Who should our next HC be?

[Redux]

We won’t be bowling next year, no matter who is hired.  Three years if things go well.  This is a 3 years to a bowl, 5 years to a respectable bowl.  We are at the bottom looking up.  
 

This team lacks too many players in specific positions.  O lines take years to build.  Probably none of our starters would start at any other Big Ten school at this point.  

The right coach can have it done in 2, look at some of the legitimate contenders this year vying for a playoff spot.  That said, here at Nebraska and knowing the situation and hurdles, 3 or 4 is more likely.  And we have run out of patience.  This likely becomes a revolving door school, already kinda has, and we slip even further.  It's unfortunate but it's what we've been dealt.

 

[BIG ERN]

Each coach takes over a better/worse situation but here are the ranked win % for each HC 

Bill O'Brien 3-3 vs ranked teams at Penn St (50%)
Aranda 4-5 vs ranked teams at Baylor (44%)
Lane Kiffin 4-5 vs ranked teams at Ole Miss (44%)
Klieman 4-6 vs ranked teams at Kansas St (40%)
Luke Fickell 6-10 vs ranked teams at Cincinnati (37%)
Campbell 10-19 vs ranked teams at Iowa St (34%)
Mark Stoops 11-22 vs ranked team at Kentucky (33%)
Fleck 3-11 vs ranked teams at Minnesota (21%)
Leipold 1-4 vs ranked teams at Kansas (20%)
Jeff Monken 0-9 vs ranked teams at Army (0%)
Rhule 0-10 vs ranked teams at Baylor (0%)

 

[ActualCornHusker]

Beck is a much better OC than most gave him credit while he was here.  He was routinely cranking out Top 20 - if not Top 10 - rushing offenses and several guys who ended up as Top 10 all-time Husker rushers.

But people didn't like the overall results and needed a scapegoat so he got a ton of unwarranted criticism.

I agree with you, but to play devil's advocate a little bit: Tim Beck arguably cost Ohio State a chance at a national title with his play calling

 

[Red Five]

I agree with you, but to play devil's advocate a little bit: Tim Beck arguably cost Ohio State a chance at a national title with his play calling

 I would love for Tim Beck to cost us a chance at the national title with his play calling.

 

[TherealTomOsborne]

None of this matters.  Because when NCAA Football 23 comes out in July 2023 I will be the new coach, and I alone will bring Nebraska back to national relevancy along with New Years six bowl wins and several national championships!  Guaranteed!  :restore

 

[TGHusker]

Each coach takes over a better/worse situation but here are the ranked win % for each HC 

Aranda 4-5 vs ranked teams at Baylor (44%)

Klieman 4-6 vs ranked teams at Kansas St (40%)

Campbell 10-19 vs ranked teams at Iowa St (34%)

Mark Stoops 11-22 vs ranked team at Kentucky (33%)

Fleck 3-11 vs ranked teams at Minnesota (21%)

Leipold 1-4 vs ranked teams at Kansas (20%)

Rhule 0-10 vs ranked teams at Baylor (0%)

The bold begs a question or two or three:

Does the Baylor bookends have a deeper story? 

 Is Aranda winning now because he has Rhule's players who have now become contributors? 

Did Rhule accomplish much more (getting to the conf champion ship game) with much less?   Rhule was primarily playing with the previous coach's players. 

 

[thexyz]

The bold begs a question or two or three:

Does the Baylor bookends have a deeper story? 

 Is Aranda winning now because he has Rhule's players who have now become contributors? 

Did Rhule accomplish much more (getting to the conf champion ship game) with much less?   Rhule was primarily playing with the previous coach's players. 

I’d be interested in the various statistics of those games including margins of win or loss. 

 

[Mavric]

I agree with you, but to play devil's advocate a little bit: Tim Beck arguably cost Ohio State a chance at a national title with his play calling

Eh ... people like to think they know better than the coach.  Often - basically all the time - it amounts to "that didn't work so they should have called something different."  That's pretty much what the criticisms of Beck amounted to when he was here.  People didn't care that we had a Top 10 rushing attack - i.e., what he called was working very well the vast majority of the time - because there was a certain play here or there that didn't work so he should have called something different.

There are a ton of things that go into what was called, most of which we don't really know about: what the defense was doing, what they had done earlier in the game, what packages they had worked on for different situations, what players were hurt/tired and weren't in the game, etc., etc., etc.

 

[Cornfed]

I like Rhule a lot.  Fingers crossed.

Not interested in the rest to be perfectly honest.  

How can your top choice be a coach who is 0-10 vs ranked opponents!? Baffles me. 

 

[cheekygeek]

If you like Damon Benning some pretty awesome nuggets in this podcast 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/morning-dump/id1651719138?i=1000585669923

Agreed.

MJ as a $1M associate head coach, recruiter, WR coach is a win.

Players want to be coached by coaches that put players in the pros. (Say THAT 3 times fast).
MJ put Chase in the NFL first round and Justin Jefferson is another MJ pro.

I would maintain that the reason Casey T. and Chubba Purdy wanted to both come to NU was because of Whipple and his having just coached and playcalled for the Heisman Trophy winning QB (now Steelers' starter) the previous year.

We will recruit top flight lines when we get assistant coaches with a history of putting those position players in the pros.

 

[ActualCornHusker]

Eh ... people like to think they know better than the coach.  Often - basically all the time - it amounts to "that didn't work so they should have called something different."  That's pretty much what the criticisms of Beck amounted to when he was here.  People didn't care that we had a Top 10 rushing attack - i.e., what he called was working very well the vast majority of the time - because there was a certain play here or there that didn't work so he should have called something different.

There are a ton of things that go into what was called, most of which we don't really know about: what the defense was doing, what they had done earlier in the game, what packages they had worked on for different situations, what players were hurt/tired and weren't in the game, etc., etc., etc.

You're 100% correct that if plays are executed well, the OC will be lauded as a genius, and if the exact same play calls against the exact same defenses aren't executed, the OC gets criticized as an idiot that doesn't know what he's doing. And I think Tim Beck did a lot of really good things, and I'd take him back in a heartbeat over Whipple, Frost, and Langsdorf calling plays. But I vividly recall watching Ohio State the year Tim Beck was calling plays there, and I won't say he definitely cost them a title, but I certainly think it's arguable that he did. And I recall Zeke being fairly distraught at the play selection as well. There's a reason he only lasted a year or 2 there.

But once again, I think overall he did a really good job for us so I don't want that to be misconstrued.

 

[Enhance]

Eh ... people like to think they know better than the coach.  Often - basically all the time - it amounts to "that didn't work so they should have called something different."  That's pretty much what the criticisms of Beck amounted to when he was here.  People didn't care that we had a Top 10 rushing attack - i.e., what he called was working very well the vast majority of the time - because there was a certain play here or there that didn't work so he should have called something different.

There are a ton of things that go into what was called, most of which we don't really know about: what the defense was doing, what they had done earlier in the game, what packages they had worked on for different situations, what players were hurt/tired and weren't in the game, etc., etc., etc.

Well said.

This is why I don't usually harp on play calling too much, at least not on a play-by-play basis. It's all about how it unfolds over the course of a game. People cheer when something works and get mad when it doesn't, but they're usually focused on the result and not necessarily what led up to the result.

Sometimes, there are situations where play calls are objectively bad (like not running the ball with Marshawn Lynch in the Super Bowl, for example), but a great play call can be ruined by one missed block, an errant throw, or just bad luck.

 

[Mavric]

You're 100% correct that if plays are executed well, the OC will be lauded as a genius, and if the exact same play calls against the exact same defenses aren't executed, the OC gets criticized as an idiot that doesn't know what he's doing. And I think Tim Beck did a lot of really good things, and I'd take him back in a heartbeat over Whipple, Frost, and Langsdorf calling plays. But I vividly recall watching Ohio State the year Tim Beck was calling plays there, and I won't say he definitely cost them a title, but I certainly think it's arguable that he did. And I recall Zeke being fairly distraught at the play selection as well. There's a reason he only lasted a year or 2 there.

But once again, I think overall he did a really good job for us so I don't want that to be misconstrued.

First, if a guy has been an OC for 12 years and the biggest complaint is one bad game, then I think that in itself probably says something.

Second, I do remember there being complaints about play-calling but I don't remember enough specifics about that particular game to say one way or the other.  He did only get 12 carries - for 33 yards against MSU in that game they lost.  But he was only getting 2.8 ypc also, so he didn't exactly light the world on fire with what he did get.  So it seems likely that MSU was loaded up to stop him.  It looks to me like the whole team had a bad game there as they only ran 45 total plays and only managed 132 total yards.  So it seems like there were a lot of things that went wrong for them that day.

 

[Born N Bled Red]

Well said.

This is why I don't usually harp on play calling too much, at least not on a play-by-play basis. It's all about how it unfolds over the course of a game. People cheer when something works and get mad when it doesn't, but they're usually focused on the result and not necessarily what led up to the result.

Sometimes, there are situations where play calls are objectively bad (like not running the ball with Marshawn Lynch in the Super Bowl, for example), but a great play call can be ruined by one missed block, an errant throw, or just bad luck.

You can argue that there were SEVERAL well designed plays during the entirety of Frost's tenure, that simply if the pass had been thrown accurately, or the stone hands of the wide open receiver caught the ball we'd have many more wins and people would still be grumbling, at our in tact coaching staff led by Frost. That's the thing that sucks is that we've been so close that one dropped ball across multiple games has butterflied into a completely new trajectory for Husker Football. Alternate universes, butterfly effect and all that mumbo jumbo. 

 

[Red Five]

Newest OWH Podcast with Sam, Dirk, and Shatel.

Dirk think Trev has his guy (not Mickey) due to it being so quiet.  "If there were still 6 calls being made every day to different coaches, it would get out at some point"

Dirk thinks Leipold

Sam thinks Kleiman would be the best "fit" style-wise, but doesn't think he is interested in leaving KSU (NU would be too much of a fishbowl for him, he just wants to coach).

Sam think Rhule is not taking a job anywhere

Sam thinks Monken has a "very active agent"