Hey welcome Matt. Are you in NYC now? What part. It's my home town and I have lost of family there. Mike
Good to meet you. I live in the crowded part with the tall buildings, Hell's Kitchen to be exact. Sadly, the slums are no longer cheap. . . ~Matt
Question for NYC and AJ: When Pellini took over for McBride he had a good bunch of returning players right? At OU and LSU he had a team loaded with talent on defense. He clearly knows what to do when he has talent. The question is what is the talent situation at Neb for defense. Was your defense bad this year because of coaching or did you guys have a serious lack of talent. Callahan seemed to have a good amount of offensive talent, did he neglect the defense? Terry
Terry, Good question. I did some digging. Here is the number of NFL draft picks from each defense that Pelini coached: 2004 draft (2003 season), NU: 4 2005 OU: 6 2006 LSU: 3 2007 LSU: 3 So Pelini may have had less raw talent at LSU than he did at NU and OU. This year's disastrous NU defense will probably have three (Ruud, Octavian and McKeon) but none of those are high-round guys. Next year there will be a lot of returning seniors. I still think our main problem is lack of coaching, not lack of talent. ~Matt
Doc, Pellini didn't take over for McBride, he took over for Craig Bohl (North Dakota). Without going into to many particulars, and I've said this over the Solich years, Uncle Frankie didn't seem to have the recruiting knack or the savvy of a old river boat gambler that Osborne was. \ As Vanilla as Dr. Tom was, he was a very good game day coach because of the preparation he put into the process of preparing for a game. Uncle Frankie wasn't. You'd think that after 18 years under Dr. Tom something would have stuck. Tom played chess, Frank played checkers. Can't confirm the rumors, but it's been said that Frank had a expensive and dangerous habit for a married man....younger women. Plus, given his DUI conviction, he possibly had prior other issues he was dealing with that may have kept him unable to focus a 100% on his Job at NU. Speculation yes, but most things come out in the wash eventually. Back to Bo. It is accepted in Huskerland that Bo did a bang up job with avg kids. The biggest thing we noticed was the passion. That was one knock on Osborne all those years was that he had no fire on the sidelines, that he couldn't get a team fired up to play. My only answer to that was see 1995. Devaney was the complete opposite of Osborne. hard drinking, Cussing, fit throwin' Irishmen that got results his way. The things attractive to us about Bo are his age (39), experience (Green Bay, NU, OU, LSU) and the ability to relate and motivate kids (what we see on TV at least). There's not that many men his age that get a chance to be the Head coach of a brand name university. I doubt he'll take it for granite. So to finally answer your question (I think), I always go back to what Mert Martin always said, "Good arms, legs and speed are GOD given, the rest you can teach". I think we have good athletes, that can be made a little better and smarter by a guy who WANTS to coach them and motivate them. JEZZUS....THAT'S THE MOST I'VE SAID AT ONCE IN YEARS....
Huskerman, Glad I'm pulling the extended thoughts out of you! If you haven't yet noticed, I'm a long post kind of guy! I won't speculate much on the fall of Solich. I think he was a fabulous #2 guy who did not have what it took to be the #1 guy. We need to remember how much of the Osborne Era's long term success was due to his top assistant. I think it was fitting and gracious for Bo to bring this up in his presser the other night. I've heard the rumors that he had the happy zipper syndrome. One thing is for sure: when he got busted for his dewey, I sure was glad he wasn't the Husker coach anymore. ~Matt
Matt I grew up in the garden boro Queens. My mutha lives in Brookln, one sista in Joisy, one in Conneticut and a brotha on the Island. My son lives on the upper west side.
Ayyyyy Gip! Can't talk the talk so well yet. I still sound like a farmer. Oh well. ~Matt The garden boro?
ah...very quick, I wondered if you'd get my reference! Lol, one of my favorite movies, just loaded with great lines.
I ran out of gas. I, I had a flat tire. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake. A terrible flood. Locusts. IT WASN'T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD.
elpaso, You are probably right; I thought firing him was the right thing at the time. I figured there was behind the scenes stuff like recruiting or leadership that Solich was letting slip, or perhaps issues with women and drink. I trusted the AD Pederson. Turns out that Pederson made a string of bad decisions, to put it mildly. This calls into question his decision to sack Solich. All of that is, however, 20/20 hindsight. What I'm most interested in is how we (or anybody else) can avoid hiring bad coaches in the future. ~Matt