Who should our next HC be?

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TGHusker said:
Matt Rhule or Bill O’Brien.  Both college guys who went to the nfl and now will likely become a college HC again. Same thing happened wt Saban. I prefer Rhule but am open to BOB because of him being in the Saban Coach School 
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I think BOB may look better on paper than in reality. I know a few Alabama fans and every single one of them can't stand O'Brien. Like, they all hate him with a passion. It's rather alarming when I listened to them, all separately, all saying the exact same things.

He did a decent job of keeping the wheels on at Penn St. He was only there for 2 years and it was damn near 10 years ago. At least Rhule did it at 2 schools and the latest was only 3 years ago. I'd say there are quite a few names between Rhule and O'Brien. I don't hear anyone saying "which P5 school is going to win the O'Brien sweepstakes" and that seems to be the trending phrase with Rhule right now. Probably a reason for that.

 
I would just like to add for those so stuck on head coaching experience that. The winningest coach in Nebraska football history and arguably one of the best head coaches of all time had..... zero years of HC experience when hired.  ZERO.  not even at a lower level.  Jimmy Johnson had a total of 5 yrs HC exp at Oklahoma st before Miami only about 8 yrs of coaching experience all together.  Sometimes people just make stuff happen.  What you did at one place doesn't guarantee you can do it somewhere else.  If Mickey were to win 5 games that proves he can win 5 games... at Nebraska.  Not bad for taking over a dumpster fire  

 
MyBloodIsRed16 said:
I would just like to add for those so stuck on head coaching experience that. The winningest coach in Nebraska football history and arguably one of the best head coaches of all time had..... zero years of HC experience when hired.  ZERO.  not even at a lower level.  Jimmy Johnson had a total of 5 yrs HC exp at Oklahoma st before Miami only about 8 yrs of coaching experience all together.  Sometimes people just make stuff happen.  What you did at one place doesn't guarantee you can do it somewhere else.  If Mickey were to win 5 games that proves he can win 5 games... at Nebraska.  Not bad for taking over a dumpster fire  
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You are definitely correct that success elsewhere does not guarantee success, especially at a place like Nebraska which is in recruiting terms, in the middle of nowhere.  I believe we could sustain success here with all our money and support, but building from the ground up is a different animal.  Hiring college football coaches is largely a crap shoot, and honestly we just have to get lucky.

 
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chamrocck said:
Find a CEO and make Mickey a great offer as AHC/WRs coach/ace recruiter. He would get a nice pay raise and coach at his school.  Not sure that isn’t ideal for him as he could always move to head coach in the future. Unless he wants to be a head coach now than I am sure a team like Colorado State or a non P5 in the south would give him a shot. 
 

How about Suh for DLine coach?  I’m serious. If Suh and Mickey show up at your house, then you are a blackshirt defender!  Those guys are not taking no for an answer! We need to recruit some elite talent. 
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How about we let the new Head Coach decide all of that! I keep seeing "they have to keep MJ and Busch." That's not how these things work. If we're going to tie the hands of our new coach with who they have to keep on their staff, we are likely not getting a very good coach. Sorry, I like MJ and Busch as much as anyone, but these things just don't work that way. Any coach at the level we all expect wants the right to control damn near everything. And if you're not willing to give it to them, they'll go somewhere else for similar money where they get to call all the shots. The better the coach, the more options they will have as to where they can go. It's a seller's market for good coaches. You want to be competitive in this market for the best coach available...you do not tie their hands with anything.

Look at it this way...extreme examples, but let's say you have a chance to hire a Saban/Urban/Dabo and tell them them "you're hired, but you have to keep Mickey and Busch and hire Suh." You think that coach isn't saying "thanks but no thanks" and hanging up on you? They aren't going anywhere their hands are already being tied from the jump. The AD is already exhibiting the coach doesn't have their full support and trust. Trickle down from there and once you get to a coach that is willing to take on that kind of limitation, you're down to a coach who didn't have many better options i.e. probably not very good. Trev can suggest they keep XYZ guys or work with them to hire others once the new coach is in place. And most new coaches do look at who they should keep, if anyone. But, great coaches want complete control and the final say to bring in their guys.

We can't control our results over the last 20 years. We can't control our location. We can't control several things that may make us less appealing to a coach than other places. But, we can control not alienating top candidates by doing something stupid like putting limitations on them before they even start.

 
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Red Silk Smoking Jacket said:
I keep seeing this term thrown around as some sort of main criteria for the job. What does it mean? And why is it important? Serious questions.

I've seen some people use it with regard to the fanbase. Here, you seem to be using it with regard to the players. Is it just a phrase to replace "I like the guy" or "I don't like the guy" that people use to try to make themselves sound more intelligent?

Frost seemed like a "cultural fit" all the way around and he failed miserably. Riley seemed like a "cultural fit." Fail. Was Pelini a "cultural fit?" The guy was a huge a-hole and eventually got fired largely because of it. But, he won more than anyone recently.

Does it really matter if a guy is a "cultural fit?" If it does matter, isn't it much more important to be a "cultural fit" with the players than the fanbase (assuming he's not doing anything nefarious that would embarrass the fanbase)? Often times, I don't think the two necessarily go hand-in-hand. The best "cultural fit" for the players we need to win may be the worst "cultural fit" for our fanbase.

Subjective moving target that the term seems to be, is there really a single coach out there who isn't a "cultural fit?" Or, isn't there a way to classify just about anyone who fails as not having been a "cultural fit?"

That said, isn't it kind of a meaningless term, let alone a term that should be considered as a main criteria for the job?
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It sounds like you're not buying into this whole culture fit talk! It's a relevant question and I can appreciate the skepticism. 

What it comes down to is reflecting the values of the organization and the ways it goes about conducting their business and really that's incomplete.  It can to a degree be difficult to define. Would the coach mesh well inside and outside the university as a whole...It would encompass both the relationship with the players and the "community" so to speak. The term can mean different things to different people to an extent. Nebraska is very blue collar. It would be reflected by the coach in the ways in which he conducts his work and relates. 

Having said that, some differences can be complementary. And, determining whether a candidate is one involves a thorough assessment and one on one interactions. In that respect, we are again speculating. Determining if one was indeed a fit would require more inquiry than what's otherwise viewed on the surface. 

 
MyBloodIsRed16 said:
I would just like to add for those so stuck on head coaching experience that. The winningest coach in Nebraska football history and arguably one of the best head coaches of all time had..... zero years of HC experience when hired.  ZERO.  not even at a lower level.  Jimmy Johnson had a total of 5 yrs HC exp at Oklahoma st before Miami only about 8 yrs of coaching experience all together.  Sometimes people just make stuff happen.  What you did at one place doesn't guarantee you can do it somewhere else.  If Mickey were to win 5 games that proves he can win 5 games... at Nebraska.  Not bad for taking over a dumpster fire  
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Name some examples in the last 10-20 years and I'll listen. The game has changed substantially. I'm not saying it can't happen, but it is an extreme extreme extreme outlier in today's environment.

 
M.A. said:
It sounds like you're not buying into this whole culture fit talk!
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What makes you say that?  :lol:

It's a relevant question and I can appreciate the skepticism. 

What it comes down to is reflecting the values of the organization and the ways it goes about conducting their business and really that's incomplete.  It can to a degree be difficult to define. Would the coach mesh well inside and outside the university as a whole...It would encompass both the relationship with the players and the "community" so to speak. The term can mean different things to different people to an extent. Nebraska is very blue collar. It would be reflected by the coach in the ways in which he conducts his work and relates. 

Having said that, some differences can be complementary. And, determining whether a candidate is one involves a thorough assessment and one on one interactions. In that respect, we are again speculating. Determining if one was indeed a fit would require more inquiry than what's otherwise viewed on the surface. 
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So, in other words, it doesn't mean anything and isn't important.  :D

Kidding (sort of) but basically one can argue that any candidate is or isn't a "cultural fit" depending on how they choose to define it. And even when they do try to define it, most likely, they don't know enough about the candidate to make that determination.

I mean, I can argue that we've never had a true cultural fit. Devany, Osborne, and Solich would be under much more cultural scrutiny in today's social media cell phone era. Pelini was about as "blue collar" as it gets but he was a huge prick. Callahan, nope. Mike Riley was probably the closest...and we saw what that got us. Frost seemed like it on the surface, now we know better.

So, yeah, in other words, I think it's pretty meaningless and not very important.

 
Red Silk Smoking Jacket said:
Name some examples in the last 10-20 years and I'll listen. The game has changed substantially. I'm not saying it can't happen, but it is an extreme extreme extreme outlier in today's environment.
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From the current top 25 around 1/3 of the coaches are at the 1st HC job

Kirby

Day

Dabo

Gundy

Wittingham

Fickell (if you don't count the 1 year as OSU's interim)

Stoops

Aranda

 
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Stumpy1 said:
Lincoln Riley

Kirby Smart
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Dabo Swinney

Mario Cristobal

Bill O'Brien

Jimbo Fisher

Steve Sarkisian

Most of the successful head coaches were assistants at successful schools (Mickey - LSU) before jumping into head coaching gigs.

It helps to have that experience, but Mickey is already doing really good things that are helping this team win games that they would have lost previously. So I'm excited to see if he can continue to improve this team that he took over when it was a complete and utter disaster

 
MyBloodIsRed16 said:
Ryan Day
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Stumpy1 said:
Lincoln Riley

Kirby Smart
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Ryan Day and Lincoln Riley, like Osborne...extremely different situations. Those guys all stepped into programs in great shape. I'll sort of give you Kirby Smart although Georgia had a winning record for like 20 years straight when he got there. He wasn't exactly stepping into a situation like Nebraska, pretty much the opposite.

Again, I'm not saying it can't happen. It's just that for every Kirby Smart there is, far more don't work out that way. The odds go way down substantially.

 
Red Five said:
From the current top 25 around 1/3 of the coaches are at the 1st HC job

Kirby

Day

Dabo

Gundy

Wittingham

Fickell (if you don't count the 1 year as OSU's interim)

Stoops

Aranada
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ActualCornHusker said:
Dabo Swinney

Mario Cristobal

Bill O'Brien

Jimbo Fisher

Steve Sarkisian

Most of the successful head coaches were assistants at successful schools (Mickey - LSU) before jumping into head coaching gigs.

It helps to have that experience, but Mickey is already doing really good things that are helping this team win games that they would have lost previously. So I'm excited to see if he can continue to improve this team that he took over when it was a complete and utter disaster
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Wait, what are we talking about here? Coaches who've "had some success" as first time head coached? So, like 6 wins and make it to a bowl game or get the team into the top 25? Yeah, that list is very long as every coach has to start somewhere. And yeah, MJ would highly likely fit that at Nebraska. I thought we were talking about elite level as the OP mentioned coaching legends Tom Osborne and Jimmy Johnson (although Jimmy Johnson didn't fit his criteria either).

 
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