Single biggest mistake in the history of Nebraska football was not hiring Mack Brown when the program had the opportunity. Good man, great recruiter and has improved each program and won at every stop in his long career.
If the rumors from the 90’s were true ….
- Thread starter CoastGuard2018
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I agree. That is who the AD wanted. Allowing Osborne to anoint Solich was a mistake.
My vote for single biggest mistake was hiring Pedey as AD.
If it isn’t broke don’t fix it..
If wasn’t broke till years later..
Good point. Mack Brown went on to make Nebraska his bitch until TO moved Nebraska to a new playground.
TO cast the die to start the decline. Scott Frost could have coached through the Solich years and had the same results. The team was loaded and deep. Eric Crouch carried Frank on his shoulders and you could see where the train was going after he left.
Let’s remember who Solich beat in his last regular season to get to 9-3 from 7-7 the previous year. Only ONE conference team with a winning record.
OK State (9-4) first game w/ new staff
Utah State (3-9)
Penn State (3-9)
S Miss (9-3)
Troy State (6-6)
Texas AM (4-8)
Iowa State (2-10)
Kansas (6-7)
Colorado (5-7)
Based on how Mack Brown owned the Huskers from 1998 forward, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that he would have done very well handed the keys of Nebraska in 1998.
There was never any guarantee Brown would come to Lincoln. Besides, the Texas job came open and he took over the same year Frank did at UNL. And I would bet if Brown was offered both at the same time, he'd have gone with Texas. He is a southern boy, you know.
With a dynasty he inherited and subsequently didn’t maintain/sustain.
No not the biggest. Hiring Mike Riley after Bo Pelini was fired was by far the biggest mistake in Nebraska football history.
Yes, and I'll admit that I thought it was the right hire at the time as well. Boy, was I totally wrong about that. Couldn't have been more wrong.
It was broken the moment T.O. walked out the door, because Solich was ill-equipped to run the program the same way Osborne did. Solich tried to call his own plays and be his own offensive coordinator, and he clearly couldn't do it. And, he was poorly prepared for McBride's retirement. That's not necessarily an indictment of Frank, because most head coaches don't operate that way. But handing him the keys to a program that was at the top of the college FB world was short-sighted.
But I do think that once Frank made some changes and bounced back from a .500 season to finish 9-3, he should have been retained. Firing him at that point didn't make sense.
He also had a number of very old coaches that had a very difficult time recruiting. A gradual change out of coaches could very well have solved Frank's problems. But that's history now.
That lesson was repeated with Frost and we should remember when the next coach is named. There are no guarantees and IF the next guy fails that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a logical hire.
Yes for sure the mistake was repeated with Frost. And I made that mistake as well. I supported the choice of Frost at the time. He seemed like a hotshot up and coming coach at the time and a Nebraska homeboy. What could go wrong? Well, the lack of a historical winning track record at a P5 school is what could (and did) go wrong.
But I've learned a lesson from those two mistakes. You can't let yourself be blinded by a person being a home town favorite or a fan favorite. You need to always do thorough due diligence. And DON'T try to please the fans by picking their favorite choice.
The problem was that the roster was not in very good shape. Whether it was Frank, Bill or Mack that next year was going to be a train wreck. The O line was in shambles. We had one serviceable RB. Our best WRs were walk ons.
Put yourself in former recruiting coordinator Pedey’s shoes. Frank’s last 2 classes were ranked in the 40s. Pelini didn’t like or want to recruit. The roster was a mess and Frank was failing to fill his class. He was headed for a sub 50 recruiting class. What would you do?
The question that can be debated forever is whether Solich really had them in a position of bouncing back, or was it a short-term uptick in what may have turned out to be a longer term downward slid? Despite the improved record in 2003, NU was clearly no better than 4th in the BG12 that year, with all of its losses quite ugly and only a few wins over P5 programs with winning records. Penn State was the marquee name on the non-con portion of the schedule that year and they went 3-9 with 1 win in BG10 play. As pointed out by other posters, Solich's recruiting class rankings were not bouncing back which didn't bode favorably for the future. I'm in the camp that Solich would have ended up getting fired regardless whether that happened in 2003, or down the road.
I would quantify that as the biggest FORSEEABLE mistake made in Nebraska hiring history.
In hindsight hiring Frost was a bigger mistake but, especially at the time, you couldn't pass on Frost.
You may very well be right. I just found it odd that they made Frank clean house and make major changes after the 7-7 season, then canned him anyway 12 months later. I agree that the 9-3 record in 2003 may have been a dead cat bounce, but we'll never know for sure.
I liked Frank but I think his trajectory was exactly what he did in the MAC. He was going to win 6-8 games per year going forward and maybe win the conference once Good coach but probably not good enough to keep Husker fans happy.
Agreed, and based on expectations back in that era, the fear or prospect of winning 6-8 games per year and getting blown out by most of the good teams on your schedule was viewed as a level of failure probably not far off from what Frost achieved at NU. Obviously, Solich's and Frost's career records at NU are night and day different, but not sure the margin of decline, given the state of the program when each took over, was that much different.
Nope. Everything after is attributed to the Solich hire. Frost was way worse than Riley.
Tough to argue against that. That hire wasn’t great but in hindsight it was still better than Frost.
Sadly, Frost turned out to be the worst hire. And ironically I believe he also was the one with the most fan support at the time of the hire. Just goes to show what us fans know about hiring a coach.
IMO it’s a lesson that we should remember when discussing the next hire. Nobody really knows how it will work out no matter what they think. Mickey would be a huge gamble but really so is just about every other guy we’ve discussed.
Anyone, Mack Brown, Solich, whoever, was in a no win situation following Osborne. I also don't envy whatever coach follows John Cook.
For my money Pederson and Callahan totally destroyed the blueprint that Osborne had clearly mapped out on how to succeed at NU long term.
For my money Pederson and Callahan totally destroyed the blueprint that Osborne had clearly mapped out on how to succeed at NU long term.
I think it was almost inevitable that we were going with inside hires, and unless we got really lucky (again) the decline was also inevitable. The question is who will be capable of resurrecting this mess. Not an easy task.
Correct however Frost was not hired after 7 9-10 win seasons. He was hired after 4-8. I was ok with firing Bo if the plan was there to get a better coach. We get Mike Riley. And in hindsight Moos would have had so many haters if he wouldn’t have hired the national coach of the year and Frost.
Eichorst was incompetent. That is one thing there can be no debate over.
And that is why he is a bigger disaster than anyone. Parlay the Pelini run with a good coach and Frost is never here.
In hindsight, Frost was far worse than Riley. At the time Frost was hired, he was coming off of a 13-0 season at UCF. At the time Mike Riley was hired, he was coming off of two 5-7 seasons at Oregon State.
Yes, so at bare minimum, we needed a coach who averaged 10 or more wins per season to replace Bo Pelini.
Or someone that was not a media disaster that won at the level Bo did. Not someone who had 2 losing seasons out of 3
Forget the averages. Look at a guy who built something and was winning at a high rate in his last 3-5 years. His first couple of years don’t mean much and can drag down his win percentage
