Honestly, none of the coaches out there appear to be a slam dunk for Nebraska. I'm not trying to say that any of them are bad coaches, but bad as Frost ended up, at least at the beginning the large majority of fans were excited and on-board hoping for the best. Now in 2022, I feel like whoever the pick is it will be similar to Riley when there was a lot of immediate resistance from a good chunk of the fan base. This is because there are so many question marks surrounding a lot of the top coaches.
Is there really a slam dunk candidate out there? Honestly, I kind of just hope that Mickey can win the West, I think he would get the support of Husker nation. Unfortunately, he is in such a bad spot as far as our talent goes that it's almost an impossible scenario.
- Matt Rhule. What's his current reputation? Failure. He got fired for losing too much. How's that going to excite kids today for recruiting? At Baylor he never beat a ranked team.
- Urban Meyer: Great coach. Huge question marks on his health and commitment. I don't see him being interested in a rebuild. If he goes back to college coaching, it's going to be for a talented team in a great recruiting market.
- Matt Campbell: Another good coach, but he's in year 7 now (I believe) and his offense stinks. That loss to KSU at home was ugly. I don't see him flipping the switch here at Nebraska. I see him at best as a stabilizing force that gets us back to bowl games but I don't don't see championships.
- Lance Leipold - Honestly, I like a lot of what I see from this guy. Kansas was an absolute door mat when he got there, I think they had gone two years or something like that without even winning a game and has turned things around quickly. The only thing that concerns me here is that Frost did the same thing at UCF. At least Leipold has an extra year of consistency and much more HC experience if you throw in his time at Buffalo. Also, I like the fact that he is already used to recruiting in the Plains. Was a former Nebraska coach. But is this a big enough "name" to unify the Husker fan base?
- Bill O'Brien - Another good X's and O's guy. Stabilized PSU, but was only there for one season. How much do we really know about that season? Made devastating personnel decisions in the NFL that set the Texans from being a consistent playoff team to a doormat. Can he evaluate talent?
- Dave Aranda - Let's tap the brakes here. He has only 3 years of HC experience, and one good season.
- Luke Fickell - He's a great coach, no doubt. But he's an Ohio guy that appears to love Cincinnati. His son is going to school there and he's got a good thing going, with a recent invite to the Big 12 and great recruiting territory. Maybe he's waiting for OSU to open up? Last year Oklahoma, LSU, Notre Dame were all available. Would he really want to uproot his family for Nebraska???
- Chris Klieman - He appears to have fixed Adrian somewhat, and avoided the 4th quarter blunders that plagued Adrian's time here...although the fix seems to be using his legs and not his arm. Anyway, as far as his HC tenure at KSU...outside of this season all his other ones would be considered fireable at Nebraska, although I guess 8-5 would be a big improvement. Does he have a higher ceiling than that?
- P.J. Fleck - No. Please no.
- Dave Doeren - He's had success at NC State but has it been great? They've only finished ranked twice in 9 years. Not a big name in my opinion and we can do better.
- Troy Calhoun - I would love a guy like this; restore the traditional running game. When he was the OC for Wake Forest they led the ACC in offense. Got 4000 yards passing out of Matt Schaub in his one year as a NFL OC. I think the guy is a great coach who could consistently win the West, but again I'm not sure there would be unified support in Nebraska. I think people are looking for that big name.
Is there really a slam dunk candidate out there? Honestly, I kind of just hope that Mickey can win the West, I think he would get the support of Husker nation. Unfortunately, he is in such a bad spot as far as our talent goes that it's almost an impossible scenario.
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