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Illinois 31, Nebraska 24 OT Postgame
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Pete Carroll was hired after USC had fired 4 coaches in the prior 14 years. Kirby Smart was hired after Georgia had fired 3 coaches in the prior 20 years. Nick Saban was hired after Bama had fired 2 coaches, had two more abandon them for other jobs, and had one other resign under an NCAA cloud in the prior 18 years.
I do not believe in and do not participate in shaming fanbases for firing coaches. Ambitious and demanding fans are a benefit to a program, not a liability.
That said, Nebraska did screw up by panic-firing Solich, which the fans know now and a lot of them thought so even at the time.
OrangeBlue98
- Des Moines, IA
I was trying to think of a relevant Illinois example analogy to Nebraska firing Solich. The only thing that really came to mind for me was had Illinois fired Underwood after the 2022 season. That was after losing to Loyola and then getting beat by Houston in the 2022 4-5 game. Would have been an incredibly rash decision even without knowing what happened last season.
The Pelini firing would have been similar had he not been an enormous d-bag which made that decision a lot easier.
MustangWally
- Mayfield
They fired Solich after going 10-3. The new athetic director said only national championships were good enough for Nebraska, if I remember correctly. I sent him an an email every year until he was fired asking how the new coach was doing. He never replied.
You should have a little more sympathy for people in remedial programs.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
I never like the way these conversations become about which fanbases have been patient little boys and girls who deserve their Christmas presents.
The thing that was a mistake about firing Solich doesn't really have much to do with whether his results should have been "good enough" for Nebraska. The problem was that they fired him as an panic-stricken expression of abandoning the program's identity as not sufficient to succeed in "modern" football.
That's a bad idea at the basic theoretical level (be you, always), and it's even worse in context where it meant lurching toward NFL West Coast offense principles that were about to become obsolete. Fast forward 20 years and the basic concepts of cutting edge offense at the college level are a lot closer to Frank Solich than Bill Callahan.
It's easy to imagine an alternate universe where Nebraska is the one to hire Chip Kelly, or even Paul Johnson. They gave up on misdirection football at exactly the wrong time.
Pelini would still be there if his personal behavior was different, and his (and his brother's) continued unemployability tends to vindicate that decision, IMO. No one, least of all players and recruits, is going to put up with coaches like that anymore, thank goodness.