Pelini does seem to be a jerk and unlike a lot of successful jerks, he seems particularly proud of it. That is what makes him poison in my mind. Can't see him at Ohio or anywhere as HC until he at least acknowledges that he has a public role to fill as a non-jerk ~ 90% of the time.

That would be the connection. Virtually all of the top teams in football, year in and year out, have a large pool of local talent. That's why you find teams from the West Coast, Oklahoma-Texas, Florida, and the SE in general, plus Ohio State near the top, and why you don't generally find teams from more rural states.

Once in awhile a team from some other area can pop to the top, but it's usually temporary. Nebraska was able to stay near the top for an unusually long time for a team from an area without the same type of local talent. It's particularly unusual because they not only don't have have sufficient local talent, but they also are not an easy location to recruit to. ("Come see, umm, the corn..???)

The one thing that does separate them from the other teams in the plains area is that they used the money they got from their long string of success to build some incredible facilities, and that does add to their recruiting appeal. They also have built a tradition of Academic All-Americans, another recruiting appeal. Together those help them stay above other teams from the area, but how far above them?

When I think of Nebraska fans, I think back to one delusional fan who told me back in 2003 "We aren't unreasonable. We don't expect Nebraska to win the National Championship every year, but they should at least be playing for it every few years."

His teams have lost a ton of games by 20+ points and just gave up a mile of running yards to Wisconsin. Not sure his DC credentials are as high as they once were.

Nebraska fans I think have yet to fully realize how much of their tremendous success was due to a very small number of guys. Mostly one guy. Tom Osborne. And also Bob Devaney and others he and Tom brought together and developed -- including the current Ohio HC, whom Devaney recruited to play and Osborne recruited to coach.

Nebraska has fan backing and facilities, for sure. And IMO they have put together a well-run state university in general (i.e. even outside of athletics). But that's pretty much the end of the list of their advantages. To the extent they can get and keep an outstanding coach, they'll be in the national title hunt. They won't necessarily achieve that just because they're willing to fire nine-win coaches, though.

Mob brother, maybe

GoCats, your thought is not far fetched at all. Urban has little loyalty to anyone on his defensive staff, so anything could happen. With the large buy-out that has been reported waiting for Bo, he will most likely kick back for awhile. He has a number of connections in coaching circles, and if he wants to work in college football he will have no problem landing a good job.

Given that context, it may have seemed reasonable to that fan, but given the results since then, it was clearly delusional. FWIW, my reply to him at the time was that the period of playing for National Championships was simply a unique period in history, and unlikely to be repeated, regardless of who was the coach.

As a few Nebraskans have figured out since then, it is a lot easier to tear apart an existing program than it is to build a new one, and once it is gone, it can't simple be restarted; it must be built in an entirely new way.