This is a spin off from the Diaco thread, this has some great info from Mr Chapman. I am sure this has been posted in the past but with the hire of Diaco it is important to recognize a potential shift towards the recipe Nebraska USED to utilize for success.
http://m.theindependent.com/sports/...5ee-7d15-11e4-9201-0b7e9511fa67.html?mode=jqm
Interesting notes:
While consistently standing in the top-15 in football revenue (i.e. the brand) during Pelini’s tenure, the Nebraska football team operated with budgets that ranked 26th, 25th, 19th, 39th, 30th and 27th, nationally.
Since 2008, only seven teams have won BCS bowl games with smaller budgets than Nebraska. Three of them (Utah, Boise State and Central Florida) were from non-power conferences. One was middling West Virginia program, which was in downtrodden Big East and ready to make the jump to the Big 12.
Where does Nebraska go moving forward and how does commitment lead to winning? Certainly the right coach needs to be in place, and that remains to be seen with Thursday’s hiring of former Oregon State coach Mike Riley. But, it’s also important that true commitment follows. Consider, of the top-four schools in the newly released college football playoff rankings, three teams in the top-six in spending in 2013. The other, Oregon, has the most lucrative apparel contract in the history of college athletics.
FULL ARTICLE (Author granted permission)
By Tony Chapman | Posted Dec 11, 2014
For the past 10-15 years, it seems Nebraska has identified the root of its football problem as coaching. A significant portion of the fan-base, perhaps spoiled by the 30-plus years of all-time coaching greatness and a top-15 commitment to facilities and budget, are comfortable placing the blame for the Cornhuskers’ decline on the shoulders Frank Solich, Bill Callahan and Bo Pelini — all who have been fired by NU since Tom Osborne finished his remarkable 25-year coaching run in Lincoln.
But what if it’s something else? Or, maybe a combination of factors? Certainly, Nebraska’s coaching has been above average, to say the least — save a four-year span in the mid-2000s. NU has fired three coaches since 2003, but two (Solich and Pelini) won at a combined .730 clip (125-46), captured four division titles, one conference title and played for a national championship.
Obviously, standards are high in Lincoln, but more on this later.
Some football history
A look at commitment can go back to the beginning of the Bob Devaney era. But for this exercise, the year 1967 was chosen. That is the year Devaney — then head football coach — became athletics director after Tippy Dye resigned to take the same position at Northwestern.
The landscape of college football in 1967 was really quite simple: Basically, a total of 10 schools had a chance to win the national championship in any given season. These schools included: Southern California, Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, Alabama and Georgia.
Need proof? From 1967-1980 only one team, Pittsburgh, which had the nation’s first-ever 6,000-yard running back in Tony Dorsett, was a national champ that didn’t come from those power-10 schools.
In today’s world, many fans would say that Bo Pelini didn’t win enough games and Osborne was always playing top-10 opponents. Given the data, the argument is that Osborne, because of high-level top-10 support and facilities, didn’t have to be a world-beater to be a top-10 coach. Beat all the non-power teams and the Huskers would be in position to win a national championship at the end of the season.
The additional advantages? Unlimited walk-ons, the power of a team playing on national TV when many fewer games were televised and a strength and conditioning program 20 years ahead of its time.
It was nearly impossible for Nebraska not to have a top-10 commitment to facilities and budget and program during this time. If you want to question NU’s financial commitment to the football program, it’s unclear where the data would come from.
By 1980, you should add three Florida schools (Florida, Florida State and Miami) to the mix of perennial national championship contenders. All put forth the resources necessary to become national players.
For the next 17 years, national champions came from this set of 13 schools in all but four seasons: Clemson (1982), BYU (1984), Colorado and Georgia Tech (1990) and Washington (1991); a title that was shared with Miami. Interestingly, all except BYU had to beat Nebraska during the season or in a bowl to win their respective national title.
This gives us a 31-year span of football where 26 seasons produced a national champion from a group of 13 power schools. What has happened since? A facilities arm race, billion-dollar TV contracts and conference re-alignment, just to name a few key changes. Simply put, teams have to keep pace to be relevant. Since 1997, the power-13 has still won 13 of the 17 national titles; only Tennessee, LSU and Auburn have broken the mold. All are Southeastern Conference (SEC) schools.
Remember Osborne? He lost 49 games in 25 seasons — 28 of them to the power-13 schools. An additional four losses (Clemson, Colorado, Georgia Tech and Washington) came to non-power champions. That accounts for 65.3 percent of Osborne’s losses in 25 years. Amazing what championship-level support for facilities and budget can do for a coach. And, what it meant — and still means — to the Nebraska program.
Nebraska’s recent slide
Meanwhile, the Huskers haven’t won a conference championship since 1999. Nebraska did play in the 2001 BCS national title game without even winning the Big 12 Conference’s North Division. Despite a 62-36 loss to Colorado, a series of upsets and unlikely events landed NU in the BCS title game where it lost to Miami (Florida).
In 2002, Nebraska was 7-7 under Solich, who was in his fifth season. Athletics director Bill Byrne bolted for Texas A&M on Dec. 2, 2002. Some would say Byrne left the athletics department in a shambles and Nebraska was falling behind in facilities. The data shows that Byrne’s department won eight national titles and 82 conference championships at Nebraska in his 11 years succeeding Devaney as AD.
Two things then took place: Nebraska Chancellor Harvey Perlman was tasked with finding an athletics director. And, in an effort to improve his football program, Solich replaced himself as offensive coordinator and let go five other assistants — as many as Osborne fired in his career. Solich hired two new coordinators and three other assistants.
On Dec. 20, 2002, Perlman hired Steve Pederson as Nebraska’s 12th athletics director. A North Platte native, Peterson had served as Nebraska’s director of football operations prior to becoming AD at Pittsburgh on Oct. 28, 1996. Less than one year into Pederson’s stint as Nebraska’s AD, he fired the head football coach on Nov. 30, 2003. Coincidentally, Solich was the last Huskers’ football coach to have a top-10 budget, nationally.
It was at approximately the time of the first firing (the 2003 season), that we can look at the financial commitment that Nebraska was making to its football program. Access to public data via the U.S. Department of Education reveals that NU hasn’t shown top-level financial support for the football program.
While consistently standing in the top-15 in football revenue (i.e. the brand) during Pelini’s tenure, the Nebraska football team operated with budgets that ranked 26th, 25th, 19th, 39th, 30th and 27th, nationally.
NU joins the Big Ten
This piece is not being written, however, to condone Pelini’s teams losing at home with seven turnovers, to constantly be at odds with the media or that it’s acceptable for Nebraska to be blown out 70-31 in the Big Ten Conference championship game on national TV. It’s being written to show that if Nebraska is indeed serious about winning championships, the athletics program hasn’t backed its verbal commitment with dollars in quite some time.
Since joining the Big Ten, Nebraska has finished no worse than fourth in revenue (behind only Penn State, Michigan and Ohio State — all power-13 schools), yet NU’s three-year average in spending is eighth. Looking at trajectory might produce even more concern as Minnesota, while maintaining 30th in revenue for three straight years, has jumped from 49th to 16th in financial commitment.
Some might say this is a result of the Pelini era and the results it brought. That may be well and good, but if Nebraska was well-intentioned when it fired Solich, why did Callahan and Pederson work with budgets that were ranked 28th, 40th, 31st and 11th, nationally and fifth, sixth, fifth and fourth in the Big 12 Conference? Remember how Nebraska was not going to “gravitate toward mediocrity” and “surrender the Big 12 to Oklahoma and Texas?” In fact, based on commitment, it did just that.
It should be added that Nebraska has put forward its first athletic budget in history for 2014 that is north of $100 million. Maybe things have changed, but it’s curious to look at given the timing of recent events.
Where does Nebraska go moving forward and how does commitment lead to winning? Certainly the right coach needs to be in place, and that remains to be seen with Thursday’s hiring of former Oregon State coach Mike Riley. But, it’s also important that true commitment follows. Consider, of the top-four schools in the newly released college football playoff rankings, three teams in the top-six in spending in 2013. The other, Oregon, has the most lucrative apparel contract in the history of college athletics.
The numbers game
So, just how is important is financial commitment to college football success? Since 2003, only one national champion has come from outside the top 10 in spending (LSU in 2007). Only two other title-game participants came from outside the top 10 (Oregon in 2010 and LSU in 2011).
Since 2008, only seven teams have won BCS bowl games with smaller budgets than Nebraska. Three of them (Utah, Boise State and Central Florida) were from non-power conferences. One was middling West Virginia program, which was in downtrodden Big East and ready to make the jump to the Big 12.
The other three wins? Oregon, which has been previously discussed and two wins from Stanford. It should be noted that Stanford pays its head coach and two coordinators from a university endowment and it is not certain whether this comes from reported expenses.
So, is Nebraska still relevant and elite? The brand and revenue say yes. Other facts make you wonder.
Still, the Huskers’ heading coaching position is absolutely a job that others should want. Why? When looking at 1967-2013 national champions, only nine schools outside the power 13 schools initially listed have won a title.
All have done it just once, except LSU. So, if the math is right that’s 46 national championships with 39.5 football titles won by the power-13 teams. That’s still a .858 chance these teams will win a national title each year, given the data.
The only question that remains is simple: Is Nebraska ready to commit?
Tony Chapman covers Husker football and prep sports for The Independent. Follow him on Twitter.
http://m.theindependent.com/sports/...5ee-7d15-11e4-9201-0b7e9511fa67.html?mode=jqm
Interesting notes:
While consistently standing in the top-15 in football revenue (i.e. the brand) during Pelini’s tenure, the Nebraska football team operated with budgets that ranked 26th, 25th, 19th, 39th, 30th and 27th, nationally.
Since 2008, only seven teams have won BCS bowl games with smaller budgets than Nebraska. Three of them (Utah, Boise State and Central Florida) were from non-power conferences. One was middling West Virginia program, which was in downtrodden Big East and ready to make the jump to the Big 12.
Where does Nebraska go moving forward and how does commitment lead to winning? Certainly the right coach needs to be in place, and that remains to be seen with Thursday’s hiring of former Oregon State coach Mike Riley. But, it’s also important that true commitment follows. Consider, of the top-four schools in the newly released college football playoff rankings, three teams in the top-six in spending in 2013. The other, Oregon, has the most lucrative apparel contract in the history of college athletics.
FULL ARTICLE (Author granted permission)
By Tony Chapman | Posted Dec 11, 2014
For the past 10-15 years, it seems Nebraska has identified the root of its football problem as coaching. A significant portion of the fan-base, perhaps spoiled by the 30-plus years of all-time coaching greatness and a top-15 commitment to facilities and budget, are comfortable placing the blame for the Cornhuskers’ decline on the shoulders Frank Solich, Bill Callahan and Bo Pelini — all who have been fired by NU since Tom Osborne finished his remarkable 25-year coaching run in Lincoln.
But what if it’s something else? Or, maybe a combination of factors? Certainly, Nebraska’s coaching has been above average, to say the least — save a four-year span in the mid-2000s. NU has fired three coaches since 2003, but two (Solich and Pelini) won at a combined .730 clip (125-46), captured four division titles, one conference title and played for a national championship.
Obviously, standards are high in Lincoln, but more on this later.
Some football history
A look at commitment can go back to the beginning of the Bob Devaney era. But for this exercise, the year 1967 was chosen. That is the year Devaney — then head football coach — became athletics director after Tippy Dye resigned to take the same position at Northwestern.
The landscape of college football in 1967 was really quite simple: Basically, a total of 10 schools had a chance to win the national championship in any given season. These schools included: Southern California, Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, Alabama and Georgia.
Need proof? From 1967-1980 only one team, Pittsburgh, which had the nation’s first-ever 6,000-yard running back in Tony Dorsett, was a national champ that didn’t come from those power-10 schools.
In today’s world, many fans would say that Bo Pelini didn’t win enough games and Osborne was always playing top-10 opponents. Given the data, the argument is that Osborne, because of high-level top-10 support and facilities, didn’t have to be a world-beater to be a top-10 coach. Beat all the non-power teams and the Huskers would be in position to win a national championship at the end of the season.
The additional advantages? Unlimited walk-ons, the power of a team playing on national TV when many fewer games were televised and a strength and conditioning program 20 years ahead of its time.
It was nearly impossible for Nebraska not to have a top-10 commitment to facilities and budget and program during this time. If you want to question NU’s financial commitment to the football program, it’s unclear where the data would come from.
By 1980, you should add three Florida schools (Florida, Florida State and Miami) to the mix of perennial national championship contenders. All put forth the resources necessary to become national players.
For the next 17 years, national champions came from this set of 13 schools in all but four seasons: Clemson (1982), BYU (1984), Colorado and Georgia Tech (1990) and Washington (1991); a title that was shared with Miami. Interestingly, all except BYU had to beat Nebraska during the season or in a bowl to win their respective national title.
This gives us a 31-year span of football where 26 seasons produced a national champion from a group of 13 power schools. What has happened since? A facilities arm race, billion-dollar TV contracts and conference re-alignment, just to name a few key changes. Simply put, teams have to keep pace to be relevant. Since 1997, the power-13 has still won 13 of the 17 national titles; only Tennessee, LSU and Auburn have broken the mold. All are Southeastern Conference (SEC) schools.
Remember Osborne? He lost 49 games in 25 seasons — 28 of them to the power-13 schools. An additional four losses (Clemson, Colorado, Georgia Tech and Washington) came to non-power champions. That accounts for 65.3 percent of Osborne’s losses in 25 years. Amazing what championship-level support for facilities and budget can do for a coach. And, what it meant — and still means — to the Nebraska program.
Nebraska’s recent slide
Meanwhile, the Huskers haven’t won a conference championship since 1999. Nebraska did play in the 2001 BCS national title game without even winning the Big 12 Conference’s North Division. Despite a 62-36 loss to Colorado, a series of upsets and unlikely events landed NU in the BCS title game where it lost to Miami (Florida).
In 2002, Nebraska was 7-7 under Solich, who was in his fifth season. Athletics director Bill Byrne bolted for Texas A&M on Dec. 2, 2002. Some would say Byrne left the athletics department in a shambles and Nebraska was falling behind in facilities. The data shows that Byrne’s department won eight national titles and 82 conference championships at Nebraska in his 11 years succeeding Devaney as AD.
Two things then took place: Nebraska Chancellor Harvey Perlman was tasked with finding an athletics director. And, in an effort to improve his football program, Solich replaced himself as offensive coordinator and let go five other assistants — as many as Osborne fired in his career. Solich hired two new coordinators and three other assistants.
On Dec. 20, 2002, Perlman hired Steve Pederson as Nebraska’s 12th athletics director. A North Platte native, Peterson had served as Nebraska’s director of football operations prior to becoming AD at Pittsburgh on Oct. 28, 1996. Less than one year into Pederson’s stint as Nebraska’s AD, he fired the head football coach on Nov. 30, 2003. Coincidentally, Solich was the last Huskers’ football coach to have a top-10 budget, nationally.
It was at approximately the time of the first firing (the 2003 season), that we can look at the financial commitment that Nebraska was making to its football program. Access to public data via the U.S. Department of Education reveals that NU hasn’t shown top-level financial support for the football program.
While consistently standing in the top-15 in football revenue (i.e. the brand) during Pelini’s tenure, the Nebraska football team operated with budgets that ranked 26th, 25th, 19th, 39th, 30th and 27th, nationally.
NU joins the Big Ten
This piece is not being written, however, to condone Pelini’s teams losing at home with seven turnovers, to constantly be at odds with the media or that it’s acceptable for Nebraska to be blown out 70-31 in the Big Ten Conference championship game on national TV. It’s being written to show that if Nebraska is indeed serious about winning championships, the athletics program hasn’t backed its verbal commitment with dollars in quite some time.
Since joining the Big Ten, Nebraska has finished no worse than fourth in revenue (behind only Penn State, Michigan and Ohio State — all power-13 schools), yet NU’s three-year average in spending is eighth. Looking at trajectory might produce even more concern as Minnesota, while maintaining 30th in revenue for three straight years, has jumped from 49th to 16th in financial commitment.
Some might say this is a result of the Pelini era and the results it brought. That may be well and good, but if Nebraska was well-intentioned when it fired Solich, why did Callahan and Pederson work with budgets that were ranked 28th, 40th, 31st and 11th, nationally and fifth, sixth, fifth and fourth in the Big 12 Conference? Remember how Nebraska was not going to “gravitate toward mediocrity” and “surrender the Big 12 to Oklahoma and Texas?” In fact, based on commitment, it did just that.
It should be added that Nebraska has put forward its first athletic budget in history for 2014 that is north of $100 million. Maybe things have changed, but it’s curious to look at given the timing of recent events.
Where does Nebraska go moving forward and how does commitment lead to winning? Certainly the right coach needs to be in place, and that remains to be seen with Thursday’s hiring of former Oregon State coach Mike Riley. But, it’s also important that true commitment follows. Consider, of the top-four schools in the newly released college football playoff rankings, three teams in the top-six in spending in 2013. The other, Oregon, has the most lucrative apparel contract in the history of college athletics.
The numbers game
So, just how is important is financial commitment to college football success? Since 2003, only one national champion has come from outside the top 10 in spending (LSU in 2007). Only two other title-game participants came from outside the top 10 (Oregon in 2010 and LSU in 2011).
Since 2008, only seven teams have won BCS bowl games with smaller budgets than Nebraska. Three of them (Utah, Boise State and Central Florida) were from non-power conferences. One was middling West Virginia program, which was in downtrodden Big East and ready to make the jump to the Big 12.
The other three wins? Oregon, which has been previously discussed and two wins from Stanford. It should be noted that Stanford pays its head coach and two coordinators from a university endowment and it is not certain whether this comes from reported expenses.
So, is Nebraska still relevant and elite? The brand and revenue say yes. Other facts make you wonder.
Still, the Huskers’ heading coaching position is absolutely a job that others should want. Why? When looking at 1967-2013 national champions, only nine schools outside the power 13 schools initially listed have won a title.
All have done it just once, except LSU. So, if the math is right that’s 46 national championships with 39.5 football titles won by the power-13 teams. That’s still a .858 chance these teams will win a national title each year, given the data.
The only question that remains is simple: Is Nebraska ready to commit?
Tony Chapman covers Husker football and prep sports for The Independent. Follow him on Twitter.
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