What event hurt worse?
- Thread starter Baxter48
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Frank by far because IMHO it was an overreaction. They basically threw out the baby with the bath water. They destroyed our identity and started over. Even though we had brought in a bunch of new coaches and had a decent season, they fired them and didn't give them a chance. Then they bungled the hiring process.
Also Frank had a 75.3% win percentage, played in a BCS game and still got fired. There were coaches who thought the expectations were too high.
Also Frank had a 75.3% win percentage, played in a BCS game and still got fired. There were coaches who thought the expectations were too high.
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The decisions to hire rank, fire Frank and hire Callahan were such huge decisions because we were at the pinnacle at that time. Yes, Riley sucked, but we were just holding onto Iowa type results under Pelini (OK better, but still).
The hiring of Frank. Followed by the hiring of Callahan, Pelini and Riley.
Terrible, inexcusably bad succession planning for a premium program that deserved better (to put it mildly) was the disease. Who we hired and fired along that "journey" were mere symptoms.
I should have added that, by not allowing Nebraska to find the top coach when TO was the biggest blunder
Sticking with original question, firing Solich by a mile. He had his bump in the road year and made changes to the coaching staff to come back with a good year only to be fired by an incompetent AD
Frank was a good but not a great head coach. Never was going to beat the best teams in the Big-12. It hurt because to the media and the public it was outrageous firing a coach with a 9-3 record.
If he was fired the previous year it would have made more sense to everyone.
I will always believe that a significant booster or three were behind the scenes of Frank getting canned. Somewhere in his time in the program, perhaps when he was still an assistant, he said or did something that really pissed someone off.
Firing of Frank before he clearly failed was devasting we turned our back on our greatest asset our great culture that took 30+ years to build and its been mostly downhill since.
Have to agree with all who said firing Frank was worse.
It was not so much the record that year that gave us a black eye for firing him, it was the fact that he replaced assistants, dramatically improved, and got fired anyway.
It was not so much the record that year that gave us a black eye for firing him, it was the fact that he replaced assistants, dramatically improved, and got fired anyway.
The firing of Frank Solich has been debated for 17 years. We really haven't come to any sort of conclusion yet?
Personally, I would have been fine had they fired Frank after the 2002 season. It would have been well deserved.
However, they gave Frank the chance to "right the ship" in 2003, and he did. It wasn't perfection, but it was back to the nine-win minimum expectation. (ten, actually) Not bad with so many new assistant coaches. Pelini had fixed a lot of the problems on defense. They were playing better. It made no sense to fire Frank at that time, because he had done what was asked.
Firing Frank after "righting the ship" sent a bad signal about the leadership, and made it much harder for the AD from hell to find a replacement. Desperation set in, giving us Callahan.
I don't know if the revamped Solich staff would have challenged for championships, but they would have done better than the three sub-nine win seasons Callahan gave us. Frank would have been in his 14th season as head coach (in theory) when Nebraska joined the Big Ten.
Personally, I would have been fine had they fired Frank after the 2002 season. It would have been well deserved.
However, they gave Frank the chance to "right the ship" in 2003, and he did. It wasn't perfection, but it was back to the nine-win minimum expectation. (ten, actually) Not bad with so many new assistant coaches. Pelini had fixed a lot of the problems on defense. They were playing better. It made no sense to fire Frank at that time, because he had done what was asked.
Firing Frank after "righting the ship" sent a bad signal about the leadership, and made it much harder for the AD from hell to find a replacement. Desperation set in, giving us Callahan.
I don't know if the revamped Solich staff would have challenged for championships, but they would have done better than the three sub-nine win seasons Callahan gave us. Frank would have been in his 14th season as head coach (in theory) when Nebraska joined the Big Ten.
Riley was a total bomb. I thought Frank was taking us down a dark path but Riley was the worst. People tied to sugarcoat it but everybody really knew it wouldn’t work the day he was hired.
Are we really debating this?
We killed the soul of our program in 2002 and 2003. Loyalty no longer meant anything to the big bad big red and we will continue to be cursed for it. We made Bohl, Barnes, and Darlington (Darlington was a part of the defensive staff for 30 years) the scape goats after 02 and made Frankie a dead man walking before 03 started, stripping him of OC duties. The saddest part and the one that we have to accept is that Frank may have transformed and moved to his Pistol attack to keep NU relevant & successful. OR he may have had a losing season in 04 giving Pederson all the reason in the world to fire him, giving us the ability to actually hire a premier coach that wasn't gun shy about going to a program that fires coaches for 9 win seasons.
Fun fact to ponder, Solich was a part of Bob Devaney's very first recruiting class at DONU! Solich spent 28 years at NU as a player & coach and we fired him in 5 minutes. As a fan, I'll never stop supporting the current players and staff but we deserve about a quarter-centuries worth of ass kickings for what we did to the men who built the foundation of our Blue Blood program.
We killed the soul of our program in 2002 and 2003. Loyalty no longer meant anything to the big bad big red and we will continue to be cursed for it. We made Bohl, Barnes, and Darlington (Darlington was a part of the defensive staff for 30 years) the scape goats after 02 and made Frankie a dead man walking before 03 started, stripping him of OC duties. The saddest part and the one that we have to accept is that Frank may have transformed and moved to his Pistol attack to keep NU relevant & successful. OR he may have had a losing season in 04 giving Pederson all the reason in the world to fire him, giving us the ability to actually hire a premier coach that wasn't gun shy about going to a program that fires coaches for 9 win seasons.
Fun fact to ponder, Solich was a part of Bob Devaney's very first recruiting class at DONU! Solich spent 28 years at NU as a player & coach and we fired him in 5 minutes. As a fan, I'll never stop supporting the current players and staff but we deserve about a quarter-centuries worth of ass kickings for what we did to the men who built the foundation of our Blue Blood program.
Inquiring minds would like to know why a hire that currently has the lowest winning percentage by far when compared to the original list of coaches isn't included
particularly when it has become obvious that the current level of unprecedented failure threatens to reset the bar so low that perhaps one day reaching mere mediocrity becomes viewed as great success
particularly when it has become obvious that the current level of unprecedented failure threatens to reset the bar so low that perhaps one day reaching mere mediocrity becomes viewed as great success
Alot here I agree with, but I think the debatable issue was if Frank righted the ship. Clearly the '03 record was improved, but 6 of the 9 wins were against teams with losing records, only one win was against a ranked opponent (#24 OK St) and the 3 losses were ugly. Almost assuredly staying with Frank would have had a better result than hiring Callahan, but doesn't mean he was the right guy for the job despite all his years with NU. A lot of similarities between Frank/NU and Gary Gibbs/OU and the aftermath after each were fired. Main difference is OU found the right guy 4 years later, we are at 17 and still in wait and see mode.
I'll say it was a tie. Going from an option team to a west coast offense right away with no qb's on the roster who could throw was incredibly stupid. But hiring a career loser head coach in Mike Riley was incredibly stupid as well. Both decisions set the program back years. I couldn't think of a better way to sabotage a program than those two decisions. The only thing that might come close is giving Frost a pass for the last 3 years while leading us to one of the worst stretches in Husker football history.
He did everything that the ad told him to do. Did it AND got better. Pederson thought he'd fail but didn't. Oh hell fire him anyway
I think asking about our history of firing and hiring coaches over the last 20 years is more like asking someone who has shot off both of their feet, "which one hurt worse?". Does it matter any more? Regardless of what posters who live in MInnesota think, I think we've hired the right guy now who will get it done.
Well no he didn't. His recruiting was a mess. Pederson had been a recruiting coordinator for Tom and when Pedie made some suggestions for improving recruiting (among other things), Frank told him to go F himself. There were multiple other problems with his staff that Frank refused to address as well.
I’ve heard the same thing from people that were closer to the inside, Frank figured the program would sell itself he refused to modernize the recruiting and every coach has to keep up with the times or other schools will pass you up. And you could see that is Frank’s last couple of recruiting classes
I have a family member who still knows the Solichs well. I love Frankie. He just blew his opportunity IMO. It would be fun to go back and relive that with Frank having the hindsight of what went wrong. I think IF he had it to do over again, he would do some things differently and succeed. I know one thing. From the Solich's own lips, they would have NOTHING to do with Bo if they had it to do over again.
Makes you wonder why TO hired Pelini if Frankie knew he wasn’t good for the job..
Family member claims that they told him that they told Tom to not hire him. Bo did NOT get a good reference from Frank. What is even more puzzling given what Carl did when he was a GA that Tom would allow Bo to bring Carl with him. History repeated itself. Bo's hiring was mostly about one very large and influential booster. Family's last name starts with H. Follow the money.
Maybe. I can see why it happened though. He basically dared Pedie to do it. IF it had not happened I think things would have really gone south that next year. All you have to do is go back and look at the roster he had coming back and his recruiting class. His last class was ranked down in the 40s and the one he was working on was really pathetic especially on the offensive side of the ball. The O line recruiting had really fallen off. You can't take class after class of 16 3 and 2 stars and hope to continue the success that Nebraska had enjoyed.
Yeah, because having coaches like callahan Riley and frost has been so friggin great.
We’re at the point where coaches, players, and fans dont even want to play another football game. What a complete joke we have become. Never woulda happened under solich, thats for sure.
firing solich was absolutely wrong. Upward trajectory, steve pederson lived in hypotheticals just like what you typed and that sure worked out.
Having those guys as coaches really has NOTHING to do with Frank getting fired. They are separate f ups. Solich was headed down the pipe. Hiring a DC who wouldn't recruit was the last thing he needed to do. I believe Frank was fired a year too early because he was going nowhere but down with the roster he had coming back. His QB and O line rooms were horrible. Maybe longer term he could have fixed it but it wouldn't have happened with Bo on the recruiting trail.
He had married coaches banging college girls. Forget the alcohol and drug abuse. It was a mess. Somebody I know well worked for the athletic department and knew exactly what was going on behind the scenes. Carl banged a married player's wife. It was like a year long frat party.
Carl seemed to do alright. Produced a top 5 defense in 2009 and close to top 10 in 2010. Whether he was banging boosters' wives or not makes no difference to me.
If that's a problem, why did we bring in a coach that was known for banging a lot of college girls up at Oregon?
Been different if it would have been your wife you’d look at it differently.. guaranteed.
A young assistant who isn't married banging college girls isn't probably all that unexpected. An older married assistant with children banging college coeds is not exactly encouraged. Knocking up an athletic department work study college student in the football offices is really frowned upon.
It wasn't just college girls. One guy had a problem with underage prostitutes. It's amazing the active lifestyle some of our assistants enjoyed on recruiting trips during Bo's tenure.
He did a really good job against Wisconsin's jet sweep. He's a loser. Once Suh and Crick were gone he was lost. Dirtbag loser.
He had to adjust from the pass happy Big 12 to the run heavy Big 10. Because we were in nickel and dime most of the time in the Big 12, we didn't have the type of linebackers we needed to be successful in the Big 10. We're perfectly willing to make excuses for a guy who's incapable of producing a top 40 defense. But when we're talking about a guy who produced one of the best defenses in Husker football history, we couldn't wait to chase him out just because we struggled for one year. That was for perfectly valid reasons too since we had to adjust to a completely new conference. You should know something about losers, you have backed nothing but losers the entire time you've posted here.
