With Lee Barfknecht of the Omaha World-Herald stalking Steve Pederson again, that can only mean that another coaching search is underway. Oh sure, Steve Pederson denies that it was only a casual get-together with an old friend. But when that "old friend" is Rick Majerus and your current basketball coach is under fire, it sure looks like the coaching search is underway. While I think hiring Rick Majerus might allow Steve Pederson to shed his "Enemy of the State" title, I also think that's about as likely as me winning tomorrow night's $300 million Powerball jackpot.
Tom Shatel nails it in today's World-Herald. Even you believe Pederson's latest yarn, it certainly looks bad. Pederson's football coaching search was roundly criticized and satirized, and he's not getting his basketball coaching search off to a very good start either.
Barry Collier isn't fired... yet. Nebraska is 5-5 in the Big XII, good for 5th place. An upper division finish isn't out of the question; heck, it's not impossible for them to work their way to 4th place and a 1st round bye in the Big XII tournament. And don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating firing Collier. Collier's teams are a vast improvement over what we saw at the end of the Danny Nee era.
But, after 6 years, I'm not sure I can defend him all that much anymore. And all the signs seem to point to a firing. In the past week, Jim Rose himself seemed to imply that Collier was history twice: once in an interview with WHB radio in Kansas City and again this morning on KFAB. If the "Husker Information Minister" isn't going to step up to defend him, I'm not sure who will.
Whether I like it or not, it looks like Barry Collier's days in Lincoln are coming to an end. And with that, the circus appears to be back in town.
PS: Speaking of Jim Rose, it looks like the Pinnacle folks are going on retreat, so Kent Pavelka is back behind the microphone for the next two basketball games on radio.
Do I think Barry could be on his way out, unfortunately yes. I do believe that Barry's teams are more fundamentally sound than the Nee teams. Would I support a new coach, it would depend on how it was handled. Same classless actions by Captain P, no.
ReplyDeleteWould Rick Majerus have anymore success than Barry, probably not, because if you have talent, you are not going to play at NEBRASKA, you will be choosing NOVA, UCONN, NC, KANSAS, UCLA, ARIZONA, OKLAHOMA, as well as a list of others. Situation is a reverse of football, where if a player from NC is a great football player, chances are he ends up at FSU, Florida, Miami, ND, TENN, etc. Let's see baseball, it would be Miami, NC, ASU, LSU, TEXAS, and you know the rest.
Just because we want something to happen, and expend greats amount of time and money to make it happen, does not guarantee that it will happen.
If I was Steve P. I'd keep a low profile for about five to ten years, hope the football team gets healthy, and then fade into oblivion. However, the ego of Steve P. will not allow him to do such a thing. Steve P. needs that attention to feed the ego.
As for Jim Rose, any respect I had for him has passed since his let loose his statements about a high school kid from K.C. (Mind you, Rose has a radio show to preach from, the kid out of K.C. cannot defend himself.) Ashamed that Jim attended my high school although what Jim thought of himself, and what others thought of him were two entirely different things.
Randy Lee isn't too bad on the basketball broadcasts, but last night, Kent Pavelka was back in form. It was a treat for us fans, but alas, it's only a 2 game interlude.
ReplyDeleteAlso, an interesting take from the Indianapolis Star; seems that they'd like to see Barry Collier at Indiana, replacing Mike Davis who apparantly has resigned.