Nebraska has fired its head football coach Bo Pelini after 7 years as head coach of the Nebraska Cornhuskers. Despite a 9-3 record, this is unsurprising to me. Mitch Sherman at ESPN has some stats:
The former defensive coordinator at LSU and Oklahoma, Pelini, in his first head-coaching job, produced notable consistency but little evidence that Nebraska was set to take the next step as a program. It lost 59-24 at Wisconsin on Nov. 15, surrendering a then-FBS record 408 rushing yards to Melvin Gordon in the latest embarrassing defeat for the program.
Nebraska has lost 10 games by 20 points or more since 2008, Pelini’s first season, and allowed 45 points or more in six games since the Huskers joined the Big Ten in 2011.
Pelini improved to 67-27 as Nebraska’s coach on Friday with a 37-34 overtime win at Iowa. The victory pushed Pelini’s win total past Tom Osborne for the most ever at the school in a coach’s first seven years.
In fact, no coach in the history of a Power 5 program had been fired for on-field performance after winning as many games in his first seven years. Only Alabama and Oregon – first and second this week in the College Football Playoff rankings – can match the Huskers in winning nine games each year since 2008.
He also guided the Huskers to 7 bowls, winning 4. But despite winning a few division championships (2009 and 2010 in the Big XII and 2012 in the Big 10), he never won a conference championship let alone a national championship. For a program that still boast a consecutive sell-out streak (340 games) that dates back to 1962 and five national championships, this simply won’t do.
Frankly, I’m surprised the university was as patient with Pelini as it was.
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