39 Days To Football: Another Bo Pelini Tom Osborne Comparison

I am making no promises about this countdown series except one.

While other sites are doing the typical player countdowns, I promise you no theme.

Bo Pelini entered 2012 with an overall record of 39-16 (see? 39!). This season he enters at 49-20. That's giving him credit for the 2003 Alamo Bowl win, by the way. 2013 will be his sixth season as the head coach of our beloved Nebraska Cornhuskers. That's an average of 9.8 wins and four losses per season and if we take that average and extend it over the next 25 years, Pelini will be at 245-100 for a win percentage of 71%, which just isn't good enough when you consider Tom Osborne's career record of 255-49-3 for a winning percentage of 83.6% and conference and national championships and we might as well fire Bo Pelini right now because anyone can be Tom Osborne and if Bo Pelini can't be Tom Osborne he must be a fool and a slacker.

It's true. To be Tom Osborne all you have to do is stare into the sun ala "All the Best Cowboys have Chinese Eyes", not say much of anything and you're about a third of the way there.

For the second third all you have to do is win a bunch of games. They don't have to be football games, mind you. Just pick a game, and make sure that you win 83.6% of whatever it is you're playing. My advice to most of you would be to play children. Not five or six year old children, because they tend to cry when they lose and then their parents get angry at you. No, it's best that you play children around 12 or 13 because by that age you don't have to let them win and if they get upset you can tell their parents that it's best for them to learn these lessons earlier than later.

Another piece of advice - don't pummel them into the ground. It's one thing to lose, but getting pummeled is very discouraging and you want to rack up easy wins. Just like real college football coaches make sure to schedule opponents that aren't too tough but that will stick around to get beat repeatedly.

The final third = run for governor and lose. That's pretty damned easy, actually.

DID YOU KNOW:

That Nebraska's 700th milestone victory came in a 39-3 win over Kansas State at Manhattan on October 5th, 1996?

I remember that game like it was yesterday. Here's the first paragraph from the game recap in USA Today:

True freshman DeAngelo Evans ran for 168 yards and two touchdowns as seventh-ranked Nebraska defeated 16th-ranked Kansas State for the 28th straight time, 39-3, in a Big 12 Conference game.

DeAngelo Evans. sigh.

In the bad news category, Bob Devaney lost his first game against Bear Bryant, the 1966 Orange Bowl, 39-28. Devaney could have won his first national title and was favored entering the game. The Huskers were ranked third. #1 Michigan State was upset by UCLA and #2 Arkansas was upset by LSU, and when Alabama pulled the upset, they earned a national title, probably their 33rd or 68th or something like that.

Barry Alvarez played in that game, pointing out that Bear Bryant was rather a prick, something you already knew but were seeking affirmation for.

For most, that is ancient history. It might as well been 150,000 years ago, let alone 1966.