly compete again and it hasn't done so for so long, it is hard to remember when it was. Maybe next year or the year after that......
For all the "run the ball like TO did" folks who are still bringing that battle cry up, isn't that what Frank did? I'm not sure if he didn't recruit as well as Tom did or if the program didn't develop players as well, or both could be true. But when I hear that we need to get back to the TO days and run the ball, that the fullback and option FB will work again like it did then, I think, didn't we really try that? Solich was handed the keys, he was as close to the guru as one could be. Tom obviously had confidence in Frank's ability to not only spot talent, but recruit, build a program and keep coaches together - whether that happened and to what degree is up for debate nearly daily on this site.
I truly don't know nor do I care how that all shook out with Byrne. I have been involved in lots of major decisions over the years and later was amazed how little some who were directly involved remembered the facts or maybe it was me - the mind has a way of playing self defense in some of these cases. I do have a hard time believing that Tom made the decision completely on his own without any input or blessing from others - does that even sound like something he would do? We are talking about a person who is true to his ethical conduct. That comment should bring some blather alone.
There were some dark years at Nebraska with coaches and AD's for sure. History would likely not have been as kind to Devaney had he not hit the jackpot in hiring a young Tom Osborne as his OC. I am of the opinion that Bob's one decision changed the face of Nebraska football forever. We flounder before and after him in just about every area to the point where Bo looks like a hall of fame coach. (tongue in cheek)
Whatever, I just want to see Nebraska truly compete again and it hasn't done so for so long, it is hard to remember when it was. Maybe next year or the year after that......
Won’t have enough years as a head coach nor did he take over a national championship program.
Frank elevated Ohio to being a good but not great MAC program. I don’t believe what he did at Ohio justifies him being in the college HOF. The HOF is to some degree a popularity contest influenced by longevity. Frank should have won outright multiple MAC titles to justify being put in the CFHOF.
This is a solid argument… The fact that he never outright won the conference is definitely eyebrow racing. That said, I don’t want to diminish what he accomplished at Ohio either. Maybe Albin elevates Ohio further than Solich did. That said, what Solich accomplished there was still pretty darn impressive overall, considering he took them to heights they had never previously experienced.
I think Frank’s overall career in college football as a former player, assistant at a major national championship program, and a successful head coach at two different institutions is the reason he is in…not just one accomplishment.
I mean we did rank 96th in total rushing offense with a net 1600 yards and our longest run of the year was 42 yards. What a panty dropper.
I mean UT looked at him for a second. What a stud we got. Maybe he will find another guy from Connecticut or somewhere that no one else is recruiting and will never see the field
I mean UT looked at him for a second. What a stud we got. Maybe he will find another guy from Connecticut or somewhere that no one else is recruiting and will never see the field
Albin I believe won the MAC with a blowout win in the conference championship this year…..after losing his starting QB to a BIG team via the portal in the off season.
Saw a slightly dated list of HOF coaches. Mostly title coaches or title game coaches (Frank qualifies!). But others made it in like Don Nehlen, Hayden Fry, and Grandpa Bill Snyder.
