3. Consistency Trumps Sporadic Success

Every season has a surprise story or two, and Pelini critics love to point out a list of teams that have reached the alleged pinnacle of a “BCS bowl” game since Nebraska last did.  But many of these programs the critics cite had a rare extraordinary season sandwiched by losing seasons. 

Is this a trade-off Pelini critics would choose?  Would Pelini critics prefer Nebraska have the occasional short-term success of programs like Syracuse, Purdue, Illinois, Maryland, Washington State, Iowa, Pitt, Utah, Auburn, West Virginia, Wake Forest, Hawaii, Kansas, Georgia Tech, TCU, Connecticut, etc.?  These teams have all played in a bowl game with the “BCS” tag, sometimes lucking into the bowl slot after relatively mediocre seasons or playing a mid-major schedule, but have by and large been uncompetitive and irrelevant most other years. 

Is the occasional level of success of these teams superior to Pelini’s sustained performance?  In other words, would you rather have a program competing for championships, BCS berths, or (soon) playoff spots into November or December year after year… or a program reaching such a level once a decade before returning to irrelevance and losing seasons?

By contrast to the flashes-in-the-pan the Pelini critics love to cite, Nebraska under Pelini is one of just three BCS teams to win 9 or more games in each of the previous 5 seasons, joining Alabama and Oregon.  In fact, Pelini is just the fourth first-time head coach in college football history to accomplish that feat.  Strangely, Pelini critics like to belittle and diminish the nine-win mark – the same one touted for years under Osborne – but if it was so simple to accomplish, why isn’t anyone else doing it?

There was another coach who hung around most years, winning most of his games and competing for titles into November, but coming up short in the “big ones,” coming up short of championships, year after year after year.  A tall, red-haired gentleman from Hastings named Tom Osborne. Unlike the cesspool Pelini inherited, Osborne took over the premier program in the nation - yet he didn't win an outright conference title until his ninth season as head coach.

After Osborne’s sixth season as Nebraska head coach, the criticism of Osborne had reached a such a level that he almost left to take the Colorado job.  Had 1978 been unfortunate enough to have today's internet mob mentality, or the unprofessional level of the Omaha World-Herald sports staff, Osborne surely would have left Nebraska after his sixth season.  After all, winning most of the time just isn't quite enough for the most extreme critics.

Explained Osborne, in his book More Than Winning:

“Certainly our record had not been viewed with great enthusiasm by the fans, and I think all of us were tempted to go somewhere where winning eight or nine games in a year would be appreciated to a greater degree.”