[NU Sports] OSU game highlighted Randy Walker's shortcomings

[Hakirsch at aol.com]

Well I am sure John's note will elicit a lot of responses including mine.

A few thoughts--

Walker is not a player's coach --and I am not sure how much any school wants 
a player's coach--particularly with the NU football player, who on average is 
more intelligent than the average NCAA football player. They probably more 
than others understand that not everyone is goinhg to love his coach.  

I think John is right that Walker and NU had had a lot of luck the past 
several years-(Mich 2000, Iowa 2005,OSU 2004 to name a few) and with a few plays 
going the other way we could easily have been  at 4-7 some of the bowl years 
under Walker.  While some games have gone the other way, (PSU 2005 quickly comes 
to mind), it seems with have had more of the former than the latter. 

Yes our defense and special teams have been our weak spots under Walker and 
of course it would be great to improve there.  But one has to look at our 
overall record and graduation rates as being the key measurement of his success or 
not--and as  has been hashed about before, Walker passes here.

It would be great to go to a good name bowl every year, but I am skepitcal if 
that is an acheivable goal.  It is a worthy goal , but extraordinary tough 
when if you don't finish in the top 3 or 4 in the conference it won't happen. 
When you have OSU , Mich and PSU in the conference it is tough to consistently 
surpass Minn, Wisc, and Iowa And the recent also rans of MSU, Ill and Purdue do 
not sit quietly.  On top of that would we as alums feel good, that in order 
to acheive the lofty goal, we probably would have to spend a ton of money on a 
football coach and staff  salaries?  I for one think it would send the wrong 
message about what NU is about --academics first.


In short , yes on average we will be in the middle of the pack under Walker- 
or probably any coach (remember if they get good they leave for more money or 
more opportunity to win big --ala Ara, Agase and,Barnett-) but this should 
allow us to go to a name bowl every few years and a lesser name bowl in others-I 
can be happy with that- (Maybe I am biased because i was at NU in the late 
70's early 80's when going -1-10 and 0-11 and getting blown out every game by 
half time was the norm-)

-Now if we could only make the NCAA's in hoops ... 

Harry