Nebraska Football Coaching Candidates: The good, bad and dark horses

Good: Matt Campbell

There’s a reason why Matt Campbell’s name emerged so quickly for the Nebraska football opening. It’s widely believed that he’s been on Albert’s shortlist to replace Frost since last year.

In fact, it’s thought that Alberts was ready to go hard after the Iowa State head coach before he was talked off the ledge by Tom Osborne and some prominent boosters. It makes sense that he’d reapply take his spot at the top of the list.

There are obviously going to be some people who aren’t all that excited about a coach who has never won more than 9 games, and only hit that mark once with the Cyclones, but when it comes to the program in Ames, Iowa it’s about more than wins and losses in any given year.

Campbell took over the helm of one of the most historically moribund programs in all of college sports and could be on the cusp of doing something never done before at the school. His five straight winning seasons marks the first time ISU has managed to do that since 1923-1927. Should he get to seven wins this year, it would be the first time in the program’s history that it has had six straight winning campaigns.

And he didn’t just do it at Iowa State. He also went 35-15 at Toledo. Hardly a school that has a long history of championships.

He’s also someone who has routinely gotten Iowa State into the Top 25 and even the Top 10. It’s a safe bet he’d have an easier job recruiting for the Nebraska football program and those 7 and 8 win seasons could be transformed to 10, 11 or 12-win campaigns.