[Husker] TO's "learning curve"

[Bob Clouston (rclousto)]

Your facts are wrong on Osborne's first years.

Devaney was still coach in 1972.  Right there you just flunked Husker
History 101.

you didn't list a tie in 1973 against an unranked team, nor 2 losses to
unranked teams in 1974.  You make it look like the only losses were to
ranked teams.  

75 was the only year they were one win away from playing for a
championship in his first 5 years, and they weren't even close to
winning that game.  And they lost a lesser bowl game, so it's very
unlikely they would've put up a good game against a tougher team.

I'm not arguing about whether Osborne was a great coach in the early
years.  But you can't make an argument for that based on wrong and
misleading information.

And if you don't think Osborne learned and adjusted over the years, you
do him a service.  The starting point and degree at which he had to do
that would be in question.

Bob 

-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Smith [mailto:arossman at earthlink.net] 
Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 9:49 AM
To: Husker List
Subject: [Husker] TO's "learning curve"

I'm slightly bothered by the frequent suggestion that TO had to "learn
and adjust" before winning a NC.  While I'm certain he continued to
learned and make adjustments throughout his career, the 'learn and
adjust' comment usually seems to suggest some significant coaching break
through from an old approach to a new one was needed before TO was a
great coach.  Looking at his career, that makes no sense to me and
GREATLY underestimates his success before he won a NC.

One thing many forget is that TO was Devaney's offensive coordinator and
by most accounts was the person who changed NU's full house backfield to
the I-formation (and what some describe as more of a pro "spread" 
passing offense).  So before TO was even a head coach, he had 'learned
and adjusted' enough to help lead NU to back-to-back NCs.

In his first 5 years as head coach he never finished out of the top-10
and a few times was 1 win away from playing for the NC:

    In '72, #5 NU lost to #4 OU (a heartbreaker, 17-14); NU then crushed
    #12 ND 40-6 in the Orange Bowl
    In '73, NU played 7 top-20 (at game time) teams, beating 5 of them,
    including a 19-3 bowl win over #8 Texas.
    In '74, #6 NU lost to #1 OU
    In '75, #2 NU lost to #7 OU (in Norman), the only year from '72-76
    'OU was not ranked above NU going into the game

I'm not sure what learning and adjusting was needed.  Learning how to
beat OU, you say?  So few did that during that period (when OU was led
by one of the great college coaches - Barry Switzer), that I don't
believe it was due to any significant lack of learning or adjusting.

Looking further along in TO's career, his worst years - the ONLY ones
where Nebraska finished below #11 (ave. of both polls) were '89-'92.  I
guess it took him 17 years to unlearn and unadjust some important things
:-).

People forget that there is usually some luck involved in winning, or
even simply playing for, the NC.  For example:
* In '82, Joe Paterno won the NC with a 1-loss team and only "beat" NU
due to a terrible officiating call.
* On the other hand, Paterno has had 4 undefeated teams that did not win
a share of the NC or even a chance to play for it.
* In '81, NU plays Clemson for the NC (since #2 and #3 lose their bowl
games) despite having 2 losses.
* But NU's bad luck that year (on top of the bad luck of losing their
star sophomore QB, Turner Gill, to injury), and every one else's is that
Clemson builds a stellar team using serious recruiting violations.
* Change a single play each of the years '82, '83 (and perhaps '81 and
'94), and '97, and TO wins 3 NCs in th early '80s but only 1 in the
'90s.

I, and everyone else on this list could go on and on with examples where
there was some fortune was needed for a team to win the NC and examples
where some misfortune prevented a team from playing for or winning the
NC.

My point is that TO was a great head coach his first year on the job!

Go Big Red!
Andy