I understand better than most that Nebraska hasn't been a national player for nearly 2 decades and some youngsters don't cornsider them a "helmet" any longer, but....
no lower than #7 in all 4 lists in the first post
I like Nebraska and I loved the Sharkwater tailgate there back in 2011. That said, the thing that makes me question Nebraska's "Helmetosity" isn't just the recent swoon, it is the fact that they weren't consistently very good before Bob Devaney either. I noted in
the more B1G-centric thread that Nebraska was mostly nationally irrelevant in the first 28 years of AP Polls (40 appearances, 16 top-10's, and no top-5's in 284 polls from 1936-1963).
My view is that a PROGRAM that is a true helmet program doesn't need a great coach to be nationally relevant. I have my doubts about Nebraska because substantially all of their success came under just two coaches: Bob Devaney and Tom Osborne.
Devaney arrived for the 1962 season and the Cornhuskers went 9-2 that year. Prior to that they hadn't finished above .500 since going 6-5 in 1954. They hadn't finished with eight or more wins since going 8-2 in 1940, and they hadn't won nine or more games since going 10-0 in 1903.
Devaney, Osborne, and Solich* coached Nebraska for 42 consecutive years during which winning "only" nine games in a season was a bad year. Outside of that a nine win season at Nebraska is REALLY good.
Schools like Alabama, Ohio State, Oklahoma, and a few others have achieved high levels of success under many different coaches.
Another way to look at it, and one that
@ELA typically advocates, is to look at a program's ability to recover from a major downturn. Ohio State is hard to measure on this metric because the Buckeyes are, by far, the most consistently successful program at least since WWII. Alabama and Oklahoma, however, have each faced serious and extended downturns then recovered to get right back to being football powerhouses. Alabama was basically terrible for 11 years from 1997-2007 and look at them now. Oklahoma had a similar swoon from 1989-1999 then got right back to being a NC contender.
For the last 17 years (2002-2018) the Cornhuskers have been, for the most part, nationally irrelevant. Here are their 2002-2018 AP stats:
- 22nd in appearances with 126 out of 278 polls (45.3%)
- 33rd (tied with Mizzou, KSU, and USCe) with 24 top-10's out of 278 polls (8.6%)
- 44th (tied with Purdue and aTm) with one top-5 out of 278 polls (0.4%).
- Never ranked higher than #5.
I'm not pointing this out to pick on Nebraska. My point is that Bama (1997-2007) and Oklahoma (1989-1999) were not much better and they recovered. My question is whether or not Nebraska can do the same thing? I'm not taking a position on whether or not they can, I'm just pointing out the question.
If Scott Frost can take them back to consistently playing high-level football that will REALLY shore up Nebraska's Helmet status because it will mean that they have four highly successful coaches (Devaney, Osborne, Solich, Frost) and that they have successfully rebounded from a protracted downturn. If he can't, then I'll be waiting to see how the next guy does.
*Solich:
I hesitated to include Solich in my list of great Nebraska coaches because he obviously didn't succeed at the Devaney/Osobrne level and got fired. That said, his winning percentage is still third best among Nebraska coaches in the last 100+ years.
