Crap he must have known that when Frankie was playing for Nebraska as a fullback..
TO was assistant from 1964-1968… Devaney hired him to be the Offensive Coordinator in 1969..
Bob Stoops 1997?
- Thread starter Long Time Lurker_rivals
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TO was assistant from 1964-1968… Devaney hired him to be the Offensive Coordinator in 1969..
say what?? haha that's just silly. Stoops may not have ended up as one of the all time greats but he was pretty damn good!
Larry Coker career record: 86-47
Bob Stoops career record: 191-48
He won 10+ games 14 times in 18 years!
It seems to me like Stoops, unlike Pelini, was able to make the jump from coordinator guru to culture building head coach. He was able to successfully transition between assistant coaches and offensive/defensive philosophies and still recruit and win.
Stoops also had the luxury of hotbed recruiting next to texass just as Switzer had….
Never said he wasn’t.. Just don’t understand the dislike to a good coach that won ten conference titles in the Big 12..
Bringing things back full circle... Would Stoops have been as successful at Nebraska had he been hired in 97, or would he have struggled without Blake's recruits and easy access to Texas recruiting?
It's hard to say, if he hired Mike Leach as his OC (as he did at OU) it probably would have been a disaster due to the roster we had, and the overall culture of running the ball that had been our forte for so long. Since he was a defensive specialist himself, I bet the D would've been good and he would've hired a different type of OC than Leach.
It probably would've been a rocky start because so many fans would be totally perplexed by the hire, but I think he would've ended up much more solid long-term than Solich.
I’ll be the devil’s advocate..While Oklahoma went after Stoops so was Ioway.
Ioway first choice was Stoops, Stoops knew the Oklahoma job was way better than his Alma mater and so was the money..
Need to ask Bob if he ever had any interest from Nebraska ( Pederson) while OU and Herky were pursuing him..
You may have a point. Perhaps this hypothetical exercise is moot. Following Osborne was a challenge and the fan expectations were exceedingly high. Stoops may not have wanted that. OU, meanwhile, had bottomed out. Expectations were low, but roster talent was high. It was a good starting point.
I guess the question should be...what outsider would have taken the Nebraska job in 1997?
I guess the question should be...what outsider would have taken the Nebraska job in 1997?
I do.
When he did it he was still a university employee and Byrne was his boss, which made what he did a textbook definition of insubordination.
The fact he had the PC saying he was stepping down and naming Solich his successor while Byrne was on vacation was dishonorable.
The vanity associated with thinking I, and only I know what is best for the University is not in alignment with the set of beliefs that also eschew gambling and pornography (e.g. Proverbs 16:18 - Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.)
I have never ceased to be amazed how many people cannot separate the "coach" from the "man".
Why do you think they‘re called the Sooners?
The state been cheating from the very beginning in history.
Riley's tenure when better than I thought it would. He won 9 straight games at one point and was a much better recruiter than he had any right to be. Being forced to overhaul his defense while installing a new qb was his undoing aside from being ******. I was sure he would be fired before the end of his first contract just in time for Scott to be ready to coach...I was ecstatic about Scott until he called his former teammates fat, told the media to leave his family alone, and he decided to coach UCF instead of recruiting for the massive task in front of him. Scott had no idea the difference between rebuilding a UCF team that was two years removed from a BCS game and rebuilding a Nebraska team that was one of the worst in college football and had been average for 6-7 years, all during major transition such as the transfer portal, covid, and NIL.
The problem was Osborne didn't groom or hire a "wonder boy" offensive coordinator who could take over without missing a beat when he retired. If you look at the successful promoting from within coaching successions, they mostly involved the "wonder boy" OC taking over - Barry Switzer was the OC under Fairbanks at Oklahoma, Tom Osborne was the OC under Devaney at NU, Lincoln Riley was the OC under Stoops at Oklahoma, Ryan Day was the OC under Meyer at Ohio State. That certainly was NOT Frank Solich.
Stoops’ teams played for the national championship 4 times. The biggest criticism against him is that his teams only won 1 of those 4 games.
If Rhule ends up going 191-48 at Nebraska, with 1 national championship, 14 ten win seasons and multiple Big 10 titles, well…I think most fans would be pretty happy with that.
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Solich was comparable to Garry Gibbs at Oklahoma. Both were veteran assistants promoted to head coach. Neither one was young or dynamic. They seemed like steady company men. Gibbs coached 6 seasons at OU and he didn't have a losing record, but he never won more than 9 games either.
Both had a lot in common for sure.
Solich never had a losing record either losing the Liberty bowl made Nebraska .500..
At least Frank did win conference title and was a Buckhalther fumble a from a national title and Nebraska did play Miami Fla for the National championship..
I imagine it became difficult for Solich to recruit skill position players as his offense had become stale and more creative offenses were popping up around the Big 12. Looking at his recruiting year lists, there were a lot of non-contributors (for various reasons) at WB, SE, QB, and IB.
He was never able to win another national championship, but the guy won ten Big 12 championships, went to a bowl game in all 18 seasons, never had a losing season, and posted double-digit wins in 14 out of 18 seasons. Although he was ridiculed for losing big bowl games, he was the only coach in history to win all four of the BCS Bowl games (Orange, Rose, Sugar and Fiesta). Only four times in his career did he lose in back-to-back years to the same program, and he never lost three times in a row to the same program.
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Good point & I never thought of that. I'm assuming Osborne was the sole play-caller and if so, he needed to give up that responsibility to help prep Solich for when he took over. Of course that could have resulted in a couple more losses....
After getting his 3rd title in 1997, it would have been nice for Osborne to stick around and let Solich run the offense for a few years before retiring.
At the time of Osborne's announcement, I knew some long time fans that were displeased Turner Gill wasn't promoted to head coach. They felt that he would bring fresh energy and could lead the players well.
He blew at KU.. I always thought he would have been a good coach too, but he failed in Lawrence…