1. Pelini's Win-Loss Record is in the Elite Status

Since Bo Pelini was hired in 2008, there have been 130 head coaches at the BCS Conference schools (the BCS conferences plus Notre Dame).  Only 6 of those 130 coaches have won more games than Pelini. 

Since Pelini was hired, he and Alabama’s Nick Saban are the only two BCS coaches to win at least 9 games in each season since. 

Pelini is one of just four coaches in college football history, along with Tom Osborne, Barry Switzer, and Larry Coker, to begin their head coaching careers at a power conference school and win nine or more games in each  of their first five seasons.

Pelini has, by far, the most wins of the 18 head coaches hired before the 2008 season.   Of those 18 coaches hired in 2008, 12 have already left their position.

        Pelini has the 7^th highest winning percentage of all coaches who have coached a BCS team during each year of this span.

  

Of the list of the winningest BCS coaches since 2008, Alabama’s Nick Saban has a sizeable lead over the rest.  Trailing Saban is a group of 10 coaches who are within 7 wins of each other during this six-year time span.  In order of wins, this tightly-packed group of successful coaches consists of: Bob Stoops, Mike Gundy, Les Miles, Brian Kelly, Urban Meyer, Bo Pelini, Frank Beamer, Mack Brown, Mark Dantonio, and Steve Spurrier.  

  

The 20 winningest BCS coaches since 2008:

1.     Nick Saban (Alabama) 72

2.     Bob Stoops (Oklahoma) 61

3.     Mike Gundy (Oklahoma State) 59

4.     Les Miles (LSU) 59

5.     Brian Kelly (Cincinnati 08-09, Notre Dame 10-) 59

6.     Urban Meyer (Florida 08-10, Ohio State 12-), 57

7.     Bo Pelini (Nebraska), 56

8.     Frank Beamer (Va Tech), 56

9.     Mack Brown (Texas), 54

10. Mark Dantonio (Michigan State), 54

11. Steve Spurrier (South Carolina), 54

12. Mark Richt (Georgia), 53

13. Gary Pinkel (Missouri), 51

14. Dabo Swinney (Clemson), 50

15. Brett Bielema  (Wisconsin 08-12, Arkansas 13-), 50

16. Chip Kelly (Oregon 09-12), 46

17. Kirk Ferentz (Iowa), 46

18. Pat Fitzgerald (Northwestern), 44

19. Jimbo Fisher (FSU 10-), 42

20. Art Briles (Baylor), 42

      Simply put, Bo Pelini is winning at an elite pace - which is a historically improbable feat given (1) his lack of experience and (2) the condition of the program he inherited.

From 1 - 130: The BCS Coaches During the Pelini Era, Ranked By Wins

1.     Nick Saban (Alabama) 72

2.     Bob Stoops (Oklahoma) 61

3.     Mike Gundy (Oklahoma State) 59

4.     Les Miles (LSU) 59

5.     Brian Kelly (Cincinnati 08-09, Notre Dame 10-) 59

6.     Urban Meyer (Florida 08-10, Ohio State 12-), 57

7.     Bo Pelini (Nebraska), 56

8.     Frank Beamer (Va Tech), 56

9.     Mack Brown (Texas), 54

10. Mark Dantonio (Michigan State), 54

11. Steve Spurrier (South Carolina), 54

12. Mark Richt (Georgia), 53

13. Gary Pinkel (Missouri), 51

14. Dabo Swinney (Clemson), 50

15. Brett Bielema  (Wisconsin 08-12, Arkansas 13-), 50

16. Chip Kelly (Oregon 09-12), 46

17. Kirk Ferentz (Iowa), 46

18. Pat Fitzgerald (Northwestern), 44

19. Jimbo Fisher (FSU 10-), 42

20. Art Briles (Baylor), 42

21. Bill Snyder (KSU, 09-), 40

22. Mike Riley (Oregon State), 40

23. Paul Johnson (Ga Tech), 40

24. Joe Paterno (Penn State 08-11), 37 (all later vacated)

25. Randy Edsall (Connecticut 08-10, Maryland 11-13), 36

26. Charlie Strong (Louisville), 35

27. Tom O’Brien (N.C. State 08-12), 35

28. Lane Kiffin (Tennessee 09, USC 10-13), 35

29. Tommy Tuberville (Auburn 08, Texas Tech 10-12, Cincinnati 13), 34

30. Dan Mullen (Mississippi State 2009-), 34

31. Steve Sarkisian (Washington 09-), 33

32. Jim Tressel (Ohio State 08-10), 33

33. Gene Chizik (ISU 08, Auburn 09-12), 33

34. David Shaw (Stanford 2011-), 32

35. Jeff Tedford (California 08-12), 32

36. Jim Grobe (Wake Forest), 31

37. Rich Rodriguez (Michigan 08-10, Arizona 12-), 30

38. Greg Schiano (Rutgers 08-11), 30

39. David Cutcliffe (Duke), 30

40. Mike Leach (Texas Tech 08-09, WSU 12-), 28

41. Dave Wannstedt (Pitt, 08-10), 27

42. Butch Jones (Cincinnati 10-12, Tennessee 13), 27

43. Bill Stewart (West Virginia 08-10), 27

44. Brady Hoke (Michigan 11-), 26

45. Paul Rhoads (ISU 09-), 26

46. Jim Harbaugh (Stanford 08-10), 25

47. Mike Sherman (Texas A&M 2008-11), 25

48. Doug Marrone (Syracuse 09-12), 25

49. Houston Nutt (Ole Miss 2008-11), 24

50. Mike Stoops (Arizona 08-11), 24

51. Butch Davis (North Carolina 08-10), 24 (16 later vacated)

52. Todd Graham (Pitt 2011, Arizona State 12-), 23

53. Randy Shannon (Miami 08-10), 23

54. Will Muschamp (Florida 2011-), 22

55. James Franklin (Vanderbilt 2011-), 22

56. Frank Spaziani (BC 2009-12), 22

57. Danny Hope (Purdue, 09-12), 22

58. Pete Carroll (USC 08-09), 21

59. Al Golden (Miami 11-), 21

60. Dana Holgorsen (West Virginia 11-), 21

61. Rick Neuheisel (UCLA 2008-2011), 21

62. Ron Zook (Illinois 2008-11), 21

63. Dennis Erickson (ASU 2008-11), 21

64. Kevin Sumlin (Texas A&M 2012-), 19

65. Ralph Friedgen (Maryland 08-10), 19

66. Mike London (Virginia 10-), 18

67. Jim Mora, Jr. (UCLA 2012-), 17

68. Charlie Weis (Notre Dame 08-09, Kansas 12-), 17

69. Jerry Kill (Minnesota 2011-), 17

70. Kyle Wittingham (Utah 2011-), 17

71. Bobby Bowden (FSU 2008-09), 16

72. Jim Leavitt (South Florida 08-09), 16

73. Skip Holtz (South Florida 10-12), 16

74. Bill O’Brien (Penn State 2012-), 14

75. Hugh Freeze (Ole Miss, 2012-), 14

76. Larry Fedora (North Carolina 2012-) 14

77. Rich Brooks (Kentucky 08-09), 14

78. Tim Brewster (Minnesota 08-10), 14

79. Mark Mangino (Kansas 08-09), 13

80. Dan Hawkins (Colorado 08-10), 13

81. Joker Phillips (Kentucky 2010-12), 13

82. Paul Chryst (Pitt 12-), 12

83. Bill Lynch (Indiana 08-10), 12

84. Steve Adazio (Temple 2012, Boston College 2013), 11

85. Gary Patterson (TCU 12-), 11

86. Gus Malzahn (Auburn 2013-), 10

87. Paul Pasqualoni (Connecticut), 10

88. Mike Bellotti (Oregon 2008), 10

89. Gary Anderson (Wisconsin 2013-), 9

90. Mark Helfrich  (Oregon 2013), 9

91. George O’Leary (Central Florida 2013-), 9

92. Kyle Flood (Rutgers 2013-), 9

93. Kevin Wilson (Indiana 2011-), 9

94. Jeff Jagodzinski (BC 2008), 9

95. Steve Kragthorpe (Louisville), 9

96. Paul Wulff (Washington State 2008-11), 9

97. Bobby Johnson (Vanderbilt 2009-09), 9

98. Al Groh (Virginia 08-09), 8

99. Tony Levine (Houston 2013), 7

100.                Kliff Kingsbury (Texas Tech 13), 7

101.                Everett Withers (North Carolina 2011) 7

102.                Tim Beckman (Illinois 2012-), 6

103.                Luke Fickell (Ohio State), 6

104.                Ed Orgeron (USC 2013), 5

105.                June Jones (SMU 2013), 5

106.                Turner Gill (Kansas, 10-11), 5

107.                Ron Prince (KSU 08), 5

108.                Joe Tiller (Purdue 2009), 4

109.                Sylvester Croom (Miss State 2008), 4

110.                Jon Embree (Colorado 11-12), 4

111.                Mike McIntyre (Colorado 2013-), 4

112.                Tommy Bowden (Clemson ‘08), 3

113.                Justin Fuente (Memphis 2013-), 3

114.                Dave Doeren (N.C. State 2013-), 3

115.                Greg Robinson (Syracuse 08), 3

116.                Scott Shafer (Syracuse 2013-), 3

117.                Tim Kish (Arizona 2013 interim), 3

118.                Willie Taggart (South Florida 2013-), 2

119.                Mark Stoops (Kentucky 2013-), 2

120.                Robbie Caldwell (Vanderbilt 2010), 2

121.                Brian Cabral (Colorado 2010 interim), 2

122.                Jeff Horton (Minnesota 2010 interim), 2

123.                Darrell Hazell (Purdue 2013-), 1

124.                Sonny Dykes (California 2013-), 1

125.                Matt Rhule (Temple 2013-), 1

126.                T.J Weist (Connecticut 2013-), 1

127.                Tim DeRuyter (Texas A&M 2011 interim), 1

128.                Ruffin McNeill (Texas Tech 09 interim), 1

129.                Patrick Higgins (Purdue 2012 interim), 0

130.                Tyrone Willingham (Washington 2008), 0

2. Pelini is Succeeding at a Level Reserved to Veteran Coaches.

Of the 13 BCS coaches who have won more than 50 games since 2008, Pelini stands alone in his lack of previous experience.  The other 12 coaches in this group began the 2008 season, on average, in their 14^th season as head coaches.  A look at the head coaching experience of these most-winningest coaches when the 2008 season, Pelini’s first, started:

1.     Saban – was entering his 15^th season as college or pro head coach

2.     Stoops – was entering his 10^th

3.     Gundy – 4^th

4.     Miles – 8^th

5.     Kelly – 19^th

6.     Meyer – 8^th

7.    Pelini – 1^st

8.     Beamer – 28^th

9.     Brown – 25^th

10. Dantonio – 5^th

11. Spurrier – 24^th

12. Richt – 8^th

13. Pinkel – 18th

In his first six seasons on the job, Bo Pelini is 57-23, for a winning percentage of .713.  Looking through this list of the game's most winningest current coaches, few were able to win at this pace in their first six seasons on the job.    Just go down the list:

Nick Saban was just 42-28-1 in his first six seasons as a head coach.  Even at LSU, Saban’s third head coaching stop and his 7^th through 11^th seasons overall as a head coach, Saban’s record was merely two wins better than the record Pelini has amassed out of the gate in his first six seasons as a head coach.  

            Mike Gundy was 47-29 after six seasons (.618).

Les Miles’s career winning percentage was .571 after four seasons on the job, and .687 after nine seasons.  Both marks are inferior to Pelini’s.

Brian Kelly spent his first 13 seasons as head coach learning the ropes at Grand Valley State, before jumping up to Central Michigan.  There, in his 14^th through 16^th season, he compiled a record of just 19-16.  At Notre Dame, in his 21^st through 24^th seasons as a head coach, Kelly has a 36-14 mark, a winning percentage of .720.  Despite 20 years of head coaching experience before heading to Notre Dame, Kelly’s record with the Irish is exactly one win better than the record Pelini has compiled in his first six seasons out of the gate.

Frank Beamer was 24-40-2 (.363) in his first six seasons at Virginia Tech.

Mack Brown was 19-47-1 (.283) after his first six seasons as a head coach.

            Mark Dantonio was 40-34 (.540) in his first six seasons as a head coach.

Steve Spurrier was 48-21-1 (.685) after his first six seasons, a mark inferior to Pelini’s.

      Gary Pinkel was 41-20-3 in his first 6 seasons as a head coach (.640), then just 37-35 (.514) in his first six seasons as a head coach at the BCS level. 

In terms of winning, Pelini is light years ahead of where college football’s most respected coaches were at the same stages of their careers.

These veteran coaches learned the ropes in their early seasons, compiling records far inferior to Pelini's at this stage in their careers, but benefited greatly from continuity, stability, and patience. The results: exponential improvement in their records after they had several years of head coaching experience under their belt.  

Imagine what the future holds for a coach who started his career at a pace far superior to what these top coaches were able to do.

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.”  

4. Comparing Bo Pelini's Record to the Current Gold Standard: Nick Saban

Bo Pelini is the first to tell you: he doesn’t want to win 9 and 10 games a year.  He wants and expects to win championships.  So measure him against the best.  By any measure of on-field success, Nick Saban is in a class by himself in the current crop of coaches.

        Saban is now in his 20^th season as a college or pro head coach.  Pelini is in his 6th season as a head coach.  Let's compare how they stood at this identical stage of their careers.

          After Saban’s first six seasons as a BCS-level head coach (5 in the Big Ten, then 1 in the SEC), Saban had a record of 42-28-1, for a winning percentage of .592.  Further, Saban had previously served as a head coach at a mid-major prior to stepping up to the BCS level. Saban learned and improved dramatically with experience.

           Coach Pelini is finishing his sixth season as a head coach.   As of today, Pelini has a record of 57-23, for a winning percentage of .713.

Most Pelini critics would be shocked, but the truth is this: Bo Pelini’s record at the six-year mark of his head coaching career is far superior to Nick Saban’s.  

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? 

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.