8. On the "No Championships" Myth: Pelini's Championships are Wrongly Ignored

Bo Pelini won or shared four division championships in his first five seasons on the job.  Critics are too quick to discard that accomplishment.  The same critics, though, revere Tom Osborne’s list of Big 8 championships. 

Perhaps they should look deeper.  Osborne won 12 conference championships in what was usually a mediocre 8-team conference.  

How does that list really hold up when compared to today’s era of 14- and 16-team power conferences?

The 2012 Big Ten Legends Division, for instance, had five bowl teams alone – and the bowl games demonstrated the caliber of these teams.  (Nebraska took the SEC runner-up down to the final minutes, Michigan State beat a Big 12 team, Northwestern beat an SEC team, and Michigan and Minnesota lost to SEC and Big 12 teams, respectively, on improbable last-second miracles.)  In 2013, 5 of the 6 teams in the Legends Division were ranked at some point in the season.

 Which is more impressive – winning that division title or winning a bad 8-team conference?    Because that’s often what the Big 8 conference as a whole was – bad.

In 1992, for instance, Tom Osborne won a Big 8 championships in a year when only three Big 8 teams (NU, Colorado, and Kansas) managed more than five wins all season. 

NU won the 1988 conference title while the bottom four Big 8 teams went a combined 9-34-1. 

In 1983, another conference championship year, not a single other Big 8 team finished ranked.

In 1982, the only Big 8 teams to finish the season ranked were conference champ Nebraska and 8-4 Oklahoma.

And in 7 of Osborne’s first 11 seasons, the Big 8 finished with zero or one other ranked team.

There may have been little competition in these "championship" years, particularly after Barry Switzer left Oklahoma - when Osborne won 7 of his 13 conference championships, and 5 of his 8 outright conference championships - but for the Internet critics, it is easy enough to find these "championship" badges on Google and look no further.

         A “championship” banner from a mostly uncompetitive 8-team league looks good on a wall or website, but history is demonstrating that it is every bit the accomplishment to win a championship in a bruising division filled with bowl teams.

           Give Pelini his due.   Pelini is one of only three coaches in the country have guided their teams to three conference championships in a four-year span during the Pelini era.  If you don't think those division championships are significant, go ahead ask the programs not winning them.

           A reporter asked Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz this week if Iowa fans would be pleased with Pelini's record.  "I'd like to find out, put it that way," Ferentz said.   If other BCS coaches can see it, and Osborne can see it... why can't Nebraska's fans and media?