Nebraska Football: Should fans be worried about Bill O’Brien rumors?

There have been a number of different names thrown around for the Nebraska football head coaching job. While quite a few of those names are of people who are currently head coaches, Bill O’Brien stands out because at the moment, he’s Alabama’s offensive coordinator. At the moment, he’s also one of the names getting the most attention but should that be worrying to Husker fans?

Earlier this week, Bruce Feldman wrote an article for The Athletic where he laid out the names he’d heard that were currently front runners. In addition to names that have been tossed around quite often, like Matt Campbell, Feldman said that O’Brien is now considered to be in the top three.

The former Penn State head coach has a lot going for him. This isn’t the first time that O’Brien has been brought up, mainly because of what he was able to do as the head coach of Penn State when that program was going through issues that no college program had ever had to go through before.

He led the Nittany Lions to winning seasons when they had no reason to be winning any games at all. For that, he’s considered a program builder. On the other hand, his career has taken a bit of a turn since his Happy Valley days.

There was his stint running the Houston Texans, where he made some truly jaw-dropping mistakes. Those mistakes meant his firing and eventually landing at Alabama. It is in fact his stint as an assistant for Nick Saban that has some Nebraska football fans thinking he’s the perfect man for the job.

On the other hand, Alabama fans might be more than happy to see him go these days. There are more than a few fans that think he’s been a bit of a downgrade as an offensive playcaller to what the Crimson Tide had before.

The fact of the matter is, that there are Alabama fans who seem like they’d be almost giddy if O’Brien took over the helm of the Nebraska football team might be why fans really shouldn’t be trusted to make the right call. After all, more than a few Nebraska football fans are “Urban Meyer or bust.”

As Feldman pointed out, while some might not be happy with how the Crimson Tide offense looks from time to time, like when it struggled against Texas earlier this year, the former Nittany Lions coach is also responsible for helping to tutor Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Bryce Young.

So should Nebraska football fans be worried about the rumors that Bill O’Brien is right at the top of the head coaching list? It sure seems like they could do worse. After all, Jamey Chadwell was at least briefly mentioned as a target.