Coaches Hot Seat Prediction and Analysis of 2012 Season: Nebraska Cornhuskers and Bo Pelini
Coaches Hot Seat Prediction and Analysis of 2012 Season: Nebraska Cornhuskers and Bo Pelini
Nebraska Cornhuskers
Head Coach: Bo Pelini
Years at Nebraska: 3
Hot Seat Position: #37
Overall Coaching Record: 39 – 16 (.709)
Overall Won/Loss Record at Nebraska: 39 – 16 (.709)
Overall Conference Record at Nebraska: 22 – 10 (.688)
2011 Nebraska Record: Overall: 9 – 4 – Big Ten: 5 – 3
2012 Nebraska Schedule & Coaches Hot Seat Predictions
Sept 1 – Southern Miss – W
Sept 8 – at UCLA – W
Sept 15 – Arkansas State – W
Sept 22 – Idaho State – W
Sept 29 – Wisconsin – W
Oct 6 – at Ohio State – W
Oct 20 – at Northwestern – W
Oct 27 – Michigan – W
Nov 3 – at Michigan State – L
Nov 10 – Penn State – W
Nov 17 – Minnesota – W
Nov 23 – at Iowa – W
Number of Cupcake Teams Played by Nebraska in 2012: 1 (Idaho State)
Coaches Hot Seat 2012 Nebraska Predicted Record: 11 – 1
Coaches Hot Seat Analysis: We here at Coaches Hot Seat have internal polls being run via email here all of the time among our members and a couple of years ago the following poll question was sent out:
Rank the below 10 schools in order from 1 to 10 with 1 being the school where the fans have the Highest Expectations down to 10 with the school that has the Lowest of High Expectations:
Alabama
Florida
LSU
Michigan
Nebraska
Notre Dame
Ohio State
Oklahoma
Texas
USC
The results of the above poll question although interesting are not really relevant here on this discussion of Cornhusker football, but one interesting thing in the poll results was that the High Expectations of the fans of Nebraska football had led to EVERY Coaches Hot Seat member to put Nebraska in the top 4 of their Highest Expectations school ranking.
Very simply the Expectations for Nebraska football are VERY HIGH or as a good friend of ours in Omaha who has several degrees from the University of Nebraska – Lincoln and the University of Nebraska – Omaha and who looks like Warren Buffett and talks like one would expect a soft-spoken Nebraskan gentlemen to talk when asked about the expectations for “his” Nebraska football team:
“The Expectations at Nebraska is what you are asking about? That’s easy….To win the conference and play for the National Title.”
Yes, that was a cold shiver that just went down the back of Bo Pelini as he imagines the world he has inserted his coaching career into where the people seem nice enough in Nebraska….they are very nice….the women are very kind and they encourage Pelini to lead the Huskers to victory…..the women in Nebraska are very kind and encouraging….and everything seems calm and relaxed in the state of Nebraska….things are very calm and relaxed in Nebraska….BUT and that is BIG BUT….just beneath the surface of our Nebraska friends and business associates that follow Nebraska football like a religion resides a very simple understanding that is for the most part unsaid in Omaha, Lincoln, Columbus and other towns big and small across the state and that simple understanding goes like this…
“Nebraska football WILL WIN….PERIOD.”
No, we did not just write that Nebraska fans “expect” the Nebraska football program to WIN….but rather….
“Nebraska football WILL WIN….PERIOD.”
Before Bo Pelini was hired as the head coach at Nebraska in 2007 Tom Osborne had to first hire the disastrous Bill Callahan and in the aftermath of Nebraska AD Tom Osborne firing Callahan Coach Osborn made a few comments about Callahan’s firing and the expectations for Nebraska football both today and when Coach Osborne was first hired as the head coach of the Cornhuskers in the early 1970s and the below videos can enlighten folks of just high of a standard that Bo Pelini has to live up to in Lincoln.
Coach Tom Osborne on the firing of Bill Callahan (November 27, 2007) and the Expectations at the University of Nebraska:
Is it just us or does the world seem to make a lot more sense when Tom Osborn is talking about it?
So the Expectations for Bo Pelini at Nebraska are VERY HIGH and in three seasons on the job Pelini’s record is…
Overall: 39 – 16
Big 12 – Big Ten: 22 – 10
…and has put up yearly records of…
2008: 9 – 4
2009: 10 – 4
2010: 10 – 4
2011: 9 – 4
….and by our reckoning and by talking to our friends and business associates in Nebraska, and we just saw a few dozen of them in May at the Berkshire-Hathaway Annual Meeting in Omaha, the general consensus is that Pelini has so far at Nebraska….
“Done OK….but Nebraska fans expect more….much more.”
We can imagine that Bo Pelini on seeing the above comment after putting up 38 wins in his first four seasons on the job at Nebraska must have just said something like…
“You have got to be Freaking kidding me!”
….but we are talking about Nebraska football and do what have to say it again? Yes, we do.
The Expectations at Nebraska are VERY HIGH
AND
“Nebraska football WILL WIN….PERIOD.”
Turning to the 2012 Nebraska football season the word we picked up on the streets while in Omaha was that South Carolina’s rout of Nebraska in the Capital One Bowl this past January…
South Carolina – 30
Nebraska – 13
….has put a burr under the saddle of Bo Pelini and that beating by the Gamecocks followed on losses to Northwestern and Michigan in the 2011 regular season and all of those losses together has tightened up the coil in Lincoln among the Husker coaches and players a good bit and with a very manageable schedule to start the 2012 season there is a chance that the Cornhuskers could come out of the shoot like a house on fire and get the ball rolling to what could be a VERY BIG season.
IF Nebraska can beat Southern Miss, UCLA, Arkansas State and Idaho State to start the season and there is no reason they cannot, then the September 29 th game in Lincoln against Wisconsin could be the launching pad for a BIG season in 2012 for the Huskers….BUT…..if Nebraska loses to Wisconsin and with trips to Ohio State and Northwestern up next things could also start going in the wrong direction quickly and since we are talking about Nebraska football where….
The Expectations at Nebraska are VERY HIGH
AND
“Nebraska football WILL WIN….PERIOD.”
…that makes that Nebraska – Wisconsin game VERY BIG indeed.
We have Nebraska going 11 – 1 in 2012 with the only loss coming at Michigan State on November 3 which is a game that will be one of the key games to determine the winner of the Big Ten Legends Division and even then a…
11 – 1 season
…in 2012 at Nebraska that doesn’t include at trip to the Big Ten Championship Game and an opportunity to play for the National Title would be “below expectations” and that sound you just heard was Bo Pelini throwing a rock paperweight on his desk through the glass window in his office in Lincoln while saying…
“You have got to be Freaking kidding me!”
