The Nebraska football program has been searching for a new head coach for over a month. Scott Frost’s replacement, Mickey Joseph, is now entering his second bye week of the season with a 2-2 record as a head coach.
Joseph has two nice wins, one bad loss, and a loss to Purdue that most people are chalking up as an improvement on the Frost regime despite it being quite similar to every single game Husker fans saw a year ago.
So has Mickey made a better case for himself in these head coaching power rankings? Has another name gained some steam this week? Where are the guys who were at the top of the list last week sitting? Read on.
Nebraska football names that are hot, hot, hot
There’s a big shakeup when it comes to the top of the power rankings, thanks to the fact that Illinois proved that it is a team that is absolutely for real. Since opening the season with a loss to a bad Indiana team, the Illini have been doing nothing but getting better every week.
This past weekend, Bielema’s squad dominated a Minnesota squad that two weeks ago, looked like the class of the Big Ten West.
Bielema tops the list because he seems to have really built Illinois up from the rubble, and he’s likely available for the kind of contract that Nebraska football is willing to pay and Illinois might not.
I was very, very tempted to put the interim Nebraska football coach at the top of the list based on the number of “stick with Mick” comments I saw online. However, I don’t think a loss to Purdue should actually move him up on these particular power rankings.
Still, it’s hard to argue he isn’t one of the hottest names as the buy-in from the players continues to look solid. The support of the fan base could be something that AD Trev Alberts simply can’t ignore when the time comes to make the call.
The second name on the list this week that wasn’t even meriting a ranking last week. There has been a bit more talk about the Alabama offensive coordinator getting the Nebraska football head coaching job this week.
One analyst even believes that O’Brien is one of the odds-on favorites for the position. Alabama might have lost their first game of the year this weekend, but it certainly wasn’t the offense’s fault considering they scored 49 points.
People don’t like his name because of what he did at Houston, but it’s hard to argue he’s not a very good college football head coach.
Yes, there’s yet another coach that wasn’t even in the rankings that has leapfrogged quite a few other names in other to get into this spot.
It’s not hard to understand why the former Carolina Panthers’ coach is officially one of the hottest names on this list. Like O’Brien, he’s mostly been a massive failure in the NFL. But he’s got a long history in college football as a program builder.
A program builder is exactly what the Nebraska football program needs. If there’s a big drawback for those who want Rhule to join the team, it’s that there are persistent rumors that the former Carolina Panthers coach isn’t really all that interested in the Huskers’ job.
If that report is either inaccurate, or he changes his mind, it’s hard to see the Cornhuskers deciding against him outright. For one thing, they could hire him before the college football season is over and start laying the groundwork with his recruiting class and coaching staff while other schools are still waiting for candidates to become available.
No coach had a bigger drop in the rankings while still being in the rankings than the Kansas Jayhawks head coach. That’s because Lance Leipold’s squad just lost their second in a row after falling in a shootout to the Oklahoma Sooners.
The loss to OU is probably a bigger hit than it would be most years because the Sooners simply aren’t that good a team this season. Following a 49-14 win over the Nebraska football team, Oklahoma has had some severe defensive problems.
Leipold’s offense is still going strong, but his defense is quite porous and that’s taken some luster off his name. Of course, a big win in the next few weeks could add some luster back to his name.
Matt Campbell is just about ready to drop out of the rankings, and a loss in two weeks could pretty much push him out of the rankings for good. But for now, the Iowa State head coach is looking more like a guy who is still undermanned because he’s coaching the Cyclones, than someone who can’t coach at all.
He had one heck of a shot to upset 22nd-ranked Texas if not for some pretty bad missed calls by the referees. Even still, none of his four losses have been by more than one score.
There’s also the fact that I’m still hearing an awful lot of talk about the ISU coach being one of if not THE favorite in Trev Alberts’ eyes.
There’s a bunch of names out that are going to shuffle around and potentially jump into the “Top 6” at some point. Quite a few names that were in the Top 6 last week have fallen back into the field for one reason or another. For now, they’re even longer than the longer long shots.
Lane Kiffin – Ole Miss head coach
Dave Aranda- Baylor head coach
Jim Leonhard – Wisconsin interim head coach
Dave Doeren – Head Coach North Carolina State
Chris Klieman – Kansas State head coach
Gary Patterson – Defensive Analyst Texas (former TCU head coach)
Mark Stoops – Kentucky Head Coach
Guys like Kiffin and Aranda fell into the field because it just seems hard to believe that Kiffin will leave what he’s building at Ole Miss and Aranda is now struggling in his third season at Baylor after winning the Big 12 last year.
It feels like Nebraska football fans, especially, would be wary of a coach that had one very good season and one mediocre one.