How Good is the Nebraska Job?

Part of the beauty of a national coaching search is the opportunity to see what the rest of the country thinks about your football program. The national columnists all chime in and one point or another and who your school is able to talk to is essentially credibility currency.

As we've seen, Nebraska can get a sit-down with just about any coach in the country. While the purse strings aren't nearly as loose as they are in the SEC, if money is an issue Nebraska always seems to get it. In terms of the current coaching carousel, I'd classify Nebraska as a retired mob boss. There's a history of dominance and respect and, while the knees are a little week at the time and eyesight ain't so good, there's still enough there to strike a little fear into the younger and flashier usurpers.

But that's my view as a Nebraska fan. What do the others think? If you read ESPN.com yesterday, there were two different front page stories that tackled the topic and they seem to hold a slightly dimmer view.

Gene Wojciechowski explored the "myth" that Nebraska is an elite coaching job. Quoth Wojo, "now Pederson and Callahan are gone, and so is Nebraska's one longtime advantage: an identity," and later, "Elite high school recruits...don't remember much, if anything, about Mike Rozier." Both fair and accurate points.

Pat Forde was even more direct in this week's Dash when answering the titular question:

Not as good as Nebraska thinks it is. Fan support is unrivaled, but the recruiting base is unreliable and the days of raiding New Jersey for talent might be a thing of the past. Unless the Cornhuskers do some work in Texas and California, this probably won't get turned around very fast.

OK, these are the typical negatives we've been hearing tossed at Nebraska since before Callahan was hired. I'm not going to refute them point by point because there's some truth there but, silly reality blind fan that I am, I'm still going to maintain that Nebraska's a great job for the right guy for one simple reasons: it is ideally located.

Now, I'm not talking about from a recruiting standpoint. (God, no, Nebraska is totally barren! We all know that, but if Callahan accomplished anything during his tenure it was a slight rebuke to the notion that national players aren't interested.) I'm talking about from a winning standpoint, and that's the one thing that has changed very little from the Osborne era. Nebraska still has a relatively easy path to the top of the polls.

Let's face it, even at its best, Nebraska was a perennial preseason Top 5 team due in large part to the Big 8. There were two schools spending national championship money back in the day, OU and NU, and Nebraska racked up a lot of wins against overmatched conference foes.

Even in an era that's seen a record number of teams claim the top spot in the polls this year and a season that featured Missouri-Kansas as the biggest game of the year, Nebraska still has that advantageous position when it comes to contending for BCS bowl games.

When Stewart Mandel got down to ranking each and every football program in terms on national cache, he awarded "King" status to three Big 12 programs--NU, OU and Texas. Of course, the Red River rivals will always cancel each other out when it comes to the Big 12 Championship, leaving Nebraska as the lone Northern heavyweight. Keep in mind, this ranking was based largely on resources and expectations. Sure the Big 12 North has improved rapidly almost across the board this year with Nebraska being the lone exception, but we've spent an entire season attributing that to leadership rather than a talent deficiency.

The very expectations that make Nebraska a "tough job" are probably more of an asset than detriment overall. Whoever ends up with the job will be expected, but also put in a position, to win football games. No other school in the North can claim that on a year to year basis with the certainty that Nebraska can.

Nebraska probably trails behind at least Missouri and Kansas at the moment, but unless the Florida State or Miami jobs open up any time soon, there isn't another King school out there with a history of national title expectations year in and year out, that has an easier path to immediate national relevance.

Look at where Oklahoma is at this year. The Sooners have two losses to unranked teams and they won't play for a national title, but beat Missouri on Saturday and win their BCS bowl game and the Sooners finish up in the Top 5. Given the failures of the past four years how much time would a BCS bowl buy you at Nebraska right now?

In the end, the Nebraska job breaks down like this: it's marginally more difficult to recruit there but it's marginally easier to win there. That's it.

How are coaches ultimately assessed? Wins and losses. For a coach who is fully cognizant of that, I'd call it a dream job.