Dr. Tom Osborne got a little defensive this week. He chose Bo Pelini over Turner Gill to be Nebraska's next head football coach. While the move will certainly draw a fair share of criticism, it's ultimately a move that can be defended in more ways than one.
LSU fans who saw Pelini against Arkansas on Nov. 23 might feel that the Husker program is welcoming back an overrated football man. Members of the Black Coaches Association, along with all who care about minority hires in a profession that sorely needs them, will lament the fact that Gill, a Nebraska legend in his own right, didn't receive the anointing of his mentor and former coach. There are many ways to knock this move by the Good Doctor of Big Red Nation, but as this story freshly hits the presses, you have to acknowledge one very simple element of this decision: it is, all things considered, a percentage move.
No, this isn't a spectacular hire by any means, but the possible hiring of Gill represented a bigger stretch. While Osborne's former quarterback has been doing sensational work at Buffalo, one has to realize that it's the Bulls, and not the Bills, where ol' No. 12 is coaching up a storm. It would seem prudent to expect Gill to work his way up the food chain before giving him the keys to one of the greatest brand names in all of college football, and Osborne shrewdly adhered to that line of thought. The Bill Callahan era, after all, was a grand experiment gone awry, so in hiring Pelini, Nebraska is seeking--and is likely to get--stability.
The other reason this is a percentage play for Nebraska and Osborne is that the Huskers' greatest embarrassments under Callahan featured obscene point totals conceded by the (not-so) Blackshirt defense that, under coordinator Kevin Cosgrove, became a laughingstock in the Big XII. When Charlie McBride and then Pelini patrolled the sideline, the Blackshirts established themselves as the backbone of Husker football, a reliable and consistent anchor whenever opposing teams could keep the Huskers' ground game in check. Sure, there were many days in the Callahan reign when the Huskers lit up the scoreboard, but there were many more occasions when an opponent made the "N" on the Nebraska helmet stand for "Nintendo." Big Red football fistfights--in Lincoln and on the road--became video game nightmares far removed from the old-fashioned Big Eight Conference slugfests of past decades. With the soft Huskers no longer punching anyone in the mouth, the identity behind the program vanished, and a track record of incredible consistency became ancient history as quickly as you could say "Steve Pederson," the former athletic director who shamefully orchestrated Frank Solich's departure and Callahan's entrance into the role of head coach.
Osborne--now calling the shots once again in Lincoln--struck a blow for stability because his hire of Pelini will almost certainly relegate scores of 76, 70 and 65 (point totals produced against Callahan's teams over the past four years) to the past. Bo knows defense, and Bo also knows passion. These two realities should be enough to ensure that the Huskers--while still something of a mystery on offense--will buckle down and put an end to the calculator games that are not part of this storied school's gridiron profile. The addition of Bo Pelini will provide a welcome form of subtraction on the scoreboard; Osborne has wisely surmised that what Husker fans won't see with their new coach is even more important than what they will see.
The next task for the Huskers is to find the right offensive coordinator, a man who can preside over a balanced attack but emphasize a commitment to physical line play that was missing under Callahan's finesse-based system. This will be a tricky task, given Pelini's inexperience as a head coach, but with Osborne's input, the chances of finding a compatible fit are better than you might think. All in all, if Nebraska was going to successfully deposit the horrors of Bill Callahan in the dustbin of history, the Huskers probably (though not certainly) needed to lean toward shoring up their defense. Dr. Tom did his homework, and as a result, a program that is not about to pop off 10-2 or 11-1 seasons (this will be an exercise in patience for Husker fans, as hard as that is to accept in modern college football) will at least return to the village of "Eight And Four," with a chance of moving to that even nicer suburban enclave, "Nine-And-Three-Ville."
Will those records be sexy? Of course not. Is Pelini a similarly sexy hire? Not at all. But in America's heartland, there's something to be said for bare-bones solidity and blue-collar stability. Merely avoiding the rollercoaster rides of the Callahan era--and counting on a modestly satisfying bowl bid--should tide over Nebraska fans for the next few years. Bo Pelini should do just fine as a short-term program stabilizer. The real question comes in 2010 or 2011, once the Huskers have (likely) regained their footing: will Pelini lead Nebraska all the way to the mountaintop, just as Bob Devaney and Tom Osborne did when they stood on the sidelines in Lincoln?
