How to fix Nebraska Football

The Nebraska Cornhuskers have a great football history. Their five national championships do not tell the entire story of a once feared program. Under the vision and guidance of Hall of Fame Head Coaches Bob Devaney and Tom Osbourne, Nebraska dominated college football. From the 60s to the beginning of the Millennium, that famous big red N was synonymous with winning. However a loss in the 2002 Rose Bowl, gifting the National Championship to the historic 2001 Miami Hurricanes football team marked the beginning of the end. Nebraska decided to get rid of loyal son Frank Solich, selling its soul for Bill Callahan. The former Raiders Head Coach would never eclipse double digit wins in his four seasons in Lincoln and Bo Pelini was promoted after Callahan’s termination.

Pelini had a lot of success but a conference title always eluded him. There’s many reasons why he never accomplished such a feat, I know the name Texas is still a sore spot of a lot of people. However in the hope of getting over the preverbal hump, Nebraska looked to Mike Riley. Why? I don’t know. His tenure in the NFL with the Chargers was a complete failure. Bo Pelini never won less than nine games in a season. At Oregon State, Riley had six losing seasons including the season before he joined Nebraska. In his three years in Lincoln, Riley had one winning season.

Then the native son returned to save the homeland. Scott Frost. Born in Lincoln, won two national titles as quarterback at Nebraska and fresh off a 13-0 season as HC at UCF with a Peach Bowl win over Auburn, Frost was named Head Coach of the Cornhuskers. However it’s been four years with no winning seasons. In 2021, Frost went 3-9. Now I’m going to break down my plan to bring Nebraska back into the title picture.

I do believe Frost is the answer. The Cornhuskers are not far away from success. In their nine losses in 2021, eight was within one possession. The loss by multiple possessions? A loss by nine to Ohio State. The team is close but need to make some much needed acquisitions in the transfer portal.

We all know the Joe Burrow story. Wanting to leave Ohio State with two years of eligibility left, Frost chose Adrian Martinez over Burrow and Burrow went to LSU. In Burrow’s National Championship season, he’s won the same amount of games as Frost has in his four years at Nebraska. Now Burrow is a star for the Bengals and Martinez is now at Kansas State. In need of a shot collar, Frost needs to go after Casey Thompson from Texas. A duel threat quarterback with a plethora of experience, Thompson is very good at operating a run based offense. He’s not a pocket passer that you can put into five wide formations, however Nebraska is not that type of football team. Keep in mind, Thompson threw for 388 yards and 5 touchdowns against Oklahoma. I also believe that his second half slump came at the hands of Steve Sarkisian’s erratic playcalling more than Thompson’s play. You don’t go 5-7 with a guy like Bijan Robinson because of great coaching. Thompson was a scapegoat for a team that could not perform past the first quarter, primarily due to the incompetence of both Sark and DC Pete Kwiatkowski. Thompson is able to extend plays and acquire the needed points that turn one possession losses into wins.

Update: Thompson has committed to Nebraska. An excellent step in the right direction.

For recruiting, Nebraska has to reestablish its west coast routes. Oklahoma which has been the best program into the region has acquired a tremendous amount of talent from California. Players such as Joe Mixon, Rhamondre Stevenson and Caleb Kelly have impacted the program along with the plethora of recruits Lincoln Riley had before heading off to USC. Also Heisman finalist C.J. Stroud and Heisman winner Bryce Young are both from California as well. Nebraska also had All-American offensive lineman Toniu Fonoti and Dominic Raiola, both from Hawaii in the early 2000s. With the portal being so full, they need to find talent in the lost names of Junior Colleges as well. The question is how does Nebraska reestablish these routes? Well what does Nebraska offer? Here’s my pitch. Nebraska football is the most important thing in the state, their position in the conference is solid and the conference consistently sends a team to the CFB playoff. Nebraska also has a plethora of resources and a opportunity to have both consistently televised games and a paved road to the NFL.

The last thing. Defense. The hallmark of those great Nebraska teams was innovative offense and stifling defense. The question is how do you achieve this? I look at Clemson. The main reason Dabo Swinney was able to turn around Clemson was because Brent Venables fell right into his lap. Let’s look at every National Champion in the playoff era. There’s Alabama but Saban is a defensive minded coach. Clemson who had Venables. LSU who had Dave Aranda. Ohio State had Luke Fickle. Notice the theme? The question now becomes is Erik Chinander the right guy for the job? No team scored over 35 points on them the whole 2021 season. The best offense they faced which in my opinion is Ohio State only scored 26 points. However the lack of big names or big name recruits, especially on that D-line is troubling. I think he gets a prove it year and if it doesn’t work out. They may need to find their Venables if one is available.

Here’s my final analysis. Nebraska is not far off from being a competitive force again. The Thompson acquisition puts them in a good spot but if they fail to not only recruit top players but hold on to the best ones they have (Wen’dale Robinson), they’ll continue to suffer. Josh Heupel who inherited UCF after Frost has turned Tennessee around in barely a season. He did so through the portal and hopefully Frost is following suit. Nebraska needs to honestly stop living in the past. Tom Osbourne is not coming back and the wishbone offense is dead. The new Nebraska needs to be flashy but firm. It needs to be eye popping and sustainable. My dad calls it old school ideals with new school technology. Embrace the portal, embrace NIL, embrace the new age and all the riches of old shall come storming back to Lincoln and that beautiful Memorial Stadium.