I get where alot of you guys come from with the Matt Campbell's or Lance Leipold. Good coaches that are slow program builders. Ones that are going to do things the right way. Solid coaching but not great. Knowing the Midwest for recruiting but not having a footprint in alot of popular places bc your not well known. Bringing your whole staff that are solid teachers but aren't great recruiters. Get your occasional upset and have good/ok years for the majority and occasionally when your senior class is good bc of development you compete for a conference title. That is what your going to get from the Matt Campbell's. Is that good enough to accept for a year to year basis?? Is that the acceptable standard for Nebraska and their fans?
My opinion on expectations and Nebraska's ceiling is that the 12-team playoff is something a program like ours should be competitive in entering. Maybe not every year unless there's real improvement in development that I can't account for, but given recruiting, schedule, and an improvement in development I can expect with a good hire we should be flirting with it after year 4, since that's about how long it takes for that development to show.
Georgia, Ohio State, and Alabama are the only three programs capable of winning a national title in the next two years. Clemson and Texas A&M have worked towards it for half a decade and we haven't even started that process so we're at least six years away. That standard is completely unrealistic.
So yes, ten years from now assuming we're dealing with the same coach and nothing bad has happened, sure we should be highly competitive and in the playoff conversation every year. Iowa State is a bad, bad program. Worse than us in almost every way historically, financially, and politically. The fact that he had them in that 12-team group once is an absolute miracle. Sure, he's lost some games and I'm not completely sold on the guy, but he gets you there.
Lance Leipold in four years had Buffalo winning like they never had before and has half their winning seasons in that short amount of time. I think he's pretty conservative in-game but he made an absolute monster program at Whitewater and revived Buffalo. He's currently reviving Kansas which was about to drop football completely before he arrived. They were on a 49 game road losing streak when he arrived and he's 2-3 on the road since. The man works miracles. He's also meticulous in process improvement which is the #1 thing that we have lacked in since Solich left. Read further into Leipold beyond his W/L and you'll be impressed. This roster is terrible and development needs to start from scratch and he's got a proven record of doing it.
Those two are not the only two that can get it done but they'd do it. If Urban Meyer, Dave Aranda, or Matt Rhule don't walk through the door, we still need to hire someone. I'm assuming those three are the first calls because yes, Urban Meyer will at least get a chance to say no.