6. National Championships are Won by Veteran Coaches.

Bo Pelini has not won a national championship, as his critics lament.  However, only four coaches in the past 30 years had already won a national championship by this point in Pelini’s career:  Gene Chizik, Larry Coker, Bob Stoops, and Lloyd Carr. 

Instead, the national champion coaches in the past 30 seasons, 1982-2012, had an average of 13.5 seasons experience as head coaches at the college and/or professional level when they won the national title.

           The exceptions are oddities.  Chizik’s 2010 title at Auburn appears to have been the byproduct of winning the Cam Newton auction.  In his other seasons as a head coach, Chizik won 3, 2, 8, 8, and 3 games.  Would Nebraska fans trade their current model for a record like Chizik’s? 

Larry Coker inherited an NFL roster and cruised to a 24-0 start, but the program gradually declined with his own recruits and he was fired five years after his national title.

            Bob Stoops and Barry Switzer are the only two coaches in the past 40 years to win a national championship this early in their careers and maintain prolonged championship-level success for several years thereafter.  

        History has shown convincingly that if you change coaches looking for that once-in-a-generation instant championship, the only thing you are assured of is: change.  Under the leadership of Harvey Perlman, Nebraska tried this approach 10 years ago this fall.  Nebraska is still paying the price for that mismanagement.