I grew up during the pinnacle of the Golden Era of Nebraska football. My first Husker memory is watching Corey Schlesinger rumble into the end zone in the 1994 National Championship game. Witnessing those teams of the mid-90's at the tail-end of Nebraska's Golden Era, you cannot help but associate Nebraska football with dominance, discipline, and (damn near) perfection. Today's Husker fan is old enough to remember the Golden Era. If he did not live it, he heard about it constantly from someone who did, and he likely saw glimpses of it in players with names like Crouch, Raiola, and Brown. If you were to ask today's Nebraska fan what his expectation of excellence is, he'd probably provide some measuring stick that hearkens back to the Golden Era.
Excellence is being regularly ranked in the Top 10, winning your division, winning conference championships, playing for national championships. It should be uncontroversial and manifestly clear to everyone that we have not met these standards for quite some time. It's safe to conclude, then, for the better part of 20 years our team has not met the typical Husker fan's expectations.
Yet, despite all the miserable and inconsistent mediocrity for the better part of 20 years, it seems the one thing you have not seen the average Husker fan do is revise his definition of progress. When measured in the terms defined by Nebraska's Golden Era, "good enough" means "dominant," or something close to it, and "progress" is measured according to the invariant and nearly impossible standard of perfection. I've only witnessed two programs in my lifetime who were actually worthy of these standards. We've already been talking about the first and the second is the one down south with the coach who every failure that has coached at Nebraska since gets compared to. They are lauded as dynasties for a reason: it's because they are rare.
To both his credit and discredit, there is also no more passionate fan in football than the Nebraska fan. He cares, but it's time that he considers he might care too much. He sees Farniok whiff on block after block and wants Cavanaugh fired. He sees Lamar Jackson out of position or miss a tackle and wants him on the bench, assuming he must have been *promised* the starting job because he cannot fathom how Bootle or Stovall is any worse. Lee throws an errant pass and he wants Riley to strip Langsdorf of play calling duties. He said these same things about coaches named Cotton and Beck, about players named Lewis, Martinez, and Armstrong. He says all of this because he demands perfection and these guys make mistakes, far too many mistakes.
Let's be honest with ourselves. The typical Husker fan is entitled and obnoxiously oblivious to the present because he clings to a standard of excellence his team hasn't sniffed in nearly two decades. If one needs any evidence of this, when a mediocre program -- Iowa -- takes his team to the woodshed, he posts pictures of Iowa's trophy case as if that amounts to a refutation of the annoying Iowa fan's assertion that, as it currently stands, Iowa's program is superior to Nebraska's. He parades the standard of the Golden Era of Nebraska football as the current standard of Nebraska football, and in doing so he must lie to himself. He is talking about one thing, the Iowa fan something else, but what the Nebraska fan is talking about no longer exists and deep down he knows it. He is reminded of it nearly every Saturday.
What is your point -- should I not demand perfection? I'm not the first to say this, but no, you shouldn't. We have to move beyond the 20 year old standard of excellence, or, if we must cling to it, then we at least have to acknowledge we need a different standard for progress that does not earn its validity from it. The fan who insists on the antiquated standard of progress standard given the current state of Nebraska football is not only guilty of wishful thinking, he is guilty of self-sabotage. This concern is particularly relevant now because recently the typical Nebraska fan has taken his paranoia to a whole different level, one eerily reminiscent of 2002, 2007,and 2012. The coaching staff is not the only problem--it's the entire athletic department. It's not just Solich, Callahan, and Pelini. It's Boehm, Pederson, and (gasp!) Osborne.
Now he insists that the current AD does not actually want to win. He merely wants to put a smiley, family and PC-friendly face in front of the media, one who doesn't swear and whom you want to cheer for. One who can help the once honored Nebraska name recover from all the things Bo Pelini, and to a lesser extent Bill Callahan, did to tarnish it. And, of course, he wants to collect that fat B1G TV check. Supposedly our AD doesn't care about wins and losses, he cares only selling tickets, making money, and sell out streaks, and he's such an idiot he cannot even see far enough ahead to realize that if the product sucks, eventually the tickets won't sell, the money won't come in, and the sell out streaks will end.
I cannot possibly think of a more asinine premise upon which to base one's argument. When a person is hired to do a job that only about 20 people in the entire country are qualified to do, he is only considered in the first place because he has the highest possible credentials. He is then rewarded with a salary commensurate with the scrutiny, demands, and importance accompanying his position, which he accepts voluntarily and fully knowing. He is under no illusions. Despite this he does not do all he can to do the best job possible, and he even actively does not want to do the best he can. (Perhaps he is doing Alvarez's bidding! I mean, why not, we have already entered the theater of the absurd...). In desperation, this self-sabotaging fan then references Tim Miles as evidence of his preposterous stance, neglecting entirely the fact that Nebraska basketball and Nebraska football are in completely different stratospheres historically.
Or maybe Eichorst just has a more realistic view of the current state of Nebraska athletics?
No doubt many of you will read this as a defense of Riley and Eichrost, but nothing could be further from the truth. There is a difference -- a big difference -- between withholding judgment and offering support. What I wish each of us would do is soberly assess the current state of the program, without pointing fingers at the last coach/staff for our current failures, and come up with some goal that we think is realistic and attainable. A sensible standard.
Personally, I think that goal ought to be winning your division, competing in conference championships, and not getting blown out by Top 10 ranked opponents. If we can do that, or show good signs of moving in that direction, then I would take that to be progress. As much as part of me doesn't want to, I have to admit to myself that this goal is still within reach.
I think it's also easy to come up with a definition of what constitutes a lack of progress. Since we've only had 2 losing seasons during this miserable stretch of mediocrity, we can should be able to say that a losing record indicates not only a lack of progress, but a turn in the wrong direction. (A losing record can be justified in year 1 given the complications involved with installing a new system and accommodating old players who don't fit it, but it is unacceptable in year 3.) I don't know for sure if that's where we are headed, and I don't feel good about things as they currently stand, but I do know if we end up there it's not good enough.
Given the above definition of progress, which I take to be realistic and attainable (remember, in case
you forgot, conference play starts this weekend), no one should be calling for Riley and Eichorst to be fired. Those who are -- and I really don't think there are that many, though they are far too damn vocal -- have a flair for the melodramatic or are clinging to 20 year old standards of excellence and progress that do nothing but hurt our chances going forward. If we let our fears and insecurity take over us and talk about nothing but Scott Frost, Chip Kelly, dark horse candidates, demands for multiple assistant coaches to fired, and new ADs for the remainder of this season, what reason do we have to believe that we won't be exactly where we are right now 2-3 seasons from now? If the Husker fan who is demanding that these things happen could look beyond his antiquated standards of progress and excellence, perhaps he would see that he is part of the problem.
Again, that may sound like a defense of the current staff and administration to some, but it isn't. Honestly, it isn't. All it means is: let them finish the season, have the player's back, try to enjoy football season why it's here, then, once it's over, pass judgment.
