NU can do better than Bo
Posted: Tue Dec 02, 2014 6:09 am
Not picking just on you, but it's a good place to start.The problem with both Nebraska, UGA & everybody else is parity. Nebraska probably needs to learn that they're not going to run away with the ring every year (or what seemed that way) any more. Bo's a weird dude - sort of a Les Miles wannabe, but I'm not so sure there's a whole lot of coaches out there right now that could do a lot better than he has
Guess we'll see...
Parity means you have to be smarter in how you coach your players, how you recruit and how you play the game. Parity doesn't mean you forget how to play the game. NU looked that way sometimes, especially in big games.
Someone earlier talked about the weather. Let's make a few things clear about the cold weather. It only starts to get really cold about late November. That's usually the last 3 games, otherwise it's fairly nice with some days even in winter with warm weather. Saturday, I was hanging lights in 60 degree weather in a long sleeved shirt. Sunday, it was 19 and windy as hell. You never know, but we don't get pounded in snow yearly like more northern states. Hell, Boise is colder than Nebraska yet they managed to get athletes that worked for them.
Nebraska hasn't tried to attract a coach they're willing to pay for. Osborne never made more than a million per year. He gave the job to Solich, who failed by trying to emulate Osborne by changing his coaching mannerisms from a fiery pep talk Running Backs coach to Osborne lite. AD in 2003, took a gamble on an NFL coach, but then had to settle for a disgraced NFL coach. He got fired and Osborne wanted someone with NU ties, so he picked Bo over Gill (two horrible choices). NU is sitting on (from what I've heard) over 100 million thanks to the Big10. Why settle for a coach that whines about the fan expectations of NOT getting ass raped repeatedly by teams that run like NU used to like a weird Hell punishment for spoiled fans when you can try for someone better?
Quick sins that Bo couldn't figure out in year 7:
- Offensive line play. He hired Cotton, one of the worst excuses for an NU coach when he was originally as NU under Solich. Play was so awful he was demoted to:
- Tight End play. The tight end position should be on a milk carton. I know they're out there, but they're hardly used. Any guesses on who THAT coach is? Cotton. Speaking of...
- Cotton family. Jake Cotton, oh how my wife has cursed your name during games. A flag is thrown for an offensive false start? 50/50, it was Jake. Dude played all four years and STILL was making stupid mistakes in every game. I'm not kidding. His older brother was a so-so tight end and I'm not a fan of the other one who must surely suck by association.
- Running back play. Sure they have Ameer running, but great talent will mask short comings. I hate the put all your eggs in one basket approach and it's burned him every year. The backs behind Ameer are mediocre thanks to the coaching of Ron Brown, the former receivers coach who can't stop talking about Jesus long enough to learn to coach better.
- Defensive tackle play. Carl Pelini I think could actually coach a bit. Since he took his alleged cheating-with-a-prominent-booster's-wife ass out of town, the D-Line play has been average with glimpses of great play. Watch the Wisconsin game with play after play of the D-Line getting sucked out of position by the Wisc OLine.
- Linebacker play - Since Mike Ekeler left as coach after season 3, the LBs have gone downhill. What were once touchdown-saving tackles, they've been replaced by whiffing on big runs missed tackles.
- Dback play - What was once a strong suit is now just average. Marvin Sanders left citing personal reasons involving an alleged misuse of a University credit card, supposedly... after season 3.
- D Coordinator - Defense was a strength in Bo's first years despite a few blowouts, but his brother Carl leaving was horrible for him. He turned the reins over to a rookie, who I'm sure is doing his best testing Bo's system designed to have play makers at key positions. His defensive philosphy is insane and I'm sure trying to teach it to young kids could drive you crazy. Against Wisky, he had a strong side to Wisconsin's weak side, so there was an extra player on Wisconsin's strong side all game long. One player alone on each side was responsible for both run and pass coverage, so they start 8 yards off the ball, so despite NU have 8 near the line, they were all out of the right position. Wisconsin saw this and kept exploiting it.
- O Coordinator. Again, Bo hires a rookie after Shawn Watson leaves, who by the way is doing better at Louisville, and hires Beck, who I'm convinced was designing an offense as a resume builder for the pros. NU's Offensive philosophy the past few years has been to use single-back sets with a rotating cast of so-so receivers mixed in with three who should have been on the field way more often. Beck has QB Armstrong this year slinging Hail Mary's all game long with short side line passes to the far side so QB has to throw across his body to the farthest sideline. No strategy. It's a lot of throw it and hope something good happens when Kenny Bell catches it, which it often did.
- O Line play - I forgot a few things. Jake Cotton in the MSU game false starts by falling backward slowly. Jesus...
They're taught to just plant themselves instead of moving in space, so they have horrible position and get injured. Stupid penalties. No discipline.
- Blow out losses - I don't expect to not get blown out, but on a regular basis on an national stage is NOT good. As much as I love to have my whole day ruined by being the butt of the joke on all the highlight shows so that I don't want to go near a TV (Thanks, Bo), I'm willing to bet a monkey calling a defense could do better than Bo can right now.
- Horrible record against the top 10.
- Horrible record when the stakes were high.
- Horrible performances in conference championship games. That includes 2009. Suh single-handedly kept NU in that game. They couldn't do crap on offense.
- Horrible sideline demeanor. I used to like Bo's fiery demeanor. I was concerned the first time they played Virginia Tech when Bo single-handedly lost the game with a stupid sideline penalty to keep the drive alive, and even more so when a national audience saw his screaming at Taylor Martinez over him calling his Dad during the game from the locker room. It was an incident a man with self control of emotions could easily do after a game or with a quick conversation about what you expect. Each time it happens, it's a huge distraction. The guy is not Devaney like some NU fans want to believe.
- Off the field incidents this year (mentioned on the radio) about getting thrown out of his kid's games (twice) for arguing with the refs.
I could go on and on and on and on. The guy had baggage galore. Half of the fan base had lost faith in him. I was still on the fence before the Wisconsin game, but it was the deal breaker for me and every fan on the fence. To get embarrassed and toyed with like that was beyond embarrassing, it was pathetic. Who is going to hire him as a head coach with all of that baggage? There's more that I could go on about Bo. He survived year after year with great players pulling games out of their asses for him. One year, they had four fourth quarter comebacks. That's exiting, but it's not how you build a consistent program. Every year is the same. Playing to the level of our competition. Confusion on the sideline with the players always looking to the sideline for what to do.
I think NU can do better than that. The next coach will not have to rebuild much. This years senior class was tiny. They have a lot of talent who haven't played much because only the not-as-talented could master his system on D.
NU shouldn't have fired Bo? They should have fired him years ago, but Osborne was protecting and trying to mentor him. It doesn't take more than two years for an AD to see that a 9-win coach with a trigger temper, lack of vision to see how to fix his system and a mediocre group of coaches around him isn't a great long term investment. It's an investment in fan division and apathy. I didn't watch most of the Minnesota game save for the last 5 minutes and I laughed my ass off when NU got behind. Our DC actually said that we'd learn a lot about the team (after the Wisconsin loss) when they face Minnesota. We learned that they'll cave because their psyche is fragile like Pelini. He's fed the team with an us-against-the-world mentality, except the world is the fans, not the other team.
I'll say it again. NU can strive for better and they should. You can keep a John Cooper player now coach who seems to have the John Cooper stink all over him or you can strive to have a coach who wants to be part of the conversation for conference championships and national championships, not run away from it.
Sorry to rant, but it had to be said. Bo's defenders (and I was one of them) have had to gloss over a whole lot recently.