Nebraska.
The name speaks to continuity and consistent success in college football.
What’s about to be said does not promote stability, and so in that vein, this commentary contains a richly ironic center. However, let us establish up front that this unstable period in Nebraska football history was unleashed by a quick-trigger reaction from a previous athletic director.
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It was one of the worst coach firings of all time: Steve Pederson, who also couldn’t get coach hirings right at Pittsburgh before he was pushed out at the end of 2014, presided over the dismissal of Frank Solich at Nebraska following the 2003 season.
It wasn’t just that Solich was a Tom Osborne disciple who had achieved richly in his relatively brief tenure; what made the firing unpardonable from any vantage point was that Solich improved the team to a 9-3 record in 2003, having gone 7-7 in 2002. Nebraska improved by four games in the loss column, and THEN the axe fell. Pederson acted rashly, but worse, his sense of timing was spectacularly and nakedly awful.
Nebraska hasn’t been the same since, as it gropes for something, anything, to restore the Osborne era.
After surrendering 55 points to Purdue, one week removed from seeing a previously flailing Northwestern offense got healthy against Big Red, it’s clear how distant the Huskers are from their salad days. Not only do they miss Osborne; the program and the state miss the authentically great Blackshirts taught by Charlie McBride, a man who casts almost as large a shadow over the present day as Doctor Tom does.
This era of wrong turns and various on-field humiliations began with a quick-trigger coach firing. You would think that being patient with a coach is therefore the solution to Nebraska’s problems. However, life is complicated. More precisely, it is often counterintuitive.
I personally loathe two-year coach firings, preventing a coach from having a third year at a school and being able to put his stamp on a program. I’m quite cognizant of how easy it is in the business of editorial commentary to make knee-jerk assessments, especially when said assessments recommend that a man lose his job, and that families should be displaced. I don’t carry that awareness lightly — it’s important to keep that in mind.
However… (you knew that was coming, right?)
… each situation at each program should be viewed on a case-by-case basis. Exceptions to rules and principles almost always exist. While 98.2 percent of situations demand a standard response, what about the 1.8 percent which demand something less conventional? Moreover, if schools begin to act outside of normal boundaries, they risk establishing a new and alarming precedent for the industry. I realize that I risk opening Pandora’s Box here, so the need to stress the exceptional “this should not generally be done” nature of the situation at Nebraska must be stressed.
Nevertheless… what should generally not be done in the college football coaching industry should be done in Lincoln, IF Mike Riley does not make substantial improvements with his team in 2016.
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Indeed, this was not a case in which Nebraska got humiliated by a really good team, with the opposing coach pouncing like a vulture from a position of manifest strength. This was Purdue — 2-6 Purdue — repeatedly going for the jugular and hitting the target. This was not Drew Brees and Purdue’s Rose Bowl team hanging 55 on Big Red. This was not Bobby Pesavento and Bobby Purify — part of a great Colorado team — posting 62 on that Thanksgiving Friday.
Nebraska didn’t lose to a great and ascendant program in the midst of one of its prime periods. The Huskers lost to a bad program in the middle of its bad period, a program which has otherwise shown little reason to suggest that it is headed for better days.
Nebraska isn’t just about a team and a program; it’s about a state, a way of life, and a public trust. Having one bad season which gets away from the head coach? That happens, and so rest assured that Mike Riley should not be on the hot seat right now. Giving him a 2016 season should not be a point of debate — of course he should receive it.
The question which becomes legitimate in the wake of the Purdue debacle is this: If Nebraska fails to post a winning record in 2016, should the school resort to the dreaded two-year coach firing?
That the question is legitimate — regardless of the answer you provide — is the loudest commentary of all. While you chew on that notion, consider two more points at the beginning of this altered reality for Nebraska, now standing on the dark side of the moon:
1) The fate of Mike Riley is and should be tied to the fate of athletic director Shawn Eichorst. The hire of Riley was made very stealthily, with Eichorst swiftly acting to find his man. Some hires are made in and through a highly consultative process, and some hires are the products of one man in charge. Mike Riley’s presence in Lincoln is much more the result of the latter dynamic, not the former one. If there comes a time for Riley to be sacked sooner rather than later (in 2016), Eichorst must either be shown the door, or he should simply be prevented from hiring the next coach. Given that the athletic director at Nebraska’s most central responsibility is to oversee a thriving football program, Eichorst would probably need to go. It would be much more politically untenable for an AD at Nebraska to remain on the job yet be removed from a coach-hiring process.
2) Regardless of what you think about Mike Riley’s job status relative to the 2016 season (and what he needs to do in 2016 to remain safe for 2017 and beyond), understand this: While Nebraska’s TV-based centrality from past decades is an advantage the program no longer has, the idea that the Huskers will never be relevant again is bunk. There’s a very simple solution to “The Nebraska Problem.”
Hire a damn good coach… Solich being the last one in Lincoln, the one Steve Pederson wasn’t willing to retain.
It is understandable — and moreover, entirely accurate to a certain degree — that the modern-day landscape in college football is not as hospitable to Nebraska as the 1990s and 1980s were. Commentators who bring up that point are being reasonable. However, the sweeping statements and authoritative pronouncements of how hopeless the situation is at Nebraska are pure poppycock. I’m not buying those statements.
Why? The Huskers, with Big Ten television money giving them the ability to land a first-rate coach, have so manifestly failed to do so.
People say Nebraska won’t — can’t — ever be Nebraska again.
If — to give just one example — Gary Patterson coached in Lincoln, I have the strange feeling such a statement would be exposed as the premature verdict it is.
Let’s compromise, those of you who think the fun at Nebraska is permanently over: Can we at least withhold such a pronouncement until after a truly elite coach fails in Lincoln?
Until then, the problem with the Huskers is about the men who coach the team… and the men who hire them.
After surrendering 55 points to a 2-6 team, the timetable should shrink for Mike Riley and Shawn Eichorst. To what degree? That’s for the important people in Lincoln to decide…
… and for all of you to think about.
