I'm Glad that NU Got Their Man
14 comments so far
December 13, 2007 by
With Bo Pelini crossing the country to try and secure recruits, and working with Tom Osbrone to try and fill the one remaining spot on his staff, it seems just a bit odd to revisit the notion of NU's coaching search now. But, bear with me. In the midst of what is one of the wildest college football firing/hiring seasons on record, and the disclosure that NU is paying their search firm a cool $75,000, I think there is plenty still to discuss. Basically, I'm thrilled that NU has the proverbial "bird in hand", even if it did cost a lot and the choices presented were plainly obvious to everyone.
More Openings than Coaches…
ESPN commentator Bill Curry, in all of his sage wisdom and Southern wit, likes to point out that there are three seasons in football - the regular season, recruiting season, and "off with their heads" season, when fans call for coaching changes. And, 2007 has been a year like no other for football's "third season".
All told, there have been more than a dozen head coaching jobs in some state of turnover so far this year. The programs range from the very high profile (like Michigan) to the relative bottom feeders (SMU). It has caused me to honestly think that the supply and demand of coaches to vacancies is a bit out of whack this year.
Some of the hires so far have been head scratchers. Texas A&M reaching very quickly on NFL retread Mike Sherman is one underwhelming example. And, the recent move of NFL coach and confirmed snake Bobby Petrino to Arkansas got the sports world buzzing. Reviewing the list of jobs that have been filled so far makes me think that many teams are taking risks. Teams are ending up with relatively unproven coordinators (personally, I think Oklahoma State's OC Fedora going to Southern Miss is a great thing for Nebraska). Or they get coaches who are a little longer in the tooth, like Paul Johnson or Jim Grobe. Frankly, I just don't think there are a lot of good candidates out there who would be willing to change jobs right now.
Search Firm?
A key to this is that phrase I just used...."willing to change". Are guys like Greg Schiano at Rutgers and Brian Kelly at Cincinnati young, quality coaches? Absolutely. Does that mean they want to trade jobs right now? Nope. Not everyone is Bobby freaking Petrino. Michigan found this out with Schiano the hard way. Being publicly turned down by the Rutgers head coach puts Michigan's search in to another spiral, following their courtship and meltdown with Les Miles.
So, how does one properly gauge the interest of a coach that a program may be smitten with? That's where search firms come in. One Michigan columnist believes Osborne's willingness to use one was the key difference between NU's quick search and Michigan’s protracted one. NU identified candidates, quietly assessed their interest and struck quickly. That makes some sense.
Of course, there is a downside with firms, too. NU's athletic department is paying the search firm they used $75,000. That's stunning, since it appears to me that they just rounded up the "Usual Suspects" (great movie, by the way), in Gill and Pelini, and threw in a couple other guys as smoke screen interviews. Wow, good work if you can get it, I suppose.
Still, I'm Glad
When I consider Pelini's "stock" as a coaching candidate against the enormous number of job openings this year and the list of candidates set to fill them, I'm still glad NU shelled out for a firm.
Sure, it wasn't the toughest list to assemble. But, using a firm allowed Osborne to act quickly and quietly. If they knew Pelini was their guy all along, so what? It still makes sense to snap him up before ten more teams enter the market for him. If NU had dragged their feet, who knows if UCLA, Southern Miss, Georgia Tech or dare I say even Michigan would have jumped in to the running for his services. If anything, another program in the running would have surely increased the rate, and NU would have ended up spending another $75,000 to get Pelini anyway.
Of course, this morning's news that Pelini's contract may not be finalized until January gave me just a bit of pause. These days, you can't be too sure.
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Tyler Hughes Dec 13 07
I think this was money wisely and well-spent. Much wiser than the $5mm that we have to pay out to HCBC and Pedeyboy.
It reminds me how BJax wisely looked to 2006 as an opportune time to jump because the RB class wasn't as strong, NU may look back and see that getting BP in 2007 was a steal. Lots of high-profile jobs, not that many high-quality/profile coaches. Getting it done early was crucial.
The coaching search was done quickly, decisively, and in a classy way. $75,000 means nothing in the grand scheme of things and we may have just found ourselves a jewel.
Dwayne Dec 13 07
That search was handled entirely the way it needed to be done. Steve Pederson handled the initial search after firing Solich very poorly in my opinion. The rumors that followed that search were just crazy. I think that has been the shift in the past twenty years or so in that people and companies have become more specialized in what they do offering more distinct services than ever before. This has been a very long dead period already since the end of the season and we're not even in the new calendar year yet. I was watching a program on ESPN the other night and they mentioned John Wooden as being one of the greatest coaches ever to coach any sport. Anyway, Wooden never really discussed wins and losses but focused mainly on performance and effort. It is a correlation that I feel Osborne tried to express during his days of coaching and I think we're beginning to see this again as he holds the position of interim AD.
http://salem.k12.va.us/shs/moore/johnwoodensuccess.html
ze bop Dec 13 07
Have no idea what's going on, but lately haven't been able to access the posting pages, moreso than usual. This is the only sit I have that problem.
Anyway, I'm surprised Brian Kelly hasn't signed with someone yet--like MI--but maybe it's a secret now until after the bowls. He could easily triple his income I imagine.
Jon johnston Dec 13 07
$75,000 isn't too bad considering the amount of the contract that's involved. Consider that $75k is probably about 5% of $1.5M for the first year of the contract (and Pelini's may be higher), that's less than a standard rate for a lot of search firms.
Actually, that's a lot less than the standard going rate, which can be up to 25% of the first year salary.
Scott Dec 13 07
Yeah...I don't know where this athletic department is going to find that kind of money. (Only kidding)
Look at it this way, if Pelini can take them to a bowl next year, they can take the $75k right out of that.
Here's a thought....why doesn't BRN create some BO-GASM shirts and donate all proceeds to the search firm. Shoot, just create the stinking t-shirts. (If you build it, he will come).
doombob Dec 13 07
I will say this for TO. He does everything by the book. And when it's not in the book, he writes his own pages. Just see what he's done as "interim head coach" and demoting himself to assistant, etc. The guy obviously has buried himself in the rule books and amassed his many years of experience into one fell swoop this year. It's like watching a graceful, yet powerful and manly ballet.
DT Dec 14 07
Here's a story from yahoo sports, printed a full 4 days before Pederson got the axe (roughly two months before Pelini was announced as NU's head coach):
http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaaf/news;_ylt=AtY5V71XRdTBC4_VdubsGeA5nYcB?slug=jn-pelini101107&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
This article was quickly passed around by Husker fans (that's where I got the link--via email back on October 11, the day it was published) and in my mind it really helped to kick-start the whole "Bring back Bo" campaign.
I completely agree with Darren's assertion that NU "got their man". In fact, my theory is that the powers-that-be set the whole thing in motion and it was all a really well-orchestrated operation, complete with the whole "due diligence" routine and the search firm "smoke & mirrors". (Oh, and I do believe I've read that $75,000 is roughly the cost of one year's rental on a single Memorial stadium skybox...or the average amount of money one concession stand generates during a given Husker halftime. I know it's one or the other, I'm not sure which, but basically diddly-squat either way!)
Read the article, examine the subtext of the thing...it really struck me at the time that the wheels were already in motion--but looking back on it now, it's even more eerie. The whole thing reads less like "Bo Pelini: LSU defensive coordinator" than it does "Bo Pelini: former Nebraska defensive coordinator".
To wit:
"...four years after being passed up for the head coaching job at NEBRASKA, things couldn't be going any better for Pelini in Baton Rouge."
Nothing about "...things couldn't be going any better for Pelini after also being passed over for the Pitt/Syracuse head coaching jobs..."
Look at who was interviewed...I mean, out of all the former players Pelini has coached as an assistant, they chose Barrett Ruud?!
Les Miles wanted him on his staff before even meeting him, solely because Pelini's NU defense stymied his Okie state squad (with no mention of the fact that Bo was also at OU when Miles was still the Cowboys head coach in 2004 and lost by 3 to a Pelini-coached defense that gave up 35)?!
Mary Pat Pelini referencing that Bo's Lincoln experience was the one that "made the light bulb go off" and determined that "that's when he realized that college coaching was something he wanted to do for a long, long time"?!
The whole discussion that was taken up by Bo's supporters for the next 6-8 weeks was framed right there in that article, before Pederson's head even rolled...Bo's "fiery" attitude and personality; how his players play with "passion" and would "run through walls for him"; the "we want Bo" chants, post-Alamo Bowl; the token interview with Pederson; his quote about how "he was ready then" but now he's "even more ready"...they even threw a couple of bones to his NU detractors by bringing up the Bill Snyder incident and the Alamo Bowl unsportsmanlike penalty!
Now I'll freely admit that I'm the type to indulge myself in putting a little too much stock in the occasional conspiracy theory...but doesn't it all seem a little too coincidental that the same talking points you heard from all sorts of people for weeks were spelled out right there, the week before Pederson was even fired?! Doesn't it strike you as even a little bit odd that an article about an LSU defensive coordinator employs the word "Nebraska" 15 times...four more times than the word "LSU" appears in the same?!
I read somewhere recently that these coaching searches are like a marriage (it might have been on BRN for all I know, I've read so much on the subject as of late) with the point being that the love has to be mutual between the prospective coach and their University suitors. Hell, Bo even says so much himself in the yahoo article. So it therefore makes a lot of sense how it seems that much in the same way that Nebraska "got their man"...Bo "got his job". The one he really wanted all along.
ze bop Dec 14 07
They are 'PITT' and 'Syracuse' for a reason: they passed up on a guy like BO.
Now NE has, 'BO-rn Supremacy'!
ze bop Dec 14 07
BO is so HOT:
--He really left LSU 'cause he thinks Big Red matches his eyes better.
--His idea of a barbecue is holding a raw burger in his palm.
--He once did a firewalking workshop...on the sun.
--He thinks Icarus was a wuss.
--He chews on raw jalopenas like they was 'candy'.
--He's hotter than Angelina Jolie--and he's a dude.
---don't 'TAZE me, bro--
Scott Dec 14 07
I think Mike Gundy can relate to this....
"Bo is 40 years old! He's a man!"
Now he's THE man.
sb Dec 14 07
Have you guys posted an update on Pelini's staff? This article says all but one position have been filled, but I can't find out who has been hired anywhere.
doombob Dec 14 07
Ron Brown is currently the only one with an Official Staff position and title. Many are known to be on staff, but without any official indication of what their duties will be. We're pretty sure that Watson will be OC, but like the rest, there have been no official announcements, and I don't expect one until ALL the staff is complete.
sb Dec 14 07
thanks doombob
Greg Morrow Dec 14 07
Once Osborne calmed everyone with a stern yet reassuring "everbody, settle down," he followed his own example and examined info he'd already been compiling.
His first attempt wasn't over the top, like offering the job to Bill Belichick, or some other currently employed NFL coach.
I think also, Tom might have been too polite to try to take someone else's HC, whether Schiano, Kelly or Grobe. Doesn't matter now, I guess.
However obvious this choice was, I'm still impressed that he went with a young, successful coordinator with few miles on the tires, yet with alot of big games to have made decisions in.
Oh, and talk about damaged goods, moving to Little Rock. But then again, Petrino has "hit the ground runnin", with his previous job fading in his rear view mirror.
How many retreads get that opportunity?