5. The Lessons of the Tom Osborne Era: Good Turns To Great.

Tom Osborne finished his career as Nebraska’s head coach with a 60-3 run that will not be repeated.  This finishing run naturally skewed expectations for the average (and below-average) Nebraska fan and short-sighted media members.   

In recent weeks, some have compared the first six seasons of the two head coaches.  This debate is pointless, as there can be no apples to apples comparison of the first six seasons of Tom Osborne and Bo Pelini.   The statistics from these seasons can be skewed in either direction.

But the long and the short of it is this:  It is not arguable that Osborne’s first several seasons were considered “good” but not “great” by most.  Despite inheriting what was arguably the top program in the nation, Osborne lost to unranked teams 7 times in his first 5 seasons.   He lost the annual “big one” with Oklahoma in each of his first five seasons – four of them by double digits – and admits he carried the “can’t win the big one” rap for 20 seasons before finally shedding it.

Osborne did not win an outright conference title until his ninth season on the job.  And this was an 8-team conference hardly filled with perennial powers.  In 7 of Osborne’s first 11 seasons, there was either zero or one other Big 8 team ranked in the final AP poll.

The backlash against Osborne’s performance was so negative that he nearly left for the Colorado job after his sixth season as Nebraska head coach.  Anyone pretending today that Osborne was a universally revered figure at this point in his career is attempting to revise history.

These points are not made to say that Pelini’s record is superior to Osborne’s at the 6-year mark, or vice versa.  The point is only this: patience and stability pay off.  History proves that the rare coaches who win 9 and 10 games a year, and compete for conference championships on a fairly regular basis, will climb to the championship level.  Osborne’s career is just one example.  Nick Saban’s is another.  

The other lesson from the Osborne era is that the process of this climb is more important than the result.  As Osborne explained in More Than Winning:

“I’ve gotten away from measuring success in terms of wins and losses.  It’s a mistake those of us in coaching too often make when we define a good season as winning a certain number of games or a championship.  It’s very difficult year-in and year-out to win the number of games that the fans, the press, the alumni, or even the coaches themselves feel is necessary to be successful.  Therefore it’s made sense to me to measure success more in terms of how closely a team has come to realizing its potential.”

“…what we really emphasize with our players is how they play the game – the process of preparation, the effort they display during the game, the attitude they carry on the field.  These are all things that we can control and that reflect on the process of athletics.  Many times the end result – the win or the loss – we cannot control.  It may hinge on the bounce of the football, it may depend on who has the better athletes, it may depend on an official’s call.  Therefore, we spend a lot more time trying to talk about process rather than end results with our players.”

“…The national championship has not really been as big an obsession with me as people might think.  My objective is, and has always been, to put a good football team on the field every week, prepare well, pay hard, and then just take our rewards as they come and our lumps if they don’t.  We really can’t very well set the national championship as our goal because it depends so much on factors beyond our control such as schedule, injuries, and the ballot box.”

“…It really isn’t so much achieving the end result – the national championship and the trophies, which are all fine.  But the important thing about athletics really is the process.  It’s the path you follow in attempting to win the championship that’s important.  The relationships that are formed.  The effort given.  The experiences you have.”

How quickly so many alleged Nebraska “fans” have forgotten everything Osborne stood for.  He even tried to put it down on paper so the fans would remember.  But they don’t.  Maybe it’s time for Nebraska fans to listen to Coach Osborne once again.  To read his books.  It’s all there, in black and white.  We are blessed with this wisdom, right there within our reach.  But are we smart enough to listen?