I recently saw a passing reference to Bob Stoops being a candidate on Bill Byrne's list when Osborne retired. I had read that Mack Brown was on his list, but this is the first time that I'd heard Stoops mentioned. Anyone insiders or people in the know that can confirm this?
Bob Stoops 1997?
- Thread starter Long Time Lurker_rivals
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I believe there is even an interview with Stoops floating around where he talks about this. I thought someone posted it here not too long ago. Pre-Rhule.
Stoops was on AD Bill Byrne's short list of 4-5 people. Never had the chance to interview because TO went above him to UNL Chancellor James Moeser to have Solich take over. Moeser was out the door to Univ. of North Carolina soon after.
I do not blame Osborne for hand picking his own successor and for choosing Solich. In hindsight, Solich did not work out of course, mainly because recruiting had fallen off under his watch, but that may not have been entirely his fault. Recruiting is an enterprise involving the entire staff and I think, from what I have read at least, that the staff was not recruiting as hard for Solich as they had in the past.
But why shouldn't Osborne have been allowed to pick his successor? In my opinion, he had earned that right and he had earned it in spades. After all, who the hell was Bill Byrne? Sure he was the AD but he was not the person who had brought NU football to the peak of the college football world. That was Osborne. And even if technically Byrne had the right to choose the next coach I am sure Osborne had in mind keeping the entire thing going as it had been going and sought continuity. And he probably feared that Byrne might hire somebody who would dismantle the whole thing and fire the whole staff with a new coach brought in.
But why shouldn't Osborne have been allowed to pick his successor? In my opinion, he had earned that right and he had earned it in spades. After all, who the hell was Bill Byrne? Sure he was the AD but he was not the person who had brought NU football to the peak of the college football world. That was Osborne. And even if technically Byrne had the right to choose the next coach I am sure Osborne had in mind keeping the entire thing going as it had been going and sought continuity. And he probably feared that Byrne might hire somebody who would dismantle the whole thing and fire the whole staff with a new coach brought in.
The Riley hire was good… hiring 1995-2005 Riley that called his own plays and gave a ****, but we somehow got the old nice guy hack who didn’t care and let dumb **** Langsturd call the plays and run the offense
I remember when Riley was hired and my brother texted me and said, "Who in the hell is Mike Riley?!" What a **** hire. The worst hire of all of the post-Osborne hires. Even worse than Frost since at least Frost had that undefeated season at UCF and everyone wanted him. Moos would have been run out of town had he not hired Frost.
Never heard anything bad about Bill Callahan as well..
Disregard anything he posts.. He’s just stirring $&it to get a rise out of us..
Things haven’t been well in Ioway City since sonny boys new contract Barta came out with..
I totally agree, it's ALL hindsight being 20/20. I could mayyyybe imagine hiring Mack Brown or even Barry Alvarez (although he hadn't reached UW legend status yet), but if Nebraska hired a defensive coordinator from Florida to replace one of the most legendary coaches of all time, coming off of 3 national championships in 4 years, it would have been seen as an absolute travesty.
Solich didn't work out, that sucks, but if you truly put yourself back in 1997 it made complete sense to hire from within. We had a completely unique system and culture that had been developed for 3 decades and was at the absolute top of the college football world. Hiring an outsider AT THAT TIME would have been a gigantic risk. Keeping the continuity going was the obvious choice.
Unfortunately Solich turned out to be a big step down from Osborne, and I'm not sure anyone else on the Glory Days staff would've been a better continuity hire as head coach, but in my mind hiring Mack Brown or Barry Alvarez or Bob Stoops would've been seen as complete lunacy in 1997.
I'm in the opposite camp. I think Byrne should have been allowed to do his job and Tom should not have been involved. I get it was a cohesive unit, but that staff was aging pretty hard and Byrne was a solid AD and think would have gone through the right process to get us the best coach. No matter who coached that team, they were setup for probably at least 4 years with talent that was stockpiled and the National brand that was built. College football was starting to really change at that time and our previous staff was not the staff to adapt to the changes. It is definitely hindsight, but wish we wouldn't have gone that direction.
are discussions about frerentz's offensive coordinator considered personal life or professional life?
impossible to know
Byrne left at the end of 2002 season for A&M, by that time Pederson was hired and with his ego he would have wanted to put his own stamp on the program in which he did anyway and look who what we would’ve ended up with Dave Wannstedt..
IT's all hindsight, but who knows. If Byrne gets his way, maybe he stays. We would never know, but someday when I transition to the alternate reality, I'm going to go help facilitate NU hiring Big Game Bob!
Bob Stoops is a .500 XFL coach who caught lightning in a bottle in year 2 with his predecessor's recruits
he would've stunk here
he would've stunk here
Riley and SF stunk here, he would have done much better and won some conference titles but I doubt he wow have won a national title..
Don't you think that with Tom Osborne's recruits he could have won another couple of championships at Nebraska
Yes indeed. However, giving Frost and Hoiberg extensions when they hadn't earned it wasn't part of the assignment.
Hiring Solich might have been fine if Osborne had not forced Solich to keep all the assistants. Fact is more than one of those assts were not happy they were not named head coach and did not work as hard for Solich as they did for Osborne! Stoops won 12 games 5 times and 11 games 5 times at OU with his own recruits. I would say he would have done fine at Nebraska. No reason he would have stunk here!
Osborne intentions of hiring Solich was knowing his assistant’s would still be coaching at Nebraska.. Solich waiting too long making staff changes till his hand was forced, especially when McBride retired..
Yes, the worst hire at the time of getting the Nebraska job, but Frost wears the crown for being the worst coach at Nebraska post-Osborne.
Frost may have been an easy hire, but he was the worst hire. Much worse than Riley. Don't kid yourself. Frost sucked. What a waste of 5 years.
no, I don't
like I said, he found lightning in a bottle and was never able to repeat his success
I view Stoops in the same category as the Larry Cokers of the world
For a valuable enterprise, you NEVER relegate critical hires to a single personality. Never. Perform proper succession planning...before you need it. It was as if everyone in key roles thought God would just continue to smile on the program no matter the level of negligence or prejudice.
God feeds the birds, but he doesn't throw worms in their nests...
Tom Osborne and Bill Byrne should have met and talked it over before any decisions were made.
For those in the know, who were the other coaches on Byrne's list besides Brown and Stoops? Alvarez seems like a possibility.
Barry just started getting Wisconsin teams where they started becoming a factor in the B1G and took the Badgers to the Rose bowl in the 1998 and 1999 seasons and had a Heisman trophy winner in Ron Dayne in 1999…
Solich started our downward spiral to where we are today as he was a lazy recruiter and started going away from Osborne's culture. While Osborne was still here, there were a few of Osborne's stalwarts even back then that couldn't stand Solich which eventually culminated after Solich took over and those 3 were McBride, Tenopir and Darlington. McBride left after the 99 season and then due to health reasons Tenopir was given a choice by Solich that either he resign, or he'd be fired which was a very ****** thing to do especially to the GOAT OL coach in CFB history and then how he humiliated Darlington when he fired him and needless to say Osborne wasn't happy one bit at what he did and how he went about it.. Solich came to DONU in 79 and a year later here comes Stevie P and from the get go, those 2 did not like each other and they did not get along at all. Solich had 2 charged DUI's while he was here and then the straw that broke the camel's back was when he knocked up a med student which was not a rumor but fact. His wife Pam then went to Pederson and told him. you better do something about this or I'm going public with it and there it came, the firing of a 9 win coach.
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With the talent that Tom Osborne left behind, it's likely that we would have caught lightning in a bottle had he come here. After all of Osborne's talent left, he likely has similar results to those he had after winning a national championship at Oklahoma. He usually wins 11 games a year but gets boat raced in games that matter.
The strange twist is Frank was a skirt chaser while he was an assistant coach and TO knew about it and did nothing
Good info. I might add that Solich's tenure unfortunately coincided with an infusion of young and/or dynamic coaching (Stoops, Leach, Brown, Pinkel) and Synder hitting his stride. He wasn't able to rise to the new challenge.