Relax about Pelini - The Guy's a Great D Coordinator - Trust O

For those concerned about Pelini, a little history lesson. The angst is because he's been off the truly national stage the past five seasons and because he's a hot head. But the guy can flat out coach defense. The notion that he's some relic of a bygone era has no basis.

Pelini played free safety for Ohio State, graduating in 1991. Beginning in 1994 (at the age of 27), he coached DBs or LBs for eight seasons with the 49ers, Patriots and Packers.

In 2003, at the age of 35, he became the defensive coordinator for Nebraska. He took a defense ranked 55th nationally to 11th. The HC, Frank Solich got canned after going 9-3 and Pelini served as interim HC for the Nebraska bowl game, which they won 17-3. Nebraska picked Bill Callahan (who would go 27-22 the next 4 years) over Pelini for the permanent head coaching job. By the way, as soon as Pelini left, the defense fell back to 56th in the country in 2004.

After not getting the Nebraska gig, Bob Stoops hired him as DC. The Sooners defense ranked 11th in scoring defense and 6th against the run.

Miles then went out and poached Pelini in 2005. From 2005 through the NC season of 2007, LSU finished top 3 in total defense.

Pelini got the head gig at Nebraska. At Nebraska he never won less than 9 games a season and he won a Big 12 or Big Ten division 4 times. His problem was his personality. Three incidents stood out.

First, a tape of him from 2011 leaked in 2013. In 2011, Nebraska was losing 27-6 to Ohio State and the fans left in droves. The Cornhuskers made a great comeback and won 34-27 and after the game, in private, Pelini told his team:

quote:

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Our crowd. What a bunch of fricking fair-weather fricking—they can all kiss my arse out the fricking door. 'Cause the day is fricking coming now. We'll see what they can do when I'm fricking gone. I'm so fricking pissed off.

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In a 2013 game, Pelini lost his cool with an ESPN reporter at halftime and got an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. He didn't help things in his post game press conference by saying that the personal foul call was "chicken shite and:

quote:

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If they want to fire me, go ahead…I don't apologize for anything I have done

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The dude clearly has (or had) anger management issues.

But he went 66-28 at Nebraska. Since his firing, Nebraska is 28-34 with one winning season.

If you are going to have concerns about the hire, it's about his personality. And I would agree it would be a question about defending the spread, but the guy's been coaching albeit at the FCS level these last 5 years. He's had tremendous success as a defensive coach his entire life. I think he knows football.

In short, I think it is very fair to be concerned about his personality. And I think it's fine to be a little worried about what he's been doing in obscurity the past 5 years. But let's not act like he's Lou Tepper or Les Miles either.

Coach O has to decide if he is comfortable that Pelini has matured and if he believes Pelini can handle Air Raid offenses. If he's satisfied, then so am I.