I'm not Conan but your question has a fairly simple answer....Mora is a bad coach who surrounds himself with bad coaches. Team had every opportunity to take over Pac 12 when usc got hit with scholarship reductions and failed to do so. The talent has been there but they underachieve year in, year out. That is a product of bad coaching/leadership.
Their offensive line is and has been horrible for several years now. Rosen gets hit alot and it has contributed to his injuries. Even when Hundley was at QB, he often had to run for his life. Former OC Noel Mazzone was able to cover it up some by working to get some productivity out of the RB position, and leverage quick throws, but he's not the OC at A&M. UCLA hasn't had an explosive receiver who could take the top off a defense in years but considering how shoddy the OL has been, the QB wouldn't have had the time to make the deep throws anyway.
Typical letdown every year sendacash. Kennedy Polamalu hurt his Samoan
tribe when he took a job under Mora. The problem is Mora. He has a ceiling
lower than he's given credit for. He was rejected up in Seattle and it looks
like they made the right move. A weak South division resulted in a few
good years in the W/L column which promptly ended when the Bruins had
to play a quality opponent in the Pac12 CCG. In those recent years, both
Stanford and Oregon have owned them. Then ASU came along in the South
division and they also owned them like WSU will do on Saturday.
tribe when he took a job under Mora. The problem is Mora. He has a ceiling
lower than he's given credit for. He was rejected up in Seattle and it looks
like they made the right move. A weak South division resulted in a few
good years in the W/L column which promptly ended when the Bruins had
to play a quality opponent in the Pac12 CCG. In those recent years, both
Stanford and Oregon have owned them. Then ASU came along in the South
division and they also owned them like WSU will do on Saturday.
I've got an even better comparison, one that has floated around Nebraska media types. And I think it starts off much closer to parallel because both Nebraska and Oregon have similar recruiting limitations, but top end facilities and "unique system" made them a difficult match-up. Both are ultra-sensitive to having to have the right guy/s. Coaching continuity is huge for both of those programs and both Oregon and NU had long time coaches and coordinators. NU lost its long time HC in 1997 and then its long time DC in 1999. Promotions came from within. It was a machine, but the cracks started to appear. Even though they played for a national title in 2001, if you go back and look at that roster you see how they were carried by a great player and Heisman QB. A year later they were .500, after two years, the coaches got fired even though a new DC was brought in to right the D (which he actually did). Swap Oregon in for that story and change the date, and it's a set of eerie similarities. Oregon needs to proceed with caution. A return to obscurity is very, very real.
Shades of a likeness indeed.
Colorado also owned the Huskers pretty much back in those days too.
Surprise surprise, now they own Oregon. At least they are off to a good start,
I understand your reference to Mariotta but who were you referring to when you
mentioned a quarterback that carried Nebraska back when. I'm feeling a bit lazy.
I think RLR must have been referring to Tommy "TD" Frazier who lead Nebraska to consecutive National Titles in 1994 and 1995. Widely considered to be one of the greatest college football players of all time, at least according to his Wiki page. I wouldn't say that Colo owned Neb as the series has been fairly one sided in favor of the Corn, although at the height of the McCartney era the Buffs did field some better teams and thus created a border rivalry, usually played out on Thanksgiving day for about 20 years or so. Even your boy Scott Frost won a national title as a Corn QB back in 1997 and he was pretty shifty for a white boy. There were several other great options QB from that era including Darian Hagan from Colorado and the late Dee Dowis from Air Force. But here's the rub, the best thing to come out of Nebraska to this day, is still I-80. Although Lake McConaughy is pretty nice.
sendacash,
I think RLR was comparing the 2001 Huskers to the 2014 Ducks, both in the NC picture at the time. Afterwards, Frank Solich and then Bill Callahan both took Nebraska into the tank as Oregon has done a couple years after their recent championship run. Colorado did put the hurt to Nebraska often around then and after, even by a pretty lopsided score once as I recall. I used to follow that annual rivalry game. It received a lot of national exposure back then.
I don't necessarily think Fedora deserves a big time job, but after Hermann, it would appear that there is a large dropoff after hermann. I mean there's Briles, Lane Kiffin, and ??? I like it when Oregon is good, it's better for the PAC 12. I'm just not sure who else the ducks would include on their short list. It will definitely be interesting to see what happens to this ducks team going forward.
