Frank Solich
- Thread starter RealTucoSalamanca
- Start date
Still old. Still a good dude and good coach. Hasn’t been roofied lately that I’ve heard of. I don’t think they’ll be very good this year.
Did I see a tweet that for the first time in Ohio U history they are predicted to win the conference this year?
Solich is old AF and could still crush me in a push-up contest.
None of us would ever want to challenge Solich in a push up contest. No matter what age he would kick our ***.
Exactly. I still can't believe Pedeyshine canned Frank to bring in Clownahan. Totally unreal.......
HELL, Peterno could win a hide and seek contest til his last day, could never hear anything out of him.
Should’ve kept Frank. We were a bunch of spoiled *** fans back in the day.
Solich could definitely Coach. If he’d just brought in an Ace at recruiting and jump that part up, he’s still be here today. Things would have definitely gone a lot different.
at the same time, I’m kind of glad we brought Callahan in. It forced us to go after true QBs and got the WRs coming in. So there was some (trust me, not much) good that came out of Callahan. But then again, had Callahan went out and hired an Elite DC, one of the best out there...he’d still be coaching for us. He was definitely an ace at recruiting, had a solid offense and definitely knows how to coach the Oline up. GBR
at the same time, I’m kind of glad we brought Callahan in. It forced us to go after true QBs and got the WRs coming in. So there was some (trust me, not much) good that came out of Callahan. But then again, had Callahan went out and hired an Elite DC, one of the best out there...he’d still be coaching for us. He was definitely an ace at recruiting, had a solid offense and definitely knows how to coach the Oline up. GBR
That would be definite no. We fired Bo Pelini and he was a 9-10 win Head Coach. But being fair, Franky went ....
9-4
12-1
10-2
11-2
7-7
10-3
Solich had one single .500 year and the rest was good to decent years. So I’m not sure if guessing he’d only gone 8 wins is fair. He averaged right around 10 wins a year.
To be fair, the whole Athletic Department was far behind in recruiting and embracing the impact of the digital age and the ensuing rise of social media. Solich was only part of the problem.
His need for an "ace recruiter" was more of an institutional need. Nebraska was too closely removed from being "at the top," and a lot of people, Solich included, didn't believe they had to amend their template.
I found this to be interesting
"Solich has won 106 games at Ohio since 2005 and is five wins away breaking the MAC’s coach record for victories set by Herb Deromedi from 1978-1993 at Central Michigan." link
Anyway they are favored to win the MAC this season.
Frank may have been better than his successors, but he did not have the leadership to keep the program at the top. He rode TO's coattails as long as he could. Eric Crouch masked his problems for a while but eventually his inability to recruit was his downfall.
Wish him the absolute best.
Wish him the absolute best.
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Firing Solich might have been a mistake. Hiring him in the first place was a bigger one.
Not that he was a bad coach, but when your program is on top of the world and dominating college football, you don't hand the keys to Frank Solich.
If it wasn’t broke don’t fix it.. At the time the staff had been together for years and years, so TO hand picked FS..Who else on the staff would have been a better choice?
I know people are pointing to Byrne hiring Mac Brown, but he wouldn’t be running the power option that we were a custom to under Tom Osborne... Hell Mac Brown Hired Greg Davis for offensive coordinator at texass and he sucked..
Frank Solich doesn't do pushups, he pushes the earth down!
Apologies to Chuck Norris
The fact that no other power 5 school hired him should tell us all if he should have been head coach at NU. You could say the same about the other head coaches since T.O.
The biggest challenge was an organizational challenge. You had guys who were all equals for 20 years reporting to TO. Then one of their own got promoted and I think they had a hard time a) keeping the energy up and b) reporting to a guy who they felt was their equal. The moderate downfall was bound to happen.
Solich's best shot at maintaining national championship caliber would have required removing some of the assistants (or ideally they would have retired) but that also wasn't an option. If you come in and remove your buddies, that also can damage culture. I believe replacing Osborne in that situation was close to a no-win situation.
And yet IF Frank had hired somebody other than the Pelinis, he might still be the head coach at NU. The antics of Carl and Bo along with Bo's disdain for recruiting didn't help Frank's situation at all. IF Bo had come in as some fireball recruiter and had guys lining up to play for the Huskers, Frank may have saved his job. Likewise Frank needed to show some promise in recruiting in particular skill players for his offense. We were headed no where on that front and as a former recruiting coordinator it drove SP crazy. Frank wouldn't listen to SP about his staff's behavior or the need to upgrade recruiting and IMO SP believed (maybe rightly so) that we were circling the toilet.
Eh, I think the handwriting was already on the wall for Frank as far as Steve Pederson was concerned. The defense improved under Bo as much as it was going to under anyone else Solich hired, and nobody could possibly tell based on one season as DC whether Bo was a good, bad or in-between recruiter. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to criticize Pelini, but the notion that he had anything to do with Frank getting fired is a huge stretch.
Just checking back in with the annual reminder for "We never shoulda fired Frank" guy that Solich has STILL never won the MAC.
The. MAC.
In 14 seasons they've made 4 title game appearances and lost them all.
I like Frank and I wish him well but NU would not have been any better off with him as HC. The slide into mediocrity began on his watch.
The other coaches being wrong doesn't make him right.
The. MAC.
In 14 seasons they've made 4 title game appearances and lost them all.
I like Frank and I wish him well but NU would not have been any better off with him as HC. The slide into mediocrity began on his watch.
The other coaches being wrong doesn't make him right.
Billy C was not right for Nebraska, BUT, he was a better recruiter than Solich, Pelini, or Riley.
bo was fired for being a stark raving lunatic who completely dumped his underoos in games that mattered
those 9-10 wins were as big a joke as the thought of him being a leader of men
A booster of substance was buds with SP and a business partner of one of my family members. The recruiting angle is VASTLY overlooked by most Husker fans as a cause of Frank's firing. Add to it Carl sleeping with a player's wife and Bo chasing Snyder off the field and there you go. According to that booster, SP had made suggestions to Frank regarding staff behavior and recruiting and Frank told him to go F... himself. Make no mistake, the way our recruiting was playing out that fall and Frank's refusal to take SP's advice on ramping up recruiting played huge roles in his dismissal. Pelini was named the interim head coach because he was the one guy that SP figured nobody would care about when he let him go. Another error in judgment. The biggest single factor probably in SP firing Frank when he did though was the fact that he thought he had his buddy Dave Wannstedt in the bag as the next head coach. Oops. I'm not sure SP fires Frank if Wannie hadn't agreed to take the job.
Frank was the OC in name only. TO retained all the head coach and OC duties. We effectively hired a running backs coach to take over the preeminent program of its time.
I doubt Saban hands over Alabama to his running backs coach.
Like Beav said great coaches or even very good coaches don’t coach a decade + in the MAC.
I doubt Saban hands over Alabama to his running backs coach.
Like Beav said great coaches or even very good coaches don’t coach a decade + in the MAC.
franks lasted a helluva lot longer than i ever thought.
ohio was pretty much noncompetitive before he got there.
ohio was pretty much noncompetitive before he got there.
Im ok with your take about solich not being the guy, i might not agree but theres no evidence to really argue one way or another.
But what I don't understand is the whole “if crouch hadn't been there”....well guess what? Crouch WAS there, and he was there because of Frank Solich who recruited him (twice), and won the Heisman trophy with frank calling the plays.
If frank takes blame for talent he didn't recruit, then he gets credit for the talent he did recruit. You cant have it both ways.
Did your buddy also tell you that pedo came in with major problems with frank solich, going back to their days in the 80s when pedo was on the staff and solich treated him like the weasel he was? Because thats 100% true.
Pedo came in wanting to fire frank. Much of it was personal, as well as egotistical.
I dont care if people agree with the decision or not. But pedo is and was an absolute dbag.
Exactly. Solich needed to go, but the real fault was Osborne hiring his successor. Yes, Solich is a Husker for life. The AD should have done a real search for TO's replacement in the first place. Thank you for saying what needed to be said.
TOs real mistake was stepping down.
I understand what he was trying to do but I wonder if he would do it again.
It is nice to say you went out with an NC, though.
But going about replacing tom Osborne, for a team with a unique offense that worked for 20 years, is much more difficult than some here are making it sound. As another said, its almost a lose lose situation.
When you consider all the reasons why he wanted to keep it in house and hire frank, it makes sense as t9 why he did it.
The unknown of switching an entire scheme and firing a staff that had things rolling with one of the most dominant 5 years in CFB history isn't exactly enticing, now is it?
I don’t disagree with anything your buddy said about Frank’s downfall, I just don’t see what it had to do with Bo Pelini. Only a fantastic season was going to save Frank, and it’s doubtful a different DC hire was going to make that happen. And yeah Bo turned out to be a poor recruiter as a HC, but he didn’t work for Frank long enough to earn that label. As I recall it was during Bo’s time at LSU that he gained a reputation as a good DC who hated recruiting.