Link: Bo Pelini: Some SEC Teams Not Named Alabama Wish They Were Nebraska

4Q Basket Case said:

While that may be true for an economy as a whole, I'm not so sure it's the case in big-time college athletics, now or in the past.

The demographics of the state of Alabama go a long way toward explaining why its economy has lagged. But they don't come anywhere near explaining why the football program of the flagship state university is one of the top 5 in history. And, much as we like to denigrate it, the football program of the land-grant school is top 20.

Also, those same demographics are becoming irrelevant in Tuscaloosa due to nationwide recruiting. Whereas Auburn has historically recruited SE Alabama, Georgia, and northwest Florida, Alabama is now recruiting coast to coast and Canada to Mexico.

I think Nebraska's post-Osborne struggles are more a function of abandoning their distinctive competence than demographics. They were to Midwestern football what we were and still are to the South: Built on strong line play (a hair more OL tradition for them, a hair more DL tradition for us), defense, running, and just enough passing to keep the other team honest. In their heyday, as in all our Golden Ages, everybody in the stadium knew what was coming on 3rd and 3. But knowing what's coming is an entirely different exercise from stopping it.

Nebraska fired Solich mainly because he wasn't Osborne. Think they'd like to have that call back today? I do. They hired Bill Callahan, who tried to install a style of offense wholly unsuited to the players he had. Compounding that, he de-emphasized defense to the point that good players didn't develop because of a lack of coaching. Essentially, nobody on the staff cared. Then, after four years of that, they tried to go back to their roots with Pellini.

The problem there is twofold: First, the players Callahan had recruited were themselves wholly unsuited by physical traits, psychology, and S&C training to Pellini's smashmouth style. Second, even though his philosophy is much better suited to Nebraska's tradition, Pellini himself is a loose cannon, prone to embarrassing himself and the institution. I have yet to see that he's not in over his head as the public face of a major college program based on a tradition of class, respect for its own tradition, its opponents, and itself. Tom Osborne has to have been ashamed of some of Pellini's conduct, and Bob Devany may have turned over a couple of times himself.

So the way I see it, Nebraska's problems are largely self-inflicted, not thrust upon them by outside demographic forces over which they have no control.

Click to expand...

4Q Basket Case said:

While that may be true for an economy as a whole, I'm not so sure it's the case in big-time college athletics, now or in the past.

The demographics of the state of Alabama go a long way toward explaining why its economy has lagged. But they don't come anywhere near explaining why the football program of the flagship state university is one of the top 5 in history. And, much as we like to denigrate it, the football program of the land-grant school is top 20.

Also, those same demographics are becoming irrelevant in Tuscaloosa due to nationwide recruiting. Whereas Auburn has historically recruited SE Alabama, Georgia, and northwest Florida, Alabama is now recruiting coast to coast and Canada to Mexico.

I think Nebraska's post-Osborne struggles are more a function of abandoning their distinctive competence than demographics. They were to Midwestern football what we were and still are to the South: Built on strong line play (a hair more OL tradition for them, a hair more DL tradition for us), defense, running, and just enough passing to keep the other team honest. In their heyday, as in all our Golden Ages, everybody in the stadium knew what was coming on 3rd and 3. But knowing what's coming is an entirely different exercise from stopping it.

Nebraska fired Solich mainly because he wasn't Osborne. Think they'd like to have that call back today? I do. They hired Bill Callahan, who tried to install a style of offense wholly unsuited to the players he had. Compounding that, he de-emphasized defense to the point that good players didn't develop because of a lack of coaching. Essentially, nobody on the staff cared. Then, after four years of that, they tried to go back to their roots with Pellini.

The problem there is twofold: First, the players Callahan had recruited were themselves wholly unsuited by physical traits, psychology, and S&C training to Pellini's smashmouth style. Second, even though his philosophy is much better suited to Nebraska's tradition, Pellini himself is a loose cannon, prone to embarrassing himself and the institution. I have yet to see that he's not in over his head as the public face of a major college program based on a tradition of class, respect for its own tradition, its opponents, and itself. Tom Osborne has to have been ashamed of some of Pellini's conduct, and Bob Devany may have turned over a couple of times himself.

So the way I see it, Nebraska's problems are largely self-inflicted, not thrust upon them by outside demographic forces over which they have no control.

Click to expand...

4Q Basket Case said:

While that may be true for an economy as a whole, I'm not so sure it's the case in big-time college athletics, now or in the past.

The demographics of the state of Alabama go a long way toward explaining why its economy has lagged. But they don't come anywhere near explaining why the football program of the flagship state university is one of the top 5 in history. And, much as we like to denigrate it, the football program of the land-grant school is top 20.

Also, those same demographics are becoming irrelevant in Tuscaloosa due to nationwide recruiting. Whereas Auburn has historically recruited SE Alabama, Georgia, and northwest Florida, Alabama is now recruiting coast to coast and Canada to Mexico.

I think Nebraska's post-Osborne struggles are more a function of abandoning their distinctive competence than demographics. They were to Midwestern football what we were and still are to the South: Built on strong line play (a hair more OL tradition for them, a hair more DL tradition for us), defense, running, and just enough passing to keep the other team honest. In their heyday, as in all our Golden Ages, everybody in the stadium knew what was coming on 3rd and 3. But knowing what's coming is an entirely different exercise from stopping it.

Nebraska fired Solich mainly because he wasn't Osborne. Think they'd like to have that call back today? I do. They hired Bill Callahan, who tried to install a style of offense wholly unsuited to the players he had. Compounding that, he de-emphasized defense to the point that good players didn't develop because of a lack of coaching. Essentially, nobody on the staff cared. Then, after four years of that, they tried to go back to their roots with Pellini.

The problem there is twofold: First, the players Callahan had recruited were themselves wholly unsuited by physical traits, psychology, and S&C training to Pellini's smashmouth style. Second, even though his philosophy is much better suited to Nebraska's tradition, Pellini himself is a loose cannon, prone to embarrassing himself and the institution. I have yet to see that he's not in over his head as the public face of a major college program based on a tradition of class, respect for its own tradition, its opponents, and itself. Tom Osborne has to have been ashamed of some of Pellini's conduct, and Bob Devany may have turned over a couple of times himself.

So the way I see it, Nebraska's problems are largely self-inflicted, not thrust upon them by outside demographic forces over which they have no control.

Click to expand...