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OT: WTF is wrong with Nebraska?

CougPatrol

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Dec 8, 2006
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I know we've discussed this before on here, but I have nothing going on tonight and I'm watching Nebraska vs. Rutgers, and it's astonishing to me how far Nebraska has fallen.

I understand their geographic challenges and how the collegiate football landscape has changed, but my God. This is a program that STILL consistently pulls in top-30 recruiting classes and STILL ranks 10th in college football revenue, yet they can't beat the likes of Georgia Southern, Northwesters, Rutgers, etc.

If WSU played them this season, I think we'd beat them by 14+ points at Nebraska. How is that even possible?
 
I know we've discussed this before on here, but I have nothing going on tonight and I'm watching Nebraska vs. Rutgers, and it's astonishing to me how far Nebraska has fallen.

I understand their geographic challenges and how the collegiate football landscape has changed, but my God. This is a program that STILL consistently pulls in top-30 recruiting classes and STILL ranks 10th in college football revenue, yet they can't beat the likes of Georgia Southern, Northwesters, Rutgers, etc.

If WSU played them this season, I think we'd beat them by 14+ points at Nebraska. How is that even possible?
We know and its been proven that the recruiting rankings are rigged, which begs the question: how many 3 and 4 star Nebraska recruits are ranked so because of who recruited them? Also, how much longer will Nebraska be able to carry that cache of being a premier program to where they get rankings bumps for their players? To that end, I'm guessing that their recruiting classes are nowhere near as good as reported.

Combine that with administration that doesn't care about the football program and you get Nebraska (my supposition).
 
We know and its been proven that the recruiting rankings are rigged, which begs the question: how many 3 and 4 star Nebraska recruits are ranked so because of who recruited them? Also, how much longer will Nebraska be able to carry that cache of being a premier program to where they get rankings bumps for their players? To that end, I'm guessing that their recruiting classes are nowhere near as good as reported.

Combine that with administration that doesn't care about the football program and you get Nebraska (my supposition).
Dude, they're the 10th highest grossing program in football. Trust me, their administration cares. Recruiting rankings inflated? OK, that's possible, but inflated over Kansas State, Iowa State, Kansas, Iowa, OK State, Minnesota? I don't think so.

Mike Leach wins 8 games/year at Nebraska. Why can't they find someone who can turn it around? If I were their AD, I could.
 
I know we've discussed this before on here, but I have nothing going on tonight and I'm watching Nebraska vs. Rutgers, and it's astonishing to me how far Nebraska has fallen.

I understand their geographic challenges and how the collegiate football landscape has changed, but my God. This is a program that STILL consistently pulls in top-30 recruiting classes and STILL ranks 10th in college football revenue, yet they can't beat the likes of Georgia Southern, Northwesters, Rutgers, etc.

If WSU played them this season, I think we'd beat them by 14+ points at Nebraska. How is that even possible?
Just enjoy the dumpster fire. Their fan base have been asshats forever.
 
We know and its been proven that the recruiting rankings are rigged, which begs the question: how many 3 and 4 star Nebraska recruits are ranked so because of who recruited them? Also, how much longer will Nebraska be able to carry that cache of being a premier program to where they get rankings bumps for their players? To that end, I'm guessing that their recruiting classes are nowhere near as good as reported.

Combine that with administration that doesn't care about the football program and you get Nebraska (my supposition).
To say that Nebraska’s administration doesn’t care about football is 100% insane; football is EVERYTHING in Nebraska.
 
I know we've discussed this before on here, but I have nothing going on tonight and I'm watching Nebraska vs. Rutgers, and it's astonishing to me how far Nebraska has fallen.

I understand their geographic challenges and how the collegiate football landscape has changed, but my God. This is a program that STILL consistently pulls in top-30 recruiting classes and STILL ranks 10th in college football revenue, yet they can't beat the likes of Georgia Southern, Northwesters, Rutgers, etc.

If WSU played them this season, I think we'd beat them by 14+ points at Nebraska. How is that even possible?
maybe this illustrates the bias in some of the recruiting rankings
 
Dude, they're the 10th highest grossing program in football. Trust me, their administration cares. Recruiting rankings inflated? OK, that's possible, but inflated over Kansas State, Iowa State, Kansas, Iowa, OK State, Minnesota? I don't think so.

Mike Leach wins 8 games/year at Nebraska. Why can't they find someone who can turn it around? If I were their AD, I could.

Yeah I am surprised his name hasn't come up. I think he would be a good fit there.

Maybe Oklahoma goes after him. Doesn't look like their experiment is working
 
I know we've discussed this before on here, but I have nothing going on tonight and I'm watching Nebraska vs. Rutgers, and it's astonishing to me how far Nebraska has fallen.

I understand their geographic challenges and how the collegiate football landscape has changed, but my God. This is a program that STILL consistently pulls in top-30 recruiting classes and STILL ranks 10th in college football revenue, yet they can't beat the likes of Georgia Southern, Northwesters, Rutgers, etc.

If WSU played them this season, I think we'd beat them by 14+ points at Nebraska. How is that even possible?
Well, it starts with hiring coaches like Scott Frost. Here is a guy who got into several dust ups with the golf team and the golf coach because he and his buddies were constantly hogging the golf simulator (in Season). His apparent lack of work ethic was down right Rolo-like. There is no substitute to doing leg work before you hire. They didn't with Callahan, Pelini or Riley, a guy in his 60s. They hired the right guy in Solich, who did better than Devaney and Osborn in their first 6 years, but they had delusions of grandeur at that point and they haven't recovered.
 
Pelini was a decent coach and won, just not enough at N. I wasn’t a fan, but he was decent.
 
Well, it starts with hiring coaches like Scott Frost. Here is a guy who got into several dust ups with the golf team and the golf coach because he and his buddies were constantly hogging the golf simulator (in Season). His apparent lack of work ethic was down right Rolo-like. There is no substitute to doing leg work before you hire. They didn't with Callahan, Pelini or Riley, a guy in his 60s. They hired the right guy in Solich, who did better than Devaney and Osborn in their first 6 years, but they had delusions of grandeur at that point and they haven't recovered.

The football gods are still pissed about their treatment of Solich...and they are still being punished for it
 
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Well, it starts with hiring coaches like Scott Frost. Here is a guy who got into several dust ups with the golf team and the golf coach because he and his buddies were constantly hogging the golf simulator (in Season). His apparent lack of work ethic was down right Rolo-like. There is no substitute to doing leg work before you hire. They didn't with Callahan, Pelini or Riley, a guy in his 60s. They hired the right guy in Solich, who did better than Devaney and Osborn in their first 6 years, but they had delusions of grandeur at that point and they haven't recovered.
You hit on the problem without identifying it. Nebraska athletics has attracted a bunch of sketchy characters eager to start whisper campaigns against figures in order to improve their positions within the department. Every former power that underperforms has this problem. As more money feeds into the machine, the more insane the demands of deep pocketed boosters become.
 
Just enjoy the dumpster fire. Their fan base have been asshats forever.
Like any other fan base, Nebraska probably has some annoying followers. But I have gotten to know several of their fans since I moved to the Midwest and they are really good people. I'm sure it's tough for them to see the new reality of Nebraska athletics since they moved to the Big 10, but I don't see that it has made them nasty.

Glad Cougar
 
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I think they need a bigger stadium.

Sorry... I couldn't resist.

Seriously though... they need a coach like Leach to bring in a new/unique identity. I mean really... what are they?

Talk about a historical name only.

They need to get the biggest Offensive line possible. Run something similar to a wishbone. Never let other teams have the ball.

Or move the stadium to Ellensburg
 
I think they need a bigger stadium.

Sorry... I couldn't resist.

Seriously though... they need a coach like Leach to bring in a new/unique identity. I mean really... what are they?

Talk about a historical name only.

They need to get the biggest Offensive line possible. Run something similar to a wishbone. Never let other teams have the ball.

Or move the stadium to Ellensburg
If they added 30k cold bleachers they’d instantly be back on the map and competing for natties. Empty seats =‘talent = championships…Biggsmath
 
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That is the exact opposite of what I have heard about their fans.

Calling Nebraska fans asshats is a matter of perspective. Their fans aren't rude jerks the way that many fanbases can be. However, having watched the Cornhuskers in person in 1995.....there are few fanbases that exuded arrogance and douchebaggery more than Cornhusker fans. The "great" fans were not particularly gruntled when their mighty Cornhuskers were trailing lowly WSU 7-0 late in the first quarter.

They were fine once they were up 28-7 at halftime and they could fall back on their "you have a nice little team" bullsh!t but there were 70,000 clinched up buttholes before that. Few fanbases deserve their fall from grace more than the Cornhuskers.
 
Calling Nebraska fans asshats is a matter of perspective. Their fans aren't rude jerks the way that many fanbases can be. However, having watched the Cornhuskers in person in 1995.....there are few fanbases that exuded arrogance and douchebaggery more than Cornhusker fans. The "great" fans were not particularly gruntled when their mighty Cornhuskers were trailing lowly WSU 7-0 late in the first quarter.

They were fine once they were up 28-7 at halftime and they could fall back on their "you have a nice little team" bullsh!t but there were 70,000 clinched up buttholes before that. Few fanbases deserve their fall from grace more than the Cornhuskers.
Think if it was possible to capture the energy of 70,000 'clinched up buttholes.'
 
Incompetent hiring can sink even the most seaworthy of ships.

I think that is all that needs to be said. UW did well with Peterson. If not for that hire, they may have been another Nebraska. SC had a string of poor choices. UCLA went a decade or two without the right guy. Nebraska appears to only hire by committee. The problem with that is that the committee is no better than its worst member.
 
Incompetent hiring can sink even the most seaworthy of ships.

I think that is all that needs to be said. UW did well with Peterson. If not for that hire, they may have been another Nebraska. SC had a string of poor choices. UCLA went a decade or two without the right guy. Nebraska appears to only hire by committee. The problem with that is that the committee is no better than its worst member.

Hiring Moos? Or hiring Frost?

Both?
 
Hiring Moos? Or hiring Frost?

Both?
Hard to evaluate that. Moos was directed at the time he was interviewed and then hired at Nebraska that his first job was to hire Frost. So I can't really hang that on Bill. If other hires since then have failed, that would certainly be on Bill.

Crimson glasses aside, Bill had both wins and losses in his hiring choices at Montana, Whoregon and WSU. Some big wins and some big losses. If I pull Ernie Kent out of the WSU group, I'd call the rest of his WSU time as pretty good on balance, and Leach was not the only good hire. The Kent fiasco soured me so much that it was hard to put the rest in perspective, however. We paid more for less and put the hoops program into such a hole with Ernie that I tend to lose the ability to look at it all on an objective basis.
 
Just enjoy the dumpster fire. Their fan base have been asshats forever.
I also went to UGA and we had a string of playing them like 3 or 4 times under Richt. Went to most of those games and they were always the friendliest fans I've ever met. Never met a bad one.
 
Ernie was a great salesman, but a horrible coach. He had enough success under his belt to fool A LOT of people.

The negative people on Moos are really in more of a "just shut up" category. I mean seriously... Moos took us out of shit land from Wulff to Leach and got us on ESPN Game Day. The Leach hire saved all of WSU.

I'm pretty sure we had more weeks "ranked" under Leach than any other coach in our history.

Again... a REAL Cougar Thank You Moos!
 
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Ernie was a great salesman, but a horrible coach. He had enough success under his belt to fool A LOT of people.

The negative people on Moos are really in more of a "just shut up" category. I mean seriously... Moos took us out of shit land from Wulff to Leach and got us on ESPN Game Day. The Leach hire saved all of WSU.

I'm pretty sure we had more weeks "ranked" under Leach than any other coach in our history.

Again... a REAL Cougar Thank You Moos!

Oh no. Back on the No Bowl Ticket List/Doesn't Meet the definition of a real Coug roster again.

Somehow, I'll cope.
 
Ernie was a great salesman, but a horrible coach. He had enough success under his belt to fool A LOT of people.

The negative people on Moos are really in more of a "just shut up" category. I mean seriously... Moos took us out of shit land from Wulff to Leach and got us on ESPN Game Day. The Leach hire saved all of WSU.

I'm pretty sure we had more weeks "ranked" under Leach than any other coach in our history.

Again... a REAL Cougar Thank You Moos!
I feel like it’s important to point out that Moos also chaired the search that gave us Wulff in the first place. The Leach hire was fixing the earlier mistake, and it could be argued he owed us that.

It took 7 more years to get Gameday, so Leach gets a lot more credit for that than Moos does, in my mind. And Minshew gets more than Leach.
 
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We know and its been proven that the recruiting rankings are rigged, which begs the question: how many 3 and 4 star Nebraska recruits are ranked so because of who recruited them? Also, how much longer will Nebraska be able to carry that cache of being a premier program to where they get rankings bumps for their players? To that end, I'm guessing that their recruiting classes are nowhere near as good as reported.

Combine that with administration that doesn't care about the football program and you get Nebraska (my supposition).
Once you get past the top 10 to 12 recruiting classes, the difference between the classes begins to get a little mushy. Once you get past number 25, it becomes more and more of a crap shoot. There is little difference between a class ranked 35 and a class ranked 55, regardless of stars, and if a recruit is called a high ranked three or a mid ranked three. You see it when a no name 2 star shows up in August and rips the ass off a 3 star. Nebraska has always fought way above its weight class when you consider the fact that the state only has something like a million and a half people in it, and for all intents, no African Americans. There are many positives to the HC job at Nebraska. Fantastic facilities, dedicated fan base (no pro sports in the state). Recruiting is not one of them.
 
I feel like it’s important to point out that Moos also chaired the search that gave us Wulff in the first place. The Leach hire was fixing the earlier mistake, and it could be argued he owed us that.

It took 7 more years to get Gameday, so Leach gets a lot more credit for that than Moos does, in my mind. And Minshew gets more than Leach.
Tom Pounds and the countless numbers of Ol' Crimson wavers over the years deserve 99% of the credit for Gameday.

Note Gameday in Pullman didn't happen until Chun was AD so there's that.
 
Ernie was a great salesman, but a horrible coach. He had enough success under his belt to fool A LOT of people.

The negative people on Moos are really in more of a "just shut up" category. I mean seriously... Moos took us out of shit land from Wulff to Leach and got us on ESPN Game Day. The Leach hire saved all of WSU.

I'm pretty sure we had more weeks "ranked" under Leach than any other coach in our history.

Again... a REAL Cougar Thank You Moos!

You apparently became a Coug fan after this fella that used to coach at WSU named Mike Price.

Seasons that we finished ranked under Leach: 1 - 2018 (#10)

Seasons that we finished ranked under Price: 6 - 1992 (#15), 1994 (#21), 1997 (#9), 2001 (#10), 2002 (#10), 2003 (#9).

No offense to Leach, but in terms of great WSU teams, he was not worthy of holding Mike Price's jockstrap. Leach was more consistent than Price, but he is not in the discussion when it came to having Top 25 teams.

Just for kicks, I looked up our number of weeks ranked in the Top 25 for Leach.

2015 (2) peaked at #20
2016 (4) peaked at #20
2017 (15) peaked at #8...ranked #24 in preseason poll
2018 (9) peaked at #8....only season that we finished ranked under Leach.
2019 (4) peaked at #19....ranked #23 in preseason poll

ESPN only goes back to 2002, but we were ranked in every week of 2002, started at #7 and peaked at #3. We were an Apple Cup injury to Jason Gesser and an Ohio State 4th down conversion from playing in the national championship.

Under Price:
1989 (7) peaked at #15 before the Stallworth injury took us from 6-1 to 6-5.
1992 (6) peaked at #15
1993 (1) peaked at #25 right before we lost four straight to end the season when Pattinson got hurt.
1994 (12) peaked at #16
1997 (12) peaked at #9
2001 (10) peaked at #8
2002 (16) peaked at #3 (an Apple Cup injury to Jason Gesser and an Ohio State 4th down conversion from playing in the national championship)
2003 (12) peaked at #6

So...Price was ranked more in his last three seasons than Leach was eight seasons. The Cougs were ranked in 76 weeks of Price's tenure. Leach teams were ranked in 34 weeks of his tenure. Even factoring in the longer time that Price was at WSU, he did a better job than Leach.
 
I feel like it’s important to point out that Moos also chaired the search that gave us Wulff in the first place. The Leach hire was fixing the earlier mistake, and it could be argued he owed us that.

It took 7 more years to get Gameday, so Leach gets a lot more credit for that than Moos does, in my mind. And Minshew gets more than Leach.
I’d like to know what the budget was for a HC when Wulff was hired before I crucified Moos for his involvement.
 
You apparently became a Coug fan after this fella that used to coach at WSU named Mike Price.

Seasons that we finished ranked under Leach: 1 - 2018 (#10)

Seasons that we finished ranked under Price: 6 - 1992 (#15), 1994 (#21), 1997 (#9), 2001 (#10), 2002 (#10), 2003 (#9).

No offense to Leach, but in terms of great WSU teams, he was not worthy of holding Mike Price's jockstrap. Leach was more consistent than Price, but he is not in the discussion when it came to having Top 25 teams.

Just for kicks, I looked up our number of weeks ranked in the Top 25 for Leach.

2015 (2) peaked at #20
2016 (4) peaked at #20
2017 (15) peaked at #8...ranked #24 in preseason poll
2018 (9) peaked at #8....only season that we finished ranked under Leach.
2019 (4) peaked at #19....ranked #23 in preseason poll

ESPN only goes back to 2002, but we were ranked in every week of 2002, started at #7 and peaked at #3. We were an Apple Cup injury to Jason Gesser and an Ohio State 4th down conversion from playing in the national championship.

Under Price:
1989 (7) peaked at #15 before the Stallworth injury took us from 6-1 to 6-5.
1992 (6) peaked at #15
1993 (1) peaked at #25 right before we lost four straight to end the season when Pattinson got hurt.
1994 (12) peaked at #16
1997 (12) peaked at #9
2001 (10) peaked at #8
2002 (16) peaked at #3 (an Apple Cup injury to Jason Gesser and an Ohio State 4th down conversion from playing in the national championship)
2003 (12) peaked at #6

So...Price was ranked more in his last three seasons than Leach was eight seasons. The Cougs were ranked in 76 weeks of Price's tenure. Leach teams were ranked in 34 weeks of his tenure. Even factoring in the longer time that Price was at WSU, he did a better job than Leach.
Them there are fighting words for our leeches. No Cougar coach ever did better than Mike Leach. Any suggestion otherwise will be denigrated...
 
Once you get past the top 10 to 12 recruiting classes, the difference between the classes begins to get a little mushy. Once you get past number 25, it becomes more and more of a crap shoot. There is little difference between a class ranked 35 and a class ranked 55, regardless of stars, and if a recruit is called a high ranked three or a mid ranked three. You see it when a no name 2 star shows up in August and rips the ass off a 3 star. Nebraska has always fought way above its weight class when you consider the fact that the state only has something like a million and a half people in it, and for all intents, no African Americans. There are many positives to the HC job at Nebraska. Fantastic facilities, dedicated fan base (no pro sports in the state). Recruiting is not one of them.

There are too many hands in the talent pie in Texas for Nebraska to recruit 4 stars there. They are prob better off going into Chicago, Kansas City, St. Louis and SoCal.
 
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Hard to evaluate that. Moos was directed at the time he was interviewed and then hired at Nebraska that his first job was to hire Frost. So I can't really hang that on Bill. If other hires since then have failed, that would certainly be on Bill.

Crimson glasses aside, Bill had both wins and losses in his hiring choices at Montana, Whoregon and WSU. Some big wins and some big losses. If I pull Ernie Kent out of the WSU group, I'd call the rest of his WSU time as pretty good on balance, and Leach was not the only good hire. The Kent fiasco soured me so much that it was hard to put the rest in perspective, however. We paid more for less and put the hoops program into such a hole with Ernie that I tend to lose the ability to look at it all on an objective basis.
Frost was the hottest of the coaching commodities at the time. Moos would have been hung if effigy if he hadn’t landed Frost.
 
You apparently became a Coug fan after this fella that used to coach at WSU named Mike Price.

Seasons that we finished ranked under Leach: 1 - 2018 (#10)

Seasons that we finished ranked under Price: 6 - 1992 (#15), 1994 (#21), 1997 (#9), 2001 (#10), 2002 (#10), 2003 (#9).

No offense to Leach, but in terms of great WSU teams, he was not worthy of holding Mike Price's jockstrap. Leach was more consistent than Price, but he is not in the discussion when it came to having Top 25 teams.

Just for kicks, I looked up our number of weeks ranked in the Top 25 for Leach.

2015 (2) peaked at #20
2016 (4) peaked at #20
2017 (15) peaked at #8...ranked #24 in preseason poll
2018 (9) peaked at #8....only season that we finished ranked under Leach.
2019 (4) peaked at #19....ranked #23 in preseason poll

ESPN only goes back to 2002, but we were ranked in every week of 2002, started at #7 and peaked at #3. We were an Apple Cup injury to Jason Gesser and an Ohio State 4th down conversion from playing in the national championship.

Under Price:
1989 (7) peaked at #15 before the Stallworth injury took us from 6-1 to 6-5.
1992 (6) peaked at #15
1993 (1) peaked at #25 right before we lost four straight to end the season when Pattinson got hurt.
1994 (12) peaked at #16
1997 (12) peaked at #9
2001 (10) peaked at #8
2002 (16) peaked at #3 (an Apple Cup injury to Jason Gesser and an Ohio State 4th down conversion from playing in the national championship)
2003 (12) peaked at #6

So...Price was ranked more in his last three seasons than Leach was eight seasons. The Cougs were ranked in 76 weeks of Price's tenure. Leach teams were ranked in 34 weeks of his tenure. Even factoring in the longer time that Price was at WSU, he did a better job than Leach.
Wait a minute... I started back with Walden, but my memory is shaky on this.

We really had more weeks ranked in the Top 25 under Price? 14 seasons vs. 8 seasons?

Amazing.

So Price had twice as many weeks ranked?

I bow in disgrace on this if Price really had more weeks ranked.

I will admit I'm a loser for fogetting about 1989.

We should have let Hanson try for that field goal.
 
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